On Friday I happened to be watching a 20/20 special about conjoined twins on ABC. The section I saw focused specifically on Lori and Reba Schappell. Chances are you've probably seen them if you've watched any kind of television documentary on conjoined twins in the last five years. They're fairly easily recognized by the fact that they are joined at the head and Reba is a country singer. It really doesn't matter if you don't know of them because this Peg Life is not about them, or even about conjoined twins, but the setup requires that I mention them. You see, at one point in the program the ABC interviewer asked them (or perhaps just Lori, as she was the one facing him at the time [Lori and Reba face opposite directions]) if they believed in an afterlife. Lori responded in the affirmative and the interviewer followed up by asking if she thought they would still be joined together in heaven (not the exact words, but you get the idea). She said no, because in heaven all your physical ailments are healed. This is actually irrelevant because it is the question that is of interest to me. It illustrates a lack of understanding on the part of the interviewer and, I think, a fundamental ignorance among North Americans regarding their own beliefs. Allow me to explain.
By positting a belief in the Christian conception of the afterlife you have already assumed a dualistic explanation to the mind-body problem. This statement may require some further elucidation for readers less familiar with the philosophy of mind. The mind-body problem is a longstanding puzzle for philosophers dealing with the nature of the mind and mental processes and their relation to the physical body and its processes. Dualism (more specifically substance or interactionist dualism), most famously espoused by Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century, argues that the mind and body are two separate and distinct substances. The body, it says, is composed of physical matter while the mind is of some other non-physical composition. Dualism has been widely rejected by philosophers but maintains adherents among laymen due to its appeal to most people's intuition regarding the mind, and its compatibility with Christian ideas of the soul. It is this last quality that relates to what I am talking about. If, as Christianity's doctrines state, the soul leaves the body after death and ascends to heaven or descends to hell then it is a meaningless question to ask conjoined twins if their bodies will still be connected in the afterlife. It would also be absurd to say that physical ailments are healed in heaven as there would be no physical body in heaven to have ailments.
This is the fundamental ignorance that I was alluding to earlier. It should be noted that I'm not referring to a lack of knowledge about one's beliefs, but a refusal to acquire it. As Karl Popper says, this is true ignorance. The willingness to hold an inconsistent set of beliefs while eschewing examination or even recognition of these inconsistencies is a serious problem and an unfortunate necessity to accepting much religious dogma. Perhaps if there was a movement to have logic taught in schools rather than intelligent design people would be able to distinguish fact from rhetoric.
Speaking of intelligent design, where we really need such a thing is not in high school biology classrooms but in Hollywood script writing. The following is a probably highly accurate account of "the producers of Underworld" conceiving the new movie The Covenant:
"Hey, when you were a teenager what movie star did you want to fuck most?"
"Uh, probably Neve Campbell."
"Phoebe Cates, totally. You know, from Fast Times at Ridgmont High."
"I don't know if she was really a movie star, but Robin Tunney."
"Man, remember that movie The Craft? That movie was awesome."
"Yeah, we should totally make that movie again."
"Do you think the studio will let us remake it. I don't remember it being THAT popular."
"Screw remaking it. We'll just replace witches with warlocks and say it's a new script."
"Don't you think someone will realize it's not an original idea?"
"..."
"..."
"BWAHAHAHAHA! Ooohh, heh heh. Good one."
In other news, the final send off party for Danny and I before we jet across the Atlantic will be held this Sunday, September 17th at the Gerard St. house. If you miss this you better be dead, or in jail. And if you're in jail, BREAK OUT!
Tony Hawkins intelligently designed this message
