Elephant Apologetics

I received an anonymous comment this morning that never made it through moderation. Oddly enough, a quick search of sitemeter showed evidence that it may have been posted by someone who claimed that they "enjoyed" my blog. Regardless, when I followed the link, I found it amusing to say the least. Especially since anonymous added:

Read that. Sleep on it. Take it to heart

at the end of the comment.

What may surprise anonymous is that I've read such things as that before, and it is actually what caused me to arrive at my non-belief. The story in the link is about Buddha having six blind men touch an elephant, all of them end up describing it as something different, and this somehow makes the crowd declare that all of the blind men are right. It's basically apologetics wrapped up in glurge clothing.

Each time one of the blind men checked the elephant, their perception of it was different because of where they touched. In the end, the desciption of the elephant was a chimera. This chimera is used as an analogy of religions, and one I somewhat agree with.

For clarity, I realize that not everyone believes in the same God, or even in just one god. But to make my life easier, I'm going to just refer to him/her/them as "deity".

At the end, there're "Discussion Questions for Story".

What is the moral of the story (the meaning behind the story)?

I'm sure this isn't the moral that was intended, but what I see is less than flattering. Both to the story, and the person who sent it to me.

Ignorance can cause people to identify things as different than what they are. Instead of checking out the whole elephant to see if they could identify it, each blind man only felt a individual part and made his claim based on that. Perhaps, if they had taken the time to go over the entire elephant their identifications would have been accurate.

How does the story apply to religions?

Each religion, and even individuals inside those religions, will see their deity in a different way. Some will see their deity as peaceful, caring, merciful, and/or benevolent. Others may see their deity (even the same one) as vengeful, aloof, punishing, and/or malevolent. Still others may see combinations of all those aspects. There are even those who see the deity as being superfluous, aloof, and non-interfering.

Religion (the blind men) have taken existance (the elephant) and made it out to be more than it is. Instead of fully exploring something, they stop when they feel satisified (or possibly comfortable) with their answer. In this day and time, that answer is often "[insert deity of choice here] did it." By stopping before they've found the reality they've fallen prey to intellectual laziness.

Also, by their blindness, they miss how wondrous and beautiful reality really is. I've covered this before, but I can't state enough how beautiful something is, especially when you have a deeper understanding of it.

Have you ever had disagreements like the blind men had with your friends?

Are you kidding? I live in the U.S. Every unknown light in the sky is an alien spacecraft, any good thing that happens is a gift from their deity of choice, any bad thing is a test by the same deity, and the Ghost Hunters are skeptics.

Of course, that's not my view, but you can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't arrive at by using reason.

How did you resolve them?

We didn't. They went on believing in the unprovable and, in some cases, disproven.

How can we use this story to understand why we should have respect for all religions?

We shouldn't. A person may earn respect, but religion is a human construct that deserves criticism. If someone makes a claim about reality (the elephant) then I can criticize that claim with the available evidence.

Still using the elephant analogy, I can present them with evidence of the elephant. Perhaps, I can get them to explore the rest of the elephant, or the elephant may give it's unique trumpeting sound. Either of which would be convincing to someone who wasn't set on believing their first impression. If that person continues to believe that the elephant is a tree, wall, fan, rope, spear, and/or snake then I will discontinue the debate. That person has not earned respect, because they choose to remain ignorant in the face of contrary evidence.

So anonymous, I didn't need to sleep on or ponder the meaning of that piece of apologetics. I've read many things like it, and all of them came up vacuous. I just find it interesting that you thought such a parable would be convincing.