Spirituality in the Concept of Pluralism, Scientism, and Postmodernism

Spirituality

Spencer (2012) explains that spirituality involves recognition of a belief, sense or feeling that there exists something greater than an individual’s life, something that is more to being human than sensory experience, and that the larger role which the individuals are part is divine or cosmic in nature. Spirituality means understanding that people’s lives are significant in a context beyond everyday mundane existence at biological needs level which drives aggression and selfishness. It means having the knowledge that a person is a significant part of life purpose unfolding in the universe. It involves several universal themes like altruism, compassion, love truth, wisdom and life after death with the knowledge that enlightened individuals or saints have manifested and achieved higher development levels than ordinary individuals.

Pluralism, Scientism, and Postmodernism

Kelm (1999) explains that the public engagement with and reaction to religious movement and beliefs is mostly shaped by philosophical and cultural trends like multiculturalism, scientism, materialism, secularism, extremism, dogmatism, post-modernism and pluralism. Some of the trends bring opportunities but majority brings challenges to religious practice in the world that is changing rapidly. Kelm (1999) also explains that post-modernism is denial of and reaction against modernism’s confidence in truth which is expressed through propositions and discovered through reason. Its essence is lack of trust and hope as pillars in modernism as it is disillusionment with modern logic, technology, science and the effectiveness of moral absolute in addressing human dilemma realities. It accepts naturalism foundation like God does not exist, matter exists externally.

According to Kelm (1999), pluralism is philosophically a denial of any one, central, universal or unifying truth. Relatively, there are many subjectively interpreted and culturally conditioned truths. It celebrates difference and diversity, insisting on the tolerance for and openness to all beliefs, lifestyles, traditions and values. On the other hand scientism is a broad-based belief that the methods and assumptions of research of the natural and physical science are equally essential and appropriate to all disciplines including social sciences, the humanities and philosophy. Its basis is on the belief that of the authority of natural science over all life interpretations and natural science methods forms philosophical inquiry proper elements.

Prime Reality

When a culture loses their reality (philosophic center), its philosophy is lost, the view of who an individual is, and the foundation of its culture. As Spencer (2012) explains, when God dies, the value and substance of everything else dies with it. Acknowledging that God is dead is the beginning of postmodern wisdom and it is also the end of postmodern wisdom. Prime reality is the death of truth where all aspects of reality are taken over by relativism. In prime reality, language constructs meaning on itself. On the other hand words means what an individual wants them to mean and being is prior to knowing. The survival value is taken over by language and usefulness is no longer considered truthfulness. Also in prime reality there is radical relativism where no one’s story is truer than the other one. 

Nature of the World around Us

The world was created by God and originally it was perfect or sinless but due to man, at the moment it is full of sin. Therefore people cannot be with God unless they is salvation. People have different beliefs but they all have ways to define God who is a supernatural being. They all have ways of defining what is right and wrong. These concepts define the morals and values of individuals in their day to day life. Every person has what defines who they are, why they are who they are and their actions.

Where Man Goes After Death

There are different perspectives of what happens after death depending on religion of an individual. According to Plato (Wesley, 2016), souls at death comes to judgment for the way the individual lived their life, and if his or her wrong actions were not punished in this life, they will be punished in the afterlife. However if a man lived blameless, their afterlife will be blessed. Another perspective is the Christian version, when an individual dies his or her soul waits for the judgment day. In the judgment day the sinners will go to hell (punishment) while the righteous will go to heaven. These two perspectives conclude that man will be judged according to his action in the afterlife.

Human Being

Human beings are considered as the most evolved inhabitants in the ecosystem of the earth. Similar to everything else, they are products of chance and time, of survival and evolution. The only thing they have special unlike other inhabitants is their evolved minds. By definition, human beings may be termed as organisms that have the attributes of humans which are sympathies of human nature representatives. The structure of a human being normally consists of two eyes, one nose, two ears, one mouth, two legs, two arms and so forth. They are also different from other things due to their rational thinking in terms of making connections and relationships.

Knowing Anything at All

Is it possible to certainly perceive everything at all? The answer is no because without knowledge possibility, what is left is belief. This is belief that what one is told by scientists, religions, ideas is what it should, which is definitely a democracy of unknowing. According to Greaves (2016), for some people to know all they need to do is believe, for others they have a problem in reconciling two seemingly irreconcilable notions. The first notion is due to lack of a point of fixed reference making them to be locked in their own minds. The second is lack of self-regulating control or authority or notion. Therefore, the little that as an individual I know is what I have personally discovered due to hazards of expediency, mistranslation, misinformation, and prejudice.

Determining What Is Morally Right

There are moral truths that are objective moral standards of which every individual is accountable to. In United States, this may mean accountability to creator, Judeo-Christian values and the God in the Bible. Secular conservatives and religious belief al explain what is wrong or right. However religion dictates most on what is wrong or right. The ideal of thinking everything individually is admirable, however, if there was, no God there would be no moral truths but moral opinions. In the society, majority are governed by religion morals.

Human History

Human history is mostly commonly known from the Bible through God’s revelation. There is also the thinking from the events linear progression that has been given meaning to. The history of human began with man creating and playing with words and letters in a way of recording historical events. However, there exists doubts but human history explains what happened, the reason something happened and who were involved. However, different aspects affect the history that we receive. For example according to (Kelm, 1999), postmodernisms say and explain what they want others to believe according to their perspective. The big question is, should people believe in what God says or should they believe in what they personally know? The choice is between reason and faith, and the choice remains the most reasonable faith.

References

Greaves, A. (2016). How Can I Know Anything At All?. Philosophy Now. Retrieved from https://philosophynow.org/issues/57/How_Can_I_Know_Anything_At_All

Kelm, P. (1999). UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING A POSTMODERN CULTURE (1st ed.). Retrieved from http://www.wlsessays.net/bitstream/handle/123456789/2476/KelmPostmodern.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Spencer, M. (2012). 1 What is spirituality? A personal exploration (1st ed.). Royal College of Psychiatric. Retrieved from http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/What%20is%20spirituality%20Maya%20Spencer.x.pdf

Wesley, R. (2016). Philosophy and Death. Roangelo.Net. Retrieved from http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwit37.html