In an earlier post, I explained the different forms of skepticism.  Doubt-skepticism involves withholding judgment, whereas constraint-skepticism involves putting constraints on our ability to know things.  Constraint-skeptical arguments can often be self-defeating, and doubt-skepticism can’t be universally applied, but there is still plenty of room for doubt to be applied very broadly.  We can even doubt that we could know much of anything such that we would be unsure of almost everything in life.  However, such a mindset would not be very reasonable because there is an abundance of evidence that we come to know quite a bit about reality, and this is made possible by our cognitive capabilities.

There is a very basic and important question of where our ideas, beliefs, and knowledge ultimately come from.  The most intuitive answer is that it comes from experience, but does this apply to everything that we might think, believe, and know?  Or perhaps does some of this come from the innate nature of our minds?  Seventeenth Century philosopher John Locke said that the mind is, by nature, a blank slate that can be molded according to whatever stimuli comes into it.  Immanuel Kant refuted Locke’s theory by providing arguments that humans have an innate understanding of certain fundamental concepts, such as time, space, and causation.  More recently, Locke’s “blank slate” theory was thoroughly debunked by Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate, where he presents evidence showing that the human mind actually has many specific instinctual qualities.  According to Pinker, the list of innate qualities of the human mind includes a basic understanding of logic, space, time, and causation, among other things.  Pinker’s list of innate human knowledge is similar to Kant’s, but there are significant differences.  Pinker’s conclusions are based on the findings of modern science, and thus it is far more reasonable to accept his list rather than Kant’s.

All knowledge that is innate to the mind must be known prior to experience, also known as a priori.  Humans seem to exhibit an innate capacity for reasoning, and the product of the mind’s reasoning operation is another form of a priori knowledge.  Reasoning allows people to interpret sensory and emotional data, to understand what is logically implied by existing ideas in the mind, and to come up with entirely new ideas.  This is an innate capacity, but the knowledge derived from reasoning is not innate.

Knowledge of abstract concepts such as mathematics or complex logic are possible through one’s reasoning capacity and these are considered to be a priori because they are not dependent on experience.  It might seem, though, like all knowledge that is not innate is dependent on some form of experience.  While people do have the innate capacity to learn math because it is fundamentally based on simple logic, it is certainly the case that one must learn even basic mathematical concepts such as addition, and this learning depends on experience.

If a priori knowledge is restricted to only knowledge that in no way depends on experience, then it would have to be limited to knowledge that is innate to the mind.  But knowledge is a priori if it is not dependent on sensory or emotional experience, and so this includes both that which is innate to the mind and that which is logically entailed from innate knowledge, including mathematical concepts and conclusions.  While people do need certain kinds of experiences in order to bring out the full potential of their minds, this does not mean that knowledge of complex logical concepts such as mathematics actually depend on specific experiences.  When one knows how the mathematical function of addition works, for example, this knowledge is implied by the rules of basic logic that are innate to the brain.  This knowledge is associated with adding quantities and not with the events early in life in school where these skills were learned in the first place.

We can refer to the knowledge that is logically derived from existing knowledge, and derived independently of any specific experiences, as analytic.  For example, knowledge that 2 + 2 = 4 is said to be analytic because it is logically implied by the premise that we are adding 2 and 2 together, and someone using their reasoning capacity could figure this out.  Another common example of analytic knowledge is in the statement “all bachelors are unmarried” because the definition of “bachelor” implies someone who is unmarried.  This contrasts with a synthetic statement like “all bachelors are young” because “bachelor” does not have any age implications.

Empirical knowledge, also known as a posteriori, differs from a priori in that it is dependent on experience, perhaps with the assistance of logical conclusions that can be entailed from certain experiences.  When one sees an event occur, such as an apple falling, knowledge of this event is dependent on this experience and is thus empirical.  Any information that one has about the world in some way is empirical, and this includes anything that is measurable or quantifiable and also anything that has unique qualities.  In addition, if our observations lead us to discern patterns and categories of things in the world, then this is also empirical knowledge.  When a person sees several horses and several dogs, perhaps of different sizes and shapes, they can understand the basic concept of a horse and of a dog.  Since this would be the product of the discernment of patterns from experience, this understanding could be considered empirical knowledge.

We could also recognize understanding of the correlation of causes and effects and the laws of nature to be empirical.  Isaac Newton famously came to understand the nature of gravity by observing falling things such as applies falling from trees.  If one sees enough apples and other objects fall to the ground and concludes that these events happen because of the law of gravity, then this knowledge is also empirical, since this conclusion could not have been made without experiences of this type.  This type of inference relies on inductive reasoning, which will be analyzed in a future post.

There are several types of experiential functions through which one could gain new information, including the senses and emotions.  The traditional list of senses includes sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, though some scientists have argued that one or more of the following should be added to this list: pain, balance, acceleration, temperature, and proprioception (the relative position of one’s body parts), among others.  Through the senses one may come across information in the form of signs, symbols and language.  This often takes the form of claims made by others, perhaps from what is written in the text of a book or what someone else says.   If claims can be evaluated as true, then they can potentially lead to the development of more knowledge than anyone could directly experience.  Empirical knowledge can be formed from any of these phenomena because they can all be caused by actual states of affairs and events in the world that can then result in one having true beliefs about such states and events.

For example, let’s say Sally gets her wallet stolen by a thief and then recounts vivid details of the incident to the police.  They can then listen to her story and read her facial expressions and observe her frantic tone of voice and other subtle cues.  This information that she gives, along with the contextual clues that they observe, lead them to judge her story to be highly credible.  Since they believe her story on the basis of evaluating information and contextual evidence and since it happens to be true, they have gained knowledge of the incident and they have done so despite not personally observing it.  Much of our knowledge is developed this way, and this will be analyzed in more detail in future posts.

We can consider the most reasonable way of categorizing types of knowledge.  We can consider the categorizations a priori, analytic, innate, and empirical, but others have been proposed as well.  Kant, and many philosophers since him, identified a category of knowledge called synthetic, which includes anything that isn’t analytic.  This would essentially mean that synthetic knowledge would be a combination of innate and empirical knowledge, but this is an unnecessary conflation so we can recognize that this notion of synthetic knowledge is not very useful.  Also, the term a priori can be seen as an unnecessary conflation of the distinct notions of innate and analytic knowledge, and thus this isn’t very useful term either.  The only time that it is still useful to categorize something as a priori is if it is known to not be empirical but where it is not known whether it is innate or analytic.  In past generations, it was extremely difficult to make reasoned and well-educated guesses regarding the innate capacities of the mind.  With modern science, we have better ways that usually allow us to sort out innate concepts from analytic conclusions, so we won’t often use the notion of a priori going forward in this book.

We can split the concept of a priori into innate and analytic and we shall prefer the term empirical over a posteriori.  As such, our taxonomy of knowledge can then be reduced to three distinct notions: innate, analytic, and empirical.  Each of these is made possible through different cognitive functions.

What theory of knowledge makes the most sense to you? Let your voice be heard in the forum.

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In a previous post, we saw how there are many different ways of categorizing worldviews. In a more recent post, we saw how people with different worldviews often clash with each other, which sometimes manifests as simmering resentment and sometimes boils over into open conflict. In many instances, these clashes are motivated by superficial tribalism, wherein people of one group reflexively see those of another group as foreign and threatening. In such scenarios, the mere fact that someone belongs to a certain group is enough to cause conflicts, before they even have a chance to consider any issues of agreement or disagreement between the two.

We see this play out when Christians and Muslims fight with each other and also when different factions of either of these fight with each other (Catholic and Protestant Christians and Sunni and Shiite Muslims). When such people fight with each other, either violently or merely with words, they rarely get into the finer points of theology that ostensibly lies at the crux of the disagreement. But the knee-jerk us-vs-them mentality that often drives such conflict doesn’t account for all of the hostility, especially among the community leaders of the respective sides. If we inspect these clashes more closely, we can see that they are also often driven by more substantive matters of belief, wherein one side deeply believes in some core value or reason for existence and the other side believes something quite different.

We can now take stock of the main points of disagreement among people with divergent worldviews.  A previous post noted some major areas of disagreement that cause communication breakdowns and conflicts among different groups of people, including religion vs. secularism, reason vs. faith, spirituality vs. materialism, etc. We can call these dichotomies and if we consider these from the standpoint of someone who is trying to figure out what to believe and not to believe, we can also call these dilemmas.

These dilemmas have impacts in the real world because groups of people are often deeply divided on one or more of these foundational this-or-that questions of life. In our effort to find the main hinge points of disagreement and acrimony in the world, we need to parse out these dilemmas. After that, we might be able to evaluate which of them seem to be more powerful and more consequential than the rest and we might be able to narrow it down to core issues that lie at the crux of the divisions in our global society.

Some of the dilemmas that differentiate worldviews have huge consequences depending on which side people gravitate toward. Our goal is to identify the most significant and most consequential dilemmas, and so we first need to compile an organized list of these so that we might be able to evaluate each of them:

• Religion/spirituality vs. secularism: This comes down to whether a worldview involves an organized approach to worship, faith, and spirituality or whether there are no religious or spiritual aspects of the worldview. We can note that there is a lot of conceptual overlap between the words “religion” and “spirituality”, although some people describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” and thus they don’t rely on religious faith and instead engage in spirituality in their own way. In either case, the dichotomy hinges on whether there is belief in something spiritual and timeless in the universe or whether it is assumed that everything in existence is temporal and belongs to an age.
• Reason vs. dogmatism: All worldviews would have to have some sort of epistemological framework through which one can determine what to believe and not to believe. For some, this is based on reason, which means that valid beliefs are determined by the weight of the evidence and by logic. For others, the valid beliefs are determined by preconceived notions, authoritative texts, and tradition and cannot be subject to scrutiny by any evidence or any line of line of reasoning that might run counter to these assumed, unquestionable beliefs.
• Science vs. faith: This is closely related to reason vs. dogmatism. There are different definitions of “science”, and this word can sometimes have more broad or more narrow connotations depending on the context. Later we will offer a more detailed definition, but for now we can define science as a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. We can define “faith” as unquestioned belief in something despite the lack of evidence or even in the face of counterevidence. And so we can see that science is dependent upon reason and faith is dependent upon dogmatism.
• Certainty vs. skepticism: Sometimes we think we are certain of things and sometimes we admit that we don’t know. Sometimes we believe we would attain certainty if certain circumstances are met (perhaps a logical proof or the presence of overwhelming evidence) and sometimes we accept that we would never have any way of genuinely knowing something (perhaps because certain things in this world are just unknowable). This dilemma is more of a spectrum rather than an either/or scenario, and there are at least two aspects of it: the extent to which one does know something and the theoretical circumstances in which one could come to know something. The former dilemma is dependent on the specific circumstances of people, times, and places, whereas the latter is more generalizable regardless of such specifics. As far as worldviews are concerned, it is the generalizable dilemma that is more significant. And thus it is important to consider, for any given worldview, the theoretical circumstances in which knowledge could be gained.
• Materialism/physicalism vs. immaterial and nonphysical belief: Materialism is the belief that everything that exists is material substance. Physicalism is almost the same thing since it is the belief that only material substance and natural physical processes exist. Many worldviews involve the belief that something besides the material/physical world exists. If the existence of the material/physical universe is assumed and something entirely distinct from it is assumed to also exist, then this belief would be some form of dualism and if the only thing that exists is assumed to be immaterial and nonphysical then this would be a form of idealism. There are many ways to parse out the metaphysical possibilities, as given in the diverse worldviews that are out there, but the most significant dilemma here is whether or not something besides the material/physical world exists. Whether or not there is something in existence that is ontologically distinct from that which is material and/or physical is indeed an important point of disagreement among the various worldviews that have wide popular support.
• Realism vs. idealism: There are worldviews where the material/physical universe is assumed to ultimately be a figment of the imagination. This dilemma is closely related to the dilemma that hinges upon whether something immaterial or nonphysical exists, but there is a distinction in that variations of dualism would have it that both realities exist. This dilemma only hinges upon whether the material/physical universe is a mind-independent truth.
• Natural vs. supernatural: Although it is often the case that the word “natural” is understood to be approximately synonymous with “physical”, there are contexts where these are two distinct concepts. Natural processes are those that are governed by laws of nature and where all outcomes are determined by such laws. We can see how this natural vs. supernatural dilemma is similar to the material/immaterial and physical/nonphysical dilemma, but it does seem a bit different when we consider that some worldviews have been conceived that involve nonphysical processes that nonetheless are understood to be governed by certain natural laws, and thus these would probably be natural (if they exist). The word “supernatural” does have mystical connotations, but it is not conceptually impossible for something supernatural to exist. We can say it’s unlikely and we can say there is no evidence for anything of the sort, but for now we’re just trying to understand the most significant points of disagreement of the various worldviews. And so this dilemma hinges on whether all processes are determined by some sort of natural laws or whether anything ever happens that isn’t strictly governed by natural laws.
• Infinite vs. finite: This can apply to several possible notions such as the expansiveness of space (whether or not it is infinitely large), the number of points along a line (whether or not there are infinite points along the line), the origin of time (whether or not time itself literally started at some point in the past), and the eternity of time (whether time is eternal or whether it will instead simply end at some point in the future).
• Objective vs. subjective: Some people often think of “objective” as simply denoting mind-independent reality, but herein this is supposed to refer to a fully unbiased understanding of things as they actually are and treatment of things in a way that is mind-independent. “Subjective” is defined as experience from one’s own point of view. All experience originates as a point of view, and so all objective knowledge would have to begin as subjective. As such, the distinction between these two concepts is tricky and nuanced.
• Free will vs. determinism: If all of our actions are determined by natural laws then there is no free will, as least not as we are defining this term here. There is room to interpret certain determined actions as being compatible with a certain notion of free will, but that is not what this dilemma hinges on. Our notion of free will could only be true if there are any actions that are not entirely determined by natural laws but are instead determined, at least in part, by the will (which itself is not determined by natural laws).
• Individualism vs. collectivism: There are multiple ways of thinking about the individual vs. the collective. A very basic way of thinking of this is whether or not there are other minds, as their own conscious subjects, in the world. If one has conceded that there indeed are other minds, then there are ethical considerations about how much one should care about their well being. Should one only care about their own self, or others as well? How many others? Perhaps we should be concerned about all other conscious minds?
• Moral absolutism vs. moral relativism: Most worldviews include ethical systems. Within some of these, the moral guidelines and rules are understood to be absolute, meaning that they are mind-independent facts that are valid for all regardless of whether or not anyone accepts them. Conversely, some worldviews consider morality to be relative to the conscious mind, and since minds differ in genetics, culture, and life experiences, morality is dependent upon these factors. Some worldviews feature ethical systems that bring together both moral absolutism and moral relativism, but we can say that this dilemma hinges upon whether there is any basis for moral absolutism within a worldview.
• Theism vs. Atheism: Some worldviews involve the belief in some sort of higher power or transcendent being that is some sort of god or deity, and these are theistic. Worldviews that don’t involve the belief in any such being are atheistic. Note that dilemma does not necessarily depend on faith or dogma, since some worldviews involve the belief in a god on what is understood to be reasoned evidence. Such a belief is called deism, and we can see this as a form of theism. Such lines of reasoning might or might not be logically sound, but what matters is that this dilemma hinges upon whether the worldview involves any sort of belief in a god.

These are a few of the main points of disagreement among people of the world, but there is probably a way that we can narrow these down to the most significant dilemmas that are truly at the heart of the greatest conflicts of our time.  In a future post, I’ll try to rank these in order of significance so that we might be able to better understand the causes of the most damaging unnecessary conflicts in our global society.

What, if anything, can be done to lead to greater peace in this world? Let your voice be heard in the forum.

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A lot of the content that this project releases is somewhat academically oriented, so it worth explaining the relation between this project and academia. I am not a member of any university, neither as a professor nor as a graduate student, although I am working with some people who are connected to academia. I only have a BS in computer science, but I have been independently studying and researching philosophy and the social sciences for several years, often with the assistance of people who have advanced degrees in these fields.

Some years ago, I formulated a rough outline for this project, and I pitched it to some universities, professors, and academic departments, but there was no interest in something so interdisciplinary. They tend to be very narrowly focused and they do not often cooperate across disciplines and departments to try to address societal challenges and they are quite hesitant to admit outsiders with different approaches.

Academic institutions and the scientists, philosophers, and other professionals that work within them have very detailed jargon and usually it is only within specific academic communities that anyone understand this discourse. It would be extremely difficult for an independent researcher such as myself to penetrate this from the outside and be able to fully engage with them at that level. One would have to understand the full history of the development of the ideas, the points and counterpoints, across the entire history of a specific area of specialization, and they would also have to adequately understand the works of the academics who are actively engaging in this profession and publishing works. These specializations often fall into a narrow niche and are very nuanced and detail oriented.

This project, on the other hand is very broad, holistic, and integrative. Such a project is very much needed in order to share ideas across academic disciplines and different fields of study with the goal of coming up with innovations that might allow us to address the greatest challenges of our time. It would not be possible for anyone to have academic-level knowledge of every relevant discipline, which would include various sub-fields of philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, communication theory, among others, and also to be able to integrate them. It is simply impossible for anyone to simultaneously have such broad array of knowledge and also an extremely deep degree of knowledge in all of these fields. Unfortunately, universities tend very much to only admit as members those scholars and researchers who they are highly specialized in some specific field, and they also don’t often engage with independent researchers. As such, a project such as this is highly unlikely to emerge out of mainstream academia. This dynamic prevents any real progress in producing integrative works that are needed.

Hello readers, my name is Brandon Norgaard and I am the founder of The Enlightened Worldview Project and the principle author of the forthcoming book. I would like to think that my own story is not that important because this is a collaborative effort and what we are doing should transcend the individual people, but I understand that some of you out there are interested to know some details about who I am and how this project came about.

I lived most of my life in Northern California, near Sacramento. I have always possessed an interest in understanding how things work and learning about philosophy, religion, history, politics, science, and technology. Throughout my life, I have sought to better understand why there is so much conflict and injustice in our world and what, if anything, people can do to work toward greater peace. I was raised Catholic, but I came to realize that there are inherent flaws in any strictly faith-based religion. Notably, people of religious faith are far too often suspicious of and hostile to modern science.

In my adolescence, I became interested in political and social activism and I wanted to explore how education and innovation could make a difference in the world. There is a certain social activism embedded within the Catholic theology that I was taught, but in my adult life I came to realize that organized religion is really not making the world a better place. I am a concerned citizen, I am concerned about the world and where humanity is headed, and for quite a few years I have felt compelled to study and research topics that give insights into why things seem to be going badly in terms of human suffering, wars, disease, racism, environmental degradation, just to name a few.

After obtaining a degree in computer science from Sacramento State and beginning a career as a software developer, my independently driven study of philosophy and social sciences continued in my spare time. From the year 2006 to the present, I have spent many hours researching and writing and planting the seeds for TEWP. In 2012, I founded the Sacramento Politics and Philosophy Group, which is a Meetup group that has grown to over 1000 members. We have had hundreds of events over the past 8 years, meeting about once a week with gatherings of approximately 10 to 20 people at a time. We have discussed just about every topic imaginable, and a lot of those ideas came together into this project. In 2019, I decided to move forward with this idea, and I quit my IT job in order to focus on this effort full time. I then founded The Enlightened Worldview Project and I assembled a small team of people who have assisted with various aspects of this project.

I got into IT and software engineering because it was not only interesting to, but also because I knew it would be a lucrative field with a lot of job opportunities. I do see a little bit of a connection between this project and my career in IT, in that our global civilization is a bit like a large and complex computer network. If we follow this analogy, we can see that the hardware is our human brains and the software is our psychology and our culture. Nowadays, we have networks of computers working in conjunction to where it seems like it is functioning like one large entity, and we call that “the cloud”. Human civilizations are also like clouds. Now, when civilizations clash because people have divergent and seemingly incompatible worldviews, this is the cause of unnecessary conflict. If computer networks were not compatible with each other, we would consider that to be a software problem. The solution there would be that we would need to reprogram the machines so that the networks can operate in harmony with each other. I think we need to do that in our human society as well. We have, I guess we could say, defects in our software if any of us think that our worldview – including the culture in which we were raised and our belief system – is the only true belief system and that all others are just wrong. If any of us believe that our nation is the absolute best, over and above all other nations, then I would say that’s a mental software bug that needs to be fixed.

As I eventually came to realize that I could contribute something that would be inspiring to people and perhaps make some positive difference in the world, I felt compelled to devote my efforts to this project. I suppose the spark of inspiration came about because my areas of interest were so broad and my independent research covered so many fields of study that I envisioned ways that aspects of these fields could be integrated and the product of this would be something unique and potentially more effective at addressing the world’s major problems than anything currently out there. I was studying philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, political science, economics, linguistics, etc. and I saw that the experts in these fields are quite narrowly focused on their areas of expertise. Sometimes such experts use the knowledge of their field to matters of practical significance to the lives of average people, but that nobody really seemed to be bringing the knowledge from all of these different fields together. To me, this seems like a missed opportunity, because it seems that if all of this diverse knowledge could be synthesized somehow, it could really have more power to make change in this world far beyond what is happening now.

Certainly, there are people and organizations that are working hard to solve the greatest problems on Earth. These efforts are driven by research, science, innovation, willpower, and a vision for the future, but they are not always very effective at meeting their goals. One of the most significant reasons for such shortcomings is that they are not often successful at changing people’s minds or getting enough people to believe in their mission. One of the biggest failures is that the political system is really badly broken in many major countries in the world. The political culture is dysfunctional throughout much of the world, and this is a hindrance to well-meaning organizations that are trying to bring about positive change. I was thinking that there has to be a root cause for all of this that would need to be addressed through cross-disciplinary research.

What are your thoughts on this forthcoming book?  Let your voice be heard in the forum.

We know that there is incredible diversity among the peoples of the world, but there is something that most of us would agree on: that we all have fundamental beliefs about reality and about ourselves and that we rarely discuss these matters with people who have fundamentally different beliefs. In our world today, we can observe countless examples of fierce partisan, nationalistic, and ideological bickering and tit-for-tat animosity among different groups, but there are deeper philosophical differences that underlie such differences. Even though so much hinges on such differences, polarized opposing camps rarely discuss their philosophical differences amongst each other with much thoughtful consideration. So although many of the most well-known social and political leaders of our time are very outspoken in rallying their base of supporters and in demonizing the supposed enemy, they rarely or never address the true points of disagreement among the different groups of people. While it may seem like we live in a world where the fault lines are primarily determined by political ideology, partisanship, and nationalism, what we are actually witnessing today is a wide-scale and deeply felt clash of worldviews.

Unfortunately, people who have vastly different worldviews are often at reflexively odds with each other. People tend to think in terms of us-vs-them and a person’s worldview is an important marker of identity. This chasm of thought and belief tends to cause a breakdown in productive communication and often leads to open hostility. The result is an increasingly dangerous and unbearable tension in society.

And this is a clash that becomes ever more acrimonious and potentially explosive when the social and political leaders continue to avoid the true matters of disagreement and forego any semblance of civility and instead focus on relentless spin and vitriolic attacks in order to protect their own wealth, power, and privilege. When those with political power and/or social influence insist on being so self-serving and focusing on quite superficial matters, those who are not so privileged and those at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum pay the price. The most dire consequences of such atrocious leadership include human rights abuses, chronic poverty, and environmental degradation.

As such, we can try to identify the hinge points of this clash so that we might use this understanding to formulate a plan to improve the situation. There are several perspectives worth considering.

One Perspective: Religions and Cultures in Conflict with Each Other

Samuel P. Huntington wished to highlight the clash of different civilizations that are mostly differentiated by their religious and cultural identity as the most significant cause of global civilizational tension. We can see that there is some truth to this because of the large number of religious faithful who think that their beliefs are the only true ones and who disagree with other faithful about which beliefs are true. Throughout the world, religion is a major force in motivating individuals and mobilizing legions of followers to fight for causes that stem from these beliefs. In every region of the world, religion is a significant factor in local and national politics as well as international diplomacy. Though it is not uncommon for followers of different religions to live in peace alongside each other, it does appear that there will always be conflict as long as there are incompatible religious belief systems and people who fervently believe that their religion is correct and that all others are wrong. The world’s major religions certainly contain fundamentalist believers who are at odds with one another, and thus the religion vs. religion perspective remains a major cause of this tension among the world’s different cultural spheres.

We can consider almost any geographic region where there is religious diversity and that lies on the fault line between two larger and more religiously homogeneous regions and we can observe tension and sometimes violence between the two religious communities. Indeed, many smaller local conflicts between followers of different religions can be seen as part of greater regional conflicts, which can in turn be seen as part of an even greater global religious conflict that is playing out in all corners of the world. Likewise, we can see the force that cultural nationalism has in creating and sustaining hot-tempered conflicts as peoples of different ethnic groups intermix. Religious and cultural identity are deeply often interwoven into many people’s lives and into their families, communities, and national allegiances as well. The in-group versus out-group psychological dynamic can be toxic in regions that are not ethnically and religiously homogeneous, which are almost everywhere in our contemporary world. This conflict is a threat to the dream of a secure and prosperous future, which is a dream that is common among peace loving people in every region of the Earth. It is a threat to the peaceful coexistence of diverse beings who must share the Earth and its life-sustaining resources.

Another Perspective: Religion vs. Secularism

The clash of civilizations that Huntington brought to the forefront remains a matter of significant threat to world peace and stability, but the social influences of religion, culture, and nationalism do have their limits. There are other factors causing different types of divisions among people that are growing stronger and that have the potential to have increasing power to mobilize people and to cause conflicts in the coming years. There is another perspective, besides the one that focuses on religious and cultural divisions, that might become even more important in the near future, and it is one that pits some form of traditional worldview, including those rooted in religion and/or spirituality, against more modern and secular alternatives. While clashes between religious and cultural traditions have ancient roots, these additional perspectives are the result of more recent developments on the world stage.

There is a wide diversity of worldviews throughout human society, many of which are religious in nature and some of which are secular. For some people, their worldview involves significant philosophical engagement, while for others it mostly involves unquestioning belief and adherence to what they have been told and is practiced with little critical thinking. Some people are able to use their worldview to find satisfying answers to the great questions of life, while others might have to admit that their worldview leaves many great questions unanswered.

It is natural for humans to ponder questions such as “What is right and what is wrong?”, “What is the nature of our conscious experience?”, “What is the meaning of life?”, and “Why is the universe the way that it is and not different?”, although it is less common for one to achieve satisfying and reasonable answers to these questions. There have always been religions within human society through which one can find some sort of answer to these questions with relative ease, but these answers are often to be taken simply on the basis of faith rather than on the basis of observation and reason, which are the mental faculties that one uses to understand most other things in life. Conversely, people who are more secular minded usually don’t have any particular need for faith in their lives and they can more consistently use observation and reason to address questions and problems in their lives.

We can see that there is a clash between religious vs. secular minded people. On one side you have those who are more traditional and religious. They tend to believe that the core tenets of their worldview are correct and that this is justified on the basis of faith, and thus is not open to challenge on the basis of observation or reason. The other group, based in secularism, might charge that religious faith, and the socio-political movements that spring from it, is the cause for a large proportion of our societal ills and that therefore such belief systems should no longer have as much influence in the world. They might argue that far too many people believe in the infallibility of scriptures or religious dogma or prophecy or revelation despite the lack of evidence in favor of such beliefs, and even sometimes in the face of significant counterevidence. Such secularists could point out that most of these beliefs were first created by human beings many generations ago, before humans had come to better understand the way natural forces operate. These beliefs, so the argument goes, were created by people to give explanations for life’s origin, to give hope for life after death, and to provide the community with certain ethical standards. According to this theory, these beliefs were simply passed down from generation to generation relatively unchanged and accepted by seemingly endless arrays of followers in a way that lacks sufficient critical investigation. Secularists argue that modern science allows us to understand things such as life, death, the weather, the sun, and the moon, and that religious beliefs are often at odds with the findings of modern science.

There are secularists who go so far as to argue that whenever groups of people have strongly held beliefs that are not backed up by sufficient evidence that this inevitably leads to unnecessary conflicts. Some secularists, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, argue that the evidence shows that everything in the world is ultimately material, that the only way we can come to understand the truth is through objective study, and that the only way of really knowing anything is through scientific investigation and reasoning. Other secularists, such as Sam Harris, leave open the possibility that something immaterial could exist, but say that we can only know about it through observation and reason, as opposed to simply believing what we are told from scriptures or dogma. Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris have become increasingly influential in recent years, and all agree that religion has too much respect in the modern world and that religious faith is responsible for much of the conflict in the world today.

Many religious followers have worked to defend faith against the attacks of all three aforementioned secularists, and many others as well. Defenders of faith argue that faith is necessary in life because there is so much uncertainty. It is common among such defenders to argue that their faith is peaceful and that they are able to live in harmony with all people, regardless of what beliefs others have. But there is also, in some religious circles, a certain level of distrust and skepticism of modern science. Some religious followers believe that science is just another belief system and that it is not the best way of knowing the truth about the world, but that it is instead only intended to eliminate the need for religion. It is unfortunate that such people take their suspicion and hostility to reason and apply to matters that are not typically within the scope of religion, such as partisan politics and blood-and-soil nationalism. Out of frustration, those who are secular minded and who are inclined to embrace science and reason might either disappear completely from any sort of public life – choosing apathy over participation or, conversely, they might engage in the same sort of political theater and tribalism as the people that they oppose.

On the rare occasions when secular and religious people do discuss the merits of their worldviews with civility and with appeals to reason and evidence, we sometimes see a bit more of a mixed bag regarding which side has the clear intellectual high ground. Secular minded people will tend to rely on the findings of modern science on any point of debate with religiously minded people. They can draw on scientific evidence and they can point to the abundant evidence that the livelihoods of countless people have been improved through scientific progress. But some of the great questions of life are difficult to address with the sole reliance on science, including the nature of consciousness, the foundation of morality, the ultimate explanation for the universe, and the meaning of life. Some of the world’s major religions do have full and detailed answers to these questions, although they are to be taken as matters of faith, often as given in some holy book such as the Bible, Quran, etc.

Some people might take a different path that can be called spiritual but not religious, in which they seek to understand these great questions of life that they believe cannot be adequately addressed through science or religion. The word “spiritual” can have varied definitions depending upon the context. For those who consider themselves to be spiritual but not religious, we might find that what is common is the individual experience of wonder and the sense of relation to things that are greater than one’s self, but in a way that is difficult or impossible to describe. Spirituality is a mysterious concept that can be compatible with religion and is not necessarily at odds with secularism.

What is your worldview?  Let your voice be heard in the forum.