摘要：Post-modernism is a movement concerned with challenging the rigid categoriesofmodernity and the Enlightenment, a spirit of moving beyond, and adopting anattitude of critical self-consciousness.1In the broadest sense, post-modernismsignifies transgression. In as much as the 'scientific' was born, and, thus, has beenconsidered a hallmark of, the Enlightenment,2post-modern theories may be oftenseen as standing opposed to scientific investigation. But this view of post-modernism is questionable. Moreover, contemporary science has similarlymoved beyond modern science, becoming an acutely self-conscious enterprisewith new understandings of difficult distinctions between 'objectivity' andScience4'moves beyond,' reshapes itself by investigating new questions,developing new experimental paradigms, and offering new interpretations.Paradigmatic 'transgressions' in science seem, in fact, to occur discontinuously.5One of the most exciting challenges for today's science is that of investigatingindividual human experience,6which includes religious experience. Today'shuman brain functional imaging technologies (e.g., positron emissiontomography [PET] and functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI]) offer newopportunities to explore the embodied aspects of religious experience, and nowthere are two very recent reports on the neural correlates of religious andmystical experiences.7The interpretation of the results from such investigations(and the design of future studies), requires appropriate theoretical resource.8Inso far as contemporary science has moved beyond the modern science of theEnlightenment, modern theories of religion, which similarly rely onEnlightenment values and concerns, may no longer be the best theoreticalresource for such neuroscientific work. Thus, it is of interest to ask if post-modern theories of religion may be a more valuable theoretical resource for acontemporary scientific investigation of religious experience
