Dominant group/Theology

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French theosophy logo digitalized : The Star of David, Ouroboros, positive swastika, ankh and aum. It reads : "There is no religion higher than truth". Credit: Mspecht.

Theology is "the rational and systematic study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth [, or] the learned profession acquired by specialized courses in religion (usually at a college or seminary".[1]

A dominant group may be one associated with theology in some way or a group within theology such as a group of gods (entities, sources, or objects).

Control groups[edit | edit source]

A group of intelligent life forms that think and conceive in the abstract may serve as a control group to compare with a dominant group. Such a group may be able to construct tools.

"Recent research indicates chimpanzee stone tool use dates to at least 4,300 years ago.[2] Chimpanzee tool usage includes digging into termite mounds with a large stick tool, and then using a small stick that has been altered to "fish" the termites out.[3] A recent study revealed the use of such advanced tools as spears, with which common chimpanzees in Senegal sharpen with their teeth and use to spear Senegal bushbabies out of small holes in trees.[4][5]"[6]

Adult chimpanzees (common or bonobo) have a general range of brain size from 282-500 cc.[7] Brain complexity may make an individual or species as capable of tool construction and use as a bonobo while possessing a much smaller average brain size range.

The minimal brain size to think and conceive in the abstract may mean that composing spirituality or religion may be limited only to thinking and conceiving in the abstract without the additional complexity shown by larger brained organisms such as humans.

Theoretical theology[edit | edit source]

Def. "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity"[8], is called theologia.[1]

Def. "the science of things divine"[9], is called theology.[1]

Def. "a deity, a god, God"[10] is called a theos.

Def.

  1. "[t]he single deity of various monotheistic religions",
  2. "[t]he single male deity of various duotheistic religions",
  3. "[a]n impersonal and universal spiritual presence or force",
  4. "[a]n omnipotent being, creator of the universe (as in deism)",
  5. "[t]he (personification of the) laws of nature", and
  6. "[t]he Horned God",[11] is called God.

Usage notes

"God is often referred to by masculine pronouns, not necessarily implying that the speaker believes that God is male. He is also referred to by pronouns that begin with a capital letter, as a sign of respect, in many languages written in Latin script. In English, these would include He, Him, His and Himself. Many Jews follow a prohibition in their tradition against using it and other equivalents in writing (see G-d)."[11]

Academic theology[edit | edit source]

"During the High Middle Ages, theology was therefore the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The Queen of the Sciences" and serving as the capstone to the Trivium and Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other subjects (including Philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought.[12]"[1]

Cognitive ambivalences[edit | edit source]

“The second stage is "cognitive ambivalence," where they become ambivalent about their ethnic identity as they make progress in acculturation, economic stability, intra-ethnic competition, and the paternalism of the dominant group.”[13]

Dominant theology[edit | edit source]

"In so doing, it represents the resurgence of knowledges suppressed by a dominant theology and a dominant culture. ... Rather, it is in the realm of the hidden and in the disguised language of infrapolitics, the speech acts and a range of other practices carried out behind the backs of the dominant group, that the voice of the oppressed is to be found."[14]

Feminist theology[edit | edit source]

"I would say that the first reason why it is absolutely essential for white women to dialogue and to be in contact with theologies coming from these other contexts is precisely to demystify the tendency to think that somehow feminist theology is theology coming from white women of the dominant group."[15]

"The particular problem, for feminists, as it was for pragmatists, is that the knowledge enshrined in theology proper's viewing of the absolute has been a result of its own social location and, as feminists point out, the particular interests of the dominant group."[16]

Hierology[edit | edit source]

"The existence of blasphemy is tied to the existence of the sacred, and where the latter does not exist, or is not accepted by the dominant group in society, then blasphemy occurs in the denial of the sacred as an aspect of human existence."[17]

Hospitality[edit | edit source]

“Susanne Johnson has argued that theological education needs to embody an environment of hospitality which confronts the dominant group with the moral imperative to give hospitality to the stranger (1993, 343).”[18]

Natural theology[edit | edit source]

"From the 17th century onwards, it also became possible to use the term 'theology' to refer to study of religious ideas and teachings that are not specifically Christian (e.g., in the phrase 'Natural Theology' which denoted theology based on reasoning from natural facts independent of specifically Christian revelation[19]"[1]

Privileges[edit | edit source]

“In the case of racism, people of color are oppressed, yet white privilege also harms those who benefit from it by limiting the cultural awareness, relationships, and experience of the dominant group.”[20]

Hypotheses[edit | edit source]

  1. The first dominant group was the first group of hominins to align themselves with something in the sky above the Earth that was killing people by the millions.

See also[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 {{ cite web |title=WordNet Search - 3.1 for theology |url=http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&s=theology&h=000&j=0#c |publisher=Princeton University |location=Princeton, New Jersey USA |date=November 23, 2013 |accessdate=2013-11-23
  2. Mercader J, Barton H, Gillespie J, et al. (February 2007). "4,300-year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology". Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U.S.A. 104 (9): 3043–8. doi:10.1073/pnas.0607909104. PMID 17360606. PMC 1805589. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=17360606. 
  3. Bijal T. (2004-09-06). "Chimps Shown Using Not Just a Tool but a "Tool Kit"". Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  4. Fox, M. (2007-02-22). "Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution". Archived from the original on 2007-02-24. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
  5. "ISU anthropologist's study is first to report chimps hunting with tools". Iowa State University News Service. 2007-02-22. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  6. "Chimpanzee, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. September 9, 2012. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  7. Tobias, P. (1971). The Brain in Hominid Evolution. New York, Columbia University Press; cited in Schoenemann PT. 1997. An MRI study of the relationship between human neuroanatomy and behavioral ability. PhD diss. Univ. of Calif., Berkeley
  8. City of God Book VIII. i. "de divinitate rationem sive sermonem"
  9. Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 3.8.11
  10. "θεός, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. September 8, 2012. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  11. 11.0 11.1 "God, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. August 29, 2012. Retrieved 2012-09-17.
  12. Thomas Albert Howard, Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p.56: '[P]hilosophy, the scientia scientarum in one sense, was, in another, portrayed as the humble "handmaid of theology".'
  13. Andrew Sung Park (Fall 2003). "A Theology of Enhancement: Multiculturality in Self and Community". Journal of Pastoral Theology 13 (2): 19-34. http://www.celab.or.kr/confluence/ConfRef012.pdf. Retrieved 2011-12-02. 
  14. Beverley Haddad (2004). "The manyano movement in South Africa: site of struggle, survival, and resistance". Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity 18 (61): 4-13. doi:10.1080/10130950.2004.9676032. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.2004.9676032. Retrieved 2012-04-01. 
  15. Rosemary Radford Ruether (October 1991). "Christian Feminist Theology in Global Context". Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics (Paper 12). http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=boardman. Retrieved 2012-04-01. 
  16. R Chopp (1987). "Feminism's Theological Pragmatics: A Social Naturalism of Women's Experience". The Journal of Religion. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1202363. Retrieved 2012-09-17. 
  17. Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White (2006). Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White. ed. Negotiating the sacred in multicultural societies, In: Negotiating the Sacred Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society. Canberra, Australia: The Australian National University E Press. pp. 1-16. ISBN 1920942475. http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/whole-book1.pdf#page=15. Retrieved 2012-04-02. 
  18. Jane McAvoy (February 1998). "Hospitality: A feminist theology of education". Teaching Theology & Religion 1 (1): 20-6. doi:10.1111/1467-9647.00004. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9647.00004/pdf. Retrieved 2011-12-02. 
  19. Oxford English Dictionary, sense 1
  20. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook (July 2002). "Beyond Diversity: Cultural Competence, White Racism Awareness, and European–American Theology Students". Teaching Theology & Religion 5 (3): 141-8. doi:10.1111/1467-9647.00132. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9647.00132/pdf. Retrieved 2011-12-02. 

Further reading[edit | edit source]

External links[edit | edit source]

{{Terminology resources}}