SIX WORLDVIEWS By Greg Giles Translated by Catherine Chen Copyright pending Chapter 1: Welcome to the class: Introduction to worldviews.

Im sure you are wondering, What is a worldview? Thats a good question. You already have a worldviewthough you may not realize that you do. Everybody has a way of understanding reality, but most people just assume their way is true without questioning it or even thinking about it. A worldview is a way of thinking about the world and how it works. Different cultures are built upon the foundation of different worldviews. Around the world there are thousands of different worldviews but this semester we will look at only six. These six are the most basic worldviews and they shape the way the majority of the peoples in the world think and live. The six worldviews we will study are (1) balanced dualism, (2) naturalism, (3) animism, (4) monism , (5)theism , and (6) humanism. Perhaps these names are unfamiliar to you, but dont worry, after we study them you will understand them very well. You should learn the English names because those will be used in class. (1) (2)(3)(4)(5)(6) Two Examples. Lets begin with two examples of how worldviews influence the way people from different cultures think. The first example is about sickness: why does a person become sick? A traditional Chinese person, having the worldview of balanced dualism, assumes that good health comes from keeping a balance of hot and cold forces within the body. This view is based in the ancient teaching of yin/yang. To keep these forces in balance a Chinese person may practice taiji and eat foods that are hot or cold as the body needs. Sickness happens when these hot and cold forces get out-ofbalance. The treatment is to restore harmoniousness by eating and drinking properly. As many Chinese students have told me, the cure for sickness is to drink hot water!

 Probably you recognize this way of thinking about sickness. Perhaps this is the way your mother talked when you became sick. Perhaps it is how you think now. You may even be surprised that anyone would question the truth of this view of sicknessbut in many other cultures people do not think about hot/cold forces in the body and have very different ways for thinking of health and sickness. Lets look at a different worldview, naturalism, and its view of sickness. Modern naturalists typically accept what is called the medical model of sickness. They believe the human body is a biological thing with no soul or spiritual forces. People can maintain their health by keeping their body strong through good nutrition and exercise. But humans live in a hostile world of germs and toxins. Germs attack our bodies and cause sickness. When we get sick we go to a doctor who identifies the germ that is attacking us and prescribes a medicine to kill the germ. Once the germ is killed, the body will be healthy again. Or sickness may be due to toxins such as cigarette smoke. If the toxins are eliminated the body will become healthy again. The medical view of sickness is very different from the traditional Chinese view of balance. The basic idea is not harmony but conflict: kill the germ! Perhaps you also recognize this way of thinking. Western medicines such as antibiotic treatments are becoming common in China. A third way of thinking about sickness is found in the animist worldview. Many tribal peoples in the world are animists. An animist sees the world as filled with spirits, such as nature spirits or ancestor spirits. These spiritual beings have the power to affect human lives. The key to good health is to maintain good relationships with the hundreds of invisible spirits that surround us by following their laws, and by bringing them gifts such as food. If someone maintains good relationships with the spirits in his world, they will bring him good luck and good health. However, if he offends a spirit or an ancestor they may cause bad luck or sickness.

Another cause of sickness in an animist worldview is magic. A human with magical powers, such as a witch or wizard, can place a curse on an enemy resulting in sickness or death. When an animist gets sick they will go to a witchdoctor to determine the cause of the sickness and provide a treatment. The treatment may include restoring a broken relationship by offering an animal sacrifice to the offended spirit. Or the treatment may involve magical protection from the power of enemy spirits or witches. Once the spiritual or magical cause of the sickness is eliminated, it will disappear. Do you recognize the animist way of thinking about sickness? The belief in spirits and magic is found in every country and in most cultures. It is still common in some parts of China. The fourth worldview originated in India and has spread throughout Asia. In this class we call it monism. The view of sickness in this worldview comes from the idea of karma. Karma is the belief that every behavior has a consequence. Good behaviors are always rewarded. Bad behaviors are always punished, perhaps through suffering. Karma is the belief that people always get what they deserve. A persons karma is the balance of rewards and punishments he or she has earned through past behaviors. Sometimes the rewards or punishments happen now within their present lives, but in many cases a persons karma will not be settled until a future life. So monists usually believe in reincarnation. According to this worldview, sickness is caused by a persons bad karma. If a person is sick or suffering now it is because their behavior was bad in the pastmaybe in this life or maybe in a previous life. They are sick because they deserve to be sick. The best response is to accept your punishment; that is, endure the sickness in order to get rid of the bad karma that caused it. The fifth worldview we shall look at is called ethical monotheism, or theism for short. It is based on the belief that a personal God created the world and made people in His image. God directs the daily events in peoples lives, and provides help to those who pray to Him. Theists believe that God uses sickness and suffering to teach lessons or to build character. For example, God may allow suffering in a persons life to make them strong or to teach them patience.

While theists believe that God may allow sickness with a purpose, they also believe that He is all powerful and can heal sicknesses. Those who believe and pray will be given strength, comfort and, if God chooses, healing. The final worldview we shall study is humanism. There are many varieties of humanism, but we shall focus on classical Greek humanism as found in the writings of the famous Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Humanism is the belief that humanity is the measure of all things. For the ancient Greeks, this meant idealizing humans and seeking human perfection. In some ways Greek culture resembled traditional Chinese culture in its view of sickness. The Greeks believed that there were four types of human personality. Each person possesses a unique combination of these four factors. An imbalance produces disease. Health can be restored through eating a balance of hot or cold foods as needed. Greek humanism, however, idealized the human body and the human mind. They believed that human reason was the highest part of humans. Many Greeks viewed the life of the body as the weaker and less important part of being human. Sickness therefore affected only our physical bodies, not our minds. The focus of the Greek humanists was not on bodily weakness but on seeking human perfection, the perfection of the mind. We have just described six basic worldviews regarding sickness: sickness is (1) an imbalance of hot/cold forces; (2) an attack on the body by germs; (3) a magical curse caused by enemies or offended spirits; (4) the consequences of bad behavior in a previous life; (5) a method God uses to build character; or (6) a bodily weakness, but we should focus on perfecting our minds. Which of these make sense to you? That may give a clue as to your own worldview. However, you should reserve that judgment until we study these views in more detail. (1);(2);(3) (4)(5)(6) Lets take a look at a second example: romantic love. If you are in love (or wish you were) this example may be of interest to you! In every culture boys and girls fall in love. In every culture they celebrate romance in their music, poetry and art. But how does their worldview think about love and its causes?

:() In traditional Chinese culture, romance, while a great feeling, was not viewed as the basis of marriage. A virtuous character is the goal, not mere attraction. Confucius taught the importance of duty tyo others, and thatnot lovewas the basis of marriage. Marriage was a practical arrangement, a joining of two families, not two individuals. In a naturalist worldview romantic feelings are the emotional by-products of the mating behaviors common to all animal species. Love is not about a relationship made in heaven, the joining of two matched soulsit is just the result of high levels of hormones causing physiological reactions. The emotion of love is just the human species way to guarantee mating behaviors. In animism, love is one of the benefits that spirits can bring to someone they favor. To increase their romantic success, a person can use magic powers to cause their desired boy or girl friend to fall in love with them. In the monist worldview, all attachments are viewed as a trap. Romance, like all relationships, are attachments which can hinder progress toward enlightenment. Love is an illusion, trapping us in relationships which cannot last. In a theist worldview, love is a gift from God. God loves people and in return expects us to love Him and to love others. Romance is a picture of Gods love, but romance is not just a feeling but a way of treating others. Humans are never more like God than when they show love. Finally in Greek humanism, love is an idealized relationship, but the higher value is the perfection of the mind: rationality is better than romance. So what is romantic love? It depends on what you believe about the world. There are many cultures and many worldviews. It is surprising how differently people can view the world!

WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?

These two examples provide a preview of the six worldviews we will study this semester. Before we begin there is a question we should ask first. What is a worldview? A worldview is a basic understanding about reality, what the world is and how it works. Our worldview underlies our thoughts, beliefs, values, feelings and behavior. Worldview is at the heart of culture. It is also at the heart of our personal identity: what we think and feel about ourselves. Worldview begins in our culture but it becomes our most basic understanding of ourselves. Worldview is very important, but most people dont know that they have one. It is the way we think about the world without thinking about it! Worldview is so basic that we usually just assume it to be real without questioning it. We are shocked to learn that people from different cultures may understand the world is totally different ways! When we first encounter such worldview differences we may think they are crazy. We may think that nobody could possibly believe that! Other worldviews seem wrong! But as we get to better understand the people who hold such different views, we discover that they also look at our views of reality as crazy, unbelievable, wrong! Carol Hill gives the following definition of worldview: the basic way of interpreting things and events that pervades a culture so thoroughly that it becomes a culture's concept of reality what is good, what is important, what is sacred, what is real. (What is a worldview? Definition & Introduction. The American Scientific Affiliation-- http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/views/index.html)

--- -http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/views/index.html) Worldview relates to culture, to behavior and to philosophy. Worldview is the heart and foundation of culture. Culture can be divided into its visible and invisible parts. The visible parts of culture include obvious things like language, food, dress, gestures, music, family, government, and so on. The invisible parts of culture include the mental parts of culture like concepts, values, attitudes, and worldview. We can compare worldview to the operating system of a computer or mobile device. For example many computers use Microsoft Windows as a basic operating system. Apple computers use Mac OS. Others may use Linux. Mobile devices may use Android or iOS. An operating system is the basic software that is always running in the background and enables a device to function and to run other applications. Without an operating system a computing device could not play games or make calls or create documents or play movies or do anything else. Windows Mac OS Linux iOS We can compare human thought to computers. Laptop Human Applications: software programs cultural practices Operating system: Windows worldview Hardware: keyboard, monitor body, brain Windows

Like an operating system, a worldview runs in the background of our mind and enables us to perform other cultural functions such as communication, cooperation or behavior.

Every culture assumes a worldview as the basis for everything else it does. It provides the mental structure on which other aspects of culture need to function. Because worldview is so basic, it seems to be true. It just makes sense. Every person learns this worldview by growing up in his or her home culture. Daily life immerses us in social functions that imply the worldview directly or indirectly. Daily conversations with parents, social norms and rituals, and school lessons given by teachers all support the ideas of the worldview. If you are Chinese, think of how you learned the idea that health is caused by keeping a balance of hot and cold forces in your body. No one ever told you This is your worldview, it was just assumed in every aspect of daily life. It was an integral part of your culture. We usually believe our worldview deeply. The following conversation took place after a worldviews class the first year I taught it in China. Two students walked me back to my apartment building asking me questions about worldviews. Student A: How can you tell someones worldview? Teacher: Listen to how they talk. They usually express their core beliefs in ordinary conversation. Student A: Give me an example. Teacher: Since I have been in China, I have heard many people describe being sick in terms of needing to restore the balance between hot and cold forces in their body. Student A: Dont you believe this? Teacher: No, my mother never talked about sickness in this way. Student A: What do you believe? Teacher: I believe I get sick because germs invade my body and make me sick. I need to take medicine to kill the germs. Student B: After living in China, do you believe in yin and yang now? Teacher: No. Student B: Why not? Teacher: Its not my worldview. It seems strange to me. Student A: Not us. We deeply believe this.

 People deeply believe their own worldview. Other worldviews may seem very strange. Each of us accepts this worldview as true and as we grow it becomes part of our personal identity. Our worldview goes unquestioned unless a major crisis forces us to doubt its ideas, or unless we encounter others who hold differing worldviews, forcing us to rethink our own views. Worldview relates to our culture, it also relates to our behavior. It is sometimes called a world and life view because we live it out on a daily basis. Worldview guides how we make decisions. It tells us which behaviors are right and which are wrong. It gives wisdom regarding which life strategies are likely to produce success. Without a worldview we would have no answers to those important questions about how to live and how to behave. Finally, worldview also relates to philosophy. A class on Introduction to Worldviews is usually considered a philosophy course. But you dont have to be a philosopher in the formal sense to wrestle with worldview issues. Since everyone has a worldview, everyone has a philosophy of life. Worldview provides a cultures answers to the great questions of life: Who am I? What is my purpose? What will happen to me when I die? Philosophers develop lengthy answers to those questions, but every person, whether they trained in philosophy or not, thinks about those questions and has their own answers. Worldview guides all of us in choosing answers. This class will analyze each worldview by looking at its answers to ten basic questions1:

adapted from James Sires book The Universe Next Door

(1) What is real? What is the basic reality? The answer to the question of what is real probably seems obvious, but you may be surprised how other worldviews answer that question. (1) (2) A related question is what is the nature of the physical universe? Is the visible world where we live everyday all that exists or is it even real? Are there other realities besides the material world of nature and science? (2) (3) What are human beings? What is human nature? Are humans in some sense special, different from the rest of nature, higher than other beings, or are we just another kind of animal? Is human nature inherently good or inherently evil or does that depend on choices we each make? Is there a human soul that is somehow independent of our physical bodies? 3 (4) What is the basic human problem and the solution to that problem? Everyone recognizes that our world is not perfect and we all face serious problems in life. Where do those problems come from? Some cultures view the basic problem as a loss of balance or harmony. Some view life as an inherent conflict between good and bad forces. How we think about the source of life problems will determine what we believe about the best solution to those problems. 4 (5) What will happen after we die? Is there an afterlife? Do the dead go to another world like heaven or hell? Are the dead reborn as other people or animals? Or does death mean the complete end of a life? 5 (6) How do we know anything? What is truth? How do we learn it? 6 (7) What is morality? What is right or wrong? Why is something right or wrong? Is morality the same for everybody or is it relative to ones culture or personal beliefs? 7 (8) What is history? How did the world begin? How will it end? What is the meaning of the events that happen during life? Is there a plan or purpose for our lives? If so, how do we find that purpose?

8 Those are eight questions we will answer for each of the six worldviews we study. We will also ask an important question about what idea is the core of the worldview. In each worldview there is a seminal (or seed) idea from which the other beliefs logically flow. Most worldviews have one or two seed ideas that shape the rest of the worldview. The seed may be found in its view of basic reality or its view of human nature or its view of morality, or any other aspect of the worldview. If a worldview is the heart of culture, the seed idea is the heart of the worldview. For example, in the Chinese worldview yin/yang is a seed. In Indian worldview the idea of karma is a seed. In the Hebrew worldview the idea of a personal God and the idea of sin are paired seeds. In animism, the idea that everything has a soul is a seed. In modern naturalism, the idea of evolution has become such a seed. This seed may be located within different ones of the eight questions we listed above. Often the seed is found in the basic reality, but sometimes it is found in the view of knowledge or morality or human nature. Wherever it is found this seed is the single idea that produces the way of thinking about the world that typifies the worldview. So we will ask a ninth question about each worldview: (9) What is the seed idea? 9 We will also ask a tenth question (actually we will probably ask it first), what are ancient and modern examples of social movements that express this worldview? This class will tend to focus on the older forms of worldviews since they are often purer expressions. Our modern cosmopolitan world has seen a mixing of cultures. To best understand the worldviews we often need to see them in an older unmixed form. But we will also list modern expressions in which we still encounter these old worldviews. So our final question is (10) What are the social movements that express this worldview? 10 So there are ten questions we will use to analyze a worldview. Why would we want to study worldviews?

 Why Study Worldviews?

Around the world there are many varieties of worldviews. They differ from each other in amazing ways! Perhaps you have heard of the story of the six blind men who encountered an elephant. Each man happened to touch a different part of the elephant and concluded that the whole elephant must be like the part he touched. One blind man touched the elephants leg and concluded that an elephant is like a tree. A second touched the elephants tail and concluded that it is like a rope. A third man touched the elephants trunk and concluded the elephant is like a snake. A fourth man touched the elephants tusk and concluded that the elephant is like a spear. A fifth man touched the elephants body and concluded the elephant is like a wall. Finally one man touched the elephants ear and concluded it is like a fan. What does this story mean? It celebrates human diversity. People understand things differently perhaps because our experiences have differed. Rather than assuming I am right and everyone else is wrong, we might view all perspectives as partially right and partially wrong. We should learn from each other. Those are all good insights, but later we will look at one more important lesson from this story. First, we must answer the question as to why it is worthwhile to study worldviews. There are at least three reasons to do so: 1) to better understand the views of others. 2) to better understand our own view. 3) to better understand the elephant. Lets explore these three reasons. First, we study worldviews in order to better understand others. By understanding worldviews we can understand and appreciate the diversity of cultures. We can respect the views of others without having conflict over our differences. 1 2 3

 Understanding does not mean agreement. As you study other worldviews you will not agree with each one. That is okay. But if we disagree, our disagreement should be based on an accurate knowledge of what the other person believes. To disagree without first understanding the other is to misunderstand. It is prejudice. One of the major goals of cultural studies is empathy: understanding the views of another from their perspective. Even if we do not agree with a viewpoint we can imagine how that person thinks and feels. We can put ourselves in their shoes. When we do that we often find that there is more similarity between us than we may have realized. Empathy allows for building relationships and having meaningful discussions. Understanding someone elses worldview at this level is not easy, but it is necessary if humanity is going to learn to live in our global village without constant conflict. There is a second reason for studying worldviews, equally important: we better understand what we believe. Since most people are not aware of having a worldview they may not have studied it in any depth. They may assume their worldview is true and live according to its ideas without knowing what those ideas are. They will understand their view better by studying its concepts and beliefs. Even more important, by studying their own worldview they are forced to confront the hard questions which arise from every worldview. Every worldview has contradictory beliefs and experiences that dont seem to fit. Until people wrestle with those difficult questions they dont really understand their own view. My own belief is that someone cannot really understand their own worldview without understanding the differing views of others. It is only when someone understands the similarities and differences, the strengths and weaknesses of several worldviews, that they are able to understand the distinctives, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of their own view. Studying worldviews may not cause someone to change their own view, but hopefully it causes them to be better aware of what they believe and why they believe it.

 Socrates said, The unexamined life is not worth living. A class in worldviews will cause you to examine your life, perhaps making it a little more worth living! That leads us to the third reason for studying worldviews: to understand the elephant. I said earlier that there was one more important lesson we can learn from the story of the six blind men who encountered an elephant. While each man reached a different view as to what the elephant was like, none of their views was right. None of them really understood the elephant! There is a real elephant. We can learn about him. It is my belief that the best reason to study worldviews is to correct our faulty or partial views by seeking the truth. I believe there is some truth in every worldview, otherwise people would die of starvation or disease. I also believe that no worldview is perfect. Human thought is always partial and incomplete. There are always contradictions within human philosophies. But I do believe that learning and finding truth are possible. This is the best reason to study worldviews. As we study other views we may learn some new ideas worth considering. They may be truths that we would never have thought about within our own worldview. Some may even choose to change their view to a worldview that they believe is a more accurate description of the elephant. If we are open to seek truth, we just might be surprised to find it! I hope at the end of this class you understand the real elephant better than you do now!

Six Worldviews
In this class we will study six basic worldviews: (1) balanced dualism, (2) naturalism, (3) animism, (4) monism , (5)theism , and (6) humanism. Why these six? As we said earlier, there are thousands of worldviews. Different books on worldviews use different lists of worldviews which they consider most important. For example James Sires book The Universe Next Door has chapters on Theism, Deism, Naturalism, Existentialism, Monism, and Post-modernism. This list is shaped by the philosophies of western civilization. Another author ____ in her textbook on cross-cultural communication _____lists five worldviews which she considers most important in the modern world: Christianity, Islam, Marxism, secularism, Green (or environmentalism). Her list is influenced by worldviews that are influential in modern China.

(1) (2)(3)(4)(5)(6) ____ ____ The list I have chosen is based on a textbook I used when I taught a course in world history: The Heritage of World Civilizations (5th Edition)by Craig, Graham, Kagan, Ozment, and Turner. In their second chapter they identified four ancient civilizations that created innovative ideas that have influenced world cultures ever sense. They call these ideas revolutionary because they have changed the course of world history. I call these ideas seminal because they have spread from the lands where they originated to influence surrounding countries and cultures for thousands of years. These four revolutionary cultures and seminal ideas are (1) the ancient Chinese philosophy of social harmony and balance with nature, (2) the ancient Indian beliefs in karma, reincarnation, enlightenment and monism, (3) the ancient Hebrew belief in ethical monotheism: one God who made and cares for his creation, (4) the classical Greek philosophy of humanism: human reason as the source of truth. 1 2 3 4 I have included these four in our list of worldviews to study because of their influence on world cultures to the present day. You will notice that these worldviews are described as ancient or classical. To modern readers they may no longer sound innovative. We may recognize them in modern forms that have existed for centuries. But as the historians remind us, these ancient ideas have changed and are still changing the world. We will look at these four in their classical forms to better understand their innovative ideas.

To these four worldviews I have added two which are widespread in world cultures: Animism, the belief that the world is filled with many spiritual forces that can be controlled by magic; and Naturalism, the belief that there are no spiritual forces, that the material world is all that exists, and that it can be controlled using science. Each of these six basic worldviews has produced numerous social, philosophical or religious expressions which we will list as we study them. For example, we will look at Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Marxismall of which have been influential worldviews in Chinese history. But our focus will not be on the details of these particular philosophies or religions. We will focus on the underlying worldviews and the seed ideas that the philosophies and religions assume to be true. The next chapter will begin with the worldview of Balanced Dualism, the innovative view of ancient China. We will start with this view because it is one of the most ancient, and because the Chinese students in this class will be most familiar with it. It will enable us to learn to analyze a worldview by practicing on familiar ideas.