On the other hand it could have been worse. And arguably one way of making it worse would be to admit just how badly things had actually gone. - Iain Banks

“I suppose I’d only be exposing my hopeless naivety if I asked if there was some alternative to this.”
“It would be more of a hopeless inability to come to terms with reality,” the avatar told her.

Nothing is sacred to you, Mr. Munro. You base your beliefs on the products of human thought, so it could hardly be otherwise. You might believe in certain things, but you do not have faith. That comes with submission to the force of divine revelation."
"So, because I don't have what I think of as superstitions, because I believe we just happen to exist, and believe in... science, evolution, whatever; I'm not as... worthy as somebody who has faith in an ancient book and a cruel, desert God?

Promises take many shapes, and the more…momentous they are, the more they might look like threats. All great promises are threats, I suppose, to the way things have been until that point, to some aspect of our lives, and we all suddenly become conservative, even though we want and need what the promise holds, and look forward to the promised change at the same time.