Worldviews

Compare theistic, non-theistic, and philosophical worldviews. Adjust the sliders to set your own probability estimates.

Probability Estimates

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Worldview Profiles

Classical Theism

theistic

A personal, omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God exists and sustains the universe. This God is the necessary ground of all being.

Strengths

  • + Explains fine-tuning and cosmic order
  • + Grounds objective morality
  • + Accounts for consciousness and rationality

Weaknesses

  • - Problem of evil and suffering
  • - Divine hiddenness
  • - Difficulty of defining divine attributes consistently
Key proponents: Thomas Aquinas, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig

Deism

theistic

A creator God exists and set the universe in motion but does not intervene. The universe runs on natural laws established at creation.

Strengths

  • + Explains existence without requiring miracles
  • + Compatible with science
  • + Avoids problem of evil from divine intervention

Weaknesses

  • - No personal relationship with God
  • - Difficult to distinguish from naturalism observationally
  • - Why would God create and then disengage?
Key proponents: Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Albert Einstein (loosely)

Pantheism

theistic

God and the universe are identical. Everything that exists is divine, and divinity is the totality of all that is.

Strengths

  • + Elegant unification of God and nature
  • + Compatible with scientific naturalism
  • + Explains mystical experiences of unity

Weaknesses

  • - If everything is God, the concept may be meaningless
  • - Difficulty accounting for evil as part of God
  • - No personal God to relate to
Key proponents: Baruch Spinoza, Albert Einstein, Marcus Aurelius (Stoic form), Deep ecologists

Panentheism

theistic

God contains the universe but also transcends it. The universe exists within God, but God is more than the universe.

Strengths

  • + Balances immanence and transcendence
  • + God evolves with creation — explains change
  • + Compatible with mystical traditions across religions

Weaknesses

  • - Philosophically complex — harder to define
  • - God may not be omnipotent in traditional sense
  • - Less empirically distinguishable than it seems
Key proponents: Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Paul Tillich, Teilhard de Chardin

Metaphysical Naturalism

non-theistic

Only the natural/physical world exists. There are no supernatural beings, forces, or realms. Everything is explicable by natural laws.

Strengths

  • + Parsimonious — no unnecessary entities
  • + Strong scientific track record
  • + Avoids theological complications

Weaknesses

  • - Hard problem of consciousness
  • - Fine-tuning requires multiverse or brute fact
  • - Difficulty grounding objective morality
Key proponents: Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sean Carroll, Alex Rosenberg

Agnosticism

non-theistic

The existence of God or ultimate reality is unknown and possibly unknowable. Suspending judgment is the most intellectually honest position.

Strengths

  • + Intellectually humble
  • + Acknowledges limits of human knowledge
  • + Avoids dogmatism on either side

Weaknesses

  • - May be avoiding a genuine question
  • - Practical decisions still require assumptions
  • - Can become permanent fence-sitting
Key proponents: Thomas Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Anthony Kenny

Idealism

philosophical

Consciousness or mind is the fundamental nature of reality. Matter is a manifestation of mind, not the other way around.

Strengths

  • + Elegantly solves the hard problem of consciousness
  • + Compatible with quantum mechanics interpretations
  • + Explains why mathematics describes reality

Weaknesses

  • - Counterintuitive — rocks seem real without observers
  • - Difficulty explaining shared objective world
  • - Empirically hard to distinguish from realism
Key proponents: George Berkeley, G.W.F. Hegel, Bernardo Kastrup, Donald Hoffman

Simulation Hypothesis

novel

Our reality is a computer simulation run by an advanced civilization. The "gods" may be programmers, and physics are the code.

Strengths

  • + Explains fine-tuning (designed parameters)
  • + Explains mathematical structure of physics
  • + Compatible with technological trends

Weaknesses

  • - Pushes the question back one level
  • - No direct evidence
  • - Unfalsifiable in most formulations
Key proponents: Nick Bostrom, Elon Musk, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Rizwan Virk

Panpsychism

philosophical

Consciousness is a fundamental feature of all matter. Even elementary particles have some proto-conscious experience.

Strengths

  • + Addresses the hard problem of consciousness
  • + No arbitrary consciousness threshold
  • + Compatible with integrated information theory

Weaknesses

  • - Combination problem: how do micro-experiences combine?
  • - What does electron "experience" even mean?
  • - Difficult to test empirically
Key proponents: Philip Goff, Giulio Tononi, David Chalmers, Christof Koch

Process Theology

theistic

God is not omnipotent but persuasive, evolving with the universe. Reality is constituted by events/experiences rather than static substances.

Strengths

  • + Addresses problem of evil — God persuades, not coerces
  • + Compatible with evolution and science
  • + Dynamic, relational view of reality

Weaknesses

  • - God may be too weak to matter
  • - Departure from most religious traditions
  • - Complexity of process metaphysics
Key proponents: Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, Marjorie Suchocki