Letter to the Editor
To the Editor:
Sir. Thank you for taking my letter. I am writing the Scholardarity Philosophy Editor to challenge an assertion made by Richard Dawkins to the effect that belief in religion is similar to belief in the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” The argument rests on a premise that religious belief or mystical experience is similar to the belief in an imaginary monster, given that both are invisible to the senses and without what scientific minds generally consider evidence. I rest my objection to this line of reasoning on the radical empiricism of William James, one that stands in contrast to a merely scientific empiricism in that it accepts mystical experiences as potential evidence. Non-dogmatic spirituality is not the same thing as a religious system that stands without evidence. Spiritual experiences stand on experience, which is evidence even if an undeniable degree of subjectivity does enter the picture as it must with all human experiences. Professor Dawkins rightly attacks authoritarian belief structures that rest on no evidence, but then proceeds to promote an ideology of scientism that equates anything without scientific verification with such belief structures.
A particularly odious argument that Professor Dawkins presents suggests that an invisible spiritual reality is equivalent to an invisible Spaghetti Monster by virtue of the fact that both are invisible to the senses and to laboratory equipment. Ironically, a somewhat similar disparaging dismissal is lodged by opponents of evolutionary biology. They will often claim that evolution is without proof because it has never been replicated in the laboratory, or that “monkeys do not change in to humans.” The notion that for evolution to be a proven fact “monkeys must change in to human beings” is a straw man that Professor Dawkins would never accept from any undergraduate challenging his positions, nor would I accept such nonsense if I were a substitute in a science class. Yet, the “monkeys do not turn in to humans” claim is more than superficially similar to the Flying Spaghetti argument. Both are attempts to argue by distorted comparisons and overly superficial claims about the opposing side’s narrative.
The crucial difference between belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster and belief in a spiritual Reality is that one rests on experiences commonly claimed across cultures while the other is one that most little children do not literally believe in, much less adults. Even cognitive psychologists who believe that religion is a vestigial biological adaptation would recognize the difference between what they consider a vestigial adaptation and something invented out of whole-cloth. It may be possible that there is a culture somewhere in the world that has a belief structure similar one with a flying wheat creature at its center. If such is the case, then I would argue for an analysis of symbols and a respect for the beliefs of that culture that do not rely on literalism. Often religions have symbols with esoteric meanings that are lost to those believers who are literalist. I am not one to mock an honest believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of which there might be among the very young in many unrelated cultures, although I would certainly challenge any fundamentalist literalism on the question were I to be a teacher to one of them.
A radical empiricist in the mould of William James would allow for spiritual experience to be recognized as valid evidence and not attempt to explain it away as merely a biological adaptation (at least without allowing for many levels of understanding) or to disparage it with the Flying Spaghetti Monster epithet. Rationalists and adherents to the mainstream scientific school of empiricism are generally not so generous. Opponents are welcome to their opinions but not their own facts. There are indeed religious dogmas that are accepted without evidence, or merely as received wisdom, and such forms of dogmatism are dangerous. Yet, the notion that all forms of religion are either dogmas or made-up stories is unscientific because it does not rely on any actual empirical data gathering or anthropological exploration. Such a view ignores the anthropological literature. As such, it must be classed with the same type of simplistic arguments that creationists often wage against evolution, however distasteful such a comparison might be to Professor Dawkins and company.
Signed Sincerely,
Nathaniel Bates
