Modern Problems of Belief

Some say it is impossible to be both a modern person and a religious person. What are the assumptions behind this claim? And what is it about the modern (or postmodern) era that, according to some, has made religion difficult to believe in? These questions will be discussed as we explore the ways religion has been understood in Western culture from the Enlightenment to the present. We will read such influential thinkers as Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Durkheim, Buber, and Woody Allen. Each figure has left a decisive mark on the way we think about religion.