re: When did the idea that we're all "created equally" become a widely held belief?

If you call yourself Christian, there is also this from Galatians:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

That would've been about two thousand years ago.

"We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact. So don't frick with us.”

Tyler Durden

Is this your perspective?

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People (younger, mostly?) believe that the American system guarantees equality of outcomes, instead of the originally intended equality of opportunity.

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Neither is equal today, and the gap is widening. You can think that it is the justifiable product of the system, or you can think it is the greatest threat we have ever faced as a nation. But it is absolutely true.

More of a religion issue than a race issue imo

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created equally

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This has nothing to do with everyone being created with equal potential. Absolutely. Nothing.

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the moment you are born your soul is the same as everyone else's

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The Enlightment thinkers drew heavily from Petrach who espoused the belief that God create each person with a soul; but he also gave "man" free will or what he referred to as the ability to rise to the level of the Angels or sink the level of the beasts.
This opposed the prevailing assumption at the time that some people were born better than others - that's how Kings and Queens were made...

Imagine this nation's trajectory if the word "created" had been omitted...

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When did the idea that we're all "created equally" become a widely held belief?

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7-4-1776

that's what i mean

when did this bastardization occur?

We're all shite. Hunks of sentient carbon on this flying ball of rock and water, hurtling through space at 900 miles per second, through a galaxy that we are an infinitesimally insignificant part of.
Kings whose dynasties ruled for hundreds of years are forgotten today. Relagated to the dustbin of history.

You will die after a terribly brief interval upon this earth, be chucked into the dirt, and forgotten as your loved ones slowly stop bringing flowers to your grave. Eventually, your progeny, if you are lucky enough to have them, will forget where you are buried. Barring being some powerful psychopath who slaughters millions, you will be utterly disremembered except for a possible footnote on ancestry.com.

The world will move on and you will not. You will rot. So will we all.

And one day the Sun will explode and the great magnificence our species has created shall be snuffed in an instant. We as a race will have, metaphorically and literally, bit it.

So a bit of feel good words written on parchment isn't going to matter. Equal.
Hah. We're equal before we are alive and after.

That's it.

Created equally as in born with the same inherent rights.

And the government they sought to create was to protect those rights equally for all under the law.