Can christianity be relevant in a postmodern world?

[StormyOne]

in the 50s and 60s there was little global competition, not to mention that the U.S. has always found a way to import the best and brightest from other countries.... regardless of their past.....

 

[JonMiller]

there is more to life than science and some of science is suspect... likewise you are assuming that scientists don't fudge data results when repeating observations.....

I am a scientist, in the most pure of sciences. While I personally think that the social sciences are at the level of alchemy.. they are still following the method that has worked in understanding the universe (and should get there, eventually).

And we repeat observations all the time. We use previous observations which have become easy to repeat to build tools to make new observations. Additionally, you are repeating observations every time that you use your computer or post on the internet or drive your car. These things wouldn't work if the universe were different than we have observed.

This is why it is so hard for a scientist to beleive in an active God. If everything that we see appears to obey rules that we can understand, where could God act?

JM

 

[JonMiller]

in the 50s and 60s there was little global competition, not to mention that the U.S. has always found a way to import the best and brightest from other countries.... regardless of their past.....

True, we did get some help from some germans/etc in those years. But I am directly refering to new scientists who entered the sciences (and mathematics) during those years.

JM

 

[StormyOne]

I am a scientist, in the most pure of sciences. While I personally think that the social sciences are at the level of alchemy.. they are still following the method that has worked in understanding the universe (and should get there, eventually).

And we repeat observations all the time. We use previous observations which have become easy to repeat to build tools to make new observations. Additionally, you are repeating observations every time that you use your computer or post on the internet or drive your car. These things wouldn't work if the universe were different than we have observed.

This is why it is so hard for a scientist to beleive in an active God. If everything that we see appears to obey rules that we can understand, where could God act?

JM

of course I would expect you to say that because as a "scientist" in a pure science you show your bias....
the fact remains not everything can be repeated, so then what do you have? speculation and theorizing... and thats fine.... I don't necessarily believe everything science says...

 

[JonMiller]

I don't necessarily believe everything science says...

Neither do I, but I do understand the scientific process, know a bit about where it has been, know a bit about where it is going, and know a bit about what approximations went into it. But I am still not doubting it based upon it's assumptions (as postmodernism does).

If the same assumption works for A and for B, and C is based on A and B, then why shouldn't the same assumptions work for C?

Being a postmodernist scientist would be like being an atheist Christian. Not reasonable.

JM

 

[Xenon]

The way I see it (which, ironically, falls right into postmodernism), everything that exists would need to be subject to change for postmodernism to be valid. Considering that Christianity relies on God's unchanging nature and that we will always need him for life, I'd have to say that the two views are completely incompatible. People can say that they don't need God in their life, but that doesn't mean that they are correct.

Besides, if postmodernism were really correct, that would mean that the idea of subjective morality would also be correct. Scary thought....

 

[AndrewK788]

The way I see it (which, ironically, falls right into postmodernism), everything that exists would need to be subject to change for postmodernism to be valid. Considering that Christianity relies on God's unchanging nature and that we will always need him for life, I'd have to say that the two views are completely incompatible. People can say that they don't need God in their life, but that doesn't mean that they are correct.

Besides, if postmodernism were really correct, that would mean that the idea of subjective morality would also be correct. Scary thought....

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

In the 50s and 60s children in the US* were becoming scientists and engineers in great numbers. Our current productivity/etc has depended on them. However, for a while now we have been importing students to become scientists and engineers from India and China (and Europe's leavings). This is because our educational system is not producing good enough students.

JM
*And yes, I know that back then our educational system was completely failing african americans. But there are still far to few african americans who enter into engineering and science progrmas.

Actually Post modernism began in the mid 20th century, most of us grew up in the postmodern world but we did not know it because it was mentioned only in Philosophical circles. (first used in 1875)

[FONT=&quot]A more systematic and detailed notion of the postmodern age than is found in the works mentioned so far is present in British historian Geoffrey Barraclough’s An Introduction to Contempor[wash my mouth]ary History [/FONT][FONT=&quot](1964). Barraclough opens his explorations of the nature of contemporary history by claiming that the world in which we live today is ‘different, in almost all its basic preconditions, from the world in which Bismarck lived and died’ (1964: p. 9). He claims that analysis of the underlying structural changes between the ‘old world’ and the ‘new world’ requires ‘a new framework and new terms of reference’ (ibid.). Against theories which emphasize continuity in history, Barraclough argues: ‘What we should look out for as significant are the differences rather than the similar[wash my mouth]ities, the elements of discontinuity rather than the elements of continuity. In short, contemporary history should be considered as a distinct period of time, with characteristics of its own which mark it off from the preceding period, in much the same way as what we call ‘medieval history’ is marked off ... from modern history’ (1964: p. 12). After discussing some of the contours of the new era, Barraclough rejects some previous attempts to characterize the current historical situation and then proposes the term post[wash my mouth]modern to describe the period which follows modern history (1964: p. 23). He describes the new age as being constituted by revolutionary developments in science and technology, by a new imperialism meeting resistance in Third World revolutionary movements, by the transition from individualism to mass society, and by a new outlook on the world and new forms of culture.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]While the term postmodern was occasionally used in the 1940s and 1950s to describe new forms of architecture or poetry, it was not widely used in the field of cultural theory to describe artifacts that opposed and/or came after modernism until the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, many cultural and social theorists began discussing radical breaks with the culture of modernism and the emergence of new postmodern artistic forms. Irving Howe (1970; orig. 1959) and Harry Levin (1966; orig. 1960) were generally negative toward the new postmodern culture, which they inter[wash my mouth]preted in terms of the decline of Enlightenment rationalism, anti-intellectualism, and loss of the modernist hope that culture could advance social change. For Susan Sontag (1972), Leslie Fiedler (1971), and Ihab Hassan (1971), by contrast, postmodern culture is a positive development which opposes the oppressive aspects of modernism and modernity. Expressing her dissatisfac[wash my mouth]tion with modernist fiction and modes of interpretation, Sontag’s influential essays from the mid-1960s celebrated the emergence of a ‘new sensibility’ (a term first used by Howe) in culture and the arts which challenges the rationalist need for content, meaning, and order. The new sensibility, by contrast, immerses itself in the pleasures of form and style, privileging an ‘erotics’ of art over a hermeneutics of meaning.

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/pomo/ch1.html
[/FONT]

 

[JonMiller]

I know that. I had thought that the silliness would be dying down. It definitely doesn't need encouraged.

JM

 

[StormyOne]

I know that. I had thought that the silliness would be dying down. It definitely doesn't need encouraged.

JM

silly or not (btw I don't share your perception), it is a view, it is alive and well and the question remains, can christianity be relevant in a postmodern era?

 

[JonMiller]

In a postmodernist era, the technology that our civilization depends upon won't exist and the such a civilization would cease to exist, so how is the question relevant?

JM

 

[StormyOne]

In a postmodernist era, the technology that our civilization depends upon won't exist and the such a civilization would cease to exist, so how is the question relevant?

JM

structures and .orgs as we know it are being challenged, and questioned about their relevancy.... so how is christianity relevant in Europe? or the Sudan? or other troubled spots on this globe... the answer? its not... When Katrina swept through New Orleans, and left devastation in its wake, was Christianity relevant to those who were left to deal with it on their own?

 

[moicherie]

structures and .orgs as we know it are being challenged, and questioned about their relevancy.... so how is christianity relevant in Europe? or the Sudan? or other troubled spots on this globe... the answer? its not... When Katrina swept through New Orleans, and left devastation in its wake, was Christianity relevant to those who were left to deal with it on their own?

Christianity if practised like Christ did i.e meeting the needs of people, dealing with them where they are can be relevant. However I suspect officially Christiandom does not want to get its hands dirty.
Take the Katrina situation for example there were warnings about the hurricane so where were the Christian churches with the coaches and buses to transport people out beforehand? Take the UK for example where is the church in getting together to help tackle the gun crime in our communities, and other ills. Churches are too territorial and selfish including ours.

 

[mva1985]

Christianity if practised like Christ did i.e meeting the needs of people, dealing with them where they are can be relevant. However I suspect officially Christiandom does not want to get its hands dirty.
Take the Katrina situation for example there were warnings about the hurricane so where were the Christian churches with the coaches and buses to transport people out beforehand? Take the UK for example where is the church in getting together to help tackle the gun crime in our communities, and other ills. Churches are too territorial and selfish including ours.

Gun Crime? It's more like people crime!!

Do you even know how many times a law abiding citizen uses a firearm to defend themselves without even firing a shot?

 

[StormyOne]

Gun Crime? It's more like people crime!!

Do you even know how many times a law abiding citizen uses a firearm to defend themselves without even firing a shot?

a favorite republican issue.... gun control..... i know, i know.... guns don't kill people, people kill people...... do you have a gun?

 

[StormyOne]

I know that. I had thought that the silliness would be dying down. It definitely doesn't need encouraged.

JM

as christians dismiss postmodern thought as silly, some post modernists dismiss christian thought as silly.... since christians believe that they are to evangelize the world so that Christ can return, their dismissal of a group that engages in postmodern thought creates a conundrum.....

 

[JonMiller]

as christians dismiss postmodern thought as silly, some post modernists dismiss christian thought as silly.... since christians believe that they are to evangelize the world so that Christ can return, their dismissal of a group that engages in postmodern thought creates a conundrum.....

My atheist freinds are a lot stronger in their dismisal of postmodern thought than I am.

JM

 

[JonMiller]

a favorite republican issue.... gun control..... i know, i know.... guns don't kill people, people kill people...... do you have a gun?

Guns dont' kill people, bullets do.

JM

 

[StormyOne]

My atheist freinds are a lot stronger in their dismisal of postmodern thought than I am.

JM

you are introducing a side issue, we are discussing christians who believe it is their God -ordained duty to reach out to everyone..... except people who engage in postmodern thought..... a problem or not?

 

[JonMiller]

It is good to communicate with everyone.

But you don't engage in communication with the atheist by changing Christianity to be atheist. Just as you wouldn't communicate with a postmodernist by changing Christianity to be postmodern.

JM