Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home - Glenn S. Sunshine

An overview and then deconstruction of historical worldviews leading up to modern times.

Chapter notes:

1. explains worldviews; again - though in slightly different ways than we've seen elsewhere. Not quite as a way through which we filter/see the world, but as our set of cultural/societal norms and our position within them.
2. Ancient Rome's Worldview was...pretty bad.
3.  - I didn't write anything!!! - 
4. This chapter was especially fascinating to me. The strange (to someone going through a Worldview class) term of "platonic humanism" to describe a world created by God to be know able and discoverable by observations that lead us back to God - describes my experience with Reasons to Believe quite well - that we have both Special AND General revelation. The fact that at this time Muslims went against this view - deeming any natural explanation as antithetical to the view that Allah ordained and controls everything - is interesting. Certain Christians who eschew medicine or scientific answers would be surprised to know they have something in common with Islam which would've labeled doctors and scientists as death-worthy infidels.
5. economy - early societies saw the value in work - as fulfilling a similar role to Adam's tending of the garden. As church organization grew, so did it' wealth - thinking that it displayed the glory of God. Government was needed to subdue evil, but needed it's own checks and balances (including within the church)
6. The Renaissance was not the birth of the modern world, but a rebirth of the old Roman world and ways of thinking / doing things. But when trying to determine a grand synthesis of knowledge of the old ways, they discovered too many contradictory ideas. It wasn't just "truth from different perspectives".
   Medieval times thought truth was knowable - God could be revealed in life. During reformation and subsequent wars between Catholics and Protestants (or, more aptly, their linked governments), people started question whether truth was actually knowable. The "New World" also brought new challenges to what was accepted as Biblical truth - where did the peoplrt come from? How could they have heard about Jesus - and was God cruel to leave them out? Also - where would all these new animals fit on the ark?! These (well, maybe not the ark question) are eerily similar to some of my own personal struggles and resolutions in questions of reality and faith. Finally, Pyrrho was discovered and his unresolved questions made people start questioning whether anything was knowable at all.
7. Much of the scientific revolution was driven by Christian men's desire to know and understand God better through understanding His creation. Even ideas that went against what was generally understood from the Bible (like the sun revolving around the earth) were based not as a way to deny the Bible, but because these scientists believed God was logical and orderly, and His creation was understandable.
8. Many deistic thoughts led to the various revolutions described in chapter 8. The American revolution, however, had no history to preserve, so was able to balance Christian values (even if not explicitly quoted as such) as well as government control / checks and balances, due to recognizing the fallen, sinful state of Man.
9. Replacing God-knowledge-seeking science as a basis of all reality led to everything from Darwinianism to Marxism and eugenics. Work is no longer seen as good.
10. Previously held views are deconstructed - broken down and replaced with someone's own personal interpretation. This led to things like the sexual revolution, radical feminism, and new-age religions like eco-spirituality and the Gaia hypothesis
11. Trajectories - we're basically on a path back to life in the Roman empire. Unvalued pre-born and infant lives, human dignity, slavery.

12/28/2023 // NF // Kindle