"Lord forgive me" is too specific and one I find hard to accept someone who isn't religious would spout off. A non believer wouldn't default to asking God for forgiveness, even metaphorically. "God damn it," "Oh my god" sure, those are expressions. Even my devout atheist sister uses them. If I heard an atheist say "Lord forgive me" in an unironic fashion, I'd spit out whatever I was drinking. It's implicit that this person is asking forgiveness from a higher power.
Obviously, but certain atheists continue to lose their grip on the balance beams in the Denial Olympics trying to spin
"Lord, forgive me" into some watered-down expression, when--as you so accurately observe--
"Lord, forgive me" is a direct plea to the Lord to forgive what the person knows to be some sinful / percieved unforgivable act. McCoy is a believer and considered killing the form of, or
memory of Nancy as an unforgivable act against God. A direct prayer or plea comes from belief, which has no similarities to some culturally appropriated misuse of "God".
And being 60's TV, I highly doubt they were doing a metaphorical expression for us to ponder.
No, they--meaning Roddenberry, Desilu or NBC--were not, and there's no historical evidence to suggest that was the case.
I also find the "network pushed region on TV series" cry predictably revisionist at best, if one considers a network such as NBC during the 1960s.One must ask why would NBC allegedly "push" religion on a moderate-to-ultimately low rated series such as TOS--one with far less visibility, and attractiveness to sponsors (all important in keeping a series on-air and profitable), when they did not do that with an arguably more popular series like
I Dream of Jeannie, (enjoying a longer run than TOS from 1965-70), yet the show set in familiar 1960's America--key for the
impression it set as a mirror of then-familiar culture, (unlike a sci-fi series set in the far future) was unabashedly selling the idea of magic, Djinns, genies, and other supernatural elements as a fact of the series' in-universe reality. The series never recognized or acknowledged faith or religious bodies (particularly Christianity) at all as a character's personal belief, or as a "counter" to the magical goings-on of the series.
If "pushing" or "forcing" religion was the goal of a network, one would logically conclude that the alleged "push" would begin on a series that was set in the era in which it was produced (again, the all-important impression that set for network executives and the American TV viewer) with its essence completely rooted in / selling the "reality" of the supernatural with no references to real world religion or character faith, instead of trying to "force" religious acknowledgement with a few references in some sci-fi series set in a period so far removed their own. It did not happen in the case of the Screen Gems series--arguably due to the network not having an official (or unwritten) policy of forcing faith/religion on its programs.
