Cicero (a Roman statesman) wrote that he thought it was impossible for two augers (people whose profession it was to predict the future by reading the entrails of animals) to pass each other on the street without laughing. A small but growing portion of the population was ready to abandon false religions and Satan had prepared various philosophies as a substitute.

Africa and the Americas would continue to be governed by false religions. India was managed with religion until recently. However, China was diverted with Buddhism and the teachings of Confucius into a path that emphasized familial and civic duty. The cultures that emerged in Korea and Japan might be seen in light of the limits to which people could be pushed into and held in a collectivist state. A culture could be configured with rigidity, but was limited because the development of technology required flexibility.

Prior to the arrival of Jesus, Satan had about 14 mystery religions circulating from Egypt through the Mid East to Greece and Rome. Most had elements of a virgin birth and the death and resurrection of the central figure. It was almost as if Satan had sought to have the story of Jesus lost among various other similar sounding religions.

For those raised in a technological society, the various religions of the world can seem foolish and primitive. They often feel that 'science' has successfully replaced religion as the true an only way to understand the universe. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a massive development of technology. However, towards the end of the twentieth century, some were beginning to question what seemed the limitless march of progress. Borrowing terms from the art world, there was a sense in which modernism transitioned to post-modernism.