Hey yall, you should buy Horus Rising Its a good book Great actions have shaped our society. Sindermann said. The greatest of these, physically, has been the Emperors formal and complete unification of Terra, the outward sequel to which, this Great Crusade, we are now engaged upon. But the greatest, intellectually, has been our casting off of that heavy mantle called religion. Religion damned our species for thousands of years, from the lowest superstition to the highest conclaves of spiritual faith. It drove us to madness, to war, to murder, it hung upon us like a disease, like a shackle ball. Ill tell you what religion was... No, you tell me. You, there? Ignorance, sir. Thank you, Khanna. Ignorance. Since the earliest times, our species has striven to understand the workings of the cosmos, and where that understanding has failed, or fallen short, we have filled in the gaps, plastered over the discrepancies, with blind faith. Why does the sun go round the sky? I dont know, so I will attribute it to the efforts of a sun god with a golden chariot. Why do people die? I cant say, but I will choose to believe it is the murky business of a reaper who carries souls to some afterworld. His audience laughed. Sindermann got down off his podium and walked to the front steps of the stage, beyond the range of the vox mics. Though he dropped his voice low, its trained pitch, that practiced tool of all iterators, carried his words with perfect clarity, unen-hanced, throughout the chamber. Religious faith. Belief in daemons, belief in spirits, belief in an afterlife and all the other trappings of a preternatural existence, simply existed to make us all more comfortable and content in the face of a measureless cosmos. They were sops, bolsters for the soul, crutches for the intellect, prayers and lucky charms to help us through the darkness. But we have witnessed the cosmos now, my friends. We have passed amongst it. We have learned and understood the fabric of reality. We have seen the stars from behind, and found they have no clockwork mechanisms, no golden chariots carrying them abroad. We have realised there is no need for god, or any gods, and by extension no use any longer for daemons or devils or spirits. The greatest thing mankind ever did was to reinvent itself as a secular culture. His audience applauded this wholeheartedly. There were a few cheers of approval. Iterators were not simply schooled in the art of public speaking. They were trained in both sides of the business. Seeded amongst a crowd, iterators could whip it into enthusiasm with a few well-timed responses, or equally turn a rabble against the speaker. Iterators often mingled with audiences to bolster the effectiveness of the colleague actually speaking. Sindermann turned away, as if finished, and then swung back again as the clapping petered out, his voice even softer and even more penetrating. But what of faith? Faith has a quality, even when religion has gone. We still need to believe in something, dont we? Here it is. The true purpose of mankind is to bear the torch of truth aloft and shine it, even into the darkest places. To share our forensic, unforgiving, liberating understanding with the dimmest reaches of the cosmos. To emancipate those shackled in ignorance. To free ourselves and others from false gods, and take our place at the apex of sentient life. That... that is what we may pour faith into. That is what we can harness our boundless faith to. More cheers and clapping. He wandered back to the podium. He rested his hands on the wooden rails of the lectern. These last months, we have quashed an entire culture. Make no mistake... we havent brought them to heel or rendered them compliant. We have quashed them. Broken their backs. Set them to flame. I know this, because I know the Warmaster unleashed his Astartes in this action. Dont be coy about what they do. They are killers, but sanctioned. I see one now, one noble warrior, seated at the back of the hall. Faces turned back to crane at Loken. There was a flutter of applause. Sindermann started clapping furiously. Better than that. He deserves better than that! A huge, growing peal of clapping rose to the roof of the hall. Loken stood, and took it with an embarrassed bow. The applause died away. The souls we have lately conquered believed in an Imperium, a rule of man. Sindermann said as soon as the last flutter had faded. Nevertheless, we killed their Emperor and forced them into submission. We burned their cities and scuppered their warships. Is all we have to say in response to their why? a feeble I am right, so you are wrong? He looked down, as if in thought. Yet we are. We are right. They are wrong. This simple, clean faith we must undertake to teach them. We are right. They are wrong. Why? Not because we say so. Because we know so! We will not say I am right and you are wrong because we have bested them in combat. We must proclaim it because we know it is the responsible truth. We cannot, should not, will not promulgate that idea for any other reason than we know, without hesitation, without doubt, without prejudice, that it is the truth, and upon that truth we bestow our faith. They are wrong. Their culture was constructed upon lies. We have brought them the keen edge of truth and enlightened them. On that basis, and that basis alone, go from here and iterate our message. He had to wait, smiling, until the uproar subsided. Your suppers getting cold. Dismissed.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:38:35 +0000
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