The Isms World Views

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The Isms--World Views
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• Secular or Theistic
• Pessimistic or Optimistic

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Pessimistic

• Secular Naturalism
• 1800s (same time as Enlightenment)
• Universe is an observed fact
• Man is a victim no free will
• Man is just part of a chain of evolution a peg
  in the ladder
• Unhappy lives that end in death nothing more
• Man is driven by sub-conscious, biological drives
  (Darwinism), and impersonal economic and
  environmental pressures (Marxism)
• Very cynical

• Theistic Puritanism
• God is OMNIPOTENT, universe created by Him
• We are all Gods creatures, but the world, which
  was created by God, is a source of temptation---
  Why would God want to tempt us?
• No free will
• Predestination- Before birth, God has already
  decided if a man will be saved or not
• All men are innately evil.

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Pessimistic

• Naturalism
• Why would mans actions be irrelevant?

• Puritanism
• Why would obedience be important?

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Optimistic

• Secular but Spiritual- Enlightenment
• Belief that human reason could be used to combat
  ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and build a
  better world
• Three Ideas prior to Enlightenment
• 1. Religious persecution
• 2. Cultural relativism Many thought, Who are
  Europeans to insist that cannibals in Brazil are
  morally inferior to themselves- people who
  persecute, oppress, and destroy those of whom
  they disapprove?
• Logic Avenue to truth

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Optimism- Enlightenment

• 3. Political and Economic Background evolving
• -contact with alien cultural patterns
• -merchant class develops
• -individualism, freedom, and change replaced
  community, authority, and tradition
• Educated and sophisticated persons could be
  brought to see through the exercises of their
  reason that the world could and should be greatly
  improved
• God initially benevolent, but detached thus need
  to cultivate reason and do good works

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Optimism

• The Birth of Rationalism (Came out of
  Enlightenment)
• Through the intellect, we achieve progress in
  this world ONLY improve mans condition through
  intellect
• ONLY way to improve is through development of
  reason
• Man progresses has he evolves
• Inevitable for us to progress and is mans duty
  to realize his full capabilities
• Humanism Belief that man can and should devote
  his efforts to improving his lot in this world
• Ordered, harmonious universe

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Theistic Optimistic Romanticism

• Man is essentially good
• Perspective focused on nature and common
  people- celebrating a simpler life
• Attached to nature, NOT to be analyzed
  scientifically
• Emotion praised over logic
• Intuition praised over science

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Romanticism

• God is everywhere
• Noble Savage Rousseau
• Belief that man in a primitive (natural) state is
  innately good. It is society and its
  institutions that corrupt him
• Lone Ranger
• Tarzan
• Thoreau (Walden)

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Romanticism

• Pre-Existence
• Belief that man, before birth, exists with God.
  At birth, he leaves God behind and moves closer
  to evil through the interactions of life
• Society clouds knowledge and becomes corrupt
• Transcendentalism
• Belief that man has the ability through
  meditation and intuition to transcend his worldly
  barriers to a knowledge of the spiritual and ideal

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God