Worldview Paper----

Last Update: February 28, 2017

This paper is a mish-mash of different worldviews just to give you ideas on how to write your paper. This isn’t my story or worldview. It is a fiction.

I was born into a Scientologist family in La Mirada, California. My whole life I’ve been a fan of Tom Cruise and John Travolta and their testimony that Brother L. Ron Hubbard was an enlightened individual guided my life. Many of the teachings and the practice of auditing helped me grow as a person and I conquered many of my fears in elementary school as a result. I believed the core of the metaphysis of scientology and the story that we all were placed here by aliens by Xenu.

In high school, I started dating a Muslim and I decided to explore the Qur’an. I found the believe in a God that is greater than all humans and I believed the plan that following the teachings of the Prophet (PBUH) was the way to go. My study of Al-Ghazali in The Incoherence of the Philosophers showed me that God existed (through the Kalam Cosmological Argument), and I admired many of my Muslim friends in the mosque who showed me what it was to live a life submitted to God.

In college, I was convinced by a Christian friend to read the New Testament (Injil) and I started studying the ethics of Jesus and his view that God loved sinners and the prodigal and sent his son, Jesus (Isa) to show us how to live and die on the cross. I was a skeptic for a year until I studied the historical evidence behind the resurrection and I came to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. So, I switched from believing that Jesus (Isa) was just a prophet of God into believing he was truly the Son of God and the third person of the Godhead (Trinity). I was a Christian submitted to the loving and gracious God revealed by Jesus.

When I found my wife, I was in a depressed situation and she said I should check out the teachings of the Buddha. I read the Dhammapada and studied the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and I spent three months in Dharmasala, India studying at a monastery in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. After ten years at that monastery, I ceased to believe in God’s existence and I came to believe that the Self or “I” is an illusion and that the key to ending suffering in life was to follow the Eightfold Path and eliminate all desires until I could reach Nirvana.

One day in India, I got hit by an elephant and when I woke up I was in a hospital in Los Angeles. There, Tom Cruise came to my bedside and held my hand and read to me teachings from Dianetics. I realized that all of my searching brought me back to my original worldview of Scientology. This is what I believe today after all of my life-long pursuit of truth. I returned home to the worldview of John Travolta.

I just watched the series on television that critiques Scientology, so I have serious questions. I am not sure what I will believe tomorrow, but this is my journey.

A person’s epistemology is very central to life. What we know has an impact on all of our actions and I am no exception. After studying David Hume, I realize that I am a strict empiricist and the evidence he presented in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was convincing and counterarguments by Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant are unconvincing. My epistemology is well justified or strong since I have great reasons to believe in this philosophy of knowledge.

Hume has convinced me that if I cannot taste it, touch it, smell it, or hear it, I won’t believe it. Testimony of scientists does not impress me about man-made climate change, Darwinian evolution, or any other historical scientific theory that cannot be re-created in a laboratory. This empiricism guides my life and I ask my friends and family to produce evidence or to show me historical evidence of facts (e.g. that George Washington existed) before I believe it.

One thing I do think I know is that I have moral knowledge. I know that it is wrong to kick puppies for fun and to abuse women for sexual pleasure. On my read of things, these simple moral truths that killing innocent kids in the name of God, or beheading Christians, or selling children into sexual slavery are absolutely wrong. I am more sure that slavery and rape are wrong than I am that any scientific theory is true. My moral knowledge guides my life and is my primary source of knowledge.

I am a skeptic about religious knowledge since I cannot taste, smell, see or hear God. On my view, Hume was right on this and I think he was right about the irrationality of believing in miracles. Miracle accounts go against all of my experience of seeing dead people stay dead, so I do not think that any Christian is rational in her belief in the resurrection of Jesus (Isa).

My view is not completely consistent since moral knowledge guides my life, but it is difficult to explain my belief in right and wrong and good and evil since moral principles are not things we can see, smell, taste, or hear. This is an area I need more work in the future.

My view of God is most similar to that taught by Thomas Aquinas and other Christian philosophers that there is a triune God (three-in-one) that exists in an eternal relationship of love and friendship. This is expressed in the Nicene Creed as follows: “ . . . and . . . and .. . (Nicene Creed).” I have been convinced that Jesus revealed that God loves the sinner so much and came to die for them—this is a God of pure love and grace who is waiting for all of us to return to Him.

My belief is very central to my life since I serve the poor in my church every Saturday and I teach a Bible Study in my home every Monday. My view that Jesus revealed the true heart and person of God is so central to my life, that 60% of my life would be different if I became an atheist—I would change my weekend habits and my time in prayer and study of the Bible.

On my view, the universe is eternal and has no beginning and no end. I think the Buddha was correct in revealing that all sentient (conscious) organisms are trapped in an endless cycle of birth and rebirth (the Samsaric Cycle) until we escape and reach Nirvana and cease consciousness. The Big Bang Theory is true because scientists created this reality by believing in it, but if enough scientists change their minds, a Steady-State theory is true. Truths of this sort are relative to the beliefs of scientists because I follow the Madhyamika School of Buddhism’s view that there is no reality to the external world—all of us are the same thing and the fact that we think we are different from each other (and the Statue of Liberty and Donald Trump’s shoes) is an illusion.

My belief in the origins of the universe is not very central to my life. If I change this view and come to believe in the multiverse or the Marvel universe of “twin earths” nothing in my daily week would change.

I think Darwin was right in his belief that naturalistic (atheistic) evolution is how humans came to be and explains every feature of human beings. As Democritus said 2500 years ago, “We all crawled forth from the slime, (Democritus, 223)” and Darwin modified this evolutionary theory in the 19th Century and it was further modified by the neo-Darwinists in the 20th Century. On this view, I think physicalism follows—humans do not have non-physical minds or souls as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas thought. The argument from consciousness is not persuasive to me because I think substance dualism and property dualism are false views.

My belief in this is not very strong. I think that some of the arguments for property dualism and substance dualism are fairly strong, but I am more convinced that God doesn’t exist (thanks to the problem of evil) and convinced that Darwin was correct about our origins. I recently read, Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals who find Darwinism Unconvincing, and reading these arguments by atheists against Darwinism has made me question things.

I am on the fence on this issue, so it is not a strong belief I hold. I could be convinced that Darwinism is false someday after further reading. Right now, the argument of consciousness does not persuade me, but I might change my mind in the future. This belief is not very central to my life since I don’t care if I evolved or if aliens planted all the phyla on the earth at the Cambrian explosion millions of years ago.

I believe that at death we face Zeus who will judge us on our good actions and bad actions and either send us to the Elysian Fields in Hades or banish us to Tartarus where we are tortured like Sisyphus.

My belief is not very strong since I only believe it because my grandma told me it is true. It is a central belief to my life, since I obey the ethics taught from Mount Olympus and revealed in Homer and Hesoid’s writings.

To be saved, one has to have faith in the love and person of Jesus Christ and receive the grace and forgiveness that was given though the Heavenly Father through his son, Jesus

This belief is very central to my life because . . .

This belief is strong because I have researched salvation on every religion and I am convinced by the evidence for the New Testament and such and such . . .

….

I subscribe to a version of Shia Islam and I think that peace in the world will be obtained by the world submitting to the will of God as revealed by the Prophet (PBUH) and the certified Hadiths and the teachings of the clerics in Iran.

This is very central to my life and I am an activist trying to spread Shia Islam in Yemen at the moment with my brothers and I would return home and smoke weed if I didn’t believe that former President Mahmoud Ahmidenijad was correct in his worldview.

My beliefs are not very justified since I have not studied Sunni Islam and I am tempted by a lot of things the Sufis believe. I need more work to see which brand of Islam is God’s will for humans.

Jean Paul Sartre was right in saying there is no purpose to life and that we all have to choose it ourselves. He said, “ . . . (Atheistic Existentialism is a Humanism, 244).

…

My worldview is completely inconsistent, and I have a lot more study to do. My political philosophy follows the version of Shia Islam taught in Iran. My epistemology follows the atheist skeptic, David Hume, and my theology is that of the Pope. These cannot be consistent.

Let me explore why each of things are inconsistent . . . .

My cosmology/cosmogony is not very clear. I follow the teachings of B. Alan Wallace and Robert Thurman and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but I don’t really understand what they are saying. I need more research on Big Bang Theory and the Multiverse before I can make my beliefs in this clearer. Thankfully, this is not a very central belief to my worldview, so I will focus on other areas before I study this one.

Many of my beliefs are not very strong, but my Thanatology is very strong. I need more study in the area of soteriology because . . . and . . . I need more work in epistemology since I haven’t read any Plato or the epistemology taught in the New Testament and by the Buddha. These things I need to remedy.

Also, . . . .

Okay, I’m tired of typing. Do you guys get it? Remember to focus on clarity, centrality, and strength. Bounce your views off of philosophers we have studied or the religious scriptures you believe or disagree with to clarify your view.