I am of no faith, said Aenea. If one defines faith as belief in the supernatural. - Dan Simmons

Perhaps our reservoir of spiritual faith has run out.
Perhaps it should have run out a long time ago, I said sternly. Superstition has taken a terrible toll on our species. Wars...pogroms...resistance to logic and science and medicine...not to mention gathering power in the hands of people like those who run the Pax.

I thought—To lose all this forever?
And I hallucinated Aenea’s voice saying To lose all this forever is the essence of being human, my love.

I don’t think that I want to make any wager if it means dealing with a Church that has grown so corrupt that it makes obedience and submission the price of its saving the life of someone’s child.