Religion and the Federation (Star Trek: Conflict)

Religion is a concept that was largely done away with during the Cochrane Movement of the late 21st Century. By the time the Federation came into being, atheistic humanism dominated as the moral and philosophic belief system of humanity.

(This is relevant to Star Trek: Conflict; this serves as a back-story to the religious conflicts that sometimes occur within the story.)

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History
When Zefram Cochrane revealed his experience of first contact to the world, he called for a uniting of all people across the globe in order to achieve what he believed to be man's ultimate purpose: exploring the stars. This call for union came with a price, for many radical left- and right-wing extremists, still with post-Third World War ideals, wanted to unite humanity in ways that Cochrane believed were not "morally right" for the good of humankind.

Many of those who strongly opposed Cochrane and his call for a new world order were religious groups. They believed that his first contact had been a hoax. This was dispelled largely when the first Vulcans came to Earth as ambassadors of peace. The dialogue between Cochrane and the Vulcans portrayed many so-called "problems" that Earth had, which had to be rectified before they were "worthy" to explore the stars.

Millions across the world saw this dialogue televised, and soon a world-wide movement came about, with the intent to create global unity. However, certain forces stood in their way. But this new movement removed these forces by any means necessary.

The first thing the Cochrane movement targeted was religion. It was slandered as "unscientific", "socially-backwards", "repressing", and "a source of blood-shed". It was said that religion did not stop World War III, which slew two thirds of the world's population in the early 21st century. As governments, in the name of progress, began illegalizing religion, the denominations which remained tried to unite in order to survive the purge.

The Second Protestant Movement
Since most denominations of Christianity shared basic fundamental views, and since they all viewed the Catholic Church as a leader in Christianity, it was the most logical decision to unite under the banner of the Catholic Church in order to survive the Cochrane movement (other monotheistic religions, such as Judaism and Islam also joined). However, the Catholic Church advocated violence in return to the actions given against them by the new order. This did nothing but give strength to the new order, which increased the severity of the measures taken against Christianity. This in turn strengthened the resolve of the Catholic Church to continue.

Seeing that fighting did nothing, a group of Christians began to argue that the Catholic Church was going about surviving the wrong way. As usual, they were excommunicated and declared enemies of the Church in addition to being enemies of the state. On October 31st, 2117, in honor of Martin Luther, members of this new group drew up the Second 95 Theses, which was displayed in a two-hour televised broadcast from Wittenburg, Germany. This called for a second Protestant Reformation, which was soon answered by many from the Catholic Church as well as from without.

However, this had a very bad affect against the new order. With the entire world at their back, the Cochrane Movement declared war against Christianity. Thousands of Christians were slaughtered, and many others died trying to fight the Movement soldiers. The Christmas Day Massacre of 2120, as it was called, was the last open conflict with religion. Both the New Catholic Church and the Second Protestant Movement went underground.

The Rebirth of the ICR
After the death of Admiral Sanders at the Khitomer Massacre of 2346, Captain Shield was able to root out prominent members of the Brotherhood of the Aryan Race from the Federation Council and Starfleet admiralcy. Though the Federation President refused to have them executed, even after he was told of the numerous inhuman deeds they performed "in the name of the Federation and in the name of the greater good of humanity", Shield was permitted from doing so as well. Given the Admiral's vacant seat on the Federation Council, Shield exercised that authority for the space of one hour, during which time, in addition to the many other things he did then, he ordered that religion be allowed to exist lawfully in the jurisdiction of the United Federation of Planets, and that it be voluntarily-evangelistic (namely that it would not try to gain followers through any methods other than having people come to them first).

This new freedom given, the members of the underground movements were allowed a time of respite. Though they were shunned from the social and intellectual upper class of the Federation (with the Federation holding to a "separate-but-equal" doctrine), no open acts of violence on the part of the Federation occured from between 2346 and 2366.

After gaining their freedoms, several members of the Second Protestant Movement and the Catholic Church got together and formed a group that would represent both parties to the Federation as well as to the galaxy as a whole. This group was the ICR. The founders agreed that, in order to maintain internal stability, no member of either the Church nor the Movement would hold absolute power over the ICR, but that it would be governed by a group of representatives from each group and their sub-denominations.