> I think the point was that only in the West do we see these denunciations of [Rreligion] as a great tyrannical patriarchy.

What? What of the revolutions in China, Cambodia, Laos et al not to mention the forced but successful reduction+ of shinto?

+ I wanted to use the term "degradation" but that has acquired a non-technical connotation -- I really do mean its diminution in status