Comment by AlexCoventry

I don't know; there was definitely an apocalyptic quality to the Singularity in Marooned In Real Time, and superintelligences in A Fire Upon the Deep were literally referred to as Gods (there's a brief reference to Applied Theology in there, IIRC.) So you could argue that there was at least an unconscious parallel to religion in the way Vernor Vinge saw the Singularity.