9 - Worldview
9 - Worldview
9 - Worldview
What is a worldview?
There are perhaps as many definitions of worldview as for the words “communication”
and “culture”. Cooke and Klopf highlight some of the basic assumptions about
worldview when they write:
• Worldview is a culture’s orientation toward God, humanity, nature, existence,
the universe and cosmos, life, morals and ethics, suffering, death, and other
philosophical issues that influence how its members perceive the world.
Religion as a worldview
As a worldview, religion is an important part of life for billions of people. At the core
of this worldview is a belief in the existence of a reality greater than humans. In
most religions there is a universal spirit, God or deity that is sacred and looked
to for guidance and salvation. This divinity has established a set of eternal moral
decrees. The motivation for following religious worldviews is that human conuct
has long-term significance – beyond individual death.
Secularism as a worldview
There are many definitions for the term secularism, as well as many words that are
used to describe this worldview (atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, deism).
Regardless of the name it goes by, the most fundamental belief of this
worldview is that there is an explanation of life that can exist without God or
organized religion.
Secularists begin with a premise that religion, and the various deities and gods, are
products of humankind’s own yearnings and fears. Therefore, the stories of
visions and miracles associated with those gods can not be believed. Because
of this attitude, secularists hold that science provides the only reliable source of
knowledge about this worlds and the universe. This position is accompanied
with firm belief in evolution.
Like all other worldviews, secularism provides a set of ethical standards. Many of
these standards are universal and can be found in religious traditions. If there
are differences, it is because their values are simply grounded in earthly
concerns rather than in anticipation of heavenly rewards or fear of infernal
punishment.
For secularists, death is the end of life and there is no other life after this one. At
death, individual ceases to exist in any cohesive or conscious form. They
believe that death is not a spiritual matter, but rather an undeniable truth about
our existence. At death, our being and consciousness is totally dissolved.
Spirituality as a worldview
Recently this concept has gained a large following, and this recognition produced
two different approaches to spirituality. It is generally regarded as a system that
stresses the idea that a person does not need a formal religion to live a life of
faith. A more formalized view of spirituality is a concern with the sacred, as
distinguished from material matters. In contrast to religion, spirituality is often
individual rather than collective, and does not require a distinctive format or
traditional organization. It is based on the notion of a “religion” wherein each
person can turn to themselves to discover “inner peace”.
Whereas religion is typically experienced within a social institution with commonly
shared traditions, sacred texts, beliefs, and worship practices, and has a
governing structure with designated leaders, spirituality, on the other hand, is
part of each person that searches for purpose, meaning, worth, and wonder,
often in quest of an ultimate value of the holy.
From this brief description of modern spirituality, you can observe that it is a
personal search for finding the answer’s to life essential questions. Note that
spirituality has the same goals found in organized religions – inner peace, link
with nature, search for meaning in life, among others. The major difference is
that spirituality uses some non-typical methods of achieving those goals, and
places emphasis on the individual part of the “discovery process.”
RELIGION AND CULTURE
Why are we studying worldviews in a course dealing with intercultural commu-
nication? And why are we again putting emphasis on religion? The reasons could
be at least two. First, religion, perception and behavior are inextricably
connected. Second, never in the history of civilization has the behavioral
dimension of religion been so widespread, relevant, and volatile. For the vast
majority of people worldwide, their religious tradition anchors them in the world
no less than family, tribe or nation. Religion provides structure, discipline, and
social participation in a community. The importance of religion’s collective force
is reflected in the word itself – it comes from the Latin verb religare, which means
“to tie”. Thus, religion ties people to what is sacred.
It should not be surprising that all the world religions are characterized with similar
elements, since they all have the same major goal – to make life more
meaningful and death more comprehensible. Let us now look at some of these
common elements.
Speculation
Most people, from the moment of their birth to the time of their death, face many of
the same challenges concerning the uncertainties of life. Religion is
psychologically comforting because it helps us explain the unexplainable. Every
society must deal with questions that have no definitive logical answers: When
did life begin? Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people?
What happens to us when we die? In this capacity, religion provides a blueprint
for those aspects of life that people do not understand, and this lessens feelings
of bewilderment. In the course of answering these questions, religions provide
their members a sanctuary. Religious beliefs offer the comforting sense that the
vulnerable human condition serves a great purpose. Strengthened by these
beliefs, people are less likely to collapse in despair when confronted by life’s
calamities.
THE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION - Continued
Sacred Writings
At the heart of each religion lies a body of sacred wisdom that must be transmitted
from generation to generation. These sacred writings become a repository for a
religion’s essential principles and teachings. Each religion believes its sacred
writings have divine or spirit-inspired origin – they were either written or spoken
by God, or divinely guided humans, or by teachers of deep spiritual insight –
prophets, seers, sages, etc. These scriptures take a variety of forms, such as:
• Scriptures, such as those of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which often
employ historical narratives associated with individuals - authority figures who
provide guidance and instruction.
• Messages of faith contained in the books of each religion – for example, the Old
Testament for the Hebrew, the New Testament for Christians, and the Koran for
Muslims.
• Scriptural books that have philosophy about the nature of reality (for example,
the Hindu Upanishadas) or moral philosophy (as in Confucian Analects).
• Oral tradition - as in the case of Buddhism, the Pali Canon, containing Buddha’s
teachings, is based on oral tradition. Some scriptures can also take the form of
myths, legends, prophecy, and the like – as in many traditional religions.
THE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION - Continued
Religious Rituals
Rituals are practiced by all religions. These are prescribed actions whose main
purpose is to establish and maintain contact with the divine power. By engaging
in rituals, the followers not only recall and reaffirm important beliefs; they also
feel spiritually connected to their religion, develop a sense of identity by
increasing social bonds with those who share their views, and sense their life has
meaning and structure. Ritual serves to relieve social tensions and reinforce a
group’s collective bonds. It provides a means of marking many important events
and lessening a social disruption and individual suffering of crises such as death.
Rituals, like other aspects of culture, are learned, so in order to endure they must
be passed from one generation to the next.
There are many rituals dealing with the sacred that bring families and religious
communities together; at the same time they are teaching important lessons. For
example, there are rituals dealing with space (Muslims turning toward Mecca) or
calling attention to important events (Christian Easter, Hebrew Passover).
There are direct and indirect rituals (for example, tea ceremony in Japan reinforces
humility and restraint important in Buddhism), as well as collective and personal.
Before we draw our discussion of religion to concluding remarks, let us keep a few points
in mind. First, religion is but one kind of worldview, and others are trying to answer
the same cosmic questions. Second, religion pervades many spheres of human life
and cannot be easily separated from them. What one person may call “religion” or
“spirituality”, others may call “philosophy”. Our own worldview is frequently comprised
of multiple elements, taken from various ways of viewing the world.
RELIGION AND WORLDVIEW - A final thought
In this chapter we demonstrated that people turn to their gods to help them deal
with the cosmic questions of how to live life and cope with death. Our approach
was similar to Friedman’s when he wrote, “God speaks multiple languages.”
One problem, of course, is that in this century many people still do not welcome
a bilingual or multicultural God. This disagreement we are now experiencing in
collisions of religious and spiritual beliefs, and Dalai Lama appeals for everyone
to meet “individual responsibility” and find harmony among all the world’s
religions. The question we face is clear – can the world’s religions and multiple
worldviews find the harmony Dalai Lama seeks? Friedman poses the question
slightly differently: “Can Islam, Christianity and Judaism know that God speaks
Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays, and Latin on Sundays, and that He
welcomes different human beings approaching Him through their own history,
out of their language and cultural heritage?”