Political Memes

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.