THE COLLECTION OF SWIRLING WORLDVIEWS

I sometimes wonder whether we spend our lives collecting worldviews without realising it.

It's tattoos that made me think of this. I haven't got any, and never will I, something which sets me apart from probably about 60% of my friends. But the reasons for this are all to do with my collection of worldviews.

Not just the art of polluting your skin with ink though! Other things too! Like veganism, drinking alcohol, swearing, attitudes around sexuality, and how to deal with people who are not the same as you. These are all things which are greatly affected by our collections of worldviews - sometimes, whether we realise it or not.

Here's my theory...

I've got lots of worldviews, spinning around me all the time. None of them are ever too far out of reach for a conversational moment.

"What happened to Autumn?"

"Yeah I know. Still, terrible, about all them hurricanes though, ain't it?"

"Certainly. Climate change though, eh?"

And before I know it I've simply stretched out into my Science Worldview (which looks at 98% of the world's experts, all the graphs that point upwards and to the right, and the actual flipping evidence in front of us) and I've drawn out a pretty obvious conclusion.

I have other worldviews:

I have my Family Worldview, itself a collection of opinions on how to behave, how to bring up children, never to interrupt, to eat breakfast and not to get tattoos or piercings.

I have my Work Worldview (reply to emails, walk around the lake when stressed, never use an apostrophe to pluralise a noun and always write in internationalized English).

And among others, I have my Biblical Worldview, from which I really try to apply my beliefs and behaviours as well as I think I can.

Most of the time, all of these worldviews get along really well with each other. They float around me in a kind of cloud of happily jostling thoughts and attitudes.

"Be kind to people!" they all say in unison.

"Don't steal! Don't kill a person's reputation, hold the door open for people out of respect, choose honour, make great cups of tea."

You know the drill. Your own worldviews probably get along just as famously and form the basis of your personal culture just like mine do.

But what happens in those moments when your worldview clouds disagree? What happens then? Which worldview wins?

For me, this is most painful when I have to choose between the Biblical Worldview and the Science Worldview. In fact, I've spent a long long time trying to resolve the dissonance between the creation story and the fossil record - the six-day young Earth and the ancient evolving dynamic planet - especially in a way that is satisfying enough to explain to others who take the Bible a lot more literally than I think you're supposed to, along with people who sneer at its text as though we were worshipping the author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

But there are people, friends of mine, who let the Science Worldview win, every time, and now throw everything else the Bible says out, along with the baby and the bathwater. If there's ever a conflict, science is the winner - despite its persistence that it's more open-minded and curious than dogmatic.

I think that's a shame because the Bible has some incredible wisdom for our time. But, of course I'd say that.

By the way, read the Bible to the baby, bath the baby, read the Bible in the bath, but I'd advise it best not to combine all three at once.

Then there's man-made climate change. Despite what some right-wing evangelicals in the USA might want to persuade you, the Biblical Worldview and the Science Worldview are a lot more closely aligned on climate change. And they both say: "Look after the planet."

But sometimes the Political Worldview says: make more money, look after your own, throw up defences, sell televisions and make factories. And unfortunately for some people, that worldview is so loud in their ears that they can't hear their own grandchildren screaming at them from the miserable future. They resolve their dissonance of course, by disregarding the science, the weather, the numbers and the graphs altogether as some sort of hoax. And that, I hope you'll agree, is bonkers.

However, when we spot them, I think we ought to pay attention to these moments of dissonance before we resolve them.

Actually, I think we ought to decide which worldview is going to win when there's a conflict. And which worldview is loudest in our ears when we stop and listen.

My own choice is the Biblical Worldview. But I only really know it because I've wrestled with these things and the cloud has swirled around me asking me time and again, which I should choose. And I have a curious optimism for believing the Maker of the Universe.

Finally, I should probably make a point of saying that I won't, don't, and actually can't, mind if you have tattoos - so I am sorry if you're offended by my position. As permanent as they are, it's not my place at all to comment or judge. And so I won't.

All I can say is that I won't ever get one, and I will happily draw from my Family Worldview, the glinting hint from my Biblical Worldview, and my own set of personal ideas about attractiveness to tell you why. Also I don't think I'd really suit one.

So I guess what I'm saying is pay attention to the tension, listen to what your moments of conflict are telling you about what you truly believe, and don't be afraid of that sinking feeling when your clouds conflict. It could actually be quite an awesome moment.