Hardly nonsense, and hopefully neither we, nor others from beyond Earth, will ever be "beyond it."
I have no problem with spirituality, but I consider organized religion nonsense and hope we will move beyond that.
While I'm agnostic, I hope we never abandon religion entirely. It does have positive social value, within bounds.
I'm also against a chaplain aboard federation ships, it's not just an international crew, it's an interplanetary crew, there are too many faiths and belief systems for it to work. A counsellor can do the job much better than a chaplain who is clearly a member of a specific belief system, of course the counsellor can have a religion too, but they're not part of the job description.
Imagine a bajoran vedek having the chaplain job on a ship, could someone from earth relate to him? After all his "gods" are real, you can literally visit them, there's no doubt that they exist, even if you consider them to be just wormhole aliens, you know they are real. There's a very big disconnect that's not comparable to christians and muslims for example, as those religions are basically identical.
Of course a bajoran counsellor would most likely have the same faith, but it's just not as obvious.
Disagree. A counselor is nowhere near as comforting during a death in the family as a minister, regardless of denomination. I speak from experience.
You could probably make it work, a chaplain as a character, although I have my doubts that you could wrap a whole show around one.
To be honest, I'd be disappointed though. I found DS9 way too steeped in the Bajoran mythology, it became really tedious to watch. I kept wanting to skip the episodes focusing on all the praying and the priests with the earrings bickering amongst themselves.
I like exploration shows, whether it's technology, politics, science, culture. But religion? I think it's best left to a private dialogue between a person and whatever they choose to believe in. I don't find it interesting enough to tune in week after week to see how many different ways people in space can think of to pray.
The idea was just adding such a character to the main cast - and it would enable exploration of philosophy, which fits Trek really well.
I am utterly gobsmacked how many people seem to think that this would be a good idea, rather than absolutely ludicrous one. A starfleet chaplain would have Roddenberry spin in his grave fast enough to power a warp drive. Federation is atheistic, there is no religion.
His ashes are already spinning in orbit, but he was wrong on this anyway. He was revisionist, bitter, vindictive, and senile in his later years. You're wrong on this issue, and need to remember IDIC.
Well, it is indeed troubling if Vulcans actually pray. That is not a logical thing to do. Another reason to dislike Voyager, I guess.
Of main Starfleet personnel I can remember, closest of having religious faith comes Worf, who seems to genuinely believe things about Klingon afterlife (which probably is shown to actually exist or something in some episode or another.) However, even he doesn't worship any gods.
Gods in Star Trek always prove to be super-aliens/computers/impostors etc, and the Starfleet folks treat them as such, often denouncing them. In 'Who Watches the Watches' Picard is horrified that the Mintakans would revert back to their old superstitious ways, having already evolved past that state. It is clear there that humanity has long ago abandoned any such silliness.
Even during TNG, when Picard made these asinine pronouncements, there were examples of other strains of thought. Trek has never been exclusively hostile & dismissive to religion.
I don't think we are going to find a common ground.
To me Star Trek represents (and should represent) sort of evelved humanity that has no use for religion. They solve their problems with reason. Superstition just do not fit that worldview.
This is the problem I see with you over on the SFMC thread: The intolerance of tolerance, the inflexible, un-nuanced thinking of the young, and the idolization of Roddenberry.
From the production perspective, it certainly was a something for the Christian audience of the show. But that doesn't mean that the characters in the show were Christians.
But that does show that the main characters come from a culture where christianity is still important.
Age of a belief is not an indication of its veracity. People used to believe thousand of years that world was flat. Then that Sun revolved around the Earth. Furthermore, the plural of anecdote is not data.
And scientific studies actually control how they select their samplings. How can you trust the studies on medicine, politics or anything else if you cannot trust them on this?
Part of the problem is that they too often DO cherrypick data. And anecdotes are data if observed and recorded.
and you make some valid points and offer an interesting perspective into the atheist philosophy. I don't necessarily agree with all of them, but that's cool too. 
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