Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.

In the end, living is defined by dying. Book-ended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end. Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface. Change brought fear, and fear brought destruction.

Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?

I cant see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but theres no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief.

I cannot choose to ignore this feeling, of life slowly bleeding out of me. I cannot ignore the fact that life only makes sense to me when I see a smile, or feel another hand in mine.

The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.

In this environment it was a simple matter for The Republic to maintain its structure. People did as they were told because they were working together, focused on a common threat, a shared enemy. But time passes. Fear becomes a memory. Terror becomes routine; it loses its grip.