Fantasy writers by and large do poorly with religion. Many think "religion" is the same thing as church, theology, doctrine, and practice. They tend to think there's a clear line between religion and superstition, and overlook the wide range between formal doctrine and popular belief. They also tend to present a religion as if everyone believed the same things in the same ways. In short, they have a shallow view of religion.
Secondly, fantasy writers use organized religion as a scapegoat. They take all the worst elements and manifestations of historical religions and make these normative. They also vastly overestimate the power of a church to dictate belief and practice. In short, they have not only a shallow view, but an overblown one.
I'm an atheist. But I'm also a medieval historian, and you don't get far in that field without taking people's beliefs seriously. Religion is filled with wonderfully rich fields to explore. Alas, too many writers only want to go into the one field, stand in the middle of it, and shout.
Absolutely. Many adherents of many religions have superstitions not in the doctrine. Many religions have official religious practices that are at odds with their faith, theology and doctrine (three different things).
You can be an Atheist and a Bishop.
Few adherents of any Christian denomination know the doctrine of that denomination. The Roman Catholic Church even has denominations in it that believe contradictory things.
Organised Religion (Hindu, Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Luther's Reformation, Calvinism, the two branches of Islam, Shinto, American Evangelicals, Ultra Orthodox Judaism) has often been exploited by cynical politicians.
Even an atheist Fantasy writer is better off reading the works of respected Theologians and Philosophers rather that Richard Dawkins or Philip Pullman who have their own badly informed bigoted view of Christianity and seem to know little of other religions, or what Christianity or Judaism really believes or decent Philosophers over the last 4,000 years.
Reasons to have Religion in Fantasy:
Background for motivation of some characters
Making a point of difference between a Particular Organised religion and what it is actually supposed to believe.
Any world without any religion or superstition or philosophy beyond science and mathematics is unrealistic. Science and Mathematics don't tell you what love, hate, respect, justice, mercy, morality etc are.
Superstition, Religious practice, Organised Religion, Faith, Theology, Doctrine, Philosophy are all different things with different overlaps. Even Atheism is ultimately a faith, a religion, because there is no scientific basis for belief or rejection of the idea of a God, gods and there is the problem of morals.
I think having the myth & legend aspect ancient gods rather than the religious belief or practice in Fantasy isn't religion. It's story. See many books with Norse, Greek, Egyptian and ancient Celtic "personalities". The Norse and Celtic stories we have handed down don't mention much about actual religion. Modern Druidism was made up the in the 19th C as was Spiritualism. Wiccan invented in early 1950s and Scientology was invented by an SF writer who decided there was more money in it than writing. Tarot as a card game is old, the fortune telling isn't.
So if you are putting religion, superstition, philosophy or ancient gods in a story at least research it all first so you don't look like an idiot, a bigot or the Witchfinder-General.
I think the oldest known musing about Aliens is "A True Story" written in the second century AD by Lucian of Samosata, a Greek-speaking author of Assyrian descent. On Gutenberg in English translation.
It's also worth reading about what we think the Sumerians and Akkadians believed. Or what we think they claimed to believe.
Some ideas attributed to Christians such as Young Earth are not widely accepted by Christians and not much taken seriously till the 19th C, the calculations in Mediaeval times being purely of academic interest. Flat Earth was a Victorian invention.
Galileo didn't get in trouble with the Roman Church for his science but because he sought to interpret passages of the bible in the same text.
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