Religious Robot

Dhole mentioned on Friday that computers belonging to Orthodox Jews do not have to rest on the Sabbath, and I immediately replied that AI's would have to, and then wondered what rest means for an AI, which would have to keep calculating itself.

—Jo Walton, author's note to "When we were robots in Egypt"

This character is an artificial intelligence - a robot, a computer, a sentient computer program or similar - who believes in the same religions that its creator species does. This can be Christianity, Judaism, or whatever religions are mainstream in that setting.

However, if the faith is a Robot Religion, see that trope instead: This trope is for robots to adhere to the same religions that the humans (or similar) believe in. Overlaps do exist, as mechanical theologians slowly turn Christianity (or whatever) into a Robot Religion.

Compare Fantastic Religious Weirdness.

Examples of Religious Robot include:

Anime

• Trinity Blood has Father Tres, a Catholic paladin with servos.
• Brainstorm crosses himself in an episode of Transformers Headmasters, implying some sort of Christianity-based belief.

Comic Books

• One Dark Horse Comics short (set in Steampunk Victorian London, with the sidekick Hulking Out when wearing his hairpiece) in which robots are created that use the Bible as their programming. Needless to say, they are soon killing prostitutes and other unsavory people, spouting the specific passages that justify their being killed. They are eventually defeated when the hero cites a contradictory verse for everything they say (the Lord is invincible / chariots of iron, God is vengeance / God is forgiveness etc.), leading to a Logic Bomb.

Literature

• In Clifford D Simak's Message From The Stars, the humans have transcended their physical forms, casting aside their old religions as well as as the robots that used to serve them. Having lost the purpose of serving mankind, the robots have instead turned to Christianity. It is implied that their theological discourse will gradually turn Catholicism into a Robot Religion, just like Afro-American churches tend to have a black Jesus on the cross.
  • Simak really loved this trope. Another novel, "Project Pope" is also built on this, and his other novels and short stories often feature robots and bio-androids as having or getting religion.
• In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency there's an Electric Monk, a robot specifically designed to believe in stuff which frees up its creator race for other things. The one that appears in the book goes wrong though, and starts to believe in too much.

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

• Discworld:
  • In Hogfather, Hex the Magical Computer is told (by Death no less) to believe in the Hogfather. He does so.
  • In Feet of Clay, a newly liberated golem declares himself to be an atheist, but expresses interest in discussing religion with a pious watchman who has a penchant for Knocking on Heathens' Door.
• Played With in Jo Walton's poem "When we were robots in Egypt".
• The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem has robot monks. They are aware that if they connected to a robot with all the facts on religion they would become atheists, so they choose not to connect to other robots out of religious principals.
• In the short story "Tauf Aleph" (part of the collection Son of the Morning) by the great Canadian author Phyllis Gotlieb, the last Jew in the galaxy is dying alone on a failed colony world. Lacking any other Jews to say the mourner's prayer for him, the Galactic Federation sends him a surplus mining robot, filled with data about Judaism, to keep him company on his deathbed. Eventually, the local pre-technological aliens clamour to be converted to Judaism, and the robot becomes almost like a prophet of the faith.
• Robert Silverberg's short story "Good News from the Vatican" is a satirical look at the election of the first robot Pope. Obviously to become Pope he'd have needed to spend years working his way up to cardinal.
• "The Quest for Saint Aquin" by Anthony Boucher is a novelette about a Catholic robot who is a perfect theologian, able to convert unbelievers with his flawless proofs for the Faith.

Live Action TV

• The Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flesh and Blood" is about sentient holograms (also known as photonic lifeforms) rising up against their creators. Their leader believes in the Bajoran faith and spends his free time praying to the Prophets.
  • Of course, the Bajoran Prophets are noncorporeal beings that exist outside of linear time—from their perspective there's probably little difference between a hologram and a flesh-and-blood person, they're both so far removed from their own nature.
  • Actually, while programmed with the Way of the Prophets, the leader implied he was working on a new religion for his fellow "Children of Light" and seemed to view himself as their Messiah.
• Inverted by Battlestar Galactica. Baltar is a missionary spreading Cylon monotheism to the humans.
  • Ironically, said monotheism was orginally learned from a human cult, so the Cylons play this trope straight as well.
• Discussed on The Big Bang Theory. When the boys talk about having their consciousnesses implanted into robots, Howard says that his robot would have to stay Jewish because "I promised my mother." The others talk about how Howard would have to power down on Saturdays and have his rabbi discuss with the manufacturer about getting circumscised.

Music

• The band Grizzly Bear had a song called Two Weeks. The video depicted the group as robots apparently attending church and eventually breaking down. The video can be seen here.

Tabletop Games

• Many Warforged in Eberron adhere to the faiths of other races, such as the Sovereign Host and the Silver Flame. In addition, some Warforged have their own Robot Religion in the form of the Lord of Blades.
• C-31 in GURPS became a Buddhist monk.

Video Games

• The Geth from Mass Effect, have two factions- one known as the heretics who worship the Reapers as gods, and the others, about whom less is known. Their sentience became known as a threat to their creators, the Quarians, when the Geth started questioning whether they had a soul and quoting Quarian religious texts.

Web Comics

• A large number of robots in Freefall have taken interest in religion, since they're curious as to whether or not they have souls. Dvorak has even come up with the concept of "Omniquantism," which allows all religions to be true at once... And is a Logic Bomb to some robots.
• Nick from Skin Horse has an entry in his Character Blog about going to see a rabbi about how he can keep Judaism while being a sentient helicopter. However, he was born human.

Western Animation

• In Tripping the Rift the robots justify their belief in God by stating:

Gus: If we didn't believe in God, we'd have to worship the engineering dweebs who designed us
Six: And frankly, the God I pray to doesn't need acne medicine and chronically masturbate.

• Futurama has Kwanzaa Bot who spreads the word about Kwanzaa.
  • Bender also claims to celebrate Robanukah, supposedly "the holiest two weeks in the robot calendar". However he just invented the holiday to skip work.
• In Family Guy, Optimus Prime is Jewish.