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“Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality—which answers only to my heart—is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.”
“Discard them? No. Regard them with skepticism? Perhaps. Your feelings, Shallan—however powerful—are your own. Not mine. And what I feel is that spending my life trying to earn the favor of an unseen, unknown, and unknowable being who watches me from the sky is an exercise in sheer futility.” She pointed at Shallan with her pen. “But your rhetorical method is improving. We’ll make a scholar of you yet.”
“Oh, I’m not objecting,” Navani said. “I’d let a confused dishwasher marry us. I just think it’s a little unusual.”
“I’ve fought for tradition. I make my men follow the codes. I uphold Vorin virtues. But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can’t just assume that because something is old it is right.”
Taravangian did not believe in any religion, for they were unwieldy things, designed to fill gaps in human understanding with nonsensical explanations, allowing people to sleep well at night, granting them a false sense of comfort and control and preventing them from stretching further for true understanding,
in reality most people aren’t stupid. Many are simply frustrated at how little control they have over their lives. They lash out. Sometimes in spectacular ways…”
