The Secular/Pagan worldview is called "Perennial" because it pops up everywhere the Biblical view is not dominant. These two worldviews are the two ultimate choices we have regarding the formation of the cosmos.
The Perennial cosmos is distinguished from its opponent (the Biblical worldview) by its proclamation of a cosmos emerging out of some kind of primordial substance, the least complete, least personal, and least particular/concrete being possible. The Divine is the exact opposite of the personal, particular, or concrete being, more like a something, an essence, or an unformed substance. In the Perennial worldview, persons are not the basic building-blocks of reality, but rather material things (atoms, etc.) or spiritual substances, or Ideas (Platonism).
Persons "evolve" by total chance out of the original stuff, and so are mere passing bits of flotsam floating on the sea of chaos. All persons eventually dissolve back, equally by chance, into the primordial substance.
Get these worldviews under your belt, and you will be able to talk to the world around you about your Christian faith much more reasonably and convincingly.
When pushed to their logical foundations, the Biblical and the
Perennial are exact counter-opposites on every major point. From the
Biblical point of view, the Perennial is not "another interesting option", it is
the world of the Fall.
Secular/pagan Worldview diagram (pdf file)
Yahweh or the Great Mother Library
Chart of Biblical vs. Perennial characteristics (pdf file)
(If you cannot open pdf files, click here)
The pictures of the two opposing worldviews need more explanation, which will follow. My book, Yahweh or the Great Mother? hopefully will be out in 2006, comparing the two worldviews in detail. But to get started, the Secular/Pagan (Perennial - Great Mother) worldview can be graphically pictured as follows:
Pictures of Uroboros -- name (in Greek mythology) of the serpent biting his own tail, symbolizing the cosmos as a self-contained entity -- and thus of the secular/pagan (and Fallen) cosmos. This cosmos is a "closed system" because there is nothing outside of it to which to go, or with which to exchange information or energy. It is a perfect closed system, no possibility of any exchange. The Biblical world, by contrast, is an "open system" because there is communication outside the cosmos with the Creator, an exchange of energy and information. The second picture shows Uroboros encapsulating the cycle of evolution of all things out of the Ying-Yang center, the womb of the Great Mother. These were emailed by some friend whose name I do not recall.
Click for *.pdf version of Secular/Pagan Worldview (If you cannot open pdf files, click here)
The "Great Mother" is the totality of the cosmic circle, sometimes more specifically identified with the "womb" at the center, the unformed, ineffable beginning of all things.
See Biblical Worldview -- study the differences.
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