So, Understanding the Times has gotten me thinking epistemologically again. I mean, that book really did have an impact on me back in the day and even now. It made me understand the importance of worldviews and ideologies, and how they impact every facet of how we think about the world and life. And how these even influence our political views. So now we're basically going to be doing the ancestry version of my worldview, looking at all of the categories involved and explaining how much influence the six worldviews have on my overall worldview.
Theology
So, this book kind of addresses these concepts in an out of order sort of way. By this, I mean, I don't actually put theology first, and let it define my entire perspective. Rather, I take my entire perspective looking at the world and using it to find God, if he exists.
My current worldview was, after all, created out of the ashes of my deconversion from Christianity. I decided that from then on out, I needed to look at society through the lens of reason and evidence, and if I was to believe in God, I would need evidence to do so. So for a while after leaving the faith, I was an atheist, mostly of the secular humanist variety.
But then, I had an experience. I won't go into the details here. But, let's just say, there were two ways you could get me to believe in a deity again. Either hardcore peer reviewed evidence that would demonstrate my beliefs, or God would need to resolve and explain a personal matter that influenced my deconversion.
And the latter ultimately happened. And I considered the evidence in this case to be strong enough to convince me to accept something. From there, in trying to flesh out this belief based on what I knew, I ended up coming across new age concepts like reincarnation, past life regression, near death experiences, and the idea that we are all a part of "God." That's the best way of explaining it, without explaining anything at all.
Whether you accept that is up to you. I have come from a secular humanist perspective in approaching this, and for me, I just happened to accept it in the same way that I would accept a study that passed a test of statistical significance. I considered the evidence to be strong enough to believe, but I understand that my experience would not necessarily be grounds for anyone else to believe. And skeptics would be inclined to be skeptical of it if it didn't happen to them.
I mean, here's the thing about secular humanists, many atheists are AGNOSTIC atheists, they don't believe because they lack the evidence to believe. They can have their minds changed by sufficient EVIDENCE. And I just happened to find something that counted to be strong enough evidence to warrant belief.
That said, on theology, I am primarily a cosmic humanist, but with secular humanist influences in my worldview.
Cosmic humanism- 75%
Secular humanism- 25%
Philosophy
Because Christian philosophy comes out of christian theology, this is the second category. But, as you know, with me, this is reversed. Because secular humanists do not conform to the same belief structure that theistic Christians do, and my philosophy is primarily secular humanist.
For me, philosophy starts with the mind, and the idea Descartes started his line of reasoning with: I think therefore I am.
And from there, I face the "munchhausen trilemma", which is a problem related to solipsism and how we know the universe is real. I resolve this by accepting the universe as existing as an axiom, and here is my reasoning. The world seems to be consistent enough that I can interact with it regularly. It could be all a simulation in my head, I admit it, but it's the one reality outside of my head that I seem to interact with consistently. It also seems to interact on me. I am bound by its rules. And I seem to be a member of this human species and have been cared for by other beings known as parents. And I seem to have peers who I can interact with. They CAN be all in my head, but at some point, you just have to say, it's far more likely that they are not, and that I am actually a member of this species, that there are other like me, and that the universe is a real thing. It could be fake, but I would assume that it is more likely to be real in some form.
From there, I have a naturalistic worldview. I dont have a reason to believe in God yet (that came above), but I have a reason to accept naturalism, empiricism, and basing further conclusions from this environment I seem to live in. Again, to demonstrate god, it would have to interact with me in some way that is noticeable and would pass a rigorous enough test that it would be able to be deemed a statistically significant conclusion. The above standard has been reached to my satisfaction on a personal level, but I cannot confirm it on a universal level that would allow all to believe.
I think this is by design. The "god" i believe in is not a god that wants to necessarily be known and worshipped. I mean, we come here to this life forgetting all about what may or may not exist beyond this material realm, and that is by design. And I would argue it is to prevent influencing whatever free will we have. As a scientist would tell you, sometimes it's best that people don't know they're being observed because making your presence known can influence what is being studied's behavior. The reason why God does not show himself is, to my knowledge, similar to this.
That said, I would say secular humanism is my primary influence.
I would say cosmic humanism, however, influences the spiritual views I have.
Marxist-leninist philosophy has a more minor role. I like dialectical materialism, but only see it as a lens through which to view certain political events. It isn't sufficient to base a whole philosophy off of, although MLism IS essentially a political theory first and a philosophy second. I think post modernism also has some interesting conclusions, like, I think the idea of us looking at reality through subjective lenses interests me as a sociologist, but at the same time, I just can't imagine building my entire worldview based on that.
Therefore, this section is:
Secular Humanism- 60%
Cosmic Humanism- 20%
Marxism-Leninism- 10%
Postmodernism- 10%
Ethics
For me, I would largely embrace the moral relativism of a secular humanist philosophy. However, I would argue there is an objective standard by which we can measure ethical systems against each other, that being objective reality. Once we establish that, for example, ethics exist for people to live better and enhance their lives, we can develop standards by which we can measure that. And some systems would work objectively better than others. And my own ethical and moral systems are based on that. I support human flourishing. But, also, given the subjectivity of ethics at times, I would also support giving people freedom. Rules exist to restrict undesired human behavior. But, if an action harms no one, no law should exist against it. However, once we get into econ, things get a little trickier. I mean, the systems with the most flourishing tend to be social democracies, and stuff like UBI can arguably break some libertarian principles. But, at the same time, it reinforces others, and I would argue the tradeoff is worth it.
As far as other ethical systems...eh, I find the concept of social progress via dialectical materialism to be a valid way of looking at the world. I do believe in the idea of progress. But I largely reject the extreme utilitarianism and proletarian morality of marxism. I believe rule utilitarianism is fine, which is more restrained to making rules that serve people rather than just going with the action that makes sense at the time, but raw utilitarianism leads to the weird "end justifies the means" situations with extreme cruelty involved.
I believe the cosmic humanist perspective involving subjective morality and karma and us being god learning for ourselves has some spiritual truth, but this does not, in any way, define my actual ethics. But I do like the libertarian stance offered here.
Postmodernism is interesting here. Again, as a sociologist the idea of cultural relativism and how different cultures can look at things differently and develop alternative systems of morality is interesting to me. But at the same time, I would argue there are objective standards within physical reality that we can just the ultimate consequences of morals by, so still, this isn't a HUGE influence.
I guess I would split it up in this way:
Secular humanism- 65%
Postmodernism- 20%
Cosmic humanism- 10%
Marxism-Leninism- 5%
Biology
So, I just want to say, I completely support the idea of evolution, spontaneous generation, etc., and fully agree with the secular humanist perspective here. That is not to say that there is no room for "god" here, but I do not believe god is needed to explain how we got here either. This is not up for debate with me. The science is overwhelming, and creationists are just wrong. Period.
I'm not opposed to the idea of applying dialectics to support the idea that sometimes evolution can happen more quickly at other times. Environmental changes can cause mass extinctions, causing accelerated evolution on those that survive. I wouldnt describe that necessarily through dialectics, and I see it as an attempt to shoehorn marxist theory into a natural theory where it doesn't belong, but I still find the concept to be valid.
When the book talks about evolution and cosmic humanism, they mostly seem to be talking about human spiritual evolution. I mean, I kind of believe that to be true, and that God wants humans to reach a higher, more enlightened psychological state, but it seems irrelevant to the evolution question. I feel like new age doesn't really belong as a full on worldview in this book sometimes. I mean, all things considered cosmic humanism is mute on the question of our origins, although most would accept a variation of theistic evolution in terms of biology. Not opposed to the concept, but not needed.
Post modernism seems to drop the ball here. It's extreme subjective, culturally relativistic mentality causes it to go full stupid on the question of science at times, causing it to question the very nature of whether we can know anything through science.However, it does ultimately seem to go along with evolution. Still, given how anti science postmodernism is here, I can't accept it. While a nice sociological theory, in the realm of anything involving objective reality, postmodernism fails hard. After all, for me, it's a LENS not a WORLDVIEW worth holding.
So I'm not going to call it an influence. As for why I keep neglecting to mention christianity and islam in this exercise, because neither represent my views at all and typically arent worth talking about.
Secular humanism-80%
Marxism-leninism- 10%
Cosmic humanism- 10%
Psychology
Here, my relationship with secular humanism is weird. I dont really embrace monism. On the question if whether humans are good or evil...neither. We are nuanced creatures whose nature is influenced by biology and the environment. I would say we are ultimately selfish, and I guess I agree with humanism on that. But ultimately, we're capable of altruism, we're capable of evil. It depends on how we are raised, our environment, our culture, etc. I would agree that a flawed society like we have can lead to societal dysfunction that leads to humans acting in ways they otherwise would not.
And to answer why good people do bad things, the question Christians offer, because we are selfish. We often seem to control land and resources, and this leads to war. We dont want to do work ourselves, so we create classes of slaves based off of the conquered. We can create entire political ideologies to justify such things. And yeah. I don't deny humanity's evil side. Again, my stance is humans are selfish. Sometimes this can lead to us being good, sometimes to evil. While I accept the idea of self actualization and maslow's hierarchy of needs, I mean, society often doesn't support that.
Humans are like cats. We love cats. Cats are cute. They meow. They eat food. They sit out in the sun. But you know who doesn't like cats? Birds. Mice. They're evil to them. Because they kill them for food. Such is the nature of humans, another member of the animal kingdom.
I feel like this book ascribed a lot of dogma to secular humanists, but honestly, yeah, I think that's what it comes down to. We're animals subjected to our biology and environment. We can do good things, we can do evil things. We can think short term but not long term. We can be indoctrinated by our environment. We're capable of going to the moon, but also genocide.
I will say I agree with the cosmic humanists again spiritually. We do have higher selves. We are like gods stuck in this human body. We are here to learn. And sometimes we are here to master ethics to become better people. But ultimately, more secular influences define much of my worldview.
Post modernism once again offers a valuable lens, but not an entire worldview. Psychology shows that we do compartmentalize ourselves. We have roles. We are one person to our parents, another to our teachers, another to our friends, another to our spouse, and another to our children. I wouldnt go so far to deny humans have an objective sense of self, but we also do have many masks in approaching our relations with others.
I guess my views don't fit in any real category here, but I'm still going to be a secular humanist here. Because my views are informed by my perspective on biology, regardless of whatever dogmas the book tries to ascribe to humanists.
In some ways I guess the marxists tend to apply psychology in ways the other ideologies don't. They tend to recognize the extent that our environment and society molds our actions and that the wrong social system (like laissez faire capitalism) can make us monsters, but socialist systems can allow a different state of relations to take place. I would agree with that, and to go back to secular humanism, I would argue a socialist system stifles people in other ways not allowing them to actually self actualize and reach their highest state, and that a social democratic system or "human centered capitalist" system would do better. So despite the socialist rhetoric of the socialist system, humanist social democracy is better still for me.
So I guess I agree with marxists, but I don't? It's hard to say.
Anyway:
Secular humanism- 40%
Marxism-leninism- 30%
Cosmic Humanism- 15%
Post modernism- 15%
Sociology
I mean, while I'm not opposed to traditional lifestyles like marriage a la Christianity, the secular humanist in me doesn't see a need for it to be a model enforced on everyone, and I ultimately support the liberty that comes from a humanist worldview than the restrictive view that comes with christianity.
Like, life for a christian is family, church, and work. Blah. Life script nonsense. A model that might make sense in some conservative idea of structural functionalism, but given how I dont accept their religion, it has little to no real role in how I see the world. if people want to live in a nontraditional family structure, they should be able to. Hell, I'd even say they shouldnt even have to work. After all the christian moral justification for work is "well adam ate the apple and that was our punishment". Screw that. And of course, while some secular humanists see the need for replacing church, I never really did. unless debate groups or watching the atheist experience count. I guess it does, but yeah.
Marxism-leninism once again offers an interesting lens at times, but hardly enough to build an entire worldview off of. Their view is very much based on their economic philosophy. Conflict theory, dialectical materialism, etc. Society evolves, society is dictated by economic forces, etc. They see socialism as inevitable, but I dont. To use dialectical materialism against a marxist, if capitalism is a thesis and socialism is the antithesis, we've already seen the synthesis. Social democracy. Or in the 21st century human centered or humanist capitalism. Of course marxists tend to reject this being ideologues. But yeah. Socialism is overrated guys. You guys have some interesting analyses on economics, but you're way too dogmatically rigid and it's dangerous.
As for whether we should break down the family unit and have the government in charge of everything...no. Again, to me traditional stuff is fine, if people freely choose it. I have no desire to force people either way.
As far as cosmic humanism goes...I mean, I'm very opinionated, but let's just say, god's ways supercede human ways. Christians see marriage as "you come together, have kids, and are stuck together for life."
The spiritual aspect of relationships is much different and yes, sometimes relationships are intended to be temporary. Our relationships here are not our relationships with others in the afterlife. People who we might not be close to here, or even hate each other here, can be best friends there. And sometimes people end up with the wrong people. Christians would insist you are stuck with someone for the rest of your life, but my cosmic humanist side says no on this. Some relationships arent meant to last, and others are intended to last well beyond this lifetime.
Postmodernism is, once again, interesting. They really tend to be for alternative ways of living and all, and I support that, but being SJWs, they do tend to be a bit too forceful with this stuff. They tend to force their political correctness down peoples' throats, and I tend to have a more laid back approach. if you wanna do free love, do free love. If you wanna get married and live traditionally, get married and live traditionally. I don't care. Im not going to take a stance. but in some ways, postmodernists are culture warriors in the same way the religious right are. And it's just as abrasive to me. I mean, I can respect their beliefs, and think they offer some contribution on this topic, but secular humanism just does the same job better for me.
Secular humanism- 65%
Cosmic Humanism- 20%
Marxism-leninism- 15%
Postmodernism- 10%
Law
Honestly, my views are more secular humanist than Christian here. I was originally going to praise the christian system, but no, my views are closer to the secular humanist one. I dont believe in natural laws. Or natural rights. I believe in constitutional rights and the like as per the secular humanist tradition. Rights are man made, and are essentially rule utilitarianism. We like rights because we like the consequences of them existing. If the right cant be justified to provide good outcomes for people, then it should be amended or removed.
Like, property is a natural right. but, I tend to believe an absolute right to property to be harmful. So I tend to support the left libertarian perspective that people be compensated for property existing to some extent so that all can have some level of property and be free from coercion. A right libertarian screaming about their natural rights would scream I'm "stealing" from them. An anarchist would claim they're stealing from society. I'm fine with property existing but it should exist in a way that's equitable and fair to all, and allows us to stay out of each others' way.
Marxists also tend to have a secular perspective based on positive law, but I dont like their views. They go too into their weird party politics and the will of the proletariat and basically wanna force their tyrannical system on everyone else. While I sometimes like marxist analyses of things, I generally speaking dont think they should actually control or run anything as their ideas in practice are horrifying and the results speak for themselves.
As the book mentions cosmic humanists dont focus much on law. Because it's not a worldview that really influences politics much. They're more focused on spiritual realities than politics. And the idea of self law as described is awful. While I can understand it from an ethical perspective and it might have some spiritual truth, it's no way to run things legally.
Postmodernism is largely not relevant either for me. I mean, i guess critical theory can help expose the biases in laws, and that can be useful at times, but again, that's no way to run a country or the world. Law should apply to everyone and be based on objective facts. I'm not particularly interested in whether a law espouses "white supremacy" or "the patriarchy". While we should avoid biases against minorities and women, I'm not OBSESSED with it like these guys are. Remember, these guys are a huge reason I'm having a falling out with the modern left.
That said:
Secular humanism- 90%
Postmodernism- 10%
Politics
Here I will actually give a nod to the Christian perspective, being the ex Christian that I am. In this book, Christianity is synonymous with the conservative perspective, and despite being a liberal, I will say that the conservative perspective has given me a healthy respect for power. Conservatism is based on the idea of limited government with the idea that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Conservatives understand utopianism isn't possible, and that sometimes this is the best we can do.
I will disagree to some extent, we can do better, and I feel like the right goes too far in shooting down any opposing view as utopianism and acting like they have the same effects as stalinism or something. No, liberalism exists. Social democracy exists. Human centered capitalism exists. You can have a healthy respect for power and still want to make the world a better place. Heck my calls for UBI and social democratic measures are attempts to balance the need for change and desire to make a better world while avoiding the evils of going too far.
The fear of going too far is also why I reject socialism, communism, anarchism, and any means of change that relies on violent revolution and potentially the installation of a dictatorship. We saw how that worked out. No thanks, marxist leninists can shove it.
As far as the rest of the Christian perspective, I oppose it. They do go too far in imposing their views on society. Especially in areas of "morality", including sexuality. Funny how the right will scream any attempt I would change the world as utopian but they have no issue with forcing aspects of their religion on me. They can screw off. And that is my official stance on this blog.
The humanist perspective as described here is too dogmatic. A lot of the ideas seemed stuck in the time, and too focused on these "humanist manifestos", which I dont even believe actually represent humanist thought. So I dont accept one world government. And some of the goals mentioned seem to be related to the issues of decades past. Still, they support the UN, they support democracy and liberalism. And the book even seems to equate it with economic democracy, ie, a soft form of socialism like market or economic socialism. Not necessarily as opposed to those forms of leftism, but yeah, I'd say I'm more a social democrat with left libertarian meanings.
I would say i support democracy. I would also support the idea of the constitution and the bill of rights and stuff like that. I feel like our institutions are dated, but reform is always preferable to revolution. Ultimately, our institutions are supposed to serve us, and we are responsible for them. Law and politics should reflect our needs in human society and our differences should be resolved democratically and within a positive rights based approach to governance.
As I said, Marxists can shove it. I'd heavily prefer the more moderate traditions of secular humanism than the revolutionary ones of this system. I wouldn't be opposed to embracing more moderate approaches to socialist politics, perhaps within a more democratic and reformist framework, but yeah. I oppose the hard stuff.
Cosmic humanists are weird, seem not very interested in politics. Theres talk of them wanting a new world order, but then talk og them being anarchistic as they prefer humans be self governed. Again, this is nice for spiritual truths, but not for reality based governance.
And postmodernists, they basically descend into a crapstorm of political correctness, identity politics, and using the government to address sectarian grievances rather than using their power to help everyone. That's a defining aspect of my politics, I'm progressive, but not socialist, and I'm interested in solutions that help everyone, not sectarian identity politics.
And honestly, my support for communities like LGBT comes from my libertarian secular humanist perspective than identity politics. I want people to do what they want, because I want them to do what they want. Not because they won some game of oppression olympics.
So yeah, I'm going to take a hard stance against the social justice warriors just as I take a hard stance against the MLs.
That said, by default, the democratic and reformist stances of the secular humanist tradition make up the bulk of my views, with conservatism tempering my views away from dangerous hardcore alternatives like marxism leninism.
Secular humanism- 75%
Christianity (conservatism)- 25%
Economics
Given how they define Christianity (conservatism) as the only ideology that embraces capitalism, I would give a little bit of influence here. I do think capitalism is the best system. I'm not a die hard on it, but I do think it's the "least bad" system.
I largely disagree otherwise though. I am ultimately a "liberal" or "social democrat" or "human centered capitalist". The Christian worldview has a hardcore work fetishism due to its belief that adam and eve sinned, and also think if we dont all work all the time we'll starve to death. As you guys who follow this blog regularly know, I fundamentally reject that.
Much like with politics, I ultimately believe institutions are human centered. And I believe capitalism is human centered. We dont serve the economy, the economy serves us. We arent made to work, we work to serve ourselves. Work isnt an inherent good and if we can automate work and redistribute wealth instead, we should. That's not to say that the institutions of capitalism or markets should be done away with, but they should be reformed to serve us. I am not necessarily opposed to long term reform away from capitalism, but such possibilities should emerge out of an evolutionary process in which the negative effects can be controlled and managed rather than a chaotic revolutionary shift like the Marxists want.
Secular humanism seems to fit what I want well. While the book describes secular humanists as socialists, they do acknowledge that they seem mixed on whether capitalism or socialism is better. Noebel's big grievance seems to be that humanists don't sing capitalism's praises from the highest heavens. Nor should they. Capitalism works, and is functional, but it also can be quite destructive and harmful both to the environment and to people. It needs HEAVY reform to work well, and I support "interventionism" and calls for "redistribution of wealth".
Im not sure we should transition to socialism any time soon. Again, not opposed to a long term shift over many many decades, but for now, human centered capitalism is my approach.
Honestly, I came to similar conclusions Yang did with his system, and secular humanist principles directed this ideological development of mine.
As far as Marxists go, while they can have some nice analyses of capitalism, I stop short of imposing their solutions. Because again, the "utopianism" problem. These guys have a destructive ideology that doesn't work and I reject it outright. If socialism is going to be achieved at all, and as you guys know I'm not even fully supportive of that, it has to be done gradually, through reformist, democratic means.
Cosmic humanism in the book seems to be supporting some weird variation of what is sometimes called the "prosperity gospel" in christian terms. Basically the idea that more spiritually advanced people get more money. This is nonsense to me. While I do believe god or a spirit guide can help bless us or inspire us to make money, well, let's avoid any weird theologies involving money = spiritually enlightened. My naturalistic perspective with a hint of some marxist analysis actually tells me a lot of rich people are raging A holes. So let's just leave it at that.
As far as post modernism goes, the book mentions they're also socialistic but then say they're interventionist (NOT THE SAME WAY BTW, LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM). While in some ways post modernists might resemble my politics, the fact is, these guys are too obsessed with identity politics to be a good ally to me politically. They support some progressive causes I can agree with, but then completely screw it up by focusing on white supremacy or the patriachy or some crap.
Secular humanism- 70%
Christianity (conservatism)- 15%
Post modernism- 15%
History
Let's face it, Christianity is false, islam is false. I largely agree with the secular humanist perspective about society ideally being about progress and evolution toward a better state, although recognize that regressives sometimes come around and screw things up. I agree with the role of the social environment in influencing people, and agree that ultimately, we need to save ourselves by creating our own heaven on earth. All of my ideas are my own personal approaches to doing that. UBI, medicare for all, human centered capitalism, social libertarianism, etc.
With marxism-leninism, again, historical materialism is interesting, and marxists have interesting perspectives, but generally speaking are way too dogmatic and blinded by their ideology to see the world clearly.
Cosmic humanism actually aligns with my secular humanist perspective. I believe we need to make heaven on earth, and while I largely take a secular approach, my spiritual perspective aligns with this goal and I believe I am here to help expand the collective consciousness of this planet. I dont believe we need to evolve into gods, we ARE gods. We just take the form of creatures on this planet for...reasons. I don't really know why. But, we are responsible for our own fate.
If I were to give any message directly from the divine on this sense, I'd say this. I think the divine is very concerned about climate change. We are trashing this planet with this capitalism and maximum productivity crap. We are polluting the oceans. We are expelling greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and causing the 6th mass extinction of species on this planet.
If we do not get our crap together, we will be the cause of our own demise.
So yeah, get your crap together people.
Beyond that, anything else I say may or may not be "god inspired", but ultimately my thoughts are my own and you should accept them on their merits, rather than as a source of authority. Hell, accept the above based on the merits and not authority. I mean, you can look this crap up and see wisdom in my words even if you are a godless atheist.
I mean that crap wasn't mentioned in the book, but while we're on the subject, I just had to say it.
Like really, I dont think god cares what you do with your peepee, but he does care about you trashing his creation and possibly setting ourselves up for distinction. I also believed god helped us navigate world war 2 and the cold war to avoid nuclear apocalypse. Because yeah, we humans have had suicidal tendencies in the past hundred years or so and while it's all potentially growing pains toward a more utopian reality, if we're not careful we might destroy ourselves instead. Since we're on the subject of "history" and cosmic humanism.
With post modernism...again, interesting sociological lens, but ultimately, not very useful. History has objective components. We can teach some subjective elements but yeah, much like the fundie christians, post modernists are way too obsessed with revising history to fit their historical lens. I feel like they go too far denying an objective reality and seem more intent on pushing their own narratives than in reporting objective truth. This is also why I largely oppose the 1619 project and the like. I mean, the right believes in patriotic education to indoctrinate people into right wing perspectives, and then the 1619 project tries too hard to push their crap. We need a more objective look at things. Not saying we cant be cognizant of minority perspectives, but they shouldn't DOMINATE history. Both the far right and far left are wrong here.
This is why i like secular humanism. it tries its best to be reality based. It's the one worldview here that lets the facts guide it to its conclusions, rather than letting its ideology determine what the fact should be.
That said:
Secular Humanism: 50%
Cosmic Humanism: 25%
Postmodernism: 15%
Marxism-Leninism: 10%
Conclusion
So, adding up all of these numbers, this is what I get:
Secular Humanism: 61%
Cosmic Humanism: 17.5%
Postmodernism: 9.5%
Marxism-Leninism: 8%
Christianity (conservatism): 4%
Islam: 0%
As you can tell, the dominant perspective that informs my ideology is secular humanism. This is because it is the most reality based view, and the only view worthy of defining most of my worldview on. Unlike other worldviews which often have preconceived agendas, secular humanism lets the facts lead it to conclusions and ends up being the most reality based at the end of the day. And given my political perspective flows from it, it seems to greatly influence that too, leading me to support the liberal and social democratic system I do.
Cosmic humanism defines much of my spirituality, but this does not really inform my politics much, outside of my dire warning for humanity to get its crap together and stop killing itself on climate change. You might wonder how cosmic humanism might cause conflict with my secular humanist perspective, but it largely doesn't, outside of the fact that I believe in some sort of higher power. Still, for me the justification is ultimately based on my secular perspective, so that largely dominates my worldview.
Post modernism and marxism leninism sometimes offer interesting analyses of society, but I cant see either of them being a lens that I would define my whole worldview on. Marxism leninism sometimes shares similarities with secular humanism, but primarily seems to exist as an ideology centered around a particularly authoritarian and dangerous form of government. It can have good analyses of capitalism from time to time, but ultimately is limited in its usefulness, given it is such an extremist and dogmatic ideology that has caused harm to so many people.
Post modernism does a little better, but not much. While it sometimes offers a good sociological lens through which to view certain problems, creating an entire ideology based on it is dangerous. Post modernists largely seem to reject objective truth and reality, and seem mostly obsessed with pushing their identity politics and social justice obsessed narratives, essentially preferring "feels" over "reals" as some conservatives would say.
As I said, both marxism-leninism and post modernism can offer interesting analyses but they are both largely relatively small influences on my entire ideology.
Finally, Christianity still has some minor value, if only for the secular benefits of conservatism. While most of the christian perspective is obviously bunk, one thing it gets right in its conservative political view is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And that we should try to avoid engaging in utopian schemes that can cause great harm to people and the planet. As such, I am dissuaded from supporting the kinds of revolutionary action of the marxists and prefer the more liberal secular humanist ideology, which seems a lot more reality based.
And of course, islam has literally no influence on my actual perspective.
And there you have it. That's my worldview. Mostly secular, but sometimes spiritual. And sometimes willing to use other lenses in a purely intellectual fashion without actually buying into the actual nonsense and bad aspects of these perspectives. My worldview has come from my sincere attempts to understand objective reality and apply them to my life and my politics, and I feel that all in all I have done a good job.
I do plan on discussing more understanding the times related stuff on this blog, but I will not be doing so tonight. It's late. I got plans tomorrow. Peace out.
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