South Park, Swift, & Fundamental Questions

As I read Gulliver’s Travels, I was reminded of a modern form of satire I believe we are all familiar with – South Park. In Lilliput, their government is founded on the fundamental question of which side of the egg one should crack. The emperor has a traumatic childhood experience, which resulted in him deciding how eggs should rightfully be cracked for all Lilliputians -- “while he was a Boy, going to eat an Egg, and breaking it according to the ancient Practice, happened to cut one of his Fingers. Whereupon the Emperor, his Father, published an Edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great Penalties, to break the smaller End of their Eggs”. The concept of egg breaking becomes a religion of sorts stated later, and Gulliver becomes an advocate of “religious” toleration. “That all true Believers shall break their Eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, in my Humble Opinion, to be left to every Man’s Conscience”. In a sense Swift inserts his own views here through the voice of Gulliver, because he emphasizes the need for religious freedom, and for choice, which seems ludicrous when the choice is which side of one’s egg to crack. Furthermore, the emperor of Lilliput utilizes the Egg religion for his own ends as a means to obtain power “…of destroying the Big-Endian exiles, and compelling that People to break the smaller End of their Eggs; by which he would remain sole Monarch of the whole World”. The extended egg metaphor provides an interesting image when considering how government and religion are intertwined, and how pushing one’s religion on another can be a ludicrous act.

The Lilliputians reminded me of a two-part episode of South Park, entitled “Go God Go” and “Go God Go XII”. In the episodes, Cartman desperately wants the Nintendo Wii, and decides he simply cannot wait for it to come out, so he will freeze himself in order to wake up after it’s release.

He wakes up much farther in the future than he intended, in the year 2546 (thus making it quite difficult to find a now archaic Wii). In this future, Atheism is widespread, but the question of what to call Atheism is hotly contested. Thus a huge war breaks out between the three major atheist factions: the AAA (Allied Atheist Alliance), the UAA (United Atheist Alliance), and the UAL (Unified Atheist League), one of which is made of genius sea otters. Obviously the humor of this episode primarily lies in the ludicrous concept of fighting over the title of a religion.

Both of these examples show expertly utilized satire; it makes us laugh, but more importantly it makes us think. Will humans always find a fundamental question to argue about? Can satire give viewers a new outlook on issues such as religious toleration?

Religion and Politics: Inherently Intertwined

I found this week’s readings to be particularly interesting, as they expand upon the idea of accepting religion and science to be true. One must also realize that when discussing religion, many other themes are inherently tied to the discussion. These most often are (and as seen in the readings), toleration of other schools of thought, the relationship to government, and how one’s personal beliefs affects their participation as a citizen in the political realm.

John Locke describes how a liberal-democratic society (such as America), must be willing to tolerate and accept opposing views of religion, for if we don’t, then our society becomes one that stunts one’s personal freedom and that could even lead to a tyrannical government. He relates his ideas to that of Christianity, as it was the prevailing religion at the time, and states that the doctrine of Christianity and the toleration of other religions are compatible. His argument is also of the utmost importance as Locke is recognized as one of the earliest philosophers to write on the idea of the separation of church and state within a democratic society.

Locke’s initial writings relate well to some of the other philosophers that we have read this week, such as Voltaire and Jefferson. For example, Voltaire writes “The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue” (115). He also writes that this virtue “supposes liberty,” such that if religion is only in place to allow citizens to pursue a certain moral code that in turn keeps them acting virtuously, then all citizens must also have an inherently given ability to live freely from intrusion of government or from other religions.

Jefferson further expands upon this idea, in that this freedom of religion and intrusion from outside sources can only be granted if the citizenry acts reasonably. He states, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others” (160). Thus, he believes that government can only intrude in these matters if one’s religious beliefs cause harm or injury to someone else.

Paine's Reasonable Revelation

Thomas Paine's lays down serious truth in "The Age of Reason." Honestly, I had a hard time not agreeing with almost every idea, phrase, and earth-shattering (at the time) idea he posits in this paper. On the whole, it makes sense. A whole lot of sense. But how much good does wielding his heavy hammer of reason, his "most formidable weapon against errors of any kind," (174) against the religious doctrines of the time accomplish for the general population of the world?

One quite contentious point Paine touches is that of revelation: "Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man" (176). Therefore revelation, from Paine's point of view, becomes (or can become) the basis for religious belief. It is a conversation, and because revelation is restricted to a personal conversation between God and man (or a devine monologue bestowed upon the mortal listener), "it is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other; and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it" (176). Now this is a novel idea - one that clearly goes against what almost any church would tell its followers. Paine emphasizes this point of 'revelation vs. hearsay' with biblical examples, one of which is Moses and the Israelites. When Moses descended Mount Sinai with the tablets containing the 10 Commandments, "[the Children of Israel] were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so […] The Commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them" (176-7). The Israelites had not heard the word of God, but through Moses. This alone is not cause to suspect Moses of lying, but Paine does show that there exists no logical reason to believe in divinity from the Israelite experience at Sinai. He continues that while the the 10 Commandments don't directly exude divinity, "they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having to recourse to supernatural intervention." Again, this is not evidence of Moses lying to the people of Israel, but a shrewd analysis of documents that most take for granted. He extrapoles from this and other information that all churches are institutions set up to enslave and make profit from mankind.

So why write this diatribe against all organized religion? Does Paine think that with a few strokes of his pen he can change the minds of the masses, that his few thousand words can unbrainwash the believers of the world? Instead, I think that Paine wishes simply to 1. provide his viewpoint on religion, God, and the basis of belief in the world, and 2. show that with a keen eye for logic and reason, anyone can free themselves from indoctrinated thought and think for themselves. He says "I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise. They have the same right to their belief as i have to mine" (175). With all of this hatred for organized religion, Paine still believes in God, but he calls his church his own mind, and he experiences God not in scripture than any man could have written, but "in the scripture called creation" (179). So take it or leave it (I'll take it), this is what he thinks.

Moral Sense and Tolerance

In reading John Locke's "A Letter Concerning Toleration", I couldn't help but remember Francis Hutcheson's "Concerning the Moral Sense". The reason for this is that Locke, in his arguing for religious tolerance, comes to a point in which he must address religious practices that can be inhumane. In his passage, Locke brings up the point that "You will say, by this rule, if some congregations should have a mind to sacrifice infants...is the magistrate obliged to tolerate them, because they are committed in a religious assembly?" (86). Locke's answer to this is, of course no, because those things are not lawful in the ordinary course of life or in worshiping God. For me, this is very similar to Hutcheson's later writings on moral sense, in which Hutcheson argues that every human being has a natural knowledge of what is right and wrong. When looked at in that light, it makes perfect sense for Locke to state in a passage advocating religious freedom and tolerance to indicate a situation in which such tolerance would not be necessary, but in fact it would be the duty of those in power to make sure those practices were not tolerable within society. However, the only question that raises is if it should be looked at in that light.

The interesting thing about Locke's letter is that it was written at a time in which there was a fear of Catholicism taking over England. This changes the meaning of the letter radically. Instead of being a letter which purports to stop religious persecution simply on a moral basis, but instead on a political basis. Locke's writings become one in which he tries to separate religion from the state so that power is not owned by Catholics. That is not to say Locke is not correct in his view. In no way should one religious view ever have complete control over a state. However, I am less impressed with his writing if the goals were merely political, rather than trying to inspire religious freedom for all.