Why Postmodernists are poor atheists

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The atheist movement, at least in its ideal form, strives towards rationality and the critical evaluation of claims through scientific and logical methods. However, some sinister, cynical intellectuals in the fine halls of Paris don't like this. We call these nihilists Postmodernists. All that they have written is functionally equivalent to what a semi-random word generator can put together.

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

Do we really want a face that denies the laws of logic as "arbitrary" and science as "a socially construction in which truth is arbitrary"? Can we atheists stand on a high ground while arguing - with impassioned rhetoric - against creationists if we admit evolutionary biology and creation mythology are "equally true" cultural constructs?

This is why you should not vote Awesomelyglorious for your first choice (maybe vote him as your second, but not your first!).

Instead, vote for DentArthurDent. He's a lifelong atheist, a man coming from an intellectual tradition from which the term "militant atheist sprang from, and an impassioned defender of reason and science against religious nonsense.

He is STRIDENTLY for your personal happiness and wildest dreams.

(This message has been brought to you by the Independent Committee of Concerned Netizens for the De-Awesomization of Awesomelyglorious and the Drafting of DentArthurDent. DentArthurDent is in no way responsible, connected, or approving of the content of this attack ad.)

I am not even sure what you are arguing against. Particularly given that Marxism is actually one of the intellectual movements that birthed postmodernism through the Frankfurt School of academics.

Even further, Marxism itself is pseudo-science, so to call a Marxist a defender of reason and science is like giving the position to a spirit healer. Heck, the fact that you reference Lenin, a man who constructed a regime that ended up crushing science under the weight of ideology, and created nonsense such as Lysenkoism to combat the evolutionary theory you seek to defend, just shows the bankruptcy of your position.

M_P, I think we all know who has spent more time in recent events to defend evolutionary theory, and it certainly isn't Dent. Even further, I actually identify more with the empiricist tradition, and with the American Pragmatists, as well as figures such as Karl Popper. This isn't to say that I have no "postmodern" influence, as I also have liked some of the writings by Richard Rorty, Paul Feyerabend, and Thomas Kuhn, and whether you consider that "postmodern" is your choice.

Edit: Also, I don't know who Awsomelyglorious is, but that sounds a lot like my name. Weird.

Dent is a trotskyist, not a Stalinist or Lenninist. He supports science and opposes postmodernism.

(This message has been brought to you by the Independent Committee of Concerned Netizens for the De-Awesomization of Awesomelyglorious and the Drafting of DentArthurDent. DentArthurDent is in no way responsible, connected, or approving of the content of this defence post.)

Guys, if you think about it, if we get down to the kernel of the matter, the "truth" (irony quotes there) is that you're both right, and you're both wrong. See, your reality has been socially constructed to construe truth-facts from a sort of "ether" called the "Internets," where people engage in "debates." To wit:

“Society is responsible for hierarchy,” says Bataille; however, according to Buxton[1] , it is not so much society that is responsible for hierarchy, but rather the genre, and eventually the dialectic, of society. In a sense, the subject is contextualised into a postdialectic discourse that includes consciousness as a totality.

Textual theory states that the collective is capable of significance, given that sexuality is interchangeable with art. It could be said that Lacan uses the term ‘postdialectic discourse’ to denote a self-supporting paradox.

The main theme of the works of Pynchon is the genre, and subsequent meaninglessness, of neosemantic class. Thus, if the subcapitalist paradigm of discourse holds, we have to choose between the dialectic paradigm of reality and Derridaist reading.

Baudrillard suggests the use of surrealism to deconstruct the status quo. However, several desituationisms concerning a mythopoetical whole exist.

Atheism is the belief that there is no God. That's it. There is no necessary connection between atheism and rationality, logicial methods, scientific methods, etc.

You might do better to look for something like the Brights Movement, rather than the much broader 'atheist movement' in general. You're unlikely to find any 'postmodernist nihilists' in the former.

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