How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #4
"A man like that," the lieutenant said, "does not real harm. A few men dead. We all have to die…" (1.2.34)
Got that? The police lieutenant believes a murderer does no real harm. Um…huh? His reasoning is interesting: because death is inevitable it's not such bad a thing. Suffering is inevitable as well, but he actually thinks he can alter that fact. Which he totally could, if he'd just stop, you know, the whole killing random villagers thing. This dude is a trip.
Quote #5
It infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God. There are mystics who are said to have experienced God directly. He was a mystic, too, and what he had experienced was vacancy—a complete certainty in the existence of a dying, cooling world, of human beings who had evolved from animals with no purpose at all. (1.2.48)
The lieutenant's beliefs differ radically from the priests, but they share the same strong conviction and, in some matters, an absence of doubt. The lieutenant is religiously anti-religious, but don't go telling him we said that. Seriously. He'd be on our tail faster than green grass through a goose.