On Faith
An excerpt from The Broken Chain
By author Metempsychosis
Why do we fight and die? asks the Breaker of Chains. Is it simply because it is our duty to the Emperor? But then, what is this duty, and why do we owe it to the golden lord of Terra? Why do we fight and die with no recourse and no consolation to any god or master? Why do we brave the horrors of our wars against the enemies of mankind?
The Merdekans of old believed first in the spirits of our ancestors and the gods of nature, then the god of the Aurigans was put upon us as a yoke and a chain. Yet men still fought for that forsaken god just as they did for the gods of their fathers. Aurigan and Merdekan alike fought for the faiths of their fathers, just as the lords of Prasad and the vicars of Aludra did, just as a thousand thousand worlds have done, in the name of a thousand different creeds. Many of our enemies fought as they still fight today in the name of immortality and undying ideas.
And you may ask what I mean by immortality and undying ideas.
For the many, they see religion in a literal and transactional view: they fight that they may be rewarded, and see their kith and kin in paradise with the gods, or to avoid punishment in the perverse hells they create in their own minds. We have seen these tendencies especially thrive among the downtrodden and the uneducated. These in truth are drugs for the masses, and therefore are the easiest faiths to break: to shatter their traditions is as simple as to bring them real justice. Give them a life of prosperity and peace and purpose, and their supposed faith withers.
For some, these ideas are tradition, and they hold to them not for fear of hell or want of heaven, but because it is the faith of their fathers. For these proud people, their traditions are paramount. These are more stubborn than the first category, but are in the end just as easily swayed. For the faiths of their fathers are in truth dead within them. Give them words to appease their sense of greatness and a cause to fight for, and their creeds too are easily broken.
For yet others, religion is a self-centred consolation, a creed as balm for the soul. For these, the world is an unjust place, and thus these philosophers seek to explain the universe with ideas of divine justice and creeds of eternal law and punishment, as if their gods adhere to these laws. For these, their faith is also but a drug—a drug for the thinking man—and to break it is to bring them into awareness of their own insignificance in the face of the universe. To show them that heaven and hell are merely shades within their heads, voices that call for justice where there is none.
No, by immortality, I refer to a strand of ideas far more difficult to crack. On the world of Aludra Prime, a world of deserts and oases ruled by the heirs of a so-called prophet, I once saw a woman of burning eyes carry with one hand a bucket of water and another hand a torch while walking through the streets of the city. The land had been recently brought to Compliance, its tribes and cities being brought up to Imperial standard, and I was overseeing the transfer of the land to a civilian government. And this woman still preached of her One God, saying "I want to put out the fires of hell, and burn down the rewards of paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God." We talked of many things when I brought her into custody, and she cared not for the reward or punishment, nor the faith of her fathers, nor the idea of divine justice, but held only to a love of what she saw as the divine. In the end, she refused to recant her faith, and I sent her into exile, but her words remained with me.
Some mystics of various worlds have spoken of similar ideas, parallels independently developed between far-flung societies. They always talk of a divine love that moves all things, of holding to their god or gods or quest for the Truth to the point of martyrdom, of their trust in their cause. These figures—always a rare few in the midst of the masses that follow them—can never be reliably put down compared to the rest, and their executions lead only to the start of rebellions.
And perhaps I can see in all these mystics a parallel to our own cause. Do not be alarmed! I do not repudiate the Imperial Truth as set down by our Emperor, his promise of a brighter future and the destiny of man, his words speaking against the gods of heathen superstition. But there is something to be said here about trust and fidelity, which are what bind us to the Emperor, and what bind us to each other and to mankind as a whole. In the end, perhaps we do have a faith of our own, but it is a faith and love directed not at any power outside nature, but towards mankind and our golden path.
For what purpose do we fight and die? We fight and die that mankind might live and prosper. We fight and die in the name of love for our neighbour. We fight and die, not for any petty god of nature, not for any master on a throne, but for all mankind to rise to greatness. Remember this, my daughters: we are the heralds of a future to come.