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Not sure where this goes but I'll try here!. Having read a brilliant short story a while ago called 'The Last Church' it got me round to thinking, do you find it ironic that a man who spent a large amount of his time on terra effectively destroying religion, is then himself made a god?
That must really p&@s him off....

Do you mean in the literal sense? Or that he is worshipped as such? The former hasn't been substantiated in any real way except for the speculation of the characters in the fluff as far as I know. As far as the latter, well... to me it's par for the course and typical of humanity.

I'm not sure what you mean by the question.

I meant that his 'follower's', by that I mean Space Marines and all loyalist forces, seem to have conveniently forgotten the big mans hatred of religion.
By worshipping him as a god, they just throw all that anti religion stuff back in his face.
If he could turn in his Golden Throne, he would.

He dosn't hate religion, but he most certainly did not want to be worshiped. Thats what sent Lorgar down the chaotic toilet...of chaos.

Quick addendum to the above: You can sort of see why he wanted rid of religion. Look what happened to Horus etc when they started to worship the Chaos Gods!

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:Quick addendum to the above: You can sort of see why he wanted rid of religion. Look what happened to Horus etc when they started to worship the Chaos Gods!

Exactly, he was wary of it, saw what it could do to people, but he didn't hate it, considering he himself is a god(well, sort of)

Yeah, the Emperor knew about the warp and what it contained. He knew there were entities that fed off of this kind of worship and what it meant for the galaxy. It seems he spent much of his existence attempting to get mankind to resist the temptation to find solace in gods because he knew where it would take them.

Therefore it is ironic that in doing so he came to personify the role he tried desperately to prevent from being filled.

On that same note, because of what it could do if you worship the wrong being, maybe it is for the best that humanity "worships" the Emperor. This way the warp entities/gods and such do not gain as much power as they would if humanity didn't have a focus to worship.

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:do you find it ironic that a man who spent a large amount of his time on terra effectively destroying religion, is then himself made a god?

Everyone does, and that is exactly the point.

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:Not sure where this goes but I'll try here!. Having read a brilliant short story a while ago called 'The Last Church' it got me round to thinking, do you find it ironic that a man who spent a large amount of his time on terra effectively destroying religion, is then himself made a god?
That must really p&@s him off....

That's sorta the point, to enhance the grimdark and tragedy of the storyline. Though, the Space Marines at least techinically (most of the time) worship him not as a God but as their father and the greatest man to have ever lived, close, but not quite the same thing.

The Emperor's actual godhood aspect has been much toned down from RT and 2nd edition. The story of the building of the gargants in the "Waaagh The Orks" book had the Emperor directly challenging Gork and Mork in the Warp, and sending out portents and warnings to his servants through the Emperor's Tarot and visions to the many Psykers of the galaxy of a coming massive Waaaagh. It's probably my favorite piece of 40k fiction ever.

This Irony is a key part of the Imperium's background. The Space Marines continue to see him as just the greatest human ever. They can't exactly fight against the rest of the Imperium to keep that belief imposed. The Echlesiarcy are fine with it just now.