Sells says that scholars "know how to demolish everything, leaving them with nothing".

That scholars are left with nothing is questionable because one could argue that they are left with the truth and no delusions. However, post modernists will also recognise the possibility that he/she may, indeed, be left with nothing. Just as an unravelling of our modern lives and attitudes may lead people to realise that Something is missing: that a belief in an extra-systemic identity is meaningless unless that belief is an authentic belief in an authentic God. This is the key problem for any aspiring Christian (or other God-based religions) and one that most of Sells’ writing struggles with.

Of course, we have the bugbear question- which God?

Whatever choice we make, we will always be left with the uncertainty that we may be making the wrong choice (or at least reminded of it). The positive thing we are left with is the certainty that more authentic choices are possible. We are left with the certainty that, even though others choose differently, the choice we make is made freely and without fear or compromise. Having said that, there are plenty of people who choose to be Christian for all the wrong unconscious and conscious reasoning.

The positive thing with post modernism in relation to theology and Christian religion is that it has an uncertain certainty in that others’ choices are, at the same time, both questionable and validated and thus we must have (in theory) all round respect. That said, Christianity has had centuries of force, scaremongering, coercion, romantic nonsense, and modernist authority to impose certainty (fundamentalist, especially, certain Islamics are still in this stage). Now we have post modernism and perhaps the authenticity that one must develop to live in a world of certain uncertainty will see certain people leaning towards a more authentic, less human idea/not idea of a God. We will look to a God that is less a reflection of our earthly thinking and attitudes to a more priestly God “who is above all, and through all, and in you all”

Re: the question that post modernism is the saviour of God. God is the Saviour to a true Christian. I am a pagan and I can respect that. Can you respect my paganism? A post modernist could validate/not validate the reasoning behind Rancidas’ Paganism – just as that non either/or thinking could validate/not validate the Christian God. The good news is that God remains a possibility even to the non-believer and to the believer there (in theory ) must be a more authentic understanding or belief.

In the end, for a Christian and other God believers it comes down to the idea that “believing is seeing”.

In the end, for certain philosophers and scientists (and students), it comes down to seeing is believing.

For post modernists, there is always the spectre of the other possibilities; for the atheist in a post modernist world, the spectre of the “glass darkly”; for the God believers there is the spectre of nothingness, of the certainty that in the end there is the haunting possibility that the old Irish piss pots are correct when they sing: “ the worms crawl in, they’re lean and thin, the worms crawl out they’re thick and stout, your brains will come tumbling down your snout - be merry my friends, be merry.

Now kids f … off to bed."

Reason is crucial to clear communication. Its very nature is connected to the concept of language and in this respect, if we believe in the importance of the human desire to communicate, we have to believe in reason. When I mentioned "that "postmodern" has mutated into a hyperlink to the 360 degrees of an infinite meta-narrative with its global network of moderators and always connected", we have now a communications medium unlike others that were one to many forms. The internet is communications many to to many. I find this truly significant.

The Enlightenment we understand as a struggle in the name of reason, against tyranny, superstition and inequity, but at its core was the new communications medium with the printing press. Where once there was but the spoken word, and then the beautifully hand written word, now we have the printed word. Next we have the wire which then goes from the wire to the wireless. Wireless is a one to many dictatorship of the loud vioce and hence the modernism of the early twentieth century is reflective of extremes of unreason. It is not surprising that television gave us the postmodern but the internet is interactive, democratic with a deeper realism and our new enlightenment where the word is not with a teddy but with the people.

Over to you Kenny. Cheers.

"The [sic. Christian] Church’s long decline during the past few hundred years began when God was taken out of the Church and became an object of scientific speculation." - Sells

Apart from only one interpretation of Peter becoming "the Rock" , there is little evidence Jesus intended a conventional church for his Kingdon of Heaven. People using Church and Priesthod models usurped the teachings, organisation and natters of rite [e.g. the use of an altar.]. There is no reason to believe that a Church has any special right to Administer the Word of [the aledged]God on behalf of God: Especially, before the invention of the printing press the Christian Church was a political body: e.g., Popes raised armies and schicisms often had political undercurrents. The Christian's god may have been taken from the Church under democratic secularism but by what right was that [alledged] entity there in the first place