Alpha God : The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication Page -- Contents -- 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 -- About the Author.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.