Worldviews:

Gnosticism, which evolved in the first century, comes from gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge, and was a religious perspective which equated matter with evil, spirit with good.  From it, came (1) asceticism, which is the suppression of bodily passions because of their connection with evil matter, and (2) libertinism or sensualism, which is the indulgence of bodily passions because of the transience and consequent unimportance of matter.  According to the Gnostics, the human problem does not originate from “guilt,” which needs forgiveness, but from “ignorance,” which needs replacement with special knowledge. The Gnostics believed they were the only people to ever obtain this special knowledge, and therefore considered their so-called “wisdom” to be a secret from the rest of humanity.

Furthermore, in addition to Gnosticism, other philosophies also developed throughout the first century.  Such philosophies consisted of: (1) Epicureanism, which taught pleasure (not necessarily sensual) as the chief good in life (2) Stoicism, which taught dutiful acceptance of one’s fate as determined by an impersonal Reason which rules the universe and of which all human beings are a part (3) Cynicism, which regarded the supreme virtue as a simple, unconventional life in rejection of the popular pursuits of comfort, affluence, and social prestige and (4) Skepticism, which abandoned belief in anything absolute and succumbed to doubt and conformity to prevailing custom.

Moreover, in today’s society, current philosophies of education have also developed.  Such philosophies include (1) Naturalism, which believes values are manmade (2) Nihilism, which believes the human predicament or problem lies within the fact that human beings do not possess the ability to choose their own destiny (3) Eastern Pantheistic Monism, which believes at death an individual soul loses its bodily residence but is reincarnated in another individual (4) New Age, which believes the external universe exists not to be manipulated from the outside by a transcendent God, but to be manipulated from the inside by the self and (5) Postmodernism, which believes the truth about the reality itself is forever hidden from us.

In short, today’s philosophies emphasize “self” more and “Jesus” less.