My post-modernist challenge

[Allegory]

So with the movie Expelled (I know) there seems to be a new "question authority", "find out for yourself", "think for yourself" movement rolling through the blogosphere that really rings of a post-modernist ideological position.

The strange thing about it is that the people who are espousing these catch phrases are people who you would normally expect to have a more modernist approach to, well, pretty much everything else. Although I suppose you could argue that the followers of the ID movement (read: not the leaders or proponents) are largely uneducated Americans whose culture is inherently post-modern (talking heads and monster trucks, anyone?)

Anyway, how would you, the creationist, reconcile this post-modern movement within an establishment (the church) that is, for all intents and purposes, completely modernist?

 

[Allegory]

I should add the definition of postmodernism that I am using for this challenge. A good explanation comes from Frank Webster's Theories of the Information Society:

• the rejection of modernist thought, values and practices
• the rejection of claims to identify 'truth' on grounds that there are only versions of 'truth'
• the rejection of the search for authenticity since everything is inauthentic
• the rejection of quests to identify meaning because there are an infinity of meanings (which subverts the search for meaning itself)
• the celebration of differences: of interpretations, of values, and of styles
• an emphasis on pleasure, on sensate experience prior to analysis, on jouis-sance and the sublime
• a delight in the superficial, in appearances, in diversity, in change, in parody, irony and pastiche
• a recognition of the creativity and imagination of ordinary people which defies determinist explanations of behaviour.

 

[AintNoMonkey]

lol over there heads.

 

[Allegory]

Maybe I should post this in the GA forum, I'm actually really curious about this because the whole thing is absurd. How do people buy into "think for yourself" from religious institutions?

 

[TeddyKGB]

"Think for yourself" seems to mean "watch this movie" in po-mo creationist parlance. How many of these think-for-yourselfers have picked up a back issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology lately, let alone The Blind Watchmaker, Red Queen, or Endless Forms Most Beautiful?

 

[moogoob]

I'm all for questioning EVERYTHING. In fact, if something could be against my religion, it would be NOT questioning everything. I questioned evolution, and unfortunately for IDists and YECs, stands up on its own merit.

 

[Allegory]

"Think for yourself" seems to mean "watch this movie" in po-mo creationist parlance. How many of these think-for-yourselfers have picked up a back issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology lately, let alone The Blind Watchmaker, Red Queen, or Endless Forms Most Beautiful?

I'm not sure if it shows naivety or confidence that they can encourage people to think for themselves and expect them to come to the conclusion that evolution is wrong. They have to know that if people start asking honest questions about ID or evolution it could be bad for their cause.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

How do people buy into "think for yourself" from religious institutions?

"Think for youself" in this case equals "think the way we think". They are hypocrits, pure and simple.

You should check out the creationist forum. There's a hilarious thread about Expelled in which various dogmatic creationists are complaining about dogmatism. It's classic.

 

[Patashu]

What they really mean is 'find out for yourself, as long as it's creationism/christianity you find'

 

[TheManeki]

Interesting OP. I think one problem with getting many churches to teach the controversy, however, is that the church leaders will deny there is a controversy in the first place.

For example: YEC vs. day/age vs. ruin/restoration creationism? "There is no controversy. God plainly says that [pick one: YEC | day/age | ruin/restoration] creationism is true, and all the others are lies of teh devil like evilution!!!1!"

This illusory feeling of certainty is the great benefit of being unaware of -- or ignoring the fact that -- you are the one assigning a particular meaning to scripture to make your "God sez..." argument.