JP recently appeared on “Jubilee”, the YouTube channel known for having “debate-ish” videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwk5MPE_6zE
The setup here is they will take some person and surround them with tens of their opponents, so you have “Jordan Peterson vs 20 Atheists”.
In this exact video, one of the people asks JP if he’s a Christian and he replies “Don’t be a smartass!”
I haven’t seen someone that espouses so many Christian values and philosophy while trying to hold it at arm’s length. Is this just part of the usual JP tactic where you call into question any terms used in a discussion to sound deeply philosophical?
He seems to have an atypical relationship with Christianity and I can’t decide if that’s some genuine crisis he has OR if he just pretends to hold this stance just to add one more slippery facet to his behavior.
If nothing else, it’s very odd.
Grifters gotta grift
That’s the grifters secret.
Peterson retreats to a politically convenient solipsism whenever challenged on anything. He is not a serious person.
I think that’s a really accurate characterization. He has mastered the art of speaking without communicating.
Because Christianity is a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ religion and doesn’t have a singular meaning. The various Bibles don’t all agree on interpretation and even the four gospels each give differing accounts of Jesus’ character.
JP is an atheist, but he recognizes the value in other people believing in Christianity. This is because the myths and symbols reinforce his worldview to people who (he views) aren’t smart enough to get there with reasoning.
Also, like all Western Chauvinists, he can’t let go of the idea of “Christendom”.
JP expresses a belief in a deity.
That makes him a theist, even if that deity isn’t how we would typically conceive of god.
“God is conscience <that exists beyond the ideal as a social construct>”
“What do you mean ‘belief?’ What do you mean by ‘in?’ What does ‘a’ mean?”
That’s just his go to when he realizes he’s going to be mocked. Or he’s about to be proven stupid.
Guarantee you his definition of “god” would have changed had someone called him on his bullshit about Elisha or Jonah. (They expressed a view that one’s conscience is “the voice of god”… not god…)
“Oh, you’re really something aren’t you?”
“I am, and you’re nothing, aren’t you?”
Mr Smarty Pants got destroyed.
“I don’t want to talk with this guy!”
Fuck Peterson…. He’s a white supremacist.
“I don’t like that question. I don’t LIKE that question. I don’t like THAT question…!”
Reading “god is conscience” in Kermit’s voice was surprisingly hilarious
JP is an atheist
He won’t readily admit to that either. He somehow sits in the void between atheists and theists.
Agnosticism is a thing. He might be off in his own weird non-declarative void-like corner but the whole intermedium isn’t like that.
I think it speaks to his style of arguing. He doesn’t commit to anything, so he can’t be caught in the wrong on anything. He’s free to take pot shots at his opponents while never giving them an opportunity to hold him accountable for his wrongheaded BS.
I’ve listened to Jordan Peterson a lot in long form conversations. This is my generous interpretation of his views.
Peterson believes that all humans have a hierarchy of values and desires.
Eg you go to work in order to get money in order to get food in order to live in order to play tennis in order to enjoy yourself…
At the top of this hierarchy is the thing that you’re ultimately after in life. Jordan defines this thing as “god” and defines the pursuit of it “worship”. Therefore, everyone has a god and everyone worships.
He also believes that the past doesn’t really exist, as much as our societal memory of it. He would say that the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible is “True”, because it is the archetypal brotherly rivalry that we all embody in some sense.
Putting this together. The Bible is “True”. Everyone has a “God” they have a personal relationship with and that they “worship”.
He is essentially defining things such that everyone is a Christian. Then he says that people just don’t understand what Christianity really is.
He also refuses to admit that most Christians wouldn’t define God in the way that he does.
Peterson is in practice an atheist that has successfully monetised right wing religious conservatives, and can’t risk alienating that base by admitting that he doesn’t have belief in anything close to resembling the way that they do.
He is essentially defining things such that everyone is a Christian.
My high school friend who became a religious weirdo, said to me that I’m Christian because I’m a good person, dosen’t matter if I said that I’m Atheist. By that logic everything good is Christian because h label everything he found good as Christian.
Psedo-intellectual grifter
I’m a Christian myself and have listened to a couple of Peterson’s lectures on the Bible and I see him as someone who approaches the Bible with the mind of a conspiracy theorist or a New Age believer. He makes grand claims while using a handful of loosely related facts to support his beliefs and could care less about using a more rigorous approach. To him, any and all notable pieces of imagery in the Bible actually play important archetypal roles for fundamental principals in our grand cosmic reality
In fact I believe JP has outright said that he doesn’t actually believe in the truth of the Bible, that he is at least agnostic towards an actual God, and that he instead uses Christianity more as a vehicle for understanding his own set of beliefs. So, to answer your question, you could fairly call him a Cultural Christian, but it would be very unfair to call him an actual Christian.
Okay. So…lemme ask you…
Does that fact that there are an innumerable and wide variety of competing views and ideologies around the very basic teachings of one simple woodworker not tell you that it’s all bullshit?..or do you think that YOUR concept of this religion’s absurd and anti-factual claims are correct and its everyone else in the world who is wrong?
Not asking in disrespect, but asking of every christian.
You have an interesting method of not asking in disrespect, so I’ll just reply this once and leave it at that.
Christianity is based largely around the idea of faith. If God made it so plainly obvious what he was doing that there were no competing views or religions, then Christianity could no longer be about faith.
So how do we know when we are putting our faith in the right thing? Well that would come down to various other factual arguments that, when taken in unison, point to the reliability of the Bible. I, for one, like the minimal facts case for the resurrection and the fact of all the manuscript evidence showing that the message of the Bible is effectively the same as it was in the early church.
Do I think that my understanding of the Bible is the only one true understanding? No, that would be very silly and presumptuous of me to think I alone somehow got it all figured out. But that doesn’t mean I’m not close, and the fact that there are others who believe like I do means in more likely to be at a reasonable understanding of the truth of the matter than I would be otherwise. But even if everyone else in the world was wrong wouldn’t really matter here, would it? The only thing it means is I would need to be cautious.
That first paragraph about faith destroys all your following arguments.
Faith is nothing more than pretending.
And let’s not even mention the fact that there are countless other ideologies that also claim to be the sole truth, and which one you subscribe to is heavily dependent on where you were born.
I can’t fucking stand Jordan Peterson, I’ve never seen him go through a whole debate without being a disingenuous, obnoxious prick. When he knows he’s backed into a corner, he pulls out the reductio ad absurdum (what is “is”). The only other fake intellectual I hate more is Ben Shapiro and his “Gish Gallop”.
his only purpose for the right is to draw in more socially/incel men to right wing circles, hes funded by russia. hes a propaganda mouthpiece, much like rogan and shapiro is.
He’ll never answer any question because it’s an easy way to avoid being pinned down on any position, which makes him immune to all criticism (in his eyes).
It’s not odd. He’s a hypocritical grifter and should be ignored by all. The framing of this post is concerning. This is not a man people should listen to
I was just gonna go with “Who gives a shit?” but you put it better.
He’s an opportunist. A fraud.
I can’t speak for him but lots of people follow whatever religion’s values and may appreciate the metaphors of their sacred texts without engaging in the rituals or belonging to the religion as a community/organization.
