Making Sense of Your World - Essay Example

Pantea Hodaji English 205 March 28, Worldview Introduction Worldview is the general perspective to what an individual or group of persons view and perceive in life, and factors that shape the lives of individuals in the world. In our daily life, the environment around us shapes us. Other forces in the world shape our behavior and patterns. A perceived notion is usually entrenched to one’s mind depending on how he or she is affected by the patterns of the world or what he or she strongly believes to be affecting and guiding individual’s life in the world. To my personal believe, Christian worldview is the most suitable in trying to explain every context of life beginning from where we came from to why we are here and the future as to where we are headed to which is the eternal life. It revolves around beliefs, faith, and the words of the bible. Discussions The main question from the worldview to each individual is how do you view or see the world? In understanding worldview, therefore, there are beliefs and patterns taken by various people so as to try and explain these challenging phenomena. Some of them include the religion worldview, with the majority being the Christian worldview, scientific worldview, political worldview, culture and many different sub categories in which one may decide to view the world, including relationships and business. In summary, worldview can be seen as conception of the world that is comprehensive from a particular standpoint (Holmes 5). My personal world view is the Christian worldview. My personal beliefs and experiences have made me to decide that the Christian worldview explains and makes me understand challenging phenomena in the world. In supporting the Christian worldview, there are various terms that have to be understood. The changing patterns and ways of life and the world at large are considered worldview according to personal assertion and observation. Christian worldview tries to explain this changing pattern hence making it is easy for me to understand and explain various things in my environment. It is important to understand the terms like reality, ignorance and informed view when trying to explain the Christian Worldview perspective. Reality of the world is usually expressed by the patterns affecting one’s daily life, people therefore, develop beliefs and faith. Ignorance is taken to be the lack of knowledge or idea about something, but has always been not accepted as an excuse for not understanding and judging what is right or wrong. Many people are ignorant since they do not have informed view of what life is all about. People of this caliber live without goals, ambitions, visions, and dreams. An informed view can easily be acquired by gaining knowledge through relevant institutions such as schools. Such view is further boasted by acquiring experience through the day-to-day life. Whereas some of the worldview according to some people might have been acquired through learning, some can also achieve this knowledge through inheritance. The Christian worldview is composed of a culture passed down from one generation to another. The Christian worldview is based on what can be perceived to be normal, moral and logic. In reality, whatever one believes in is always true according to the context and the environment, but this is not always true in every places or instances (Walsh & Middleton 32). I find the Christian worldview to be true to the environment and the context of humanity. Personality towards worldview involves the ability to sense, think, know, and act to a specific reaction. The Christian worldview perspective is a powerful tool in viewing humane personality as the major component or the main aspect of life. Christianity as a worldview considers sensing and feelings of human beings and the environment. In sensing, individuals are able to hear, see, feel, and taste the stimuli from the world and oneself. When people act, they are orienting sensory organs and responding to the external stimuli, that is the world, they thus are able to move parts of the body manipulate things, speak write and many processes that are more active. Thoughts are the vital elements of a person’s view; some consider it the “secret” while others see it to be the “power.” With right thoughts, people choose to control and accept what they believe in or what they think of general life. With clear thoughts, persons are able to distinguish what is good and what is bad in the worldview. Minds of people are at the center of all thoughts, they get information overload, fragments of knowledge, erode values, developments which are negative that are normally overemphasized and the positive developments which are usually ignored. Much validity is lost about our worldview that is gathered from wisdom that is obtained from the past knowledge; future also remains to be unclear since people do not have a vision that is clear. People thus depend on probabilities. Nothing much therefore seems available to guide the actions people take since they appear to hung in the midst of confusion. A framework is therefore necessary that should be able to tie things together, the framework should allow people to understand the world, the society, and the place occupied by people in the society and the world in general. The Christian perspective of the world incorporates sense, the mind, hence providing humanity with a directional life. According to Philips & Brown a worldview like Christianity increases cognitive thinking (29). The Christian worldview is a conception that is comprehensive from the point of view of Christians and what they strongly believe in. a person with a good or proper worldview involves seeing a big picture that harmonizes every belief concerning the world. Sitting at the table, an apple can be seen by many people. When a botanist sees the apple, he, or she can classify it accordingly, when an artist comes along, he sees it as a life that is still and eventually draws it; a grocer on the other hand sees it for inventory as an asset whereas a child will see it as a fruit and eats it. Everybody has a perspective and view towards the world, but everything revolves around three questions: where did we originate from and for what purpose are we here? What is the wrong thing about the world? Moreover, how can we fix the wrong things about the world? The most important thing to remember is that worldview is comprehensive. Every area of our life is affected by the worldview, from morality to money, art to politics. As a thought of the bible, Christianity itself is a worldview (Sire 17). Through Christianity, I have been able to believe in a righteous and more moral life. Aspects that Christianity has imparted in me include the importance of working hard. For example, Christianity insists that only those who work and use their toil, should eat. The Christian worldview also encourages reward for those who work hardest. A good example is the parable of talents where those who worked hard were rewarded with more and those who worked least, their talents were taken away. This has always encouraged me to work hard. As highlighted, some of the major influences of the worldview include politics, religion, and culture. Christianity itself has been influenced greatly by these concepts. Some adaptations of the Christian worldview come directly from politics, culture and spiritualism. From culture, it is understood that some of the daily actions have been passed down the lineage. They are thus important shapes to the life of those who believe in it. Certain practices are therefore accepted towards a particular group of people, which may include that men when they come of age should marry women and not from the same relation. Education comes in handy to explain the informed view of the culture and worldview. It therefore acts as an important tool in enabling people to understand the diversity of different societies and majorly to understand how to co-exist between one another. Education is therefore a stem of informed belief since what people learn they tend to believe it to be true. People with various religious belief view life as a gift from a supernatural being and that everything that happens in one’s life is purely by the grace and faith of the supernatural being. Religion tries to explain why people live they way they are and how they came to be on this world. In addition it gives a promise belief towards the future where faithful are promised another life that is much better than the current one. For those who believe in the modern world and with their view of the past world will always see the world in terms of politics. This can also be seen from the past during the times of the Roman Empire when democracy was the order of the day believed to be the root of civilization. Through politics and democracy, people choose what they wish and want, where of course the majorities usually have their way. Within politics, comes wars and business just trying to make the shift and balances. Our lives, governance is believed to be vested in politics according to the political view of the world (Holmes 8). Education and Culture are some of the most important teachings of Christian worldview. Christian education and culture has helped me to grow morally. The Christian culture encourages one to respect others even if they are from different religions or worldviews. This has made it easy for me to stay in accordance to the teachings in the Christian culture. Through Christian education, I have become more knowledgeable in matters concerning the history of the world. Education has cultured me in modern and acceptable norms that the rest of society approves. Worldviews should be able to provide a right prescription in trying to make sense about the world. Incorrect prescriptions are always dangerous worst of it even they can be life threatening, a correct worldview should therefore always be made. A worldview should therefore be rational, it should not suggest on believing things that are contradicting. A worldview that is correct should and must be supported by clear evidence. In observing a worldview, it should be consistent. A satisfactory comprehensive reality explanation should be achieved from a correct worldview. Things are always the way they are; a worldview should therefore explain this concept. Satisfactory basis of living should be given by a worldview. People should not be compelled to seek parts of other view of the world in order to live in this world. All world views have different but common components, which include, belief that something exists, absolutes is common in all people, contradictory statements can never be both right, one has to supersede the other and that every person has faith. Some of the common worldviews include Christian theism, Nihilism, Eastern pantheism, new age, naturalism, and deism (Sire 17). A creative and critical thinker should therefore be able to use, knowledge, wisdom and patterns to explain worldview. One should therefore be able to think sense and act using the knowledge of the worldview. One should read perceptions and should come up with comprehensive conclusions. This can only be achieved through clear thoughts and reasoning. A good thinker therefore has elements of a person’s worldview with beliefs about certain aspects of reality, which include metaphysics, teleology, theology, axiology, cosmology, epistemology, and anthropology. Everyone therefore has a worldview, even if one may not realize it; people have particular biases and presumptions that influence the way we view reality and life. A worldview is like lenses set that taint the vision and alter the way we view the world around us (Walsh & Middleton 44). Works Cited Sire, James W. “The Universe Next Door.” Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 1988, 17. Phillips, W. Gary & Brown, William E. “Making Sense of Your World” Chicago: Moody Press, 1991, 29. Walsh Brian J. & Middleton, J. Richard. “The Transforming Vision.” Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1984, 32. Holmes, Arthur F. “Contours of a World View” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983, 5. Read More