I really need to read some more, I have forgotten a lot..... but this is definitely an informed view by a person who has read Crime and Punishment and some Nietzche.
I remember debating this Man-God/God-Man topic in class. Probably only Mormons would really be able to put it in a scriptural perspective. Most Christians see God as an Absolute sovereign who can do magic. Mormons humanized God in saying God is of our species, having transcended a mortal world experience like our own..... while at the same time deifying Man in potential by saying we can become like God is..... by following true principles.
When anti-Mormons condemned Mormons saying they would all go to Hell, Brigham Young said so what.... "When we get there we'll run the Devil out and irrigate the place, and make it a garden.
I have theorized that early philosophers like Hegel must have listened to Mormon missionaries on some corner soap box talking about the United Order and Zion in the American wilderness. Well, the Puritans were Christian collectivists, as were the early persecuted Christians who had to take care of one another somehow, digging tunnels under Rome where they be safe and such....
I have theorized that the whole Progressive movement is a plan derived from Mormon society with emphasis on collective economics and ideological conformity in the community. A sort of political plan to turn the devil outta the earth and make it a pristine wilderness if not a garden...… unfortunately, in some people's heads, there is little room in utopia for the humans..... lol.
all in all, Mormons are probably of all religions the most inclined to central planning and authoritarian top-down community. There is some grist here for understanding a Mitt Romney.....
Nietzche could also be claimed by some self-reliant non-ideological off-the-grid Americans as well...… he clearly saw the primal instinct for self-preservation or right to life as a fundamental necessary value...…. yah.... the progressives with all their managers might not like everything he said.
Mormons might see those folks as antisocial or unrepentant selfish sinners for their refusal to be rounded up and branded by authorities, just as Hillary calls them "deplorables", but I think we will always need some kind of frontier where we can go to start life anew on our own terms.
Who want's to plan a moon colony? I'm working on extreme water conservation methods and efficient reduction of CO2 back to C and O2.
Not too sure whether we will have to drive the devil out, or just some space based operatives from the Pleiades.