Distinctions

DISTINCTIONS Vol. 2 ∙ No. 2 ∙ Spring 2008 Artwork by Rodolfo Maxil Distinctions Vol. 3 · No. 2 · Spring 2008 A Student Honors Journal Published by the Kingsborough Community College Honors Program Office of Academic Affairs EDITOR Professor Barbara R. Walters EDITORIAL BOARD Jordan Hall Professor Bob Blaisdell Student Editor Faculty Proof Copy Editor Brian Lee Professor Richard Armstrong Student Editor Faculty Editor Darla Linville Professor Judith Wilde Writing Fellow Faculty Artwork Editor ACADEMIC AFFAIRS Professor Reza Fakhari Associate Dean Dr. Rachelle Goldsmith Director of the Honors Program Cover Artwork: by Rodolfo Maxil Copyright@ 2007 Kingsborough Honors Program ii DISTINCTIONS VOLUME III · NUMBER 2 · SPRING 2008 1 Jordon Hall Religious Validity and the Pluralistic Hypothesis Mentor: Professor Rick Repetti 13 Rose Nerges The Kite Runner and Life in Afghanistan Mentor: Professor Barbara Walters With thanks to Darla Linville, Writing Fellow 29 Mariana Brodsky The Art Historical Context and Style of Self-Portrait with Two Pupils Mentor: Professor Marissa R. Schlesinger 35 Rita Goldstein and Joy Marchionni A Comparative Analysis of Commuter-Targeted Advertising in New York City Mentor: Professor Cindy Greenberg 45 Fanny Rodriguez Fanny’s Restaurant Business Plan Mentor: Professor Ira Hochman 63 Svetlana Cozmit Cleopatra’s Hair and Beauty Salon Mentor: Professor Ira Hochman 77 Agnieszka Bernuy The Path Leading to the Coexistence of Christianity, Pagan Rituals, and Shamanism Mentor: Professor Barbara Walters 89 China Tenacé Moore Explaining Ethnic Conflict in Afghanistan Mentor: Professor Barbara Walters iii 101 HoTeck Kan Buddhism: Evolution Along the Church-Sect Continuum in Ancient India Mentor: Professor Barbara Walters 117 Fadima Ba Islamic and Jewish Women Mentors: Professors Barbara Walters and Aileen Nusbacher With thanks to Darla Linville, Writing Fellow 127 Jacob Fleischmann Legs to Stand On Mentor: Professor Bob Blaisdell 135 Raluca Toscano A Study of Some Properties of High-Order Planar Curves Mentor: Professor Mariya Petrova iv Religious Validity and the Pluralistic Hypothesis By Jordan Hall PHI 71 Spring 2007 Mentor: Professor Rick Repetti lthough the term “religious pluralism” may appear to be self-explanatory, there is in fact a multiplicity of theological and philosophical Amethodologies among religious pluralists. In order to provide a very general c haracterization of pluralism, three categorizations are utilized to identify all possible soteriological perspectives: (1) exclusivism, (2) inclusivism, and (3) pluralism (Race 1982). This paper critiques the most prominent arguments used in favor of pluralism. Religious exclusivists believe that there can be only one way to God. Religious inclusivists hold that while there is indeed only one true religion, God involves Himself in saving adherents of other faiths, thus making other religions’ adherents “unknowing subjects” of the true religion’s God. Finally, religious pluralists generally argue that the validity of one religion does not depend upon the exclusion of other religions’ legitimacy, and that ultimately all of them are equal paths to the same Ultimate. There is no question as to who is the most influential religious pluralist. The British philosopher John Hick is definitively recognized in this regard, and though perhaps in recent years there have been more intriguing forms of pluralism developed by others, his particular philosophical outlook remains dominant. Using the archaic and long since abandoned geocentric theory of the solar system as an analogy, Hick challenges the exclusive and inclusive notions that one religion is at the center of salvation and claims that his “pluralistic hypothesis” is not unlike the revolutionary Copernican model (Kärkkäinen 2003, 284-285). He argues that all of the religious traditions revolve around the same Ultimate Reality in their primary concern with transformation from self- centeredness to being centered on the Real (Hick 1995, 18). Firsthand interfaith experience is what led Hick to draw this conclusion. He describes his experience as follows: In the course of this work I went frequently to Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques, Sikh gurudwaras, Hindu temples, and, of course, a variety of churches. In these places of worship I soon realized something that is obvious enough once noticed, yet momentous in its implications. This is that although the language, concepts, liturgical actions, and cultural ethos differ widely from one another, yet from a religious point of view basically the same thing is going on in all of them, namely, human beings coming together within the framework of an ancient and highly developed tradition to open their hearts and minds to God … [and] all these communities agree that there can ultimately only be one God! (1996, 38). 2 This process of opening one’s heart and mind to God, of being transformed from self-centeredness to Real-centeredness, is salvific in nature, according to Hick, and it serves as strong evidence that all religions are cognitive responses to the Real. Hick, speaking from his interfaith experience, concludes that “visible fruits do not occur more abundantly among Christians than among Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, Baha’is, and so on. And yet surely they ought to if the situation were as it is pictured in our traditional Christian theology” (1995, 16, his emphasis). Ultimately, it is not possible, he argues, to prove that any one of the great world religions is morally superior (1996, 42). Accordingly, Hick suggests that we define salvation not according to any specific fulfillment that one religious tradition has in view, but rather, “as an actual change in human beings, a change which can be identified … by its moral fruits” (1995, 17). He acknowledges the difficulty of making cross-cultural ethical judgments, but through this concreteness, Hick attempts to avoid a relativistic approach to establishing religious validity, and argues that this moral criterion— observable transformation—is suitable for discerning true religions from false ones (Heim 1995, 19-20). If all religions are in fact revolving around the same center, as Hick claims, the question could be raised as to why most of them appear to be in completely different orbits, so to speak, with each religion revolving around a largely dissimilar referent. The gaps between Brahman, Allah, and the Tao, for example, will never be closed. Their differences eradicate all hopes of assigning any true meaningfulness to parallels that might be drawn between them. Hick’s hypothesis attempts to circumvent this cumbersome problem by drawing heavily on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant made a sharp distinction between reality in itself and reality as it is appears—noumena and phenomena, respectively. Hick amplifies Kant’s distinction, stating that “perception is not a passive registering of what is there but is always an active process of selecting, grouping, relating, extrapolating, and endowing with meaning by means of our human concepts” (1995, 29). Building on this philosophical foundation, he superimposes Kant’s framework on the religious context and suggests that we “[apply its] insight to our awareness of the Real, by distinguishing between the noumenal Real, the Real an sich, and the Real as humanly perceived” (1995, 29). According to Hick, when the noumenal Real “impinges upon our consciousness,” we formulate the experience within the confines of our human concepts (e.g., the Real as loving, just, or emptiness) and on the basis of this, he argues that the Real as seen within religious traditions should be regarded as a phenomenal manifestation, formulated by human conceptual frameworks. Thus, 3 for example, Adonai, Sunyata, and Vishnu are mere phenomenal manifestations of the noumenal Real (1995, 64-65). This would, of course, necessitate the negation of religions’ literal truth claims, and Hick does not dispute this. But he goes to great lengths to argue that because the common goal of all religions is soteriological, whether our religious beliefs are literally true is irrelevant, and cannot affect our relationship to the Real, so long as our religious beliefs effectively serve as a vehicle for salvific transformation. The phenomenal manifestation that we have constructed is not worthless simply because it is not a proper depiction of the Real in itself; on the contrary, its meaningfulness is demonstrated by its transformative power. In Hick’s view, religions that cultivate salvific transformation are “mythologically true.” By this awkward description, Hick means: a story that is not literally true but that has the power to evoke in its hearers a practical response to the myth’s referent—a true myth being of course one that evokes an appropriate response. The truthfulness of a myth is thus a practical truthfulness (1995, 51). It is essential to Hick’s hypothesis that religions embrace the mythic nature of their religious traditions (Heim 1995, 21). The reason for this, of course, is that this recognition is a necessity for the acceptance of Hick’s religious pluralism. If we wish to be pluralistic in our religious outlook, we cannot continue to affirm the literal absolute truth of our own religion (Hick 1995, 48). In short, we can summarize the pluralistic hypothesis as follows: The parity of moral fruits being produced among the great world religions points to a cognitive experience of the Real in each religion. This serves as evidence that exclusivist claims to superiority are

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