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View of the Worlds
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 by admiralAs a stand up philosopher, I have something of an odd reading list. For instance, I just finished with “The Universe Next Door.” You will recognize that as an exploration of worldviews. Maybe you will get to it after you finish with the latest ‘Dick and Jane’ novel. Somebody really should write a series of Dick and Jane novels.
I noticed one problem with the book that I read, which is to say that I have not yet read the novels that I implied should be written by somebody else. James Sire seems to imply that the movement between major worldviews has been motivated by intelligence. That is something that I disagree with. In fact, I am so apt to disagree with the people whose works I read that I get tirades out of my reading list. All kidding aside, how many people do you know who can give an intellectual defense of their own worldview?
Most people live in very small worlds. They do not understand the technology, theology or the intellectual current that drives the world in which they live. If you could devote yourself to gaining a complete understanding of these things, then you would not have time to do anything else in your life. Worldview is something that we assimilate from the world around us. Maybe I should write that worldview assimilates us.
We receive a theological education, an education in the foundations of the worldview that governs our age, seven days a week. Everything that we do and see is driven by subtle assertions of the prevailing worldview of the people who run our portals to the world around us. This is not to say that there is some massive conspiracy afoot. True believers tell us what they see and what they see is what their minds make of what their eyes tell them about. Everybody is religious.
Every event in our shared reality is a simple collection of cold facts. What we make of events, the why, how and who, is colored by what we see as the way of the world. Most people react to the world based upon assumptions that they never question. Worldviews tend to be emotional even when motivations are not. That is my problem with “The Universe Next Door.”
