Religiostiy after Religion. Contemporary Reinterpretations of Christianity

The thesis deals with contemporary possibilities of reinterpretation of religion in the Western society after what some authors call its "end". Along this line, it examines the concepts of religion and religiosity as two categories that point to the explicit and implicit presence of religious meanings in the discourse. The thesis is divided into four main sections: discourse theory, social recontextualisation, metaphors and symbols, and disturbing margins of symbolic discourse. First, an outline of discourse theory with regard to religious experience tackles the "us-them" mindset and thus highlights the issue of credibility with a concluding example of "anamnetical" discourse concept by Johann Baptist Metz. Next, as a social phenomenon, religion is prone to social recontextualisation. Two distinct are presented at large: in the first place, Taylor's of post-durkheimian set-up where varieties of religious experience follow an orbital-like model with different valences to the core. On the other hand, the dispersion hypothesis elaborates on some implicit quasi-religious features of the modern world phenomena which are to be taken into account in drawing the criteria of reinterpretation. They can be perceived as basic guidelines for what should not be understood as belief in God in the judeo-christian..