The sad reality is that most of America has not developed, cared, or even realized their worldview. They go along the assumption that they're right and everyone else (except those who share their views) are wrong, but why do they think their view of existence is right and others are wrong? The answer is their worldview. A worldview is a makeup of facts, opinions, and observations that a person uses to perceive the world around them including Man, God, and Existence. Now because it revolves on opinions and observations each worldview is going to differ from person to person, this means that a worldview is dynamic and personal. The way someone sees the world around him is going to differ from his religious neighbor. You don't need a worldview, you have one if you like it or not.
Considering the fact that everyone has a worldview, what makes yours? Why would worldviews be different if we all live in the same world? Most of a persons worldview is made up of their experiences as a child. If one is raised in a church, they would grow up having a religious worldview. this is different opposed to the child raised in an atheist setting. However it's very common for someone to change worldviews, so it's not just your childhood experiences. The three areas of worldview are what ultimately determine how someone sees the world. Man, why are we here? How did we get here? Are we ultimately good or evil? All these questions show how someone interprets the Man portion of their worldview. The next one is Existence, with questions such as; Is anything real? Is there life after death? These questions make up part of the Existence portion of someones worldview. The last part is God, whether you like it or not everyone has an opinion of God. Is he real? Does he interact with the world? Is he a loving or vengeful God? All these make up someones worldview and ultimately how they interpret the world around them.
Seeing as it's answers to questions such as these that make up a worldview, which one would be the most important? The answer is going to change for every worldview, but I believe it is "Who is God?" The reason I choose this is because the reason there are so many religions (and anti-religions) is all because people interpreted this question differently. Christians believe he is the Trinity, Buddhists believe there is no God, Deists believe he is God, but apart from this world. The reason worldviews change drastically is because of this question.
However, most people aren't going to be paying attention to all this, they'd rather pay attention to the immediate circumstances around their person. This is called a Life Picture, and it is right in the center of a worldview. The reason is that each person is going to be interpreting their Life Picture based off of their worldview, whether they know it or not. A Life Picture consists of situations such as Family, Work, Education, Money, and material things that their physical being comes in contact with most often. You might be able to determine a worldview from a Life Picture, but the latter does not affect the former as much as the questions do. However how a person sees Work is going to determine a lot more about the persons vision on the world more than the others will. The reason? Same as last time, the reason that we have different groups of people, whether it be churches, political parties, or entire government systems all hinge loosely off of what each group interprets as Work.
I did not go into much detail about each of these in this post, but I hope that it leaves you with an overall sense of what a worldview is, and why it's important. For if you can understand worldviews and why someone is answering the way they are, it is going to help you understand people and situations better.
Until next time,
Conner
