The Forgotten Gods — A Four-Part History
A grounded, plain-language look at what was lost when the old religions of forest, river and storm were replaced by a religion brought in from outside.
One day I was thinking about religion, and noticed something. Most old cultures around the world used to worship nature — trees, rivers, mountains, the sun, the rain. Then, somewhere along the way, most of those religions died, replaced by the big organised ones. I wanted to know what really happened, so I started reading. What I found was both more brutal and more interesting than the simple story I had in my head. The truth does not need any fake stories or made-up conspiracies. The real history is heavy enough on its own.
4 parts · 49,022 words · May 2026 · by Lovepreet Singh
Contents
- 01EuropeHow Europe Traded a Thousand Living Spirits for One Distant King in the SkyImagine you are a young man living in Germany (a country in modern Europe) in the year 50 CE. There is no Bible — the Bible is the Christian holy book. There is no church — a church is the building where Christians gather to worship. There is no Sunday service
- 02IndiaThe Land That Would Not BendLet me start with something that will surprise most people. While the Egyptians were still figuring out how to build pyramids, and the people of Europe were still living in scattered villages with wooden huts, there was already a massive civilisation in India
- 03Colonial IndiaThe Company That Ate a CountryTo understand why Europeans came to India, you have to understand pepper. Black pepper — the spice you grind on your food — was the most valuable trade commodity in the world for about 2,000 years. (A "commodity" simply means a good that is bought and sold in
- 04East AsiaThe Civilisations That Did Not BendTo understand why China did not convert to Christianity, you have to understand something about how China thinks of itself. For over 3,000 years, Chinese civilisation has had an unbroken sense of itself as the Middle Kingdom. The word for China in Chinese is Z