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They are heard. He's not happy about it, but he has to oblige. When he can of course. He's on a god's level, but he's still just a really powerful Psyker in the end.

That is a very interesting concept of the emperor.

so he is a god, that doesnt like being a god.

grimdark=amazingly depressing for the emperor

 aapch45 wrote:
So are prayers to the emperor eover heard?
Or is that just a hope of the imperium?

We can't know.

Because if you don't worship him, you're getting a bolt round between the eyes.

Though he does essentially keep the Imperium alive (Astronomican) and preforms miracles (Living Saints).

 aapch45 wrote:

The emperor worked, extensively mind you, to rid humanity of these troublesome ideas.... and now hes a machine (more than he used to be ) and they worship him?!?

Note that the Emperor didn't tell people about Daemons in the Warp either, though the existence of psychic phenomena was already well known. Either he was a lying douchebag (not impossible), or he had a specific agenda:

Belief, faith, and emotion have actual, direct power in Warhammer. Fear and terror actually empower, and alter, the Immaterium. Daemons are created and shaped according to the emotions and souls of 'psychically active' individiuals, like humans and Eldar (not robots). By hiding the truth about the Immaterium, I think the Emperor was hoping to protect humanity from the daemons of the warp until he was able to get a handle on it (the original purpose of the Golden Throne). If people were aware that there were actually daemons, and you yourself could get actual power from them through worship, then there would be daemon-worshipping cults popping up all over the place.

If, however, you foster a belief in reason, clear-thinking, and disdain for superstition, you drain the power available to daemons, and you make it much less likely that some depraved soul will attempt to interact with daemons and damn themselves (or their whole planet).

However, even before the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne, people were becoming aware of daemons, and the horrible power of the Warp. People (like Euphrati Keeler) were also manifesting beneficial psychic abilities, which seemed to be tied directly to belief and spirituality. Rumors of those things were spreading across the Imperium.

Especially later, after you lose the Emperor, the biggest, most vocal proponent for rationality and materialism, it's going to be really hard to hold back the need to believe in something. The Imperium has entered a bloody civil war, half of the Space Marines rose up against the Emperor, and the whole thing hangs by a thread.

Probably much better to encourage belief in something 'positive and constructive', like the God-Emperor, than risk having people start worshipping Chaos.

Also, note that the ignorance that is promoted by the Imperium does serve a valuable purpose. People are kept ignorant of things like the Warp, and Daemons, and psychic powers, and that ignorance does actually protect them. If no-one on your planet knows that psychics can breach the warp and summon daemons, nobody there will try! If blind faith in the Emperor denies that psychic energy to the Chaos Gods, good job!

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:I very studiously avoided the word "cult"; the chaos worshipers in Gaunt's Ghosts are an established civilization, more or less.

Something like that should make it even more likely that they have an actual religion of their own rather than being just "Chaos rawr!"

And, well, even the Adeptus Ministorum is called "Imperial Cult". The differences between a cult and a religion are largely political, anyways ... they mean the same thing, it's just that one has a more negative stigma attached to it.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:I don't mean to suggest some good/evil dichotomy in the warp, only draw a distinction between daemons of different gods (of which the Emperor appears to be one). The idea that there could be "Imperial" daemons is rather fascinating...

Well, some people have already argued the Emperor being a Chaos-God himself by now - not a thought I subscribe to, but I find it interesting and not entirely unlikely.
Ultimately, we have Imperial Psykers draw power from the Warp to further the Imperium's goals, and we know that thoughts and emotions can spawn "entities". Personally, I think that's the best explanation for Living Saints so far - unless we assume that the Emperor really is a god and has divine power as some of the fluff suggests if one were to take it literally .. actual, true divine power, not Warp-fueled. But this too is not a position I'm holding. To me, any "miracle" is either hyperbole, technology, or something from the Warp.
Such things are always a matter of interpretation, though, and individual novel authors will have their own opinions and ideas just like we as players tend to have them.

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:The only thing that I cannot understand is how they can get corrupted ( as we have seen in fluff few times )?

Ugh. I assume that's the same kind of novel that has flirty Sororitas in non-segregated Scholas, backflipping Terminators and Space Marines with Multilasers, or Storm Troopers soloing entire convents of Genestealer-infiltrated Battle Sisters.

Sometimes I'm glad the franchise allows us to just discard and ignore stuff we don't like.

Admiral Valerian wrote:One thing's for sure, once the Emperor comes back, he will be disappoint.

Careful - that'd be a personal preference, not fact.

Da butcha..... wow. That was extensive and well thought out
I never thought of it as a protection thing. I went from thinking of the iom as the universal good guys, to staunch evil crusaders, to pious Morons ,to a dystopian theocracy, to a sith like empire, to salvation and protection of humanity through radical means.... in the course of like 3 days o.0.

Warning: Essay ahead.

Faith is an instrinsic part of being human. Every single civilization that has ever developed has established a religion of some sort. Humans have an inherent need to believe in something beyond themselves; something that gives them context for the world around them.

Even in modern atheistic societies, the faith of religion is merely replaced with faith in something else (typically nationalism, as can be seen in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union). On a more individualistic level, we see atheists displacing their faith onto reason, science, morality, ideology, society, or even the human race itself.

The point is, faith is natural. You cannot stomp it out any more than you can stop people from wanting to reproduce, or wanting to gather more resources, or wanting to defend their lives.

But faith can actually have some interesting effects on behavior. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, faith actually provides certain benefits in the sense of natural selection. It allows people to be intelligent, yet suppress that same intellect when it is beneficial to do so.

To put that into more detail, religion satisfies people's needs to understand their environment, even if the explanations are ultimately flawed (hence why most religions have myths explaining various phenomena). It also reinforces the binary "Us vs Them" mentality that the human brain loves (because in a natural setting, most things that aren't you or your tribe are food, dangerous, or both). It also serves to legitimize whoever happens to be in charge, minimizing infighting (too much of which can sabotage the tribe's survival).

It can even provide a comforting answer to that most insidious of eventualities: death.

Religion does not necessitate an afterlife, yet most religions have one. The reason for this is because the human brain is wired for survival and the perpetuation of the species. However, human beings are smart enough to realize that no matter how hard we fight for survival, we will eventually die. As far as the brain is concerned, this is the equivalent of proving that one plus one equals three. The idea of an afterlife (made possible by religion) is an easy way of reconciling this truth with our survival instincts. And conveniently enough, one's afterlife is often affected by how they lived (some religions offer a better afterlife to those who have lived good lives, while some punish people for bad lives). Naturally, the way to receive a good afterlife is to obey societal norms, reinforcing the social order which is necessary for the survival of the group. How convenient.

It is worth noting that this is not necessarily an argument for atheism. It would only make sense for faith to be a beneficial trait for humanity in a world created by a God, Gods, or spirits. Nor is this an argument against atheism, since such traits could also easily be beneficial in a world without such things (though as noted above, atheists simply displace their faith onto other things). The point is that faith is as unavoidable as ambition, violent urges, the fear of death, or the desire for excess. This is why the Chaos Gods continue to stick around, and it's why faith will continue to persist as well.

The Emperor, being the greatest man who ever lived, a man with unimaginable power who sacrificed everything for humanity, made the perfect target for people's faith. People often turn to faith when their intellect tells them that things are very bad and they need a way to suppress that uncomfortable truth (which, in the grim darkness of the far future, would be most of the time). So, they place their faith in the Emperor.

Naturally, this faith (like any other) carries certain pitfalls. It reinforces social norms and the existing social command structure, for good or ill (hence the ideological stagnation and persistent corruption). It also encourages binary thinking (which leads to xenophobia). Finally, it can result in people putting more stock into an idea than it merits (which, after enough repetition and exaggeration, forms the basis of what we call "superstition").

However, the positive benefits of faith are also plain to see in the Imperium. The Imperial Cult's ability to cement the social structure of the Imperium has proven to be the glue that holds it together. It is the common denominator that allows so many disparate peoples to unite against a galaxy that wants them eradicated or enslaved. It is the example that motivates ordinary people to do extraordinary things. It is the hope that gives Imperial citizens the will to live on, no matter what horrors have befallen them that day.

The Warhammer 40,000 setting is ultimately about the effects of constant unimaginable tragedy, and what it brings out in human nature. As faith is a large part of human nature, it should be no surprise to see it take a starring role.

Its an interesting concept that a dead psyker who HATED religion, became a deity. That amuses me beyond belied. It also makes perfect sense.
Gotta love grimdark