Ravage Thoughts

So…ok, is atheism a worldview?

According to Christian apologist Razi Zacharias, atheism is a worldview (See: Can Man Live Without God p. 17). Maybe Miss Fathoms based her accusation on Zacharias’ claims. But what is a worldview anyway? Personally speaking I think a worldview is how you see the world. It is the concoction of a person’s philosophy, ideas, ideology, knowledge, understanding and conviction in describing the universe. Others think that it’s how a person perceives reality. Whatever way a person describes it, generally speaking a worldview is how a person interprets his universe.

Sigmund Freud defines it as ... an intellectual construction which solves all the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypothesis, which, accordingly, leaves no question unanswered and in which everything that interests us finds its fixed place.

James W. Sire, defines world view as

... a set of presuppositions ... which we hold ... about the makeup of our world.

So to put it together, a worldview is the set of beliefs about fundamental aspects of reality that ground and influences a person's perceiving, thinking, knowing, and doing. Simple isn’t it?  

Worldview includes the following:

·        epistemology: beliefs about the nature and sources of knowledge;

·        metaphysics: beliefs about the ultimate nature of Reality;

·        cosmology: beliefs about the origins and nature of the universe, life, and especially Man;

·        teleology: beliefs about the meaning and purpose of the universe, its inanimate elements, and its inhabitants;

·        theology: beliefs about the existence and nature of God;

·        anthropology: beliefs about the nature and purpose of Man in general and, oneself in particular;

·        axiology: beliefs about the nature of value, what is good and bad, what is right and wrong.

(From Hunter Mead's Types and Problems of Philosophy)

We have already had an idea on what a worldview is; now we’re going to see if atheism fits the bill.

According to Christian philosopher Ronald Nash, a worldview consists of five major topics: God, reality, knowledge, morality and humankind. Now does atheist entails any belief about epistemology, ethics or humankind? No it doesn’t. The problem lies when a god-believer thinks that any worldview that has atheism in it is an "atheistic world view". When a believer think a certain philosophy or rationalization exclude his god he automatically place the whole thing in a can and place a large label outside it which spells  “ATHEISM”. That’s because most religious believers erred in believing that worldview and doctrine are synonymous, and they really consider atheism as Satan’s doctrine. A good example of this is the Theory of Evolution. Most believers consider evolution is atheistic because it is deemed to be a materialist’s version of how life was created without God (which is unfortunately incorrect since evolution is about the development of life, not the creation of life). Yet there are some believers who are quite comfortable with evolution (mostly the Roman Catholics).

Now let us elaborate the issues. In the issue of ethics - atheism does not logically necessitate any theory of ethics. In that department, any atheist can believe any theory of ethics he sure thinks is correct. As they always say, an atheist can even developed his personal moral code. He can be a nihilist, a relativist and objectivist or a mixture of all of those “ism” in the dictionary for all he care, as long as such theory doesn’t conform to any theological interpretation. Also atheists vary in the belief of morality. Some non-believers like Sam Harris and Paul Kurtz believe in absolute morals while there are atheists out there that believe on relative morality.

It is also the same with the sense of meaning (teleology). I personally believe that an individual creates his own meaning in life. That is my own belief…but it doesn’t reflect my atheism. Not every atheist that I know agrees to that, and they even say that my outlook in life is more of a Satanist than an atheist. For some, the meaning of life depends on how society perceives it, yet we are atheists.

Another good example is philosophy. Majority of Filipino atheists are Marxist. They are also into dialectic materialism. But there are also atheists who are into Utilitarianism. We also have existentialists (they say majority of those into existentialism are members of UPAC – U.P. Atheist Circle) atheists and into Wittgenstein’s “Ordinary Language Philosophy”. Shucks! I have even meet a non-believer who is totally into some kind of irrational version of rationalism. Speaking of metaphysics, atheists also seem to be diverse in this concern. There are materialist atheists, a spiritual atheist, an ethical atheist, a rationalist atheist, and an objectivist atheist and so on. There are even some who declared themselves as Christian atheists! (Hmmmm…sounds like an oxy-moron? Whatever…) Personally, I am a little Hegelian when it comes to the Theory of Knowledge. But atheism has nothing to do with my epistemology. I just like how Hegel dismantles Kant’s “ding-an-sich”. When it comes to the philosophical explanation of morality, I believe it came from reason just like Immanuel Kant.

In the issue of truth, some atheists are defending the correspondence theory of truth while others are still into John Dewey’s pragmatism. Hmmmm are there agnostic atheists?

In the concept of cosmology…wow! Here a lot of atheists seem to ride on different boats! Majority believes in a scientific explanation…or should I say a more natural explanation of origins. Yet you will be surprised that there are non-believers who believe in Zacharias Sitchin’s “12 planets”. You know…that theory that say we were created by intelligent alien life forms from Planet Nebiru! Oh yeah! There are also those who believe that the universe is just a part of other universes – or should I say, multiverse.

And who say all atheists are the same in matters of theology. We say that Buddhists are atheist in some sense…just because they don’t believe in an anthropomorphic, personal god. But how about when it comes to other god-concepts? Some Filipino atheists declare themselves as pantheist or deists. Some even say they are atheists because they don’t believe in the Bible. Speaking of god and religion, atheists also differ to the issue of religion and science vs. religion. To some atheists, we must destroy religion, yet there are atheists who are passive in the subject. Some atheists believe religion and science must not mix together yet other believes in NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magistrate).

Now how can I picture this? Hmmmmmm….ok, I can exemplify worldview and atheism to a fruit salad (Yummy…since we are nearing Christmas season). Anyway, let say a banana is a part…an ingredient of a delicious fruit salad, yet a banana is not a fruit salad. That’s the same with atheism. Atheism is about not believing in a god or gods – right? It may be an influence to some of the subject that complete a worldview, but that doesn’t make a whole worldview. It may be a part of an explanation of why an atheist is an objectivist, a rationalist or a relativist. But that doesn’t make atheism a complete justification why he considers that the world operates that way. A worldview must contain the whole element to make it coherent and livable.

Until next time,

John the Atheist