The Ultimate South Park and Philosophy (14 page)

The answer is that the
content
of their beliefs is different, even if the actions those beliefs lead to
appear
to be the same. And this has parallels with both miracles and the issue of pluralism. When a religious person and a non-religious person confront a supposed miracle, there is a common observable event but a difference in explanation—the religious person sees a supernatural cause, while the non-religious person sees a merely yet-to-be-known natural cause. In the case of pluralism, different religious practices may result in the same helpful actions and moral character, but there are very different claims about
reality
serving as the motivating force in each case.

The danger of ignoring the content of beliefs while also advocating for pluralism is that religious viewpoints will get watered down. Philosopher of science Karl Popper’s (1902-1994) notion of “falsification” does just this. Popper said that the more a theory presents us its conclusions in terms of what should happen if it’s true, the better we’re able to evaluate it.
⁴
For Popper, what makes a theory “scientific” is not just that it can be confirmed, but that its claims about reality are testable in such a way that failure to falsify it counts as credit toward its truth. If we dilute the content of incompatible belief systems in a manner like this, then we get pluralism, but the cost is that we’re really unable to put viewpoints to good tests. In “Fantastic Easter Special,” this problem appears in the
Da Vinci Code
-esque battle over the supposed secret history of Christianity between William Anthony Donahue (and his ninjas) and the Hare Club for Men. The Hare Club protects the secret that St. Peter was really a rabbit, and that the intention of Christ was for rabbits in the line of Peter to head the Church. After Jesus saves the day, Snowball the rabbit is elected pope, driving home the point that good religious leaders should humbly and tolerantly lead, but shouldn’t tell people what to do—in this case because they literally can’t speak! As ridiculous and comical as the episode is, it reinforces the challenge of maintaining authentic religious positions, true to their origins and belief content while still fostering ­pluralism. The question remains: if all religions seem to be practically the same in terms of observable results, how should we deal with their unobservable spiritual claims?

Even David Hume agrees that the answer to this last question is
faith
. Seeing an event as a miracle instead of as a strange natural event depends on faith. What separates religion from science and other methods for empirical explanation is that it requires a kind of belief that transcends the limits of reason. This might seem like a cop-out to some, a crutch for people who can’t deal with life in terms of the natural world. But, leaving behind such condescending remarks, there is an important philosophical point here. The way reason functions in our dealings with the natural world doesn’t operate according to cold, hard rules and facts. Life doesn’t always fit into our preconceived notions. It’s possible that risk-taking, transcendent faith might be required to discover some kinds of truth. William James (1842-1910), an American pragmatist, argues this point in his essay “The Will to Believe.”
⁵
Establishing a friendship, for example, requires us to take risks that don’t have clearly predictable results. But we’re justified in taking those risks because of the good that can be achieved as a result. Or imagine a situation where you are lost while hiking and you have to choose which way you’ll proceed to find the way home. Is it rational to just stay put, to avoid making
any
decision because the evidence isn’t clear? Shouldn’t you make your best educated guess, commit to your plan and hope for the best?

Parker and Stone want to maintain the importance of religious belief in people’s lives even as they mock some of what religious faith is about in episodes like the ones we’ve discussed. Their mockery urges us to separate closed-minded fervor from genuine religious expressions. While, as we saw, practices of love and ­compassion can be developed without religious faith, it may be justifiable to honestly follow such a faith in dealing with experiences that are genuinely, ­religiously compelling. When it comes to our sense of the divine—whether we have none, whether it’s ingrained from childhood or ­discovered in a heightened moment of illumination—faith is a ­justifiable response, given the limits of logical, empirical reasoning.

This is to say that while standards of empirical evidence should be maintained in our search for religious truth, they might not be our only concerns. Stan has every right to be suspicious of South Park Jesus telling him to look away while he turns water into wine. But questions about the miracles of the historical Jesus can’t be confronted so directly. And for most religiously minded people, belief in miracles doesn’t “appear from nowhere.” Rather, a whole religious way of life is usually in place for them. Interactions with God, with other people in communities of faith, and other life experiences shape and confirm their beliefs about doctrines, historical events, and miracles.

None of this says we should reject rational or empirical standards, but instead it presents an enlarged scope within which a person’s beliefs can operate. Under certain rationally and socially justifiable conditions, we should advocate for the right of people to find meaning and purpose in religious ways of life.

All this brings us full circle. If it is possible that God exists, and if faith enables a person to experience such a supernatural force, then ­perhaps that person is rationally justified in moving past merely empirical evidence in hopes of finding supernatural confirmation. And if this is true for religious belief in general, then why can’t a person who’s attached to a particular religion be within their rights to believe their religion’s exclusive claim to truth? Certainly tolerance should be advocated, to the extent that anyone who lives by general ethical and social standards in practicing their beliefs should be allowed to do so. But as Mr. Garrison found out in “The Death Camp of Tolerance,” there are limits to what should be tolerated. As we saw earlier, it may be impossible to avoid committing to exclusivist positions (as the camp master says, “Intolerance will not be tolerated”). Even religious pluralists must hold that some views about religion are better than others—namely, that pluralistic views are better than exclusivist or inclusivist views. As contemporary philosopher Alvin Plantinga has argued, the person who holds their beliefs to be exclusively correct is not necessarily guilty of any wrongdoing.
⁶
If we’re compelled by ­evidence, doctrines, and by experiences outside the natural while ­acting morally and rationally considerate of others, we’re within our rights to believe as we will.
⁷
It’s good to beware the Blainetologists of our world, but we should also be careful about surrendering ­rationally justifiable ways of life that may help to define us.

1
. See John Hick,
God Has Many Names
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1982);
An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Present
(London: The Macmillan Press, 1989);
A Christian Theology of Religion: A Rainbow of Faiths
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995).

2
. For more on this issue, see Alvin Plantinga, “Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism,” in
The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity
, ed. Kevin Meeker and Philip Quinn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 172-192; also Philip Quinn, “Toward Thinner Theologies: Hick and Alston on Religious Diversity,” in
The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity
, 226-243.

3
. See David Hume,
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
, ed. Tom Beauchamp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 83-99; also,
The Natural History of Religion
, ed. H.E. Root (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967).

4
. Among his many works, see
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
(New York: Routledge, 2002).

5
. William James,
The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
(New York: Dover Publications, 1956).

6
. See Alvin Plantinga,
Warranted Christian Belief
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

7
. Besides Alvin Plantinga, other thinkers have advocated this position. See, for example, Robert Merrihew Adams,
The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

David Kyle Johnson

Cartman is an ass. More precisely, Cartman is a manipulative, self-­centered bastard whose every action is directed either toward increasing his own happiness or decreasing the happiness of others. He deserves to be miserable. When misfortune befalls Cartman, we think it good. When fortune smiles on him, we think something evil has happened—he doesn’t deserve it. This is exactly the conclusion Kyle draws when Cartman gets his own amusement park. In the ­episode “Cartmanland,” Cartman learns that he’s the heir to his grandmother’s estate—just after he objects to being required to attend her funeral because it is “taking up [his] whole Saturday.” He inherits one million dollars, and uses the money to purchase the local amusement park, renaming it “Cartmanland,” and buying television commercial time to declare that the best thing about Cartmanland is, “You can’t come … ­especially Stan and Kyle.” For a time, Cartman is completely happy, spending all day, every day, riding any ride he wants without waiting in line.

Understandably, Kyle views Cartman’s happiness as an evil. Cartman doesn’t deserve happiness and his attaining it just isn’t right. But according to Kyle, the problem is much deeper. Kyle observes that the course of events isn’t just unbelievable. Given his worldview—which includes a belief in God—these events are impossible. God, if he exists, is all-good and all-powerful, and so he would surely prevent all evil. If we assume, like Kyle, that such a God exists, it would be impossible for Cartman to attain such happiness. But, since Cartman’s happiness is undeniable, Kyle is forced to revise his worldview and conclude that God doesn’t exist.

Kyle’s argument is a form of the “problem of evil”—more ­specifically, it is an example of the
logical problem
of moral evil. The problem centers on the fact that the existence of moral evil—that is, evil caused by human action—seems incompatible with God’s existence. If Kyle had a Ph.D. in philosophy, he likely would have expressed the problem like this:

This argument is valid; that is, if its premises are true, its conclusion is true. If you object to the argument, you have to show that one of its premises is false. That’s exactly what many philosophers have tried to do. As we look at some solutions to this problem that have been ­proposed by the citizens of South Park, we’ll see how close they are to solutions proposed by philosophers, both old and new. Some ­solutions clearly fail, others might not—but they’ll raise others problems. In the end we’ll see just how serious a threat the problem of evil is to belief in God.

In “Cartmanland” when Kyle’s parents discover he no longer believes in God, they take it upon themselves to restore his faith by telling him the Old Testament story of Job, about a righteous man who suffers horrendous evils and yet retains his belief in God. As Kyle’s parents tell the story, God allows Satan to inflict suffering upon Job in order to prove that Job would remain faithful in any circumstances. Satan destroys all his property, kills his family, and infects Job with disease. Yet, despite all of the horrible things that happen to him and his family, Job still praises God.

Kyle’s response to the story is quite telling: “And that’s it? That’s the end? That’s the most horrible story I have ever heard. Why would God do such horrible things to a good person just to prove a point to Satan? … I was right. Job has all his children killed and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. There isn’t a God.” Kyle has some very good points. Not only do most of Michael Bay’s movies (like
Pearl Harbor
) suck, but the actions of God in the Job story don’t jive with how we view God today. Most people would not think it morally justified to cause that kind of suffering to
prove a point
to anyone, much less Satan. More importantly for us, the story of Job doesn’t even address the problem of evil. Yes, Job continues to believe in God despite suffering horrendous evil, but that isn’t enough reason to conclude that doing so is rational. People do irrational things. (The jury in the episode “Chef Aid” found Johnny Cochran’s Chewbacca defense persuasive, after all, but that doesn’t mean it was a good argument.) The story Kyle’s parents tell doesn’t really challenge one of the premises in the argument, and so seems to be inadequate as a response to it.

If we look deeper at Job’s story, however, we can at least find an argument. At the end of the story God speaks to Job, basically saying, “You can’t question me; my ways are beyond your understanding.” This notion is echoed today by “skeptical theists” who argue that, since God may have reasons beyond our comprehension for allowing evil, evil that seems unjustified isn’t evidence against God’s existence. For all we know, such evils are actually good.