About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture"Religion," Mark C. Taylor maintains, "is most interesting where it is least obvious." From global financial networks to the casinos of Las Vegas, from images flickering on computer terminals to steel sculpture, material culture bears unexpected traces of the divine. In a world where the economies of faith are obscure, yet pervasive, Taylor shows that approaching religion directly is less instructive than thinking about it. Traveling from high culture to pop culture and back again, About Religion approaches cyberspace and Las Vegas through Hegel and Kant and reads Melville's The Confidence-Man through the film Wall Street. As astonishing juxtapositions and associations proliferate, formerly uncharted territories of virtual culture disclose theological vestiges, showing that faith in contemporary culture is as unavoidable as it is elusive. The most accessible presentation of Taylor's revolutionary ideas to date, About Religion gives us a dazzling and disturbing vision of life at the end of the old and beginning of the new millennium. |
Contents
Discrediting God | 7 |
Denegating God | 29 |
Politics of Theory | 48 |
Minding the Brain | 80 |
Terminal Condition | 116 |
Christianity and the Capitalism of Spirit | 140 |
The Virtual Kingdom | 168 |
Apprehension | 202 |
Learning Curves | 218 |
Indifference | 248 |
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absolute aesthetic alchemy analysis Andy Warhol appears argues artists Bataille Bauhaus becomes Birth of Tragedy Boyer capital century cognitive complex confidence game Confidence-Man create critical Critique cultural currency Dawkins death death of God denegation dialectical difference Dionysus divine Durkheim economy emerge emptiness everything exchange experience extended phenotype FIGURE Fred Sandback Freud function G. W. F. Hegel genes genetic gift gold Hegel Hegelian human Ibid idea identity imagination incarnation indifference insists Kant Kant's Kierkegaard Las Vegas logic modern nature negation never Nietzsche Nietzsche's nothingness object ontotheology opposite organism origin philosophy possible postmodern precisely present primitive reality realized relation religion religious remains Richard Serra ritual sacred Sandback sculpture seems sense social space speculative structure sublime symbolic thanatos theological theory thing thought tion Torqued Ellipse totem trans transcendent transformed turn unity universal Vegas virtual words York