knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and
laws[i]. Everyone everywhere has a reason on why they believe what they believe. Some just
want to make you scratch your head and scream while others you completely understand and
even believe. But I can promise you, we all have some kind of philosophy.
Christianity is the largest religion in the world, and because it requires faith in biblical
revelation, it’s easy to assume that they can’t have a philosophy. The Apostle Paul warns
Christians to stay away from the philosophy the world has, one that depends on human tradition
and the basic principles of this world, rather than Christ. Now I’m not saying that Christians
don’t believe in a philosophy the prophet Isaiah says for us to "Come now, let us reason
together," says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18a) We as Christians need to know why we believe that
God is the “real deal” He is the one who created everything, us, the earth, and the universe.
Islam is the second largest religion in the world, and their beliefs on philosophy are very
much like the Christians belief on philosophy. They are both theist, have biblical roots, believe in
the supernatural, and miracles. They believe in Jesus and his many miracles, but oddly enough
their ultimate prophet Muhammad never did any big miracles like Jesus. They believe that any
time the Bible prophesizes about a coming messiah that it was not Jesus Christ but Muhammad.
Secular
Humanists have many different varieties of philosophical positions, but the
main two being Naturalism and Materialism. If you take a
close look at these you will see that they both are the same believing –“The philosophical
belief that reality is composed solely of matter and that all phenomena can be explained in terms of
natural causes e.g. law of gravity.” (UTT 101) To them
there is no real first cause, it just happened, the begging of the world. To
them the supernatural cannot exist, and your brain is just a
mass of evolved brain cells.
The Marxist-Leninists have a view of dialectical materialism to understand and change
the world. They have a godless philosophy with everything ultimately real, rather than God. All
that exists is the matter we see in nature. Science is very important to the Marxist-Leninist it is
crucial to their theory of knowledge. Marxists rely on the notion that consciousness is just a
subjective reflection of objective reality.
Cosmic Humanism believes in “all roads lead to Heaven” the New Age movement. They
reject naturalistic and materialistic philosophies, because they deny the all-pervasive
supernatural. They believe in Non-naturalism- The belief that everything is a part of God and in
essence, spiritual. The things that we can see and feel are only a manifestation of spirit, and all
matter will melt away when universal consciousness is achieved. (UTT 114)
Postmodernism
divides modern-day academia, they notion that truth is community-oriented. Postmodernism does not have one certain
philosophy but many, although a few seem to keep popping up with the same idea. One being the
denial of universal truth, another Anti-Realism which is the belief that reality is
subjectively constructed by human thought; all in all they do not believe in Truth but truth, in other
words they don’t believe in ultimate truths.
[i]
Webster Dictionary
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