Is it the sociological consensus that this is always the case? If so, is it also true of rape-like behavior observed in the animal kingdom, I wonder?
Yes I think so.
Hmm. What is the significance of rank in non-dominant hierarchies? Is it merely conceptual (as in taxonomic hierarchies)?
Yes, it is merely an abstraction used to help with organization.
With respect to human hierarchies, I think the reason "dominant hierarchies" sounds redundant is that the word dominant frequently means "exercising chief authority or rule" and the word hierarchy is derived from the word hierarch, meaning "one who exercises rule or authority", esp. in holy things.
Yes but on the other hand, as you said above, "hierarchy" no longer implies dominance, as you noted, especially when it comes to abstract entities.
There are entire bodies and doctrines of law which are designed essentially to keep private parties from "playing unfair with each other", but I assure you that a great deal of authority is required to enforce such a system. The same authority could conceivably turned to the enforcement of Sharia.
Yes but the ethical reasons for exercising that authority are completely different. One is to
prevent certain behaviors, the other is set up to
drive certain behaviors.
Again, I have difficulty imagining a normally functioning family in which the parents are not dominant ("exercising chief authority or rule") with regard to the children - and it's downright unpleasant to think of the condition in which children emerge from family structures where such dominance is not present.
But "dominant" can be as abstract a term as "hierarchy," because it is
passive. One can be dominant and do nothing at all, it just means their rank in the hierarchy is higher than another. On the other hand, the act of "dominating" is very different. It has a much more negative tone and implies purposefully meddling in the affairs of those who are less dominant in order to keep one's rank. You would not accuse a CEO of dominating a worker by insisting on standards to be followed, but you might accuse an unethical father of dominating his children by forcing them to do certain things and preventing them from growing up naturally.
Sounds more like the projection of other "dominance hierarchies" onto religion to me. And a questionable assessment of the history of Christianity, as well.
Execpt all historical evidence shows that pre-organized-religion cultures had a wide variety of classifiers and today there are mainly those 4.
Such doctrines may exist, but they do not appear to be representative of Christianity - if that's what you had in mind.
Wrong. How man illustrations of Jesus have you seen where he is not white, or how many interpretations of scripture have you seen where jesus is female? How many references to God have you seen where "it" or "she" is used instead of "he?" How many variations of the book of Genesis have you read where Adam comes after Eve, and he is made for
her company? How many homosexuals are there in scripture that are not the bad guys?
Even if one completely discounts scripture, Christian doctrine
implicitly conditions people to use such classifiers as an excuse for dominance. God is always a "he," women are only "spiritually" equal to men (what the hell does "spiritually equal" mean anyway?), white is the skin color of all the old heros, including Jesus, and homosexuals are lesser because they cannot procreate naturally and raise families. You can outright deny all of my assertions, but the fact is that you must
deny them actively because Christian doctrine is so fishy -- the burden of proof falls upon
you to argue that such doctrine does
not contribute to these dominance hierarchies.
Do you have anything in the way of compelling historical evidence for:
"Numerous societies in history where skin color, gender, and sexuality had virtually nothing to do with the social rank of a person"
I have done my own research into japanese social history, and pre-confuscian japanese society placed women on equal footing with men, in fact the highest ranking diety in shinto was female and there was at least one female emperor of Japan.
I have also
heard that women in ancient Egyptian society were virtually equal, being able to own land and govern, and of course one of their rulers was female. I have heard that ancient Greek women had a similar situation. In pre-confuscian Chinese society I believe there were female emperors.
I know that homosexuality was not taboo in ancient Roman society and in fact the highest ranking in the social
and military orders would often partake in homosexual experiences.
And I would bet that in the trading centers of the old world skin color had nothing to do with social rank. How could it, when the rich traders of all skin colors had to get along with each other?
"these cultural values [presumably, values contradicting the foregoing] swept much of the civilized world at the same time Christianity did"
Yes -- those values were not as prevalent before Christianity swept through as they were after it swept through. The same goes for Islam.
[*]the (implied) proposition that Christianity materially contributed to the introduction or establishment of such values in regions to which it spread[/list]
Yes,
common sense.
Let me ask you a serious question: Do you really think that women would have been as bad off then and now if the God of Christianity and Islam was female instead of male, and if she had a daughter rather than son, and if all her prophets and saints were female?
To what do you refer when you speak of "500 years of secular forces beating the priesthood back to where they belong"?
I mean the trend of economics and industry competing with the church for power over the people, which seems to have started at the beginning of the Rennaisance, approximately 500 years ago. The result of this competition is the current state of Christianity in western countries. The church doesn't have
anything close to the power it had in 1500, and rightly so.
That's rather close to the "Copernican ideas" example, isn't it? I'm skeptical of the notion that we could establish any kind of reliable pattern of the Church opposing major human advances. Perhaps five or six other examples would be useful, if there really are many from which to draw.
There are, I just loathe digging up historical facts.
"Organized religion" doesn't have a monolithic stance regarding evolutionary theory, any more than "organized politics" has a monolithic stance on any given issue. Specifically, the Church does not endorse creationism.
Who cares what the leaders of the church endorse. What matters is the opinion of the average follower. And in that case, I stand by my claim.
I think that depends largely on the religion. The great medieval logicians (e.g. Scotus, Abelard, Ockham, Aquinas, Bonaventure), for example, thought that logic and reason had quite a bit to do with their religious beliefs. Indeed, I think it only fair to recognize that in Western intellectual history, the development of logic and reason is quite bound up in the development of Christian religious philosophy.
I completely agree. But unfortunately, Christian religious philosophy falls
very short of Christian doctrine and dogma. Christians have
alot of explaining to do if they claim that logic and reason are in any way responsible for their beliefs (except, of course, if one assumes the doctrine was formulated as a controlling tool -- in that sense, it is all
very logical and reasonable).
Again, this may be true of some religions. But consider that the "Bible as literal truth" notion is a relative novelty in the history of Christianity. That was a modification in the other direction. The oldest institutional form of Christianity never had to modify its doctrine (to my knowledge) on the basis you outline, in part because it refrained from promulgating as dogma any doctrines which could later be shown to be nonsensical.
So what happened to this form of Christianity? Why do Christians consider the bible so important?
Perhaps they don't see it as such an organization. Certainly it's far from a universal perception.
Thats only because most people are stupid and gullible. 95% of the worlds population buys snake oil.
Good question. For the reasons I mentioned earlier, however, this doesn't appear to describe accurately all religions, however (and certainly not all forms of Christianity). On the other hand, all kinds of ideas (cultural, political, scientific, etc.) are susceptible to frequent modification for the purpose of reconciling them with greater knowledge and experience.
Yes, but for the most part, organized religion is the only one that explicitly claims to finally have it "right" on every iteration. Even politicians will admit that they are just doing the best they can given what we currently know, and the highest tenant of scientific thinking is exactly that we
don't have it right this iteration.
