We have a saying, we Gharm. A man who claims to carry the truth, carries an empty sack. - Sheri S. Tepper

That symbol always reminded me of that historic educational effort called “No child left behind,” which actually meant “No child gets ahead,” for compliance meant dumbing everything down so no one would learn more than the least capable. “Enough for all” really meant “Too little for everybody.”

The only difference between a futile madman and an effective tyrant is power and will.

I say the entities that are named as gods by Earthians are imagined into being by Earthians as personal helper-buddies, justifiers, threateners (my god can beat up your god). They don't "run on" anything any more than a mirror image "runs on" anything. They merely reflect what people want them to be. "I want to have more children than my brother does, thus proving I'm a better man than he is, so my god tells me I should have a big family." "I want to screw women, so my god is going to give me seventy virgins I can screw for all eternity." The "gods" in The Margarets who could really do anything were actually an old, highly evolved race of real people. The others were only reflections. The real God, who may really exist, is outside all that, perhaps watching closely, perhaps merely asleep for a few trillion years while the experiment runs out. We — thee and me as individuals — will never know that God, though after a few trillion years, the universe as a whole may come to understand that God.