Book for r/atheism lol, however if GW/Blacklibrary wise they will hire someone with Theology, history, and Anthropology knowledge to create mini series about the last church with how every Emperor's argument have its own merit based his own experience with Chaos Gods, Religious, and Humanity throughout his life and his reasoning to eradicate religion for stopping Chaos Gods influence on mankind
Honestly I've heard a lot of criticism for this story by fans, you are by no means in a minority here. The story was trying a lot to be different and give core early depictions of Unity, but it doesn't resonate with agnostics or the religious due to the strawman arguments and show of the Emperor as stubbornly anti-intellectual. It's aged more badly because faith and esoterism are so present in the HH and Siege. The radical atheist angle really is of its time, like the early stories saying the Imperium have utterly defeated everything only works from the SOH mindset. Hrud, Rangda, Ordo Sinister, Erda; these things set an atmosphere - though I will say McNeil's Emperor is about as stupid as ADB's and we still never got much concrete insight now the HH is done into the Emperor's dogma. The Sigismund novella shows in 40K that even without religion, the Imperium *absolutely* had tradition and spiritual systems, I'd have liked the Emperor to even just say "I can't control religion and therefore destroy its instutions, I wield archetypes for my own ends because the Warp is so dangerous."
The story is alright if it's the reader's entry 40k reading and will not wince at every cringy statement made by big E But if you've already read a lot of BL novels then I agree this one is not very good Afterall this story is famous not because the writing is good, but it allows novice readers to understand "haha big E hates religion" I came from a country of atheism so it's purely speculation, but maybe the story still rings for Christian north Europeans(where the majority of warhammer hobbyists live in)?
That's fair, but in regards to the last point I'm from a North European country so I wouldn't count on that too much lol. Maybe Eastern Europe, they are still a bit more Orthodox ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t think the point of the story was to make good points for either side, more like a story about 2 guys that stick to their beliefs because they think it’s the right thing to do. This book wasn’t really supposed to be a “believer conversion” book to atheism, just a conversation between 2 guys at the end of an age. Could have come up with more interesting counterpoints for both sides, but I really liked the story on its own since I never saw it as a story that’s supposed to make sense (from the argument pov), particularly because these people are being guided by emotions.
Book for r/atheism lol, however if GW/Blacklibrary wise they will hire someone with Theology, history, and Anthropology knowledge to create mini series about the last church with how every Emperor's argument have its own merit based his own experience with Chaos Gods, Religious, and Humanity throughout his life and his reasoning to eradicate religion for stopping Chaos Gods influence on mankind
Honestly I've heard a lot of criticism for this story by fans, you are by no means in a minority here. The story was trying a lot to be different and give core early depictions of Unity, but it doesn't resonate with agnostics or the religious due to the strawman arguments and show of the Emperor as stubbornly anti-intellectual.
It's aged more badly because faith and esoterism are so present in the HH and Siege. The radical atheist angle really is of its time, like the early stories saying the Imperium have utterly defeated everything only works from the SOH mindset. Hrud, Rangda, Ordo Sinister, Erda; these things set an atmosphere - though I will say McNeil's Emperor is about as stupid as ADB's and we still never got much concrete insight now the HH is done into the Emperor's dogma.
The Sigismund novella shows in 40K that even without religion, the Imperium *absolutely* had tradition and spiritual systems, I'd have liked the Emperor to even just say "I can't control religion and therefore destroy its instutions, I wield archetypes for my own ends because the Warp is so dangerous."
The story is alright if it's the reader's entry 40k reading and will not wince at every cringy statement made by big E
But if you've already read a lot of BL novels then I agree this one is not very good
Afterall this story is famous not because the writing is good, but it allows novice readers to understand "haha big E hates religion"
I came from a country of atheism so it's purely speculation, but maybe the story still rings for Christian north Europeans(where the majority of warhammer hobbyists live in)?
That's fair, but in regards to the last point I'm from a North European country so I wouldn't count on that too much lol. Maybe Eastern Europe, they are still a bit more Orthodox ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t think the point of the story was to make good points for either side, more like a story about 2 guys that stick to their beliefs because they think it’s the right thing to do. This book wasn’t really supposed to be a “believer conversion” book to atheism, just a conversation between 2 guys at the end of an age.
Could have come up with more interesting counterpoints for both sides, but I really liked the story on its own since I never saw it as a story that’s supposed to make sense (from the argument pov), particularly because these people are being guided by emotions.