Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.
You want to play in every game, and you especially don't want to be in the penalty box for five minutes and give the other team a chance to get a power play, and you don't want to hurt anyone on the other team.
Religiously the Empire was pluralistic and marked by a search for a faith which would be satisfying intellectually and ethically and would give assurance of immortality.