WORLDVIEW

What is a worldview?
There are perhaps as many definitions of worldview as for the words “communication”
and “culture”. Cooke and Klopf highlight some of the basic assumptions about
worldview when they write:
• Worldview is a culture’s orientation toward God, humanity, nature, existence,
the universe and cosmos, life, morals and ethics, suffering, death, and other
philosophical issues that influence how its members perceive the world.

Question: is it possible to shorten this definition down to the following?

• Worldview is a culture’s orientation toward issues that influence how its
members perceive the world.
Indeed, worldviews deal with a broad range of cosmic issues, explaining the purpose of
life, what is the world ruled by, the right way to live, the origins of the universe and
life, what happens when we die, the sources of knowledge, the notions of good and
bad, right and wrong.
At the same time, while dealing with cosmic issues, worldviews also govern life in
smaller ways. In choosing the customs for day-to-day living, the society chooses
those ways that fit its basic convictions about the nature of things, what is desirable
and what is not.
Because of all these qualities, worldviews influence the social, economic, and political
life of societies.
WORLDVIEW AND CULTURE
The relationship between worldview, culture and the study of intercultural
communication cannot be overstated, even if we take into consideration
just a few statements regarding this connection:
• Culture provides a large portion of an individual’s worldview. In fact,
worldview refers to the manner in which a culture sees and explores its
relation to the world around it.
• Worldview is the collective body of ideas that members of a culture
generally share concerning the shape and substance of their reality.
• The worldview of a culture functions to make sense of life experiences
that otherwise might be perceived as chaotic, random and meaningless.
• Worldview is imposed by collective wisdom as a basis for sanctioned
behavior that enables survival through adaptation.
MANIFESTATIONS OF WORLDVIEW
The need to examine worldview for the studies of intercultural communication can
hardly be put into doubt. If one understands a culture’s worldview, reasonable
accuracy can be attained in studying its members’ behaviors and motivations in
other dimensions. It is a kind of shorthand foe understanding how other people
perceive the world and communicate within this world. You can see both
perceptual and communicative components of worldview in the following
examples:
Two differing worldviews emerge on comparing how environmentalists and some Christians
perceive nature. In general terms, environmentalists hold that the earth should be cared
for by man, while the traditional biblical interpretation, held by many Christians, is that
God wants them to be masters over the earth. They turn to the following words in
Genesis: “Fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the
birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on earth.”
Another link between worldview and behavior can be seen in business arena. The most
important determinators of social and business conduct are the religious and
philosophical beliefs of the people. Thus, to an Asian, the world is complex, composed of
continuous substances, understandable more in whole than in parts, and subject more to
collective than personal control. To a Westerner, the world is relatively simple, composed
of objects that can be understood without attention to context, and highly subject to
personal control.
This introduction was meant to demonstrate that worldview determines how people
see their place in the world.
CONSTRUCTS OF WORLDVIEW
Your worldview originates in your culture, is transmitted through a multitude of
channels, is composed of numerous elements, and can take a variety of forms.
Most of these forms can be classified into three categories: traditional religion,
secular humanism (based on science), and spirituality. These orientations
obviously intersect on a number of important questions. And – what is especially
important – in many instances individuals select a portion of all three
orientations to construct their view of reality. More frequently than not, our own
worldview contains certain aspects of religious, scientific and spiritual
orientations, interrelated and working in concert.
Let us briefly introduce these three worldviews in general terms before we explain
religious worldview in more detail.

Religion as a worldview
As a worldview, religion is an important part of life for billions of people. At the core
of this worldview is a belief in the existence of a reality greater than humans. In
most religions there is a universal spirit, God or deity that is sacred and looked
to for guidance and salvation. This divinity has established a set of eternal moral
decrees. The motivation for following religious worldviews is that human conuct
has long-term significance – beyond individual death.
Secularism as a worldview

There are many definitions for the term secularism, as well as many words that are
used to describe this worldview (atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, deism).
Regardless of the name it goes by, the most fundamental belief of this
worldview is that there is an explanation of life that can exist without God or
organized religion.
Secularists begin with a premise that religion, and the various deities and gods, are
products of humankind’s own yearnings and fears. Therefore, the stories of
visions and miracles associated with those gods can not be believed. Because
of this attitude, secularists hold that science provides the only reliable source of
knowledge about this worlds and the universe. This position is accompanied
with firm belief in evolution.
Like all other worldviews, secularism provides a set of ethical standards. Many of
these standards are universal and can be found in religious traditions. If there
are differences, it is because their values are simply grounded in earthly
concerns rather than in anticipation of heavenly rewards or fear of infernal
punishment.
For secularists, death is the end of life and there is no other life after this one. At
death, individual ceases to exist in any cohesive or conscious form. They
believe that death is not a spiritual matter, but rather an undeniable truth about
our existence. At death, our being and consciousness is totally dissolved.
Spirituality as a worldview

Recently this concept has gained a large following, and this recognition produced
two different approaches to spirituality. It is generally regarded as a system that
stresses the idea that a person does not need a formal religion to live a life of
faith. A more formalized view of spirituality is a concern with the sacred, as
distinguished from material matters. In contrast to religion, spirituality is often
individual rather than collective, and does not require a distinctive format or
traditional organization. It is based on the notion of a “religion” wherein each
person can turn to themselves to discover “inner peace”.
Whereas religion is typically experienced within a social institution with commonly
shared traditions, sacred texts, beliefs, and worship practices, and has a
governing structure with designated leaders, spirituality, on the other hand, is
part of each person that searches for purpose, meaning, worth, and wonder,
often in quest of an ultimate value of the holy.
From this brief description of modern spirituality, you can observe that it is a
personal search for finding the answer’s to life essential questions. Note that
spirituality has the same goals found in organized religions – inner peace, link
with nature, search for meaning in life, among others. The major difference is
that spirituality uses some non-typical methods of achieving those goals, and
places emphasis on the individual part of the “discovery process.”
RELIGION AND CULTURE
Why are we studying worldviews in a course dealing with intercultural commu-
nication? And why are we again putting emphasis on religion? The reasons could
be at least two. First, religion, perception and behavior are inextricably
connected. Second, never in the history of civilization has the behavioral
dimension of religion been so widespread, relevant, and volatile. For the vast
majority of people worldwide, their religious tradition anchors them in the world
no less than family, tribe or nation. Religion provides structure, discipline, and
social participation in a community. The importance of religion’s collective force
is reflected in the word itself – it comes from the Latin verb religare, which means
“to tie”. Thus, religion ties people to what is sacred.

RELIGION AND THE SACRED

An attractive aspect of religion is that it has attempted to explain the world – and
even the next world – for thousands of years. People have always felt the need
to look outside themselves and seek help in answering major questions. Religion
provides explanations and assigns values to other wise inexplicable phenomena.
It provides a cosmology, or set of principles and beliefs about the nature of life
and death, the creation of universe, the origin of society and its groups, and the
relation of humans to nature. The deep structure of a culture, as we remember,
deals with issues that matter most to people, and many of us rely on religious
explanations of these issues.
RELIGION AND PERSONAL CONDUCT
Religion not only deals with the sacred, but it also helps deal with issues related to
human conduct by serving as a mechanism of social control – by establishing
notions of right and wrong, transferring part of the burden of decision making to
supernatural powers, reducing stress and frustration. Religion responds to the
basic human need to understand the purpose of life - this means creating a
worldview. In other words, religion has been a major source of cultural values,
beliefs, and attitudes for as long as the humans used it as a way of
understanding how to function with other people. A shared religion reinforces
group norms, provides moral sanctions for individual conduct, establishes
common purpose and values that support the well-being of a community.
RELIGION IN THIS CENTURY
The revolution in information and communication has had far-reaching effects in
various world religions. In the past, religions have consisted of beliefs, values
and practices of a particular religious community. However, now these
communities are confronted with message being send through new
technologies, and challenges created by other factors – for example, the world
migration, since nowadays people of various religions are no longer distant to
each other. Because of these two forces, religious institutions are subjected to
new and often troubling ideas, which pull their adherents away from well
established doctrines and values – such as secularism and spirituality. And
shall we not forget about so-called religious conflicts?
THE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION

It should not be surprising that all the world religions are characterized with similar
elements, since they all have the same major goal – to make life more
meaningful and death more comprehensible. Let us now look at some of these
common elements.

Speculation
Most people, from the moment of their birth to the time of their death, face many of
the same challenges concerning the uncertainties of life. Religion is
psychologically comforting because it helps us explain the unexplainable. Every
society must deal with questions that have no definitive logical answers: When
did life begin? Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people?
What happens to us when we die? In this capacity, religion provides a blueprint
for those aspects of life that people do not understand, and this lessens feelings
of bewilderment. In the course of answering these questions, religions provide
their members a sanctuary. Religious beliefs offer the comforting sense that the
vulnerable human condition serves a great purpose. Strengthened by these
beliefs, people are less likely to collapse in despair when confronted by life’s
calamities.
THE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION - Continued

Sacred Writings
At the heart of each religion lies a body of sacred wisdom that must be transmitted
from generation to generation. These sacred writings become a repository for a
religion’s essential principles and teachings. Each religion believes its sacred
writings have divine or spirit-inspired origin – they were either written or spoken
by God, or divinely guided humans, or by teachers of deep spiritual insight –
prophets, seers, sages, etc. These scriptures take a variety of forms, such as:
• Scriptures, such as those of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which often
employ historical narratives associated with individuals - authority figures who
provide guidance and instruction.
• Messages of faith contained in the books of each religion – for example, the Old
Testament for the Hebrew, the New Testament for Christians, and the Koran for
Muslims.
• Scriptural books that have philosophy about the nature of reality (for example,
the Hindu Upanishadas) or moral philosophy (as in Confucian Analects).
• Oral tradition - as in the case of Buddhism, the Pali Canon, containing Buddha’s
teachings, is based on oral tradition. Some scriptures can also take the form of
myths, legends, prophecy, and the like – as in many traditional religions.
THE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION - Continued
Religious Rituals
Rituals are practiced by all religions. These are prescribed actions whose main
purpose is to establish and maintain contact with the divine power. By engaging
in rituals, the followers not only recall and reaffirm important beliefs; they also
feel spiritually connected to their religion, develop a sense of identity by
increasing social bonds with those who share their views, and sense their life has
meaning and structure. Ritual serves to relieve social tensions and reinforce a
group’s collective bonds. It provides a means of marking many important events
and lessening a social disruption and individual suffering of crises such as death.
Rituals, like other aspects of culture, are learned, so in order to endure they must
be passed from one generation to the next.
There are many rituals dealing with the sacred that bring families and religious
communities together; at the same time they are teaching important lessons. For
example, there are rituals dealing with space (Muslims turning toward Mecca) or
calling attention to important events (Christian Easter, Hebrew Passover).
There are direct and indirect rituals (for example, tea ceremony in Japan reinforces
humility and restraint important in Buddhism), as well as collective and personal.

Question: what is the most common personal ritual in all religions?

THE ELEMENTS OF RELIGION - Continued
Ethics
Religion has played a prominent role in regulating human behavior. Almost every
religious tradition discriminates acceptable and unacceptable conduct. The bond
between religion and ethics can be seen in a variety of ways. It is often clear and
simple advice, such as stressing moral honesty, but can also extend to more
complex and specific religious laws.
You can observe that the messages of ethics found in religious traditions largely tell
a cross-cultural story. From warnings to avoid murder, thieving, lying, and
adultery, to stressing the virtues of humility, charity, and veracity, a similar basic
core of moral guidelines is found in all cultures, because what all cultures seek to
accomplish by formation of ethical principles is to enable their members to
achieve the ultimate objective of the tradition – the attainment of salvation,
redemption, enlightenment, and the liberation of the soul.

Before we draw our discussion of religion to concluding remarks, let us keep a few points
in mind. First, religion is but one kind of worldview, and others are trying to answer
the same cosmic questions. Second, religion pervades many spheres of human life
and cannot be easily separated from them. What one person may call “religion” or
“spirituality”, others may call “philosophy”. Our own worldview is frequently comprised
of multiple elements, taken from various ways of viewing the world.
 RELIGION AND WORLDVIEW - A final thought
In this chapter we demonstrated that people turn to their gods to help them deal
with the cosmic questions of how to live life and cope with death. Our approach
was similar to Friedman’s when he wrote, “God speaks multiple languages.”
One problem, of course, is that in this century many people still do not welcome
a bilingual or multicultural God. This disagreement we are now experiencing in
collisions of religious and spiritual beliefs, and Dalai Lama appeals for everyone
to meet “individual responsibility” and find harmony among all the world’s
religions. The question we face is clear – can the world’s religions and multiple
worldviews find the harmony Dalai Lama seeks? Friedman poses the question
slightly differently: “Can Islam, Christianity and Judaism know that God speaks
Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays, and Latin on Sundays, and that He
welcomes different human beings approaching Him through their own history,
out of their language and cultural heritage?”

The answer is yet to be determined…

but…
“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it”
George Bernard Shaw