Question about the Postmodernists/Christian Debate
Offline I do quite a bit of debating on a local newsforum. Recently, I have encountered this one poster, who is an Evangelical Christian, that is constantly ranting about what he calls, the Post Modernist Thinkers, in fact, there is hardly a sentence in any of the posts, that Post Modernist Thinkers, is not included with a derogatory reference. Now, I have heard the term Post-Modernism before, and am aware of some of the philosophers associated with the movement (although some of my reading seems to indicate that Post-Modernism is a very broad term) but out of curiousity, I googled a few keywords, and I got back several Christian websites that also have very lengthy articles about the dangers of Post-Modernism and the threat to Christianity that it poses. However, all the references on these websites were very vague as to what those dangers could be. There was also mention of a couple of books, from Christian professors, that proclaimed a way to prove Post Modernists wrong and how to debunk Post Modernism. Now, I am wondering if anyone can tell me why certain theological movements seem to be so obsessed with Post Modernism and why they perceive it as such a threat ?Although every Christian website that I stumbled across, claimed to have irrefutable evidence (I seriously doubt that) against Post-Modernism they never made clear that evidence. I even searched to see if their was any self-identified Post Modernists, to see if their was any rebuttal and it did not yield any results. Does anyone out there have any further information about this ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
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If I had to guess, the two philosophical ideas that theists think are the most dangerous are:
1) Materialism/physicalism/naturalism
2) Moral relativism (Which technically falls under 1)
3) Rationalism
Basically, any philosophy that has naturalistic explanations for morality, or that encourages skepticism, is seen as highly subversive among many conservative theists...so they ridicule straw man representations of those things.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
As stated, it is probably the cultural relevance - and therefore moral relativism - in postmodernism.
The idea was that your personal space - environment, culture, history, upbringing, etc - have an influence on your perceptions of the world around you. To some extent this is true. You can't escape the facts of where you were brought up, where and how you were educated, and so on and so forth. Morals are different to some extent between cultures, and we really can't make judgments about someone else's culture as we were raised in a different culture. And so on.
There is some truth to this. My problem with it is you can go too far. Such as the idea of the postmodern extremists that all truths of any kind in this world are relativistic, even scientific measurements, laws or theories. So like most philosophical positions, squeeze out the little nugget of useful ideas, and dump the rest of the bull.
I usually make the argument that either morals are relative or it is all semantics. Is it self-defense or is it killing can be justified under certain conditions? Most of them won't talk to me after I go on about killing for a paragraph or two. And that is just one issue of morals and ethics. I usually don't have to continue on about the rest of the commandments.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Just out of curiousity, after reading your above post, would you mind elaborating on your position about self-defense/killing semantics ? That sort of perked my interest and I have a feeling that it would give me something to think about.
So your saying that certain postmodernist schools of thought are willing to say that scientific theory and scientific law are relative ? Hmm, not sure where I would stand with that. I probably would have to read a lot more about Postmodernism, before I could gain a greater understanding of what it is teaching. I was just curious why so many Christian websites that I had stumbled across seemed to be so afraid of it. But, I think I am getting the idea.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Not out of Africa: How "Afrocentrism" Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History by Mary Lefkowitz. http://www.amazon.com/Not-Out-Africa-Afrocentrism-Republic/dp/046509838X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287548708&sr=8-2
This book started me on the lengths post modernism can take beyond real scholarship. It doesn't address my contention that post modernism can get in the way of good science. That I remember from another forum some years ago. Somebody used post modernism in their argument against evolution - they were desperate since all their other arguments had been blown out of the water.
James W. Loewen has written a number of Lies My Teacher Told Me, Lies Across America and so on. Not strictly post modernism, but a subtext of how people can tell themselves prettied up stories and then think the myths are true.
Here you go, this is a nice synopsis on a christian site:
http://www.xenos.org/classes/papers/pomosci.htm
Loony tunes. What they all conveniently ignore is that many results are cross checked in labs around the world with scientists from many different cultures.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.