Worldviews and Religions: The Role of Religions-as-Worldviews in Building a Global Community of Justice & Peace

image from gracechurch.org

By: Julius-Kei Kato, PhD

I acknowledge my debt to the many thinker-teachers who have taught me precious lessons about the topics I write about here, particularly, Ken Wilber and his iteration of “the Integral Theory.” A full list of references for sources of the content here as well as for further study is found at the end of the article.

Part I

Worldviews and Religion-as-a-Worldview – Attaining a Worldview that Can Help Build a Just and Peaceful World

This essay is principally about the importance of worldviews, especially religious and spiritual worldviews. It describes what worldviews are and how they can impede or contribute to the building of a world in which true justice and peace are present.

[1] Building a Just and Peaceful World |  One of the most important keys to building a just and peaceful world today is to bring people (as individuals and as groups) to truly want to be “global citizens,” in other words, willing participants of—what we shall call here—a “global community.” Let us define “global community” along the lines of the concept of “global citizenship” as a movement of many people throughout our increasingly globalized and interconnected world who value the well-being of others: one’s own insider group of course but, equally, also those outside one’s groups of affiliation (extending this concern to the whole world even). A particularly urgent matter at this juncture in history is for members of this global community to become deeply aware of the precarious ecological situation of our common earth-home and act to improve the situation.

Global citizens (the members of this envisioned global community) commit themselves, first, to refrain from things that harm others and, second, to act in order to realize better the vision of a more peaceful and just world not only for themselves and their in-group members (aka, one’s “tribe”) but for everyone in the world, particularly, those who have been considered “others” by one’s tribe.

[2] What We Mean by “Tribe" |  We will use the word "tribe" or “tribal” frequently here. It is proper, therefore, to describe it further. “My tribe” can mean many things. It’s basically the human group that I consider “my own people” or my “in-group.” Hence, “my tribe” can refer to: my family and extended family, my clan, my village. It can also refer to: my race, my culture, my social and economic class, my gender and gender-orientation. More specifically for our purposes here, we should be aware that “my tribe” has also meant “my religion and my religious community” for many people in past history and continues to mean so in the present.

Note that it is of course natural and good to value one's "tribe." We affirm that. However, we should also remember that if we uncritically overvalue our tribe in a way that excludes others, that unfortunately results in neglecting other groups or, worse yet, it can make us marginalize, discriminate against, and even cause harm to others not included in our tribe.

[3] Worldview and Its Pervasive Character | Our aim in this reflection is to understand better the potential contribution that spiritual-religious traditions can make to the building of a truly just and peaceful global world. To reach that aim, it is important first to recognize the importance of “worldview” and how that is a key to humans becoming active and committed global citizens.

A worldview is, literally speaking, the way by which one views and understands the world. It is a combination of all the influences one has had in one’s life up to this point. One is largely unconscious of it but it informs practically all the areas—big and small—in life: what one believes; what one holds as true or false; how one approaches life; how one relates to others, and so forth. It is like the pond someone is swimming in if they were a fish.

Another useful analogy to understand worldview is this: It’s like someone’s mother language and all the complex grammatical rules that make up that language. One is largely unconscious of this process, but people speak their mother language perfectly, without being aware that they’re actually following all the complex grammatical rules of the language flawlessly as they speak. We only experience how actually complex any language is when we learn a foreign language and, as if for the first time, marvel at how effortlessly native speakers can speak a language that, for us, seems so difficult to learn. Thus, our mother language is an accurate image of the all-pervasive, total character of our keyword here—worldview, in the life of individuals as well as groups of people.

[4] Religion is a Worldview |   It is obvious that religion (or any spiritual tradition for that matter) is definitely a worldview. It is a way of viewing the world which usually involves some “ultimate reality” that is meant to pervade the whole existence of believers, influencing how they understand the world and informing them how they should live their lives if they want to reach the particular religion’s ultimate goal. That goal may be the Christian union with God, Buddhism’s Nirvana, Islam’s total surrender to God or Judaism’s fidelity to the covenant, and so forth. Moreover, it is good to be aware that a religious worldview has an arguably stronger hold on the psyches of those who are living entirely within it because they believe that this particular worldview has been somehow “revealed” and gifted to them by an ultimate or divine Being or Entity, hence, carries with it some kind of absolute character. 

[5] How Worldviews Develop |   There is a basic and foundational principle about worldviews: Worldviews can and do undergo a process of evolution/development from: earlier, basic, (arguably) immature and more selfish stages – to: more advanced, more inclusive, (arguably) more mature stages. Since religions are worldviews, that principle is equally true about religions.

Up until now, the various spiritual-religious traditions of the world have not given much attention to the process of how spiritual-religious worldviews evolve and develop in individuals (as well as in whole groups of people). And this is perhaps one of the major things that religions lack which must definitely be rectified: a lack of knowledge and awareness of developmental processes as explicitly applied to religious faith.

To elaborate on this, various developmental studies have pointed out that humans (across different cultures and historical eras) go through a predictable general pattern of growth or development in their worldviews.

The pattern usually begins with a first level (Stage #1), a stage at the start of life that can be described as Egocentric. This is a stage in which one’s worldview is focused on oneself. Babies and young children are clear evidence of this. From that stage though, if humans would develop properly, they should grow and transcend their natural egocentric worldview and move on to being (2) Ethnocentric, a stage in which the person goes beyond and overcomes the “natural self-centered focus” of life’s initial stages. Instead, the person advances to a stage in which they can include the people closest to them (one's "tribe" or "in-group") as valuable for themselves. In short, the circle of one’s concern is getting bigger as one grows. That is a sign of good human development.

[6] Moving Beyond Ethnocentricity in a Global Community |  Today, in our more interconnected, diverse, and globalized world, it is more urgent that one should not stop at the ethnocentric stage unlike in the past. From an exclusive focus on one's "tribe" or “in-group” (ethnocentric stage), people in a globalized, interdependent world, as an ideal, should grow further into higher worldview stages, that is, (Stage #3) Worldcentric, a stage in which we acknowledge that those who, up to this point, were considered "Others" (by our “in-group”)  are deserving of the following things: at the basic level, a just and humane treatment and, if possible, also friendship and care. The highest level of development would be becoming more (4) Cosmocentric, a stage in which we consider not only humans but also other living and non-living things (our whole cosmos even!) as the objects of our concern and care. This cosmocentric dimension is in the forefront today in our globalized world as we become more aware of the precarious situation in which the ecological order of our earth finds itself.

Understanding Religion and Which Aspects of It Can Impede or Advance Human Flourishing

 

Philosopher Ken Wilber's Keynote Address at the Integral European Conference (IEC) 2018 

(The Original Title of Wilber’s Lecture)

Is Religion Evolution’s Ally or Enemy?

 

LINK (in the public domain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z9vyJDME7w&t=2118s

Published: Oct 1, 2018 / Accessed: 2021-05-11

 

(The numbers in-between parentheses are timestamps. Parts in blue are my own [jkk] annotations to Wilber’s talk. When parts are italicized within Wilber’s talk, those are my own emphases. Special thanks to my research assistant Christine Atchison for help with the transcription of Wilber's talk.)

[jkk annotation] Have you ever wondered why religion can produce both the best things and the worst things in the world? I think the best way to answer that is by explaining religion through what is called “the Integral Theory.” I’ve found that this talk of philosopher Ken Wilber, the major proponent and exponent of the Integral Theory, is one of the best and most succinct-yet-complete presentations that could help us gain a good “big picture” of religion – its lights and shadows, its tremendous potential as well as its darkest dysfunctionalities. This talk of Wilber titled “Is Religion Evolution’s Ally or Enemy,” gives us an excellent overview of an understanding of religion and spirituality that could help humanity advance through the proper developmental stages and grow into a more mature and more holistic state as individuals and as groups, and also experience the highest states of bliss that religious traditions envision.

 

Introductory Remarks on Religion in the West

     Hello everybody, my talk is titled ‘Religion: Evolution’s Ally or Enemy?’. So let me start by asking ‘what are we going to do with this thing called Religion?’ Around two or three hundred years ago the percentage of people in, for example, [Northern] Europe who considered themselves ‘churched’, that is, serious and regular followers of a traditional church (in this case the Catholic Church) was well over 90 %. Today the percentage of people in Northern Europe who consider themselves ‘churched’ is less than 11%. The number of people who are followers of any sort of traditional religion has dropped dramatically—especially in the modern, developed countries. In the pre-modern or developing countries the numbers of religious believers are much higher and, as we’ll see, there’s a reason for that. But, in general—and this is the central point—the more evolved a country is, the less religious it is. And this is true for individuals as well; the more evolved a person is, the less religious they’re likely to be. Why is that? Are religion and evolution the opposite of each other so that the more you have of one, the less you have of the other? Is religion an ally of evolution or its enemy?

 

Defining Terms: Spiritual Intelligence and Spiritual Experience

     First of all, we need to understand what we mean by the word religion. There are at least two very different meanings of that word. One meaning is called religious intelligence or spiritual intelligence. It’s how we think about spirit, how we think about what we believe is an ultimate reality or ultimate concern. It’s how we interpret or conceptualize or think about ultimate reality. The other meaning is not spiritual intelligence but direct spiritual experience or immediate religious experience. Human beings have both capacities—spiritual intelligence and spiritual experience.

[jkk annotation] I would avoid using the word “religion” altogether because it has negative connotations nowadays in many circles. We can use terms with a more positive resonance for people today, such as the Japanese word ikigai (生き甲斐) or “spirituality”. “Human beings are spiritual beings” might be a foundational principle. Why? Because a person is usually animated and motivated to engage with life by interior and exterior factors that are “greater than (but also inclusive of) the physical.” That is just another way to say “spiritual.” Hence, the spiritual dimension plays a foundational and crucial role in humans.

     In certain instances, like listening to beautiful music, walking in nature, making love, having a peak experience or an altered state of consciousness, humans can have a direct spiritual experience. William James explored these direct spiritual experiences in his classic book The Varieties of Religious Experience. But even if we have a direct spiritual experience, we almost always start interpreting it, conceptualizing it, giving it some sort of meaning or using some sort of conceptual framework—however simple—to make sense of it. So, as soon as we have any direct or religious or spiritual experience, we use our spiritual intelligence to interpret it, conceptualize it, frame it. We have spiritual experience and we have spiritual intelligence. (4:15) 

     Sometimes people have not had any direct spiritual experience, but they have lots of ideas and thoughts about what spirit is or what they think spirit is like. Most people have some sort of idea of what an ultimate reality is like, or at least what the most important reality or ultimate concern is for themselves. In other words, they have some form of spiritual intelligence, however vague or crude, but they have no direct spiritual experience. Some of these people even have very advanced spiritual intelligence. They’ve read texts from all the world’s great religions; they know all sorts of theological theories and ideas. They’ve thought a great deal about spirit and ultimate realities They might even have tried to weave together all of the latest leading-edge versions of modern science into a ‘new paradigm’ and then claim that this new paradigm represents a mystical, interwoven unity of all reality—just like Zen, or Daoism, or Vedanta. And yet, even though they believe this theory they themselves have never actually had a genuine spiritual experience in their life. So when it comes to spiritual reality they have lots of knowledge by description (or spiritual intelligence), but no direct knowledge by acquaintance (or direct spiritual experience, or satori, or enlightenment).

     On the other hand, others have had a great deal of spiritual experience or several of them, but they can’t articulate it well or show how it relates to all the other areas of life. They have much spiritual experience but not much spiritual intelligence. These two forms of religious engagement—spiritual intelligence and spiritual experience—are very different in their fundamental nature and recognizing that difference is truly important, as we’ll see. These two forms cannot be completely separated from each other but they are different in several important ways and it’s crucial to recognize that difference. Spiritual experience, in its highest form, is claimed by its adherents to be a direct and immediate experience of pure one-ness with an ultimate reality.

     This experience itself has been known in almost every major culture throughout history and around the world and given names such as enlightenment, awakening, metamorphosis, Satori, Moksha, Fanaa—the great liberation. And this is said to result in states described as ultimate unity consciousness, divine oneness, pure unity, infinite wholeness, or the supreme identity. Supreme because it is said to be one with spirit and thus one with the entire universe. And this oneness is said to constitute a person’s real self or true self. For the moment, simply assuming that something like this ultimate, religious, experience exists, I refer to this overall process in any of its forms as ‘waking up’. ‘Waking up’ is the ultimate form of spiritual experience. (8:22).

     Spiritual intelligence, on the other hand, is one of up to a dozen multiple intelligences that all human beings possess. That is, in addition to cognitive intelligence we have emotional intelligence, moral intelligence, aesthetic intelligence, linguistic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence and, yes, spiritual intelligence. These are not so much experiences as they are intelligences. That is, mental operations that address fundamental questions faced by humans. Emotional intelligence, for example, addresses the issue of ‘what are you (or I) feeling?’. Moral intelligence addresses the question ‘what is the right thing to do?’. And spiritual intelligence is the thinking process that humans engage whenever they think about some sort of ultimate reality or ultimate concern. A person might use their spiritual intelligence and decide that there really isn’t any spirit or ultimate reality—they’re atheistic. Or they might conclude that they just can’t decide that issue—they’re agnostic. Or, as I said, they might look at today’s leading-edge sciences and come up with a new paradigm about a fully interwoven and unified nature. In any of those cases, they’re using their spiritual intelligence because they’re thinking about ultimate realities.

Note Well: Spiritual Intelligence, according to Wilber, is one of several multiple intelligences that human beings possess.

     Now, like all multiple intelligences, spiritual intelligence grows and develops through a well-known sequence of developmental stages. People aren’t born with any of their multiple intelligences operating at their highest and most mature levels. Like all things in nature, any multiple intelligence has to grow and develop through a series of stages. Each stage being more functional, more complex, and more mature. The same is definitely true of spiritual intelligence. So, what stages does spiritual intelligence grow through? What stages are there? (11:05).

[jkk annotation] To summarize：Religion―Spirituality consists of two main factors：(1) Spiritual Experience and (2) Spiritual Intelligence. Traditional religions know #1 well; they unfortunately are largely unaware of #2 and hence they cannot “get” why religion has become irrelevant to many people in the West today.