WORLDVIEWS – BRIEFLY

A. Worldviews- basic distinctions and statistics.

All worldviews that ever existed may be divided between the following 3 categories:

1. Atheism: Nihilism, Agnosticism, etc
2. Pantheism: Hinduism, New Age, Buddhism*, etc
3. Theism: Christianity, Judaism, Islam.

• atheism= the belief in no God or gods: Nihilism, Secular Humanism, Agnosticism (doesn’t know)
• pantheism= the belief that everything is God: New Age, Hinduism, Buddhism*, etc

• theism= the belief in God: Christianity, Judaism, Islam.

 

	Atheism (Nihilism, Secular Humanism etc), Agnosticism	Pantheism (Hinduism, New Age, Buddhism*, etc)	Theism (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)
God	There is no God	Everything is God	God created everything
The world	Matter is eternal and infinite	The world is created ex deo, immaterial	The world is created ex nihilo
God and the world	There is only the world	God is everything (the world)	God is above the world and in the world
Human nature	Body that will die	Body that will die, soul that will last forever	Body (different state) and soul that will last forever
Human destiny	Annihilation	Reincarnation / Inclusion in the divinity	Raise from the dead for a reward or a punishment
The origin of evil	Human ignorance	Evil is an illusion	The Devil and fallen angels (demons), human freedom of choice
The end of evil	May be defeated by men	Will be absorbed into god	Will be defeated by God
The origin of ethics	Human convention	Inferior manifestation of the divinity	Determined by God
The nature of ethics	Relative	Relative	Absolute
History and its sense	Chaotique, no sense, eternal	Circular, illusory, eternal	Linear, with a sense determined by God

*Buddhism should be placed, more accurately, at the intersection between Atheism and Pantheism.

1. Christianity: 2.1 billion- 33 %
2. Islam: 1.5 billion- 21 %
3. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion – 16%
4. Hinduism: 900 million- 14 %
5. Chinese traditional religion (Confucianism/Taoism): 394 million – 6%
6. Buddhism: 376 million- 6 %
7. Others… 4% (source: Encyclopedia Britannica)

 

 

Notes:

1. Numbers are based on people’ declarations which imply nominal believers (i.e. “in name only”, as opposed to true adopters of that belief system).

2. According to WIN-Gallup International Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism latest report 2012 (based on interviews with more than 50,000 men and women selected from 57 countries, across the globe; report which may be downloaded here) the global distribution of self-perceptions currently is: Religious- 59%, Not Religious- 23%, Atheists- 13%. Also the same report says that one of the trends from 2005 is that Religiosity dropped by 9%, while atheism rose by 3%. (see more here)