My Primary Blog
Categories
- Introduction
- Ch.1) Homo Narcissus – Just an Animal?
- Ch.2) God: Uber-Pater or El Presidente?
- Ch.3) Nurture and the Swiss-Army Knife of Human Nature
- Ch.4) Bumpkins in the Night
- Ch.5) Comparing Adams and Orangutans
- Ch.6) Power/Size
- Ch.7) Eye Contact
- Ch.8) Threat Displays
- Ch.9) Sexual Primacy Sexual Jealousy
- Ch.10) First Fruits
- Uncategorized
- Ch.11) A Throne of Grooming
- Ch.12) Will the Real Proto-Human Please Stand Up
- Ch.13) The Egalitarian Ape
- Ch.14) The Pacts Within a Pack
- Ch.15) Benefits to Subordinates
- Ch.16) Protection from Them
- Ch.17) Proximity to Bounty
- Ch.18) Science and the Educated Guess
-
Recent Posts
- 15.10) Rules from an Absent Alpha
- 15.11) He Knows When You are Sleeping
- 15.2) Calming the Social Seas
- 15.4) Impulse Control, Biblical Style
- 15.5) Religion and Social Order
- 15.6) Conforming to the Order
- 15.7) A Divine Referee
- 15.8) Super Mediation
- 15.9) The Wisdom of God
- 16.1) Protection from Them
- 16.2) The Protection of Powerful Agents
- 16.3) Xenophobia and the Ethnocentric God
- 16.4) A Supernatural Leader in War
- 16.5) A Conduit to Social Power
- 17.1) Spiritual Hunger, Real Hunger
- 17.2) Keeper of the Garden
- 17.3) Take This Bread
- 17.4) Bounty and the Birth of Leaders
- 18) Science and the Educated Guess
- Ch.1.1) The Way of All Flesh
Category Archives: Ch.2) God: Uber-Pater or El Presidente?
Ch.2.1) Father Dictates Best?
(Part I of God: Uber-Pater or El Presidente?) Although human political life essentially starts with the nuclear family, it comes into play chiefly at the level of bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and nations. Christopher Boehm (1) We are fascinated by the … Continue reading
Ch.2.2) The Bible Deity: Your Great Father or Your Father’s Father?
Conduct a keyword search of a digital Bible and you will find that the combination of “god” (or lord) and “father” yields somewhat surprising results.(5) While the bulk of the listed passages pertain to tales, lessons, and instructions about the … Continue reading
Ch.2.3) From Family to Tribe, Father to Chief
(Part III of God: Uber-Pater or El Presidente?) A fourth critical difficulty for attachment theory is that supernatural deities can be just as menacing as they can be protective. – Scott Atran (15) If human beings are innately inclined to … Continue reading
Ch.2.4) Hierarchy: A Male Thing?
In chimpanzee societies without exception, and in and human societies with exceptions, the alpha is the highest ranking male member of a community. Dominance and status-seeking is much more of a male thing. (26) Even in our more enlightened age … Continue reading
Ch.2.5) Testosterone: Cocktail of the Mighty?
It thus seems reasonable that the roots of male dominance (and the ubiquity of patriarchy) can be found in a combination of size and sex role. – Paul Ehrlich (32) Testosterone, and more generally the entire class of male hormones … Continue reading
Ch.2.6) The Payoff for Dominance
Particularly in the interactions of males with males and males with females, humans are prone to dominate and prone to submit. – Christopher Boehm (38) If the drive to dominate could be boiled down to the work of one gene … Continue reading
Ch.2.7) God’s Love for His Own Children (Part I)
Therefore I will give their wives to other men. (Jeremiah 8:10) In Biblical writings females are clearly subordinate to males . . . just as they are in chimpanzee and in many human societies (which in no way suggests they … Continue reading
Ch.2.8) God’s Love for His Own Children (Part II)
In both chimps and people, fathers, brothers, and sons form the core domestic group; it is ordinarily females that change groups. Paul Ehrlich (45) When a female primate migrates into a group of related males, she is generally welcome. To … Continue reading