From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: RE: Postmodern Religion
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 22:37:00 -0600


Steve wrote:

"Interesting that we have read the same texts, 'the fragile absolute'
and 'on belief' so differently"

Steve:

For me, the answer to this dilemma is very simple.  You are simply
continuing to misread Zizek.

As long as you interpret secularism to mean a non-theistic understanding
of relationships; you, Zizek, and myself are in complete agreement. When
you go beyond this, however, to argue in a pre-Gramscian, crude Marxist,
economically deterministic way that "Capitalism is simply indifferent to
anything that is not related to the economic" you end up with a paradox.
If what are saying is true, then you can no longer consistently maintain
that "...western buddhism thus perfectly fits the fetishist mode of
ideology in our allegedly post-ideological era...." 

I challenge you to give me a quote from Zizek that actually follows your
current line of argument. If you refer back to my previous posting on
this topic you will find that what I said about Buddhism completely
agrees with what Zizek says.  

Your problem is this. If as you say, "capitalism doesn't care" how can
you explain why the ruling party in the United States is currently
operating from Christian fundamentalist principles, why Islamic
fundamentalism is on the rise in the Mideast, and why New Age thought
and Buddhism appear to play ideological roles in developed Western
society.  

To examine such relationships is not to "want to believe in a religious
position as a personal thing" but to have a more nuanced understanding
than your base-superstructure kind of argument allows. 

Are you really seriously arguing here for economic reductionism or are
you just getting carried away again with 'rabid atheism"?

eric