Religion as a search for meaning in the postmodern era

Throughout history, humanity has been curious about existence and life. This curiosity is directed to "what existence and life mean" rather than "what they are". In this respect, meaning is one of the first concepts that humanity inquires about. As a result of this inquiry, humanity arrived at different answers in different periods of history. While in prehistoric times, meaning was entirely a concept about nature and its laws, in historical times it became a notion that falls within the scope of myths and religions. When it comes to the modern period, by changing position, meaning started to be searched not outside, but within the human himself who inquires about it. With the changing position of the meaning, there has been an increase in man's search for meaning. The most important reason is that humanity has been unable to meet the meaning he is searching for within himself. The fact that human-induced disasters and wars in the modern era have shown that the searched meaning is not within man himself. When it comes to the postmodern period, the search for meaning has completely withdrawn from the stage of history. Postmodernism, which rejects the search for meaning because it is an occupation belonging to the modern and earlier period, has also criticized all meta-narratives, which are presented as meaning, by thinking that they bring evil to humanity. In this context, religion as both a meta-narrative and a search for meaning has been included in the scope of postmodern criticism. It has been seen that the focus of postmodern criticism directed at religion is based on narrative reasons rather than semantics. Accordingly, postmodernism envisions a religion that retains its meaning but is not narrative. However, this does not seem possible due to the nature of religion. For this reason, it is essential to clarify this issue seems like a paradox in terms of postmodern and religious discussions.