Astigmatism and Worldview

Astigmatism and Worldview

I have experienced astigmatism since I was a boy. This means my eye lenses have a different shape than normal. For those who know me well, it is not difficult to believe I am a bit abnormal.

The irregular shape of my lens makes light coming into my eye bend in a different way. My astigmatism makes everything appear out of focus to me when I am not wearing my glasses. The first thing I put on in the morning – often before turning on the light – are my bifocals. They are also the last thing I take off at night.

If I am going to see the world around me as it really is, I need to look through my glasses. Without them I could not recognize my friend, Joe, when he stands three feet away from me. With them, I could recognize Joe from a block away – further if the sun is shining on his bald head.

We all look through something to see and interpret the world around us. No, I am not implying we all have glasses or contacts. I am saying everyone has a worldview they have accepted which allows them to decipher the reality around them.

Simply stated, a worldview is how you look at the world. It’s your view of the world and a view for the world. It is how you interpret what you experience and observe in the world. It defines reality for you.

Every worldview is developed as we answer a few questions:

• Why are we here? Is our existence a cosmic accident? Or is there something or Someone behind our life. Related to this is the creation question. Was our universe and all reality created, or did it develop on a chance plus time continuum?

• What went wrong? Many of us sense there is something not quite right in the world. When a man is unjustly killed by law enforcement officers, we say, “That’s not right!” Well, why is that not right? What makes that offend our moral senses?

• Is there a solution? Can we find our way out of what is wrong in this world? If, in fact, there is a solution, how can we be part of it?

• How does this end? Is there a way in which our current reality will cease to be reality?

In response to these questions, four basic worldviews have developed: Theism, Naturalism, Pantheism and Deism. The first three have many variations. From my perspective, Deism tends to be a bit less imaginative. The first two have always interested me more than the others.

Theism is the belief in a creator God who still interacts with men. People who believe they are part of God’s creation are theists. Some theists live like there is a Creator and believe they are responsible for living moral lives. Others seem to have forgotten about that part.

Naturalism is the belief that everything there is came out of nothing. At one point, nothing existed and then, something did. Many naturalists do not believe they are responsible to explain how this happened. They tend to leave explanations to theists and smile benignly when attempts to explain the universe’s creation are made. For the sincere naturalist, it is enough to say, “It exists, therefore it is.”

Atheists are people who hold to Naturalism. I have counted several atheists as friends. When we have talked about the subject, they explain the world came into existence by chance and they are not responsible to explain the “how.” Like Carl Sagan pointed out in his book, Cosmos, “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or will be.”

Hard-working atheists explain human morality has evolved in three ways. First, we are social animals. Natural selection has equipped us with nervous systems which are sensitized to other humans and domesticated animals. Second, as a species which evolved in a rapidly changing geologic period, we were forced to develop a culture which valued teaching and learning. So, we are taught much of what we define as morality. Finally, “enlightened self-interest” instructs us to maximize the duration and intensity of personal gratification. So, we choose to cooperate with others.

Friedrich Nietzsche – a well-known, but eccentric atheist – disagreed with the hard-working atheists. He wrote in his book, Twilight, “When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality.” Nietzsche went on to say, “If one breaks out of… the belief in God, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces: one has nothing of any consequence left in one’s hands.”

Still, looking through the lens with which I interpret the world, I realize I have a bad case of the “oughts.” I often hear people say “ought” in one grammatical form or another. When my friends in East Texas say, “He ought not a done that,” they reveal the innate sense of “oughtness” each human has in their conscience. We know when something is wrong. Better yet, we know when we have done wrong.

Our different worldviews are going to lead to very different interpretations of reality. The lens we look through will determine what we see. Rather than criticize my atheist friends, my beliefs about worldviews encourage me to live within the reality of what I observe. If I claim a Christian worldview, I ought to live according to its truth.