PHI 340 Separation by Standards

Separation by Cognitive Standards

Scientology is sometimes called the "science fiction religion," and the U. S. Supreme Court seems to have some doubts about its being a religion. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, more commonly referred to as "Mormonism," is, by contrast, a recognized and populous form of Christianity. It would be an interesting exercise, which I leave to the reader, to try to find some general principle that would classify Scientology as pseudoreligion and Mormonism as a religion. I'd like to approach the question of cognitive standards in religion in a different way.

It seems to me that, though the world does, in many circumstances, resemble an animal body, yet is the analogy also defective in many circumstances the most material: no organs of sense; no seat of thought or reason; no one precise origin of motion and action. In short, it seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable than an animal . . . .

Cleanthes in Part VI, David Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion

If you are a student of Southwestern culture, you may be aware of the vegetable antidefamation laws of Arizona. ("It is unlawful for any person within this state: . . . [t]o disseminate any false or misleading advertisement concerning agricultural, vegetable or ornamental plant seed in any manner or by any means.") For farming states, vegetables are no laughing matter. And if you are a reader of comic strips, you have no doubt read the fable of the Great Pumpkin in the Peanuts cartoon strip – a touching tale of one small boy's willingness to sacrifice for his faith, despite annual disappointment. But very few know the true origin of the fable. In fact, the fable is but a small slice of a rapidly growing religious movement: Vegetabilism. There is as little resemblance between its theology and Great Pumpkinism as there is between the large, elderly, bearded man on the golden throne in Sunday School texts and the God whose nature is expostulated in the most advanced works of Christian theology.

First, let me offer you an orienting framework. Most religions are based on a "person standard": they maintain that a person, or something personlike, is responsible, causally and morally, for the universe's being as it is (most familiarly, the best of all possible persons, or Supreme Being); or, as in some Eastern religions, they may react negatively to this standard, insisting that personal individuality is to be transcended ("salvation through loss of selfhood"). Negative or positive, the defining concepts are the same. Vegetabilist theology rejects the person-standard and finds instead evidence of a botanical, vegetal origin to the universe and all that is important in it: the universe grows like a tree, not like a tumor. The germinus of all Vegetabilist theology is its version of the famous Argument from Design, hinted at in Cleanthes's remark:

The Argument from Design (Vegetable Version)

The universe and its parts resemble a Great Vegetable

Whenever the effects resemble, very likely, the causes resemble

So, very likely, the universe is of Vegetal Origin.

All Arguments from Design, Vegetabilist or not, share a reliance on the sort of general principle articulated in the second premise. In non-Vegetabilist design arguments, similarity between human artifacts and natural objects (e.g., cameras and eyes) is used to support inferences about the similarity between creators of the artifacts and the Creator of the natural objects. (We'll examine these arguments further when we discuss the role of purpose-directed explanation in religion and science.) And all Arguments from Design, Vegetabilist or not, begin with readily observed similarities such as those recorded in the first premise.

To facilitate understanding, I've given an oversimplified version; the Real Thing is, of course, far more complex, and gives due attention to specifying precisely the relevant kinds of similarities, and to explaining how the presence of these similarities confers on the conclusion a particular numerical likelihood.

Before we proceed, I must hasten to warn against a common and abhorrent confusion: do not confuse Vegetabilism with that most disgusting and barbaric of practices: Vegetarianism! It is better by far to eat meat alone than to destroy that which is most holy by scalding it alive, by amputation, or by drowning in dips – so sayeth the Vegetabilists. (My source here is the authoritative Boulder Vegetable Rights Association.) Of course, this means that severe vitamin deficiencies and even death are the more rule than the exception among Vegetabilists – but, like all deeply religious individuals, they are willing to sacrifice for their faith, and indeed welcome the approach of the vegetative state.

Vegetabilists strive for the Photosynthetic Virtues: the highest compliment one can pay them is to say, "S/he's nothing but a vegetable now." Indeed, there are some violent sects – like the Christian Flagellants of Spain – who inflict severe head injury upon themselves with dried gourds, seeking a more thoroughly vegetative state. (This, by the way, is the origin of the expression, "he's out of his gourd.")

There is mounting empirical evidence that plants have sensory capacities:

Harry Smith, "Phytochromes and light signal perception by plants - an emerging synthesis" [-a photosynthesis, one might say] 5 October 2000 Nature 407, 585 - 591

ABSTRACT: For plants, the sensing of light in the environment is as important as vision is for animals. Fluctuations in light can be crucial to competition and survival. One way plants sense light is through the phytochromes, a small family of diverse photochromic protein photoreceptors whose origins have been traced to the photosynthetic prokaryotes. During their evolution, the phytochromes have acquired sophisticated mechanisms to monitor light. Recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms of phytochromes and their significance to evolutionary biology make possible an interim synthesis of this rapidly advancing branch of photobiology. (2000) © Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

But what about those sensitive souls who admire the moral impulses underlying both Vegetarianism (no animals!) and Vegetabilism (no plants!)?

The IgNobel Prizes 2000 offer the answer.

Are we not all fortunate to be living in an age when science and morality can work together, fist in glove? A resounding, "Yes!" seems to be the (other) answer.

No crude materialism, Vegetabilist theology tells us that the fundamental principle of all growth is the nonmaterial Vegetative Essence, not directly observable but manifest in the natural cycle of germination, growth, renewal, ripening, decay and rotting, and generally, going to seed.

The Vegetabilist Hymnal is small, but growing. Its opus is by St. Frank, "Call Any Vegetable," with its poignant refrain

Rutabaga, Rutabaga,

Rutabaga, Rutabaga,

Rutabay-y-y-y...

To welcome the newborn into the world, they sing "This bud's for You;" at funerals, the mournful "Yes, We Have No Bananas" is, of course, more appropriate. Meals are begun with loud shouts of "Praise the lard!"

Perhaps the best evidence of its vitality is the proliferation of sects and sayings, most evident in the sunnier climes, especially Southern California, wherein the Vegetabilist Mecca, Orange County, is to be found. (As the note on Arizona law indicates, the political influence of the Vegetabilists has already reached beyond California and is rumored to be headed for Texas.)

The basic division among Vegetabilists is between the High Fibers and the Low Fibers. The High Fibers favor natural regularity (see The Songs of St. Frank) and observe the Sacred Rite of the Evacuation. The Low Fibers are led by a self-proclaimed Big Banana, who has been criticized for a "fruitier-than-thou" attitude.

Modesty prevents me from discussing in any detail the Cult of the Hot Red Pepper, with its obscenities and chants of "I'm a pepper, you're a pepper."

(Despite the fact that it is Sacred Art, you must be at least 18 years of age, or at least 21 in some jurisdictions, to view the picture below. Otherwise, please don't look.)

A low tolerance for boredom inhibits discussion of the Reformed Vegetabilists of Southern California and their Salad Bar Sect.

Despite the growth of sects, all Vegetabilists agree on certain fundamental principles, for example, "No additives, no preservatives!" and "Herbicide is genocide!"

You don't have to be a Vegetabilist to see that Vegetabilism is a religion with a peel. Ready to convert?

I hope not. I trust that no one has been tempted by my discussion of Vegetabilism. Even if I had the substantial oratorical skills, charisma, and stamina of contemporary televangelists, I would still not convert anyone (I hope). I suppose that some unfortunate soul who had been temporarily rendered mentally unbalanced by life's stresses might choose to place his faith in Vegetabilism, but we can agree, I think, that his faith would be misplaced, and we would wish him a speedy recovery. So, this story does have a moral: although religion surely involves emotion, there is more to it than that. The choice of where to place one's faith is not an intellectually arbitrary one: as the story of Vegetabilism reminds us, there are cognitive standards that we employ to help ourselves decide what is worthy of religious sentiment and what is not. At least some of our objections to Vegetabilism ought to be of just this sort, even if not all of them are. Several millennia of (Western) theology would serve as an additional reminder of the strong cognitive content of religion, if only more people would study it. As Richard Lewontin remarks in a review of Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, "If Sagan really wants to hear serious disputation about the nature of the universe, he should leave the academic precincts in Ithaca and spend a few minutes in an Orthodox [Jewish] study house in Brooklyn."

To reinforce the point that the choice is not arbitrary, consider a not uncommon sort of occurrence. On reaching adulthood, some people decide to reflect on the beliefs, religious and otherwise, with which they were raised. Although the psychological forces at work in giving someone those beliefs may be evident, the evidence and reasons for continuing to hold those beliefs may not be. One mark of maturity is taking responsibility for your own beliefs and attempting to sort out those worth maintaining from the rest. Such a decision may mark a kind of crisis in the process of maturation, and it can be quite painful; some emerge from it with a renewed and strengthened faith. However it turns out, it ought to be clear to us all that it would be the height of irrationality to decide, say, by the flip of a coin: "Heads it's Christianity, tails it's Islam." The choice is not purely arbitrary. (See the boxed text at the end of this section.)

Nor is the choice a 'purely emotional' one: although emotions play an important role in religion (as in the rest of life), many people care deeply about whether their religious beliefs are true. It may sometimes be that having religious beliefs is comforting (or otherwise beneficial), but that's just one reason among many for having a particular set of them; and, of course, being comfortable is not the sole purpose for having such beliefs: many have been willing to die painfully - e.g., by being crucified or incinerated - for their religious beliefs. Even if the emotional component were decisive, that would not show that religious beliefs were essentially irrational and beyond cognitive assessment; in matters of (strong) emotion, we recognize that some emotional responses are appropriate and rational, and that others are inappropriate and irrational.

So, there is as much reason to think that there are intellectual standards in religion as to think that there are in science. We should not, therefore endorse

Science does, but Religion does not, attempt to meet (the) high(est) cognitive standards.

Religion is a "matter of the heart" and a "matter of the head."

Imagine that you were raised in a small, mostly evangelical Christian farming community in South Dakota. As far back as you can remember, you have believed in a personal God. While growing up, you were taught various Christian doctrines in Sunday School. Almost all the adults you knew accepted these doctrines, and so you took most of them for granted. You tried your best to live a good Christian life.

But now you are at the university. You elect to take a course in religious studies on Hinduism. In it you learn that advaita Hindus do not believe in a personal God; instead, for them, ultimate reality is the nonpersonal Brahman. As it happens, a classmate who also resides on your dormitory floor is a practicing advaita Hindu. The material from the class and discussions with this classmate inspire you to study the issue of what reasons there are for being a Christian.

You discover that arguments for the existence of a personal God come in many varieties: ontological, cosmological, teleological, and so on. But you also learn that scholars disagree on whether such arguments are any good. By the same token, you find out that there are arguments for the existence of Brahman and learn that they too are disputed. You read about Christians who report experiences of God. Indeed, when you reflect on the matter, you recall a couple of experiences of your own that could well be taken to be experiences of God guiding you. But you also read reports by advaita Hindus about their experiential contact with Brahman. You read reports about how the Christian system of belief and practice has helped many people become good and holy, but you also find out that there are reports of a lot of good and holy people among the advaita Hindus. You quickly realize that it is unlikely that you will discover undisputed arguments or reasons that will establish the superiority of your own evangelical Christianity to advaita Hinduism or vice versa. And, of course, you recognize that you probably would have reached the same conclusions if you had been investigating Buddhism or Islam or Judaism or Taoism instead of advaita Hinduism.

So what should you do? Should you stick with the Christian system of belief and practice in which you were raised? Should you try to switch to one of its competitors? Or should you become a skeptic about all the religious systems of belief and take a stand outside all the religious practices? Once you have become genuinely puzzled by questions like these, you have felt the challenge of religious diversity. Of course you need not doubt your own religion to feel the force of this challenge; simply wondering what justifies you in remaining in a tradition as opposed to switching to some other perspective poses similar questions. Or you might wonder how rationally to convince someone from another tradition that yours is true. In all such situations, the challenge of religious diversity looms large.

quoted from: Kevin Meeker and Philip L. Quinn, "Introduction," The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2000) 3-4. (links added)

January 12, 2002

Acknowledging That God Is Not Limited to Christians
Gustav Niebuhr Interviews Dr. Joseph C. Hough Jr., President, Union Theological Seminary

Dr. Joseph C. Hough Jr., the president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, has been calling in recent speeches for Christians to adopt a new theological approach to other faiths, one that goes considerably beyond simple tolerance, as a response to Americans' growing awareness of religious diversity in the United States and the world. In e-mail and telephone interviews with Gustav Niebuhr, he said he was speaking for himself and not the seminary.

Since the Sept. 11 tragedy, Americans of different faiths have joined together in public prayer services to show national unity. Have you found something essential missing in those gatherings?

What is missing is not goodwill. I have been deeply moved by the passionate witness of many Americans against religious intolerance in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 tragedy. Certainly, this was important in a time when the justification of terrorism by the perpetrators was based on their own twisted religious fundamentalism.

Yet many Christians . . . seem unaware that toleration alone, while desirable, is not sufficient in a world of religious pluralism. Even the most influential theologians during the 20th century have failed to see the limitations of toleration. They have conceded only that other faiths may be "lesser lights" (Karl Barth), or that representatives of other faiths can be saved because they are "Christians incognito" (Paul Tillich), or "anonymous Christians" (Karl Rahner). Tolerance like this concedes only minimal value to other religious traditions.

You have said that Christians, to promote peace in a religiously pluralistic world, need to develop a new "theology of religions." What would that involve?

It would begin with the recognition that religion is something that we human beings put together in an effort to give some cultural form to our faith. Our faith is a response to the experience of the presence of God.

Religion, our rituals, our music, even our theology, is a human attempt to express what we have experienced. Since we have only our human language and symbols to use in expressing our faith, religions differ as much as cultures differ. Therefore, we want to be careful about claiming that one religious form is the only one that is authentic or real.

The second element in a new theology of religions would be the development of a greater understanding of religious traditions other than our own. We can hardly evaluate the potential power of another religious tradition if we know nothing about it, and extensive literature is available for us to read and to teach in our churches.

Finally, a new Christian theology of religions will involve the recognition that the fomenting of religious conflict has been and still is a theological problem for Christians, because we have made our claim to God's revelation exclusively ours. Our history of internal conflict and persecution of persons of other religions is a grim reminder that we have killed each other and members of other religions in defending that exclusive claim. Ironically, by the defense of our exclusionary claim, we have often lived a contradiction of the spirit of Jesus Christ.

But wouldn't many Christians respond that the theological approach you propose would threaten to compromise the uniqueness of the Gospels?

The fear that openness to other religious traditions will destabilize our Christian faith has led many to resist full recognition of the adequacy of other religions to transform human beings with hope and promise.

What is essential for Christian faith is that we know we have seen the face of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is not essential to believe that no one else has seen God and experienced redemption in another place or time.

It's the difference between an attempt to convert and an attempt to bear witness. The attempt to bear witness is the attempt to state honestly what you have discovered in faith in Jesus Christ. This is to share the things in your life that are of highest value to you, and I think this is an act of friendship. But this is very different from saying, 'Now that I've told you this, you've got to believe as I do to experience this.' The one is an opening to conversation; the other is closing conversation.

On which theologians do you draw in making your argument?

I was born into the Reformation tradition, largely Calvinist. My father was a Southern Baptist minister all of his active adult life. I begin, therefore, with Calvin, especially Calvin's doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty. Some interpreted this only in terms of God's absolute power over the entire universe. I do not. Through the eyes of Karl Barth, a leading interpreter of Calvin, I see God's sovereignty manifested to us as God's absolute freedom to do and to be what she wills. Simply put, if God is sovereign over all, then God is totally free, free even to come to human beings as a fellow human being. It is God's freedom that suggests the possibility of God making himself known in Jesus Christ.

But there, according to Barth, God's freedom ends. For Barth, God is not finally free. God's self-revelation of hope for human salvation is limited to one tradition born at one time in one place in the world. Yet I believe that if one follows the logic of God's freedom, there would at least be hesitancy to impose our own limits on God's redemptive action.

Are you saying that all religions are equal?

No, all religions are not equal for me. For my faith, Jesus Christ is decisive. But I am a Christian who strongly believes that God has always been and now is working everywhere in every human culture to redeem the world. I believe that there is ample evidence in the best of the world's religions, including our own, that God's work is effective. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others have been and are being transformed by a powerful vision of God that redeems them with hope and infuses their religious practice with compassion, justice and peace. Wherever there is peace and movement toward peace, where there is justice and movement toward justice, God is present and working.

Additional Sources

2002 David F. Austin

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