The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy (10 page)

In “All About the Mormons,” Stan yells at the Mormons for believing in their religion without any proof, and they smile and explain that it is a matter of faith. Without insulting the Mormons, or any religion for that matter, in that moment Stan was hinting at exactly what every rational critical thinker should do. As you read the chapters in this book, be mindful of claims, arguments, deductive arguments and inductive arguments, good and bad arguments, and fallacies pointed out by the authors. Hopefully, the authors have avoided fallacies and bad arguments in putting forward their own positions! But with this logic lesson in mind, you can be the judge of that for yourself.

1
. For more extensive discussions of logic, see Gregory Bassham, William Irwin, Henry Nardone, and James M. Wallace,
Critical Thinking: A Student’s Introduction
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004); Jamie Carlin Watson and Robert Arp,
Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well
(London: Continuum, 2011); Patrick Hurley,
A Concise Introduction to Logic
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2006); Anthony Weston,
A Rulebook for Arguments
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2000).

David Kyle Johnson

Perhaps the great Dawkins wasn’t so wise. He was intelligent, but some of the most intelligent otters I’ve ever known were completely lacking in common sense.

—The Wise One

Science is simply common sense at its best; that is, rigidly ­accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

—Thomas Henry Huxley

In the two-part episode “Go God Go” and “Go God Go XII,” Cartman accidentally travels to the year 2546 after trying to freeze himself so he doesn’t have to wait three more weeks for the release of the Nintendo Wii. In the future, belief in traditional religions has been eradicated by a belief in science, and atheism seems to be its own brand of religion. “Science” has replaced “God” in many common phrases (“Oh my Science!”) and opposing atheistic factions wage war over the great question of what atheists should call themselves (personally, I favor Allied Atheist Allegiance—that way it has three As).

A world in which atheism has replaced religion is the dream of Oxford evolutionary biologist and “New Atheist” activist, Richard Dawkins. He thinks that religious belief is irrational superstition that leads to violence (like the inquisition), intolerance (like homophobia), ignorance (like creationism), and corruption (like red hot Catholic love). In fact, in “Go God Go,” it is the cartoon version of Dawkins himself who pioneered the efforts culminating in religion’s demise. Encouraged by his lover Mr(s). Garrison, who converts to atheism after s/he realizes that God is a Spaghetti Monster, Dawkins ­campaigns against religion, which is eventually eradicated.

The “Go God Go” saga raises some very important questions. In the episode, the scientific worldview stamps out religion. But are science and religion really in such irreconcilable conflict? Would the supremacy of a scientific worldview really lead to atheism? In the future of 2546, Dawkins’ atheism becomes its own religion. But is the New Atheism really just a new religion? And would the elimination of religion and the triumph of science really diminish the amount of ­violence in the world, or will people always just find something else to wage war over?

First, we have to understand what science is. Contrary to how the race of otters in 2546 treat it, science is not a set of doctrines. Science is a method for discovering the truth about the world. Scientists today accept many things as true—Einstein’s theory of relativity, for example. But relativity is not a
doctrine
of science. Scientists today accept it because our best evidence suggests that it is true, but if another competing theory were shown to be worthier via the scientific method, they would change their minds. This, in fact, has happened numerous times. Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) called such events ­“paradigm shifts.”

So what
is
the scientific method? It’s a system of routines for discovering the most adequate theory—the theory that is most fruitful, simple, and conservative, and that has the widest scope. A theory is
fruitful
when it makes successful predictions; is
simpler
when it makes fewer assumptions; is
conservative
when it doesn’t contradict itself or common knowledge; and has
wide scope
when it can explain a number of different things. Relativity, for example, beat out Newton’s seventeenth-century physical laws by successfully predicting that light bends around massive objects (like our sun), by explaining Mercury’s irregular orbit, and by not referencing gravity as a fundamental force.
¹
To use the scientific method, scientists propose numerous alternate theories, compare them according these four “criteria of adequacy,” and then accept the best one.

This kind of reasoning is called abduction or “inference to the best explanation.” In “Mystery of the Urinal Deuce,” Stan and Kyle use abduction to discover that the government wasn’t responsible for 9/11. Which theory is simpler, raises fewer questions, explains more, and coheres with what we already know? That a few pissed off Muslims flew planes into buildings? Or that an “all-knowing and all-powerful” Bush administration executed “the world’s most intricate and flawlessly executed plan ever, ever” by having “explosives planted in the base of the towers, then on 9/11 [they] pretended like four planes were being hijacked when really [they] just re-routed them to Pennsylvania and then flew two military jets into the World Trade Center filled with more explosives and shot down all the witnesses in flight 93 with an F-15 after blowing up the pentagon with a cruise missile.” Obviously, it was “a bunch of pissed off Muslims. What are you, retarded?”
²
A theory’s adequacy, we might say, is a “raging clue.”

Science also tries to avoid logically fallacious reasoning. Mr(s). Garrison suggests to Dawkins that s/he believes in God because “you can’t disprove God.” As a good scientist, Dawkins points out the fallacy in Garrison’s reasoning: “Well, what if I told you there was a Flying Spaghetti Monster? Would you believe it simply because it can’t be disproven?” Dawkins is invoking a common, rather silly example that actually makes a serious point.
³
You’re committing a logical fallacy if you think the fact that something hasn’t been proven false is good reason to believe it’s true. That particular fallacy is called an “appeal to ignorance.” Of course, very little can be proven with complete certainty. In fact, nothing in science is certain—not even that the world is round. It’s possible that future discoveries will overturn the current consensus. And as Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) and W.V. Quine (1909–2000) taught us, you can always save a hypothesis by changing your background theory.
⁴
But that’s not good enough reason to believe that the world is flat or that there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Rational people proportion their belief to the evidence; they don’t believe whatever the hell they want just because it can’t be authoritatively proven or disproven.

This point seems to be lost on Matt and Trey, however, as they mock Dawkins’ point vicariously through Mr(s). Garrison’s response. “You’re right. It’s so simple. God is a Spaghetti Monster … I totally get it now. Evolution explains everything. There’s no great mystery to life—just evolution and God’s a Spaghetti Monster. Thank you Richard.” Like Mr(s). Garrison, they’re offering an appeal to ignorance.
⁵
Through sarcasm they may be suggesting that because science can’t explain everything, there’s still reason to believe in God. I like to call this the “mystery therefore magic” fallacy. The fact that something remains a mystery isn’t reason to believe that the supernatural—in this case, God—explains it. Believing in “mystery therefore magic” would lead me to conclude that Penn & Teller really have supernatural magical powers since I can’t figure out most of their tricks.

A good scientist also knows personal experience alone can’t ­establish the truth of a theory. Much more than we realize, our senses are easily fooled. As a result, really good evidence has to come from carefully controlled experiments. In “Bloody Mary,” Stan’s dad Randy stopped being an alcoholic after the statue of the Virgin Mary sprayed ass blood all over his face, but that isn’t evidence that the blood cured his alcoholism. Instead, what was at work was probably the placebo effect—when someone’s belief that a treatment works makes it seem to them that it actually worked.

When we think of science, we usually think of biology, chemistry, and physics. But scientifically minded people don’t stop there. They apply the scientific method to everything it can be applied to. We might say that the only doctrine of science is that you should always, when possible, proportion your belief to the evidence—you should always accept the most adequate theory. Not doing so is unscientific and irrational.

Many philosophers argue that science and religion are perfectly ­compatible. Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), for example, argued they can’t conflict because they are about two totally different things. Religion is about ethics and meaning, but science is about explaining the way the world works.
⁶
The problem is, religion doesn’t just restrict itself to ethics and meaning.
⁷
Religion also makes statements about the way the world is: souls exist; God exists and controls the world; Jesus healed the sick, walked on water, and rose from the dead; Muhammad rode to Mecca on a super fast horse named Buraq and then ascended into heaven to talk Allah down from requiring prayer 200 times a day (they settled on five).
⁸
Since these are factual claims, and science is a method for discovering factual truths about the world, these claims are open to scientific scrutiny. As you might have guessed, they do not fare well.

Take, for example, the claims about Jesus. Sure, it’s possible that he was a god/man who healed the sick, walked on water, and rose from the dead. But it’s also possible that he was merely a charismatic human about whom stories were adapted and exaggerated. Which is the better theory? The latter is certainly more conservative; everything we know suggests that the dead stay dead, that humans can’t walk on water, and that you can’t heal diseases without medical treatment. It is also simpler; it doesn’t require supernatural entities and forces reaching out from beyond the world. The latter theory also explains a lot, like why Jesus’s story was embellished over time. The earliest Christian writings don’t include his miracles or much of his life, and each succeeding Gospel is more elaborate than the last.
⁹
It also fits with the fact that Jesus’s life story wasn’t written by eyewitnesses; ­biblical scholars agree the Gospels were written by literate, Greek-speaking Christians decades after Jesus’s life, not Jesus’s illiterate Aramaic speaking disciples.
¹⁰
And it explains why Jesus’s story shares so many elements with stories of other god/men that came before him. In the stories of Perseus, Attis, Mithras, and Dionysus, you can find virgin births, miraculous healings, water walking, and even executions that turn into resurrections.
¹¹
The theory that stories of Jesus are embellished is even fruitful. If the Gospel writers were willing to embellish and add to Jesus’s story, we should expect to find others willing to do the same thing. And we’ve found exactly that! Ancient Gnostic gospels like those of Thomas and Pseudo-Matthew, which fictitiously exaggerate the life of Jesus, were discovered just last century. Apparently, Jesus didn’t have to sing the “imagination song” to get to live and serve on the Council of Nine in Imagination Land with Aslan, Zeus, Morpheus, Wonder Woman, Luke Skywalker, Popeye, Gandalf, and Glinda the Good Witch of the North. As Butters might put it, in a Jewpacabra mating call, “I don’t think Christ has much basis in reality.”

If you’re a Christian, this may all be hard to swallow, but try applying the same logic to claims outside your religion. Take Sathya Sai Baba, for example, a modern day Indian with millions of followers who has claimed to have healed the sick, made objects appear out of nowhere, turned water into oil, been in two places at once, and even raised the dead.
¹²
What do you think is more likely: that he really was a reincarnation of Shiva performing miraculous feats as he claimed; or that gullible, uneducated people mistook magic tricks for miracles and that the stories about him are exaggerated? What’s more likely: that he really raised the dead; or that people living in third-world conditions without hospitals are apt to sometimes mistake sickness for death and thus mistake a natural a recovery for a resurrection?
¹³

Before you answer, keep in mind that the
first
world only properly developed the ability to confirm death in the past century. Recall also the episode “Super Best Friends,” in which Stan found out how Jesus changed water into wine.

JESUS:
Behold, ordinary water; clear, clean. Okay, now turn around. [
Stan hesitates
…]

JESUS:
Turn … turn around. [
Stan turns around. Jesus puts the water behind the table and pulls out a pitcher of wine
.]

JESUS:
Okay, now turn back. [
Stan turns
…]

JESUS:
It is now wine!

STAN:
That’s it. That’s how you did that trick? … That trick sucks, Jesus.

JESUS:
Oh, I guess it worked a little better on people 2000 years ago.

People are pretty easy to fool—especially when they want to believe.

The idea that Sathya Sai Baba is a miracle-working god/man probably seems as silly to you as Mormonism did the first time you watched “All About Mormons” and Scientology did the first time you watched “Trapped in the Closet.” You were just instinctively applying the scientific criteria of adequacy. The theory that Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard made it all up is much more adequate than convoluted stories about reading gold plates out of a hat and intergalactic lords named Xenu. But you can’t
rationally
apply these criticisms to other religions and then refuse to apply them to your own. After all, there are living eyewitnesses and YouTube videos of Sai Baba’s miracles, yet it still makes sense to deny their reality. How much more should you doubt the story of Jesus, which has been passed down from non-­eyewitnesses over two thousand years and through multiple languages? The same applies to other articles of faith, like the doctrine of souls, faith healings, divine intervention, answered prayers, religious experiences—I could go on. Although certain beliefs based in religion like claims of ethics and the meaning of life aren’t incompatible with scientific thinking, some of the most important beliefs are.