From: Huechroma-AT-aol.com Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 22:56:21 EDT Subject: Re: Tantalizing times - arguing for atheism.... In a message dated 6/12/01 9:49:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time, steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com writes: << I believe that what you are describing is the result of the crisis of the grand-narrative, the great story of the dominant religions, which is so much a part of the Lyotard lists discourse. The supposed crisis in religion is in fact the 'death', or perhaps more accurately the proliferation of many micro-discourses, from dominant theisms to multiple trivial local ones. >> Steve, you make a good point but why isn't there more written about religion by postmodern philosophers? Admittedly, most of my reading in postmodernism is from secondary sources but I don't recall having read any specific criticisms of religion anywhere. Granted that Lyotard's identification of the postmodern incredulity toward metanarratives in the PC implies that god is dead but have any contemporary PM philosophers elaborated on the demise of religion? I have read papers from theologians and right wing religious nuts criticizing PM, and I have even read a couple of Christian papers praising postmodernism for its critique of rationality but I just haven't seen any interesting writings from the postmodernists specifically addressing religion. I have sometimes wondered how Lyotard justified his position that societies are moving away from totalizing concepts given the popularity of fundamentalism and the fact that a very high percentage of people in the West declare themselves Christians at least in surveys. Even if there are as you say, a proliferation of micro discourses wouldn't they still be based on universalizing principles? Don
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