Liddy, I re-read your post. True, science is making parts of the Bible starkly seem like something pulled out of someone's ass. Hence less "religious people"= people who literally believe the Bible, or whatever holy text they were born near word for word, are on the decline.
But where did this "God" idea come from? Is a god-instinct not naturally present in man?
In countries where the physical quality of life is harsh, where the people only know "shit always has, and does happen" it is plain to see why people are so quick and eager to accept the idea of a god...but in the Western world, where pain and physical suffering is delayed, we lounge and gather an education on things...and at our pinnacle, develop theorems that tell us nothing is for certain. There's a wide universe out there that infinitely dwarfs our intelligence in comparison.
However one wants to approach it: man is limited.
So how can we be so insistent that there is no one Great Thing, or "God"? To turn to the spiritual requires the heart, not intelligence. (Which is why only intelligent people/thinkers are atheists, or philosophers. They don't like the idea of their shining intelligence taking a backseat; and I can't say I blame them.)
so human beings might stop turning their eyes toward a supernatural realm and begin to acknowledge the value of this world.
But what is 'supernatural'? It could be said that all of the love, and pleasant things one feels/experiences in this world is supernatural, or is
spiritual. Could not the love between two human be evidence of spirituality, or spirit? What is the love between two human beings if it's not spiritual? Is it only carnal? No. Is it only mental? No. What if all things of value in this world are actually spiritual? It is the plane crashes, the bullets through flesh, the lies, the rapes, the greed, and the murdered children that are the things that are not valued in this world. (Even orgasming loses it's value after a while w/o love.) It is the spiritual that is responsible for all of the good things, like love. As far as I'm concerned, it is love, ie spiritual things, manifested that keep us coming back for more. That give us hope to live another day. Is knowing that one is a higher man, or has more of an insight into "truth", alone, enough to bring true meaning to one's life? Without the hope of love, what is this life but dying flesh and isolated misery?
The idea of the spiritual being apart of this world makes me feel better about "the next world". It's as if this world and the next are connected....The hope that some things(the 'good things') will carry on for eternity.
I re-read your post above Jadeval.
On the one hand, people like Foucault are trying to disrupt the social constructs in order to level the ideological playing-field, so to speak. This frees us from the predominating structures
What are the structures you talk about. And post-structural...what does that mean? We are in post-structural times? define structural. (i know you mean socially, but how?)