Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-25618639-20141119150740/@comment-6078851-20141207174434

the ecclesiarchy is probably the best example of the imperium's propoganda machine but how would any primarch utelise it to their cause? remember the primarchs were tasked by their emperor and father personally in spreading the imperial truth, so when they return to see the law of religion throughout the imperium i believe they'll see it as their emps-gïven purpose to eradicate such religion. emps doesn't have to be worshiped as a god to function as he does, he simply needs peoples' emotional faith in his abilities - the primarchs and most astartes worship emps but as a man, general, leader, warrior etc, but never as a god since it was emps' explicit orders not to worship him as a god.

secularity may indeed result in the imperium's citizens moving to other religious pastures but i don't think emps made a mistake in refuting his godhood - he is a corporeal being born of mortals, his powers have limits, he isn't omniscient, and he knew/knows this hence his continual denial of godhood.

personally i don't think returning primarchs would try to use the ecclesiarchy, if anything the ecclesiarchy would most likely try to use the primarchs as an extension of their own office, "see the sons of our god returned to us to do our bidding" sort of thinking. obviously this would immediately set loyal primarchs' teeth on edge, and if, or more likely when, they refused to bow to the ecclesiarchy they then get branded as heretics/traitors... then civil war.