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If a god is willing to prevent evil, but not able, then he is not omnipotent. If he is able, but not willing, then he must be malevolent. If he is neither able or willing then why call him a god? Why else do bad things happen to good people?

Somebody once said that religion was deemed by the commoners as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

There are now so many faiths registered in this town, it gets kind of hard to be original.

These days, you can form a congregation simply based on washing-machine instructions.

You see, without faith, it's difficult to be controlled.

I'm just saying that it isn't just about your family, your friends, the people you leave behind. It's about the people you haven't met yet. A person can stay inside themselves for too long and end up blind, like not recognising your own voice on tape or...


— I heard this story once when I was a kid, or read it. It was about a storyteller who was so good at telling stories that everything he made up became real. So the storyteller creates a world for himself where he's the king of the castle, has a beautiful princess on his arm. And then, one day, he wakes up. He looks around. He kisses her on the cheek and... legs it.
— Why?
— I don't know. Even though his life was perfect, absolutely perfect, he had the feeling he should be somewhere else. With someone else. Anyway, the princess wakes up and he's gone. And that's it. I guess. Does that make any sense?
—No

When you're lost, you're willing to believe anything. In this city, every religion promised a future, whether in this world or the next. All you had to pay them with was your faith and trust and, despite the celebration, the reverence and the prayer, everybody ends up in the same human mess. Old. Sick. Unhappy. Dead.

The world is full of people sent here to help us. Most of the time, we just don't see them.

But don't get me wrong. This wasn't fate. For every soul of this deluded population who believed in fate's comic clockwork, they neglect to see the wear and tear beneath the surface. The teeth that grind into the cogs. The damage that fate causes so many in its selfish journey towards just one favourable consequence.

If you believe in something strongly enough, who's to say if it's real or not?