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The spread of the Imperial truth?


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I think Chaos spread the Imperial Creed.  If you think about it, Chaos would need a religion in the Imperium as it would help cults forming, as they are already religious and they believe in the super natural.  It would be harder for chaos to create cults in a secular society.  Lorgar created the Lectitio Divinitatus, which was the foundation of the belief.  But also Euphrati Keeler was the one that spread the creed and as she isn't a psyker, she was guided by someone or something powerful with the warp as she was able to use powers of the warp.  So either the Emperor imbued her with powers to spread his own religion, which is unlikely, or Chaos imbued her with powers to create the Imperial creed, to safeguard their own cults, which I think is more believable.  What do you's think?

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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And that turned into the Imperial Creed post-Heresy.

 

Imperial Truth = Rationalism & Denial of Divinity

Imperial Creed = Worship of the Emperor as God

 

The Lectitio Divinitatus went right against the Imperial Truth, and ended up being the basis for the Imperial Creed, ironically enough.

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Typo, meant the Imperial creed.


And that turned into the Imperial Creed post-Heresy.

 

Imperial Truth = Rationalism & Denial of Divinity

Imperial Creed = Worship of the Emperor as God

 

The Lectitio Divinitatus went right against the Imperial Truth, and ended up being the basis for the Imperial Creed, ironically enough.

Yeah but it went right along with the Imperial Creed.  Typo** meant Creed.

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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It would be harder for chaos to create cults in a secular society.

 

Most of the people on this forum live in nominally secular societies that contain cults so I have no idea what the logic here is supposed to be.

 

The Imperial Truth is closer to pre-1940s Soviet State Atheism than most definitions of 'secularism' and that never managed to stop the existence of cults, nor did similar attempts like the First French Republic's Cult of Reason or modern China's official status as an atheist society.

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While I'd agree that cults can still flourish in modern soil, religious cults have arguably declined significantly compared to past ages. Funnily enough, stuff like Scientology and similar seem to take firmer root in regions where religious faith is still going strong, like in parts of the United States.

Cult-like behavior and group dynamics still occur in other areas, most of them highly contentious, but they generally lack a religious background (though members tend to show signs of near-religious belief in their ideology, of course).

 

I'd also argue that the Imperium during the Great Crusade was not secular at all. There was no separation of faith from state, but a complete outlawing of faith and religious institutions. Secularism includes a tolerance for religion, while reducing its influence on governance, but the Imperium had a clear no tolerance policy, at least as a general rule. Only with the Heresy and the resulting decline in governance, and the rising despair and fear of the populace, did faith take root again, as people prayed for deliverance from the horrors of war and warp.

 

The founding of the Ecclesiarchy as a proper institution (which most assuredly happened after Roboute Guilliman's "death") was a necessary step in many ways, as it went on to codify the Imperial Creed into a more or less coherent system, rather than allowing every planet to worship whatever. It still allows for deviation (Emperor as Sun God on mostly benighted worlds, for example) but the core belief system needed to be put in place to unify the Imperium on a spiritual level. Can't have religious wars between proper servants of the Emperor when the Alien, the Mutant and the Heretic was going to run your door in before long.

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It would be harder for chaos to create cults in a secular society.

 

Most of the people on this forum live in nominally secular societies that contain cults so I have no idea what the logic here is supposed to be.

 

The Imperial Truth is closer to pre-1940s Soviet State Atheism than most definitions of 'secularism' and that never managed to stop the existence of cults, nor did similar attempts like the First French Republic's Cult of Reason or modern China's official status as an atheist society.

 

We have a secular government, we don't have a secular society.  The Imperial Truth was both a secular government and society.  There were pretty much no religions at the time of the great crusade, the only thing in the lore that we know of is Ollanius Pius and his Catholicism and the Space Wolves though their religion at the time was more metaphorical than teleological, there were no religions that were followed on mass.

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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While I'd agree that cults can still flourish in modern soil, religious cults have arguably declined significantly compared to past ages. Funnily enough, stuff like Scientology and similar seem to take firmer root in regions where religious faith is still going strong, like in parts of the United States.

Cult-like behavior and group dynamics still occur in other areas, most of them highly contentious, but they generally lack a religious background (though members tend to show signs of near-religious belief in their ideology, of course).

 

I'd also argue that the Imperium during the Great Crusade was not secular at all. There was no separation of faith from state, but a complete outlawing of faith and religious institutions. Secularism includes a tolerance for religion, while reducing its influence on governance, but the Imperium had a clear no tolerance policy, at least as a general rule. Only with the Heresy and the resulting decline in governance, and the rising despair and fear of the populace, did faith take root again, as people prayed for deliverance from the horrors of war and warp.

 

The founding of the Ecclesiarchy as a proper institution (which most assuredly happened after Roboute Guilliman's "death") was a necessary step in many ways, as it went on to codify the Imperial Creed into a more or less coherent system, rather than allowing every planet to worship whatever. It still allows for deviation (Emperor as Sun God on mostly benighted worlds, for example) but the core belief system needed to be put in place to unify the Imperium on a spiritual level. Can't have religious wars between proper servants of the Emperor when the Alien, the Mutant and the Heretic was going to run your door in before long.

It was completely secular.  Secular means not related to religion or spiritualism, it doesn't mean a separation like 'separation of church and state'.  Secularism is basically just the complete lack of religion, like a secular funeral.

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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While you are correct in a general sense, in terms of politics, secularism also means that the government has to leave religious choice to the people it governs, without it influencing them, curtailing their religious freedom, but also not mandating them or making policies based around religion. That's not something that the Imperium did - religious choice was nonexistent.

They did in fact directly suppress religion, something that what we'd consider a secular government/society today would not be doing.

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Even if the government bans religion, its still secular.  Secularism in politics does not specifically have anything to do with the freedom of exercising your religious rights as secularism is different in many societies and governments.  The Soviet Union was a secular government, but they banned religion like the Emps did.

Edited by TorvaldTheMild
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