Alpha God : the psychology of religious violence and oppression PDF
Preview Alpha God : the psychology of religious violence and oppression
Published 2015 by Prometheus Books Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression. Copyright © 2015 by Hector A. Garcia. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht Prometheus Books recognizes the following registered trademarks ® ® ® ® ® mentioned within the text: Axe , Burger King , Rolex , DSM-5 , Humvee . Inquiries should be addressed to Prometheus Books 59 John Glenn Drive Amherst, New York 14228 VOICE: 716–691–0133 FAX: 716–691–0137 WWW.PROMETHEUSBOOKS.COM 19 18 17 16 15 5 4 3 2 1 The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Garcia, Hector A., 1970-Alpha God : the psychology of religious violence and oppression / by Hector A. Garcia. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-63388-020-7 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-63388-021-4 (ebook) 1. God. 2. Violence—Religious aspects. 3. Psychology, Religious. 4. Dominance (Psychology) 5. Sexism in religion. 6. Evolutionary psychology. I. Title. BL473.G355 2015 202'.113—dc23 2014039221 Printed in the United States of America CHAPTER 1: ENTER GOD THE DOMINANT APE Dominance Defined History: How a Dominant Male God Rises to Power CHAPTER 2: EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISMS: ETIOLOGY Natural Selection Sexual Selection Mate Competition Mate Selection Mating Strategies Quantity Male Jealousy Quality Kin Selection and Kin Altruism Evolutionary Psychology and the Science of God CHAPTER 3: THE PROTECTOR GOD Protector Males Paternal Certainty in Apes, Men, and God Problems of Divine Alliance Making CHAPTER 4: SEXUAL DOMINANCE: FROM APES TO MEN TO GODS Apes Violence and Sexual Access Infanticide in Nonhuman Primates Men What Men Want What Dominant Men Get Gods The Lustful Godhead Sexually Repressive Gods: Divine Jealousy The Virgin and the King Chaste and Submissive Women What Women Want in Their Men and Gods The Cost to Women and Children Veiling Violence against Women Infanticide in Men and God A Case Study CHAPTER 5: COOPERATIVE KILLING, IN-GROUP IDENTITY, AND GOD Evidence in the Microcosm Establishing Boundaries with Kin Altruism In-Group, Out-Group Reciprocal Altruism and Indirect Reciprocity God as War-Maker Patterns of Primate Alliance-Making Costly Signals with God for Help in Killing The Great Out-Group Prejudice of Humankind The Sociopathy of the In-Group Sociopathic Killing CHAPTER 6: WHAT IT MEANS TO KNEEL Size and Domination: What it Means to Be Big Big Heads, Big Hats Posturing Eye Contact Hand and Foot Kissing Submission by Ideological Surrender CHAPTER 7: MALADAPTIVE SUBMISSION TO THE GODHEAD The Pecking Order Worthlessness and the Sin of Pride Anhedonia Sex and the Sin of Lust Food and the Sin of Gluttony Diminished Ability to Think CHAPTER 8: THE FEARSOME REPUTATIONS OF APES, MEN, AND GODS The Origins of Reputation Men Gods CHAPTER 9: GOD'S TERRITORY Marking Territory Territory: Staking Claim to Sex Rape and the Bible Staking Claim to Mother Earth The Earth as Ecosystem Male Competition and Resource Consumption Religious Rapacity: An Alternate View CHAPTER 10: RIGHTING OURSELVES The Psychology of the Other Pacifism and Selective Observance Erecting a Wall Societal Health and Future Directions Closing Thoughts ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES INDEX If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen to look like oxen, and each would have made the gods’ bodies to have the same shapes as they themselves had. —Xenophanes (ca. 570–ca. 478 BCE) What is God? Many would say that God is love, or God is beauty. For others, God is an immaterial being, the creator of the universe. God has been described as compassionate and merciful, as the ultimate moral authority, or the ultimate source of goodness in the world. The pious draw from this vision of God a sense of awe, purpose, hope, and empathy. From this vision, masses of people around the world convene around a shared sense of wonder, appreciation, and unity, and they cultivate between one another an environment of kindness, generosity, and support. This vision of God is indisputable, insofar as it forms the phenomenology of the religious worship of God. But there is another vision of God that is just as real. The majority of the world's believers worship a god that is fearsome and male, and his portrayal demands reckoning. Scripture depicts this god as one who rains fury upon his enemies and slaughters the unfaithful. It also shows him policing the sex lives of his subordinates and obsessing over sexual fidelity. Extremists, drunk on this vision, steer airplanes into buildings or obliterate themselves in crowded marketplaces. They foment sexual shame and engage in genital mutilation, acid attacks, and so-called honor killings. They start inquisitions and witch hunts, religious wars and religious conquests. They seize ideological control and breed superstition, ignorance, and prejudice. And they also seek to enforce a prohibition against questioning God, leaving such inhumanities unexamined, sometimes for fear of the treatments just described. Critically, we now live in an age in which religions clash with women's rights as gender equality strains against its margins, in which theocratic regimes are gaining control of nuclear arms, and in which dangerous fundamentalism is increasingly taking hold around the world. This is a crucial moment for us to force the wedge of inquiry, if only to better understand the means by which religion may be used to encourage what is worst—rather than what is best—in human nature.
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