Are the Elements real? In one sense, they surely are. Do you doubt the reality of the Fire that warms you, the Air which you breathe, the Water that you drink, or the Earth upon which you stand? From this perspective, disbelief in the existence of the Elements implies disbelief in the existence of the Universe. And to those who do indeed profess that the Universe is unreal, I ask: If nothing we sense or know is real, how are we to define reality? Given, then, that the Universe exists, the existence of the Elements as an intrinsic part of the matter and energy of the cosmos seems an indisputable fact.
Look deeper, though, and doubt begins to creep in. At the level of our usual perception, the Elements may seem solid and real. But as everyone knows, the elements which truly comprise matter are not those of the Quatrad but those of the periodic table. Even here we can still reconcile the two if we interpret Earth, Water, and Air as solids, liquids, and gases respectively, with Fire encompassing both plasma and electromagnetic energy.
Ultimately, this too reveals itself to be an illusion. The fundamental particles which we have thus far discovered bear no resemblance to the Quatrad. The more we learn of the Universe, the less relevance the Elements seem to have. Are the Elements then nonexistent?
The difficulty lies in our attempts to "prove" the Elements' existence by searching for them in the physical world. We do not want to admit that they are mere creations of our minds, an illusion visible only from our peculiarly skewed viewpoint. We want our gods to be objectively, demonstrably real.
But why should the Elements -- or any other belief system -- be any less valid for being acknowledged as our own creation? The existence of sentient beings with the capacity for creation is accounted one of the great miracles of the Universe. The act of creation, of making order -- even illusory -- out of chaos, is out attempt to defy Entropy.
Most of what we know, or think we do, is based upon "mere" creations of our minds. We may believe that something has objective validity, but how can we truly be certain? And most of our lives are based upon demonstrably subjective constructs.
Take language. It is completely arbitrary, yet it is a vital tool in everything we do -- as well as in our search for reality, since it enables abstract thought. Why, then, ought a belief to be any less valued because it cannot be scientifically proven? Belief systems, like language, are neither true nor false, merely one way in many of viewing and interpreting the cosmos. Some philosophies, like some languages, may work better then others, but asking whether the Elements are "real" is a meaningless question.
Of course, this means that claims of having found the one true religion are equally foolish. This fact, for so long lost to Terrans, has always been obvious to the majority of Rihannsu. Freedom of religion is not thought of as a right -- it is a fundamental assumption which is rarely, if ever, questioned.
However, a religion which conflicts with the law or with one's duty is difficult to follow. If mnhei'sahe compels you to abandon your duty for the tenets of your belief, it also compels you to accept the consequences of shame, punishment, or ostracism. Most Rihannsu thus follow some form of Element-worship, because its tenets generally match those of the law -- though there have been notable exceptions, particularly in the past century or so.
Belief systems which conflict with science or other seemingly objective truths are another matter. Such religions are much rarer among Rihannsu than on Earth, where they were long dominant. The reasons for this are rooted in history, though differences in human and Vulcanoid psychologies are also a factor.
When the Travelers left Vulcan, they were determined to make a fresh start. They knew that if they took all their culture with them, their new world would simply be a second Vulcan, their ending no better than their beginning. So they chose carefully what knowledge, beliefs, and ideas to keep, and swore to forget the rest, letting their children grow up free of Vulcan's self-destructive taint. Among the things left behind were nearly of all the planet's six hundred religions. They were not, of course, forgotten completely, and the influence of many Vulcan beliefs can still be found in present-day Rihannsu. But by and large, this symbolic book-burning succeeded. Old habits were not easy to break, but few Travelers consciously followed any Vulcan religion.
Belief in the Elements developed gradually during the Journey. It was the first purely Rihannsu religion -- though there had been Vulcan religions which worshipped the names of the Elements, in substance and detail they were utterly unlike the new belief. It would have made very little sense for a people entirely dependent upon technology -- whose lives daily rested on intimate knowledge of their ships' workings and of the hazards of space -- to develop a religion which contradicted or questioned scientific fact. Children who had known nothing but space all their lives, students daily learning the intricacies of astrophysics, would not have accepted fairy tales of turtles supporting the universe or worlds created with a thought. And they had little need for supernatural explanations of the Universe. What was created, then, was less a religion in the Terran sense than a philosophy or a worldview. It was not so much about explaining what is as about discussing what should be, and what could be done to help things be more as they should. By the end of the Journey, this basic philosophy was accepted by nearly all the Travelers.
Other religions developed, but they generally shared the basic characteristics of the first. Until contact with aliens, supernatural mythology was almost nonexistent. After contact, the expansionist phase of Rihannsu history began, and with it came some reversions to the old ways. Isolated colony worlds with low levels of technology developed their own beliefs. Some Rihannsu adopted alien religions, and even Element-worship was profoundly influenced by contact.
But the basic philosophy developed on the Journey is still held by the vast majority of the Rihannsu. The only major recent disagreement over religion deals with the adoption of Vulcan practices, and the objection there is made is not to their content, but out of fear that the Vulcans are attempting to sublimate Romulan culture into their own. The Rihannsu fight over many things, but religion is not one of them. The Homeworlds have never seen a religious war.