When comparing different worldviews, it’s good to begin with shared concepts rather than something completely foreign. So let’s start with something both groups agree upon.
Members of both groups acknowledge the existence of an energy source greater than themselves. The challenge comes as each group describes their understanding of the greater energy and attempts to give form to that source.
All people hold a worldview because they asked the same questions. Questions like, who am I, where did I come from, and where am I going? It’s the different answers to these questions that created many of the challenges we face today.
In the West, for the past 3,000 years, the source of all creation has been thought to be a male, referred to as God. In the East, and within most indigenous cultures around the world, the source is genderless or composed of equally powerful male and female attributes.
A Western interpretation makes God a creator, and like all artists, he and his creations are separate, one from another. The resulting separation lays the foundation for hierarchical structures and evaluations.
In Eastern and Indigenous assumptions, everything and everyone is a manifestation of the source, establishing a unity between all manifestations. The resulting recognition of unity lays the foundation for equality between everything.
