Enough with Chekov, how big a deal was Sulu on the bridge?

[CoveTom]

I don't remember anything in ST that implied that the crew were not religious; it's just that we never saw any reference either way.

There were a few references that could be taken to indicate a religious position.

For example, when Kirk was dealing with Apollo, he said that they had no need of gods because "we find the one quite sufficient." That could imply that it is commonplace in the Federation to believe in God, or at least that Kirk does. Also, there is a chapel on the Enterprise. While that need not necessarily be religious in nature, the term "chapel" does traditionally suggest religious, particularly Christian, use.

And, of course, in "Bread and Circuses," they make references to Jesus Christ and don't seem to be doing so in a negative light. Certainly, they seem to view the coming Christian transformation of the planet as a good thing, as opposed to Picard's negative view of religion in "Who Watches the Watchers."

There's no clear evidence to indicate that any of the TOS crew members are religious, but there are some suggestions that some of them might be, and certainly no evidence to indicate that they are not.

 

[T'Girl]

My interpretation is that there were no religions because mankind had grown out of needing a god or supreme being to look after it. At the point of TNG, people have learned to believe in EACH OTHER instead of a deity. (Something we all might want to try...)
.

What about the funeral of Beverly's grandmother?(grandmother?) What we saw of it seemed pretty religious.

The episode with the guy who lived in the lamp.

 

[CoveTom]

^ And, indeed, most of our assumptions about religion in the TNG time frame come from Picard's rather pompous speeches on the subject. Do we really know that humanity in general agrees with his position? Is he truly suggesting that humanity, as a unified whole, has come to one position on religion? That seems highly unlikely, and I see nothing in the entirety of human history to support that. Rather, I suspect that Picard is taking what he thinks is the right stance, and trying to make humanity appear more enlightened by applying it in very broad strokes. He's very good at that, in fact.

EDIT: Interestingly, in "Where Silence Has Lease," Picard seems to be open to at least some version of the afterlife:

Considering the marvellous complexity of our universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that, matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension, I believe that our existence must be more than either of these philosophies. That what we are goes beyond Euclidian and other practical measuring systems and that our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality.

 

[Ssosmcin]

"God shmod, I want my monkey man!"

 

[Therin of Andor]

What's more Sulu does have a 1st name = hikaru.

Only after Vonda McIntyre decided to give him a first name in Pocket's first original ST novel, "The Entropy Effect". Before that, parts of fanfic fandom often called him... Walter.

Yeah, but that name didn't appear until the 1979 TMP novelization. And was never heard on screen until TUC in 1991. Back in the 60's, he was simply Sulu.

Definitely not the novelization. It was "The Entropy Effect".