How Do We As Atheists & Theists Define Our Worldview? (America, bible)

[bartstarr1960]

Worldviews remind me of personal opinions, we all have them. Our worldview will lead us to one of the six sub-headings on City Data's Religion and Spirituality forum. Though, for various reasons some spend more time in forums outside their worldviews.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000, defines worldview, -noun: 1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world. 2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

In World Views: from fragmentation to integration, link below, the authors present their seven components of a worldview,
1. What is the nature of our world? How is it structured and how does it function?

2. Why is our world the way it is, and not different? Why are we the way we are, and not different? What kind of global explanatory principles can we put forward?

3. Why do we feel the way we feel in this world, and how do we assess global reality, and the role of our species in it?

4. How are we to act and to create in this world? How, in what different ways, can we influence the world and transform it? What are the general principles by which we should organise our actions?

5. What future is open to us and our species in this world?

By what criteria are we to select these possible futures?

6. How are we to construct our image of this world in such a way that we can come up with answers to (1), (2), and (3)?

7. What are some of the partial answers that we can propose to these questions?[/list]
I'm curious what your worldview is, and since this is a religion and spirituality forum we shouldn't drift too far afield into philosophy or psychology to keep the thread from being closed.

Center Leo Apostel -- Publications

[TRANSPONDER]

I talk quite a lot about worldview. I believe we are actually in the middle of a global change from a theist dogmatic worldview to a secular rational one. The religions have been fighting a retreat against secular government for decades and the battle is fierce in the US and elsewhere.

I believe that it would help if secularism could address of lot of questions that up to now have been outside its remit. What is the right way to live? Where does morality come from? Where does Love, our sense of beauty and our feelings of reverence come from? I don't believe that many would ask how a secular origin (aka evolution theory) can account for competition for mates and resources (aka sex and war).

I am inclining to the view that many - indeed all -of these questions can be answered in terms of rational, evolutionary science, though we many not find the answers soon or perhaps ever. But enough will be known that we will understand ourselves and our world far better than we do now, allowing ourselves to be driven uncomprehendingly by instinctive impulses.

[mythunderstood]

I guess I have no answers to any of those questions and truly never sat down and thought about them. I never understood why people say we all have a worldview, if this is what it is supposed to consist of.

[TRANSPONDER]

We do indeed all have a Worldview. But that World can be quite a small one, at times.

[mythunderstood]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

We do indeed all have a Worldview. But that World can be quite a small one, at times.

But if the definition of "worldview" is based on answers to these particular questions, then I do not have one.

[elyn02]

Answering these questions would mean that we would have very high expectations of people throughout the world.

[mordant]

I think the most basic aspects of a worldview have to do with evidentiary standards and the degree of pessimism / optimism with which we view our fellow man.

I do not believe things because I like them or because they fit my preconceptions but because they match what is observable and preferably, scientifically testable.

I have a default view of my fellow man that is based on compassion and empathy rather than judgment against some arbitrary idealistic standard.

Although I am an atheist, it is possible for theists to hold these views, although I'd submit that theism in general encourages low evidentiary standards, particularly if it's fundamentalist. Fundamentalism conforms reality to dogma rather than the inverse. Fundamentalism also encourages a very low view of humanity as corrupt, fallen, and worthless. Even in its redeemed state it still struggles with a "sin nature".

So I would say that my views would typically be held by liberal Christians and unbelievers, as well as adherents to some of the non-Abrahamic religions.

[hiker45]

I am an Atheist.

My world view is to accept the world as it is and learn to deal with it.

[tigetmax24]

Originally Posted by bartstarr1960

Worldviews remind me of personal opinions, we all have them. Our worldview will lead us to one of the six sub-headings on City Data's Religion and Spirituality forum. Though, for various reasons some spend more time in forums outside their worldviews.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000, defines worldview, -noun: 1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world. 2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

In World Views: from fragmentation to integration, link below, the authors present their seven components of a worldview,
1. What is the nature of our world? How is it structured and how does it function?

2. Why is our world the way it is, and not different? Why are we the way we are, and not different? What kind of global explanatory principles can we put forward?

3. Why do we feel the way we feel in this world, and how do we assess global reality, and the role of our species in it?

4. How are we to act and to create in this world? How, in what different ways, can we influence the world and transform it? What are the general principles by which we should organise our actions?

5. What future is open to us and our species in this world?

By what criteria are we to select these possible futures?

6. How are we to construct our image of this world in such a way that we can come up with answers to (1), (2), and (3)?

7. What are some of the partial answers that we can propose to these questions?[/list]
I'm curious what your worldview is, and since this is a religion and spirituality forum we shouldn't drift too far afield into philosophy or psychology to keep the thread from being closed.

Being that the entire nature of your post is philosophical it's hard to understand how we could avoid "drifting far afield into philosophy."

Be that as it may...

A worldview typically addresses the following questions:

Origin?

Meaning?

Morality?

Destiny?


Stating that there is no such thing as absolute truth is logically self defeating. It cannot be denied without also being affirmed. Therefore, SOMETHING is ultimately true with respect to these questions.

We also have the law of non-contradiction. There must be coherency in any worldview.

It seems to me that the worldview most likely to be true would be the worldview that best consistently addresses all of these questions.

Physical science and logic can and do provide evidence and clues which point to the existence of a BEING whose attributes are similar to the God of the Bible.

From what I gather, the atheist response is that these questions either don't matter or that it's impossible for us to "know" the answers - which, it seems to me, merely begs the question.