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No, that is a false assertion. If there were multiple gods with multiple intents and purposes, it does not follow logically that each one would reveal himself to one and only one culture. If Yahweh existed, quite frankly, it makes no sense that no other culture anywhere on earth heard of him except for those that developed in the middle east. It doesn't matter if Satan is planting stories of false gods all over the place to confuse things: Yahweh would still have the ability to reveal himself to a culture that had no prior contact with Israel. What you're doing is taking what I said and coming up with a tangential reason there would be other gods without addressing the central point of my comment, which is that no two cultures have independently developed the same God. It doesn't matter if 5,000 cultures develop 5,000 different gods. The bizarre thing is that no two came up with the same one. A god who EXISTS could have done that easily.

Twinky; excellent insight! Manson was a discarded child...spent most of his childhood in juvenile detention and foster care I think from the age of about 11. No family and no love. Notice how he called his followers his family? He probably developed schizophrenia from terrible early, emotional traumas; a broken soul. No idea why any of his followers were mesmerized by him. I think a few of them actually came from good upbringings. For me, I was raised in a very loving home with good friends and support. I felt a hollowness with formal religions and TWI offered something I had never heard previously...to build a personal relationship and knowledge of God the creator. And I could help others who felt that void. That was it...plain and simple. I went on the WOW field with that starry-eyed goal, and have maintained some of those friendships from the 70's. Went in Family Corps...but could see that things were glaringly hollow and problematic, and the control over every little thing was choking us. Even though I gave 18 years of my life believing what they taught, I had no problem leaving it all behind once made up my mind to go. I only heard the uglies when WayDale surfaced. It and The Cafe explained the explainable.

No argument! George

Unfortunately all too true. In my voluntary work with homeless and vulnerable people, I've found two main reasons for homelessness. The main one is relationship breakdown; the second is coming out of prison. There may be an interrelationship, but we don't usually ask why they went to prison in the first place, though in some cases it's because of violence, quite possibly towards their partner or wider family. Younger homeless people might be there because of family breakdown. Then they might turn to drugs to fund their unhappy lifestyle and they get a free bed and board at public expense. When people are released, the problems that put them in prison in the first place haven't been magically healed but rather are considerably exacerbated, not to mention the arrested emotional development that most ex-prisoners sustain. I suppose it all comes down to relationship breakdown really. I don't know why Manson committed his crimes, what his background was. I don't know why the young women joined him as partners in crime. I don't know why Leslie VH's background made her vulnerable to joining his murderous bunch. His little cult. Why she let him twist her mind to commit heinous crimes. I do know why some of us joined a cult, how unhappy at home relationships some of us were, what family stresses there were, and what life was life for some people. We too let our minds be re-formed, and then did utterly reprehensible things and also treated non-cult people heinously. For many of us, post-leaving has been/was difficult and it was hard to recover. For some of those in long-term - what do they do but go off and start another cult, seeking the life that they knew before. Keep themselves safe in the prison of their mind. Relationships. Relationships: build good strong relationships. Help your kids, grandkids, and those around you to build decent relationships. Befriend the vulnerable and help them back into relationship with society. Okay. Lesson for the day over. Bit early in the morning (before 10am) to be pondering such deep thoughts. I will wake up properly in about half an hour. Now, where's the caffeine? (= me with morning tea)