this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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tbf, manifest destiny was originally an american idea
The Promised Land was originally God's idea.
God was originally the idea of bossy humans, though.
I think it's more likely that the idea of a god or gods originated with humans who consumed psychoactive plants, fungus, and/or ergot-infected grain. Hardly the bossy types.
Over time though, the idea caught on and got popular, until most people had heard of or generally believed in it. Then some tightwads came in and decided that people couldn't get high anymore, so those folks had to take their drugs to secret caves and such.
Meanwhile, the tightwads appropriated the proto-religious ideas and codified them into stricter religions in order to pacify the masses who over generations had come to believe in such things as gods, and thus religions were converted into instruments of social control.
The original nature religions and the like, sure.
Inherently authoritarian ones like Christianity and the other monotheistic ones, though? Definitely the invention of people who wanted to control other people.
There's presumably wasn't a lot of drugs that make you overly concerned with obedience and imposing your will on others available way back then.
That's what I meant by proto-religion.
Also, christianity wasn't authoritarian until it was subverted by Rome. For the first couple hundred years, they were rebels risking their lives
Strangely, it was the idea of every God that every religion has ever conceived of.
You're right. The Dutch, and the Spanish, and the English, and the Romans were all totally content with what they had.
Not to defend the horrifying Spanish Empire, but it didn't contain genocide of natives as a tenet. It enslaved people, spread diseases and wars, and murdered millions upon millions, but go to Peru and you'll see that at least it didn't reach the goal of extermination to the degree that happened in North America.