Thursdays will now be a catch-all for any book related content. For now, I will be switching back and forth between Beyond The Bible, Dissecting The Divine, and We Who Wrestle With God. Thanks for being here!
Jordan Peterson is a shill for Israel. “No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
My Christian dad told me to watch a speech from the “brilliant” Peterson… I did out of courtesy, and it was a lot of flowery academic language that I fundamentally didn’t agree with. When I asked my dad if he knew what the words meant, he didn’t know. He just sent it to me because it was “too smart” for him to understand and against my opinion as an atheist. It exactly helps people who already believe feel there are “super smart” retorts to atheists… So smart, many of them cannot understand what he’s saying… 🤨🙄🫤
I’m not saying Peterson isn’t smart, however I do tend to agree with the people that say he’s a “stupid person’s smart person”. Whenever he speaks he seems to be deliberately obfuscating and unclear to the point where somebody not paying attention might just assume he’s making a great esoteric point
As a Torontonian. I am saying that Peterson isn't smart. Even when he was teaching here he received numerous complaints about spouting off clearly incorrect statements to students as if they were fact. He'll claim that he *must* be smart because his papers have a lot of quotations but he is NOT the primary author on the majority of his papers, especially not the most quoted ones. Which is to say, it's not exactly Peterson who has been quoted a lot, but people Peterson has worked for. The man *still* hasn't completed his "Maps of Meaning" personality test project, which was one of the most consistently funded soft-science projects in the province: then he complained "bias" when his funding was pulled due to lack of results. The man's entire career started because he (in the most good-faith interpretation possible) could not understand Ontario bill C-16 and refused to do literally 5 minutes of research. And when the legal experts corrected him: he actively ignored them (and coincidentally started making a bunch of money... hmmmmm!). Also he claimed that "enforced monogamy" would present serial murder against women by incels (which is, of course, insane).
Hey ChatGPT : Said the following sentence in jordan peterson style: I like pizza ChatGPT: “Now, you see, when I say that I like pizza, it’s not just a casual preference-it’s an intricate interplay of culture, biology, and psychological significance. Pizza represents a harmonious balance of flavors, textures, and even social connection, and that’s not something to take lightly.”
New prompt: How would Jordan Peterson deny the existence of pizza? Jordan Peterson might deny the existence of pizza by deconstructing the concept and challenging its definition through a philosophical and linguistic lens. It might go something like this: “Well, the first thing you have to ask is, what do you mean by pizza? People throw around the term ‘pizza’ as though it’s this self-evident entity, but when you break it down, it’s much more complex. Is it the crust? The sauce? The cheese? If you change one of those elements-say you put pineapple on it-some people will say, ‘Well, that’s not pizza anymore!’ So even within our collective understanding, the definition of pizza is highly contentious. And then there’s the cultural aspect. Pizza as we know it didn’t exist until relatively recently in human history. It’s a product of specific cultural and economic conditions in post-industrial Italy. Does that mean it has an ontological status, or is it simply a social construct? From a metaphysical perspective, you could argue that pizza is not a thing in itself but rather a manifestation of broader culinary patterns. It’s not that pizza exists, per se-it’s that we project the idea of pizza onto a collection of ingredients that we’ve been trained to perceive in a certain way. And if that’s true, then pizza doesn’t exist in any objective sense. It’s merely an abstraction.” In this explanation, Peterson would likely focus on the fluidity of concepts and how language shapes our perception of reality, ultimately concluding that “pizza” might just be a convenient label without inherent existence.
Say "I like pancakes." in a Jordan Peterson style. Well, you see, it's not merely that I like pancakes-it's that they represent a fundamental embodiment of order within the culinary chaos of breakfast. You take disparate ingredients, chaotic in their own right-flour, eggs, milk-and through the imposition of discipline and precise action, you create a unified and harmonious whole. In that sense, pancakes are a small but meaningful manifestation of the archetypal journey toward meaning and sustenance. So, yes, I like pancakes, but it's deeper than that. Crazy part is it actually does this😂😂😂
Bingo. That was the Sam Harris/Peterson debate in a nut shell. Thankfully, Alex didn't let him get away with that nonsense in the Dawkins/Peterson debate.
Whenever he does that, I can't help but think of Prez. Clinton saying "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Conservatives never let him hear the end of it for that. But Peterson is lionized by the same kind of folk for the same kind of evasions.
I love the way he pulls that schtick when addressing even the simplest, most clearly stated and unambiguous arguments or phrases odf his opponent, directly before or after spouting a string of assertions based on convoluted and ambiguous use of language. It's a such an incredibly cheap and tawdry practice, and one that disqualifies him instantly as a good faith interlocutor.
- Occupation? - Stand-up philosopher. - What? - Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension. - Oh, a bull***t artist!
The resemblance between Deepak Chopra and Jordan Peterson extends to basically every subject, not just religion. Peterson's stance on climate change is as nonsensical as his takes on whether Jesus really came back from the dead for example.
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
@@rationalmuscleNo he is not. I have a good bit of educational baggage myself, so I can see when he is BSing. He name drops names of thinkers whom he knows few will recognize and just take his word for it. Well, I know those and know he doesn't understand.
Except he isn't a pseudo-intellectual, he's just wondered off the reservation. Why else would he be able to keep widening the field of discussion the minute he gets challenged? A pseudo-intellectual, lacking knowledge and an agile mind wouldn't be able to do that. I'm sure you mean something else, but he's no dummy, and he isn't short of learning on the topic.
Christians see atheism as an attack on their beliefs. If you truly believe something is true, then how is someone who lacks a belief in your beliefs, an attack. If you were secure in your beliefs, shouldn't you just shrug off the atheist?
@@felixstone3.14 One the 10 commandments is that God (referring to Christian or Jewish depending who who's reading) is the only God yet Hinduism has multiple. No not all religions are not equal as equal means the same. However I do think it's up for debate which religion is / would be best for JP's argument
I recently commented somewhere else that Jordan Peterson is the world's greatest word waster, and somebody else misread it as 'word wrestler', which I think works even better. Peterson likes to fight words and knock their very meaning into oblivion so that he can sell empty logorrea.
I think of him as a word-wrestler because he never bed a polysylabic word he actually understood. He loves using big words but it's clear he doesn't understand most of them.
" it's pretty, it's poetic." Right. Start by stroking the hypothalamus, place readers in the warm and fuzzy emotional state you want them in, then lay on your ideology. They are already there.
Brandon speaks very articulately and nonetheless speaks with clarity, that is the sign of a good communicator who knows what their talking about and it`s everything Jordan Peterson is not!
You're correct, but Peterson is still an incredibly communicator. He's just not trying to communicate substance, but rather his vast intellect and deep understanding of whatever topic he's talking about. He employs his rhetorical skills to sound smart without saying anything if substance most of the time, and he's very successfull with his methods
@@sirsuntar8717I've seen him talk about veganism and he comes off as an idiot without even a surface level of understanding. I only have a bachelor's in psychology but I can see through his bullshit.
Peterson is unbelievable at being clear at communicating ideas (when he wants to be), but the stuff he talks about is nonsense. He deliberately makes it hard to understand what he means sometimes because he doesn’t want people to know that he’s actually an atheist. So I agree in a sense, but the dude is incredibly good at being precise. I didn’t want to believe it because I kind of despise the man, but you can’t watch the talk with him and Dawkins and not come away thinking that he’s brilliant at communicating difficult ideas.
@@sirsuntar8717 Couldn`t agree more I think Jordan Peterson has the ability to be a very good communicator when he wants to be when he actually has substance to say.
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
Reasoning? I call it *seasoning*. Seasoning in the manner one might - maybe in desperation - try to season a smelly pile of shit to try to make it just slightly more palatable.
How tragic to know we live in a world where Peterson is STILL considered a legitimate intellectual esteemed by millions after he 1) Admitted in a debate on Marxism with Zizek that he had not read a single one of Marx's works and 2) asserted authoritatively in a debate with Dillahunty that only a supernatural intervention could account for the ability of an individual to quit smoking cigarettes.
The "quit smoking" thing is what broke JP. That was the saddest thing to watch. I quit smoking when my son was born. I did not believe in any gods then and still don't. I know at least 5 of my friends did the same thing.
@LGpi314 he would dishonestly say that you THOUGHT a supernatural presence was not involved but there was. Any objection from you can be responded with that. There's no winning with this guy.
And he has that in common with everyone I've ever heard screaming about "Marxism!" None of them have read a word of his, none of them have the slightest clue what Marxism is, it's just a generic scream-word for "anything I don't like." Same with Socialism, Liberalism, Woke, Progressivism, Satanism, etc etc. And the good holy righteous perfect people love him because they're just like him in that regard.
The "debate" with Zizek was a complete s*** show. We should remember the agreed format of the debate would be a discussion around The Communist Manifesto that Peterson claimed he had read prior to the debate. Having cringed though the debate myself however several things became clear. Either Peterson lied and did not read it, or at most skimmed though it or he did read it and showed he lacked the most basic intelligence to understand what Marx and Engels wrote because throughout the talk he makes claims regarding what Marx believed that is either not supported by the text in question or worse it contradicted by it. For a more detailed breakdown of this I highly recommend the youtube vid, Learning about Marx with Jordan Peterson (feat. Anarchopac and Red Plateaus). A more fundamental issue however is that while Zizek is indeed a popular philosopher and a critique of the modern neo-liberal capitalist model, he is a terrible person to have a debate with about Marxism taking the supposably pro or defence of Marxism side because and I can't stress this enough, Zizek is not, nor has he ever been a Marxist and is fundamentally opposed philosophically speaking to Marxism being a kind of eccentric Hegelian with the maintenance of capitalism being a foundational part of his political ideology, his indulgent use of Marxist references in his writings being mostly performative to antagonise the right to generate controversy. Because of this Zizek spends pretty much the entire debate bemoaning the decline of the enlightenment values in modern society and is not interested in debating Marxism at all. Once Peterson actually starts to grasp this during the debate, no doubt he was totally ignorant of what Zizek's philosophical views actually were, you see his attitude soften as he starts to realise how much the really agree with. If Peterson actually went up against a academically acclaimed Marxist and attempted to debate Marxism his embarrassingly poor understanding of Marxism and shallow arguments would be exposed very quickly which is why I frankly don't think it will ever happen.
I'm soo happy to see the term "waffles" out in the public 😂 a dishwasher in a kitchen I used to work at earnes himself that nickname by waffling around lmao
@@fishinthesea3454 Do you know more about the origin than where it comes from? It's hard for me to connect that phrase to actual waffles made from batter.
It's deeply disturbing that Jorpet thinks that humans have to think of other humans as something more than human in order to treat them as humans. Personally I'm fine treating humans as humans because they're humans. I don't need a layer of woo to justify being a decent person.
@@LiamBeanComedy I didn't mention any animals apart from humans. Only your imagination is filling in the idea that I treat other animals better or worse than humans. Try not putting words in other people's mouths, it makes you a better human if you don't.
@@ziploc2000 you’re a silly sausage. only my imagination? Ok you’re the perfect vegan who has never harmed an animal in any shape or form, you house share with pigs and cows, buy them Christmas presents and treat them exactly like other humans. If that’s the truth then yes, it’s my imagination. I doubt it though. Well I know it because it’s impossible not to harm animals and have any form of diet. Don’t play childish games and appeal to mystery. If I’m wrong, enlighten me
Jordan considers himself a thinker but the best he got is "I can demolish your skepticism" instead of doing what no human has done in human history: Proving the validity of his religious beliefs. He is just another grifting preacher with just more word salad than the usual grifting preacher.
@@t2nexx561 Did the entire world miss the big day a theist demonstrated that there is something to their reality defying claims? Dont pretend someone did that. We both know you believers have nothing but hot air.
@@t2nexx561 Is this your first day talking about insane claims of christians for the past 2.000 years? A god nobody can detect in any way, the earth being formed through magic less than 10k years ago, a magical flood that lacks any evidence, a virgin getting pregnant from said god nobody can detect, a magical iron age hippie walked on water and turned water into wine, dragons, magicians parting a sea so a million former jewish slaves can leave egypt but egypt having no record of said million slaves or the plagues, a talking snake, talking fire, angels, demons.... These things never happened and never existed. This is christians denying reality by claiming they happened and existed. So I ask again, how did the world miss the event of a christian proving ANY of that?
Peterson still doesn't understand that there isn't an "atheist" argument. He doesn't seem to understand how a person cannot believe in something that has no worthwhile cause for its acceptance. I have little confidence that he truly understands the difference between fiction and reality.
It's worse than that. He insist that fiction and reality, mythology and history, fantasy and fact, are all really the same thing. He is postmodernism taken to its extreme conclusion.
@@richardfurness7556 I think so. He is just trying to sell a book to atheists/the non religious. I mean what trying to prove that atheism is false amounts to is saying that people who don't accept that there are gods, basically don't care and never think about it much actually do believe in gods and angst about it all the time. Hardly a sophisticated argument and certainly not going to persuade people that are not religious that they are.
I listened to Jordan Peterson when he was sane. Celibrityhood has driven him over the edge. He's convinced himself that no matter what garbage he dreams up, people will tell him it taste good.
It sounds like when being famous and at a high societal status gets over your head... Then it comes to the point you shrug off all accountability... Once with good intentions, distorted by the desire for nothing but achieving the wealth... and for what? To please your peers? Whoever it may be?
@@vinceporter228 Sounds like the takeaway is all "Whatever sells". Yes, now I feel double guilty for sending a resume which I will never hear an answer from.
He is not good at rational thinking and science... one day he told students that people in the past knew about DNA because they were drawing intertwined snakes; he also thought that Musk invented electric cars...
@@CatDaddyGuitar I think that’s kind of the point. Your opponents can’t counter your beliefs if they don’t understand what your actual beliefs even are.
You make an excellent point about confining yourself to Christian scripture. It is magnitudes harder to argue convincingly against pantheism and yet - to my knowledge - there is no-one railing against atheists from a pantheist standpoint.
@@lucyferos205 how can a metaphysical concept like that be debunked? If religions and spiritual beliefs were easily “debunked” like that then there would probably be fewer competing religions
We love the spirit of giving, and we call people who don't like Christmas things like scrooge or grinch. So really, this proves that Santa Claus is real, he lives at the North Pole, and he has elves who make presents. Notice how the world was so much better when everyone you knew believed in Santa, and now things are so much worse? It's a necessary belief! Buy my book where I demolish the argument that the presents you received as a kid were actually bought by mom and dad.
I would argue that Santa is better than Jesus cuz in many Christian beliefs good people can still go to hell if they don't believe in God but Santa doesn't care what you believe as long as you're nice.
Yep. I teach my co-workers routinely at work and they love me. Not only do I obviously know what I'm talking about but I say it simply enough so everyone can understand without feeling like I'm talking down to them.
The truth Peterson wants to blur is that he’s not qualified to opine in most, or maybe all, of the fields he opines about. As far as I know, he’s accomplished nothing in any field except turning himself into a brand.
There isn't one. Atheists just look at RELIGIOUS "arguments" and say "Nope. Not for me. I don't buy it". That's not an argument, it's just a statement of fact, like when I go out to dinner and people can't believe I don't like avocados. "What?!? You don't like AVOCADOS???" They think I'm crazy, but it's just the way I am. You like avocados? Good for you, I guess ... I don't. Same with atheism. I'm a lifelong atheist, perfectly comfortable with it; no "struggle" involved. It's religious people who have the burden of proof and persuasion. Did you ever hear the old saying that "Atheism is a religion in the same way that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby"? Think about that.
There is no evidence that any "god" exists. There is evidence that humans created "god" to fulfill an emotional need to explain the inexplicable mysteries and suffering of life. God is used to justify the establishment of religion to instill fear and control over others for social cohesion and conformity to social norms. God only exists in the mind of the believer. He is made to be (or say) whatever one wants Him to be (or say). Asking Him questions is asking oneself questions. Following God's guidance reveals who one is. That is my atheist argument in a nutshell, at least for now.
It's "can you actually demonstrate those god claims?" Of course, that isn't an argument, but we're talking Peterson here, meanings of words are optional to that clown.
Intellect: the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic matters. You don think he fits this definition?
@@t2nexx561that may be the definition of intellect, but I think part of being an intellectual implies the desire to clearly Express and transmit your ideas to others, not to confuse and obfuscate meaning in an effort to sound more intelligent than you are
@@t2nexx561 Intellectual: appealing to or engaging the intellect. If JP were engaging the intellect he wouldn't rely on false dichotomies to paint himself as a person of superior intellect to sell his books. I stand by what I said. He is nonintellectual in his argumentation. JP himself could be described as anti-intellectual if you prefer. Don't use different words and then nitpick my argument based on your own personal misunderstanding of the entire argument.
@@sordidknifeparty Does JP try to sound more intelligent than he is? I dont think so, have you read Nietzsche? Every dam near sentence is a reflecting of your accusation and yet is one of the most renowned philosophers ever unless you disagree with this ofc.
Jordan Peterson is in it for financial gain. He will say anything to sell his books. Personally I don't believe he believes anything he preaches. Just another typical for profit evangelist. Thanks Brandon for exposing truth. I always enjoy your wisdom.
I completely agree. He’s a grifter which is why he’s loathe to state his definitive position or beliefs as he knows it will alienate his fanboys who are predominant white Christian males. Makes me lose a ton of respect for him.
@@joshuanewsted2560 It's sad because I became a better person (at least I believe so) because of his work, from his early conferences to his 12 Rules book (or even getting me to read Jung's work). Then there was the Cathy Newman thing, wich already made me believe he was going down a path of being a rockstar and therefore going to crash eventually, but still had hopes he would be wiser. Then there was the coma, the second book (I have yet to read it, tho), him joining the Daily Wire and now becoming a meme, and not in a good way. I think he's a tool for the Wire to be that "Good Atheist" they always talk about, wich is basically a Christian that doesn't explicitely says he's a Christian and can be turn into one. (Like Darwin to Jesus mentioned, because yes, they believe this is the only good kind of atheist, since they still can become borgs, I mean, good wholesome Christians). As of JP, I guess that's the only hand that reached to him so he's ready to say gibberish and get the money. Another case of "how the mighty have fallen" and all of that stuff.
"Dare to wrestle with God!" Talk about grandiose. Peterson hasn't wrestled a single thought over the past 12 years. He doesn't plunge into the deep waters of humanity, he skates over the frozen surface of a cranberry bog.
This past weekend, my wife and I went to see Alan Parsons perform live. When we looked at the marquee of the venue, we saw that Jordan Peterson would be making an appearance the following evening. We both burst into laughter because Parsons' lyrics are far less convoluted than Peterson's ramblings. At least Alan Parsons can set his rumination to music!
Does Jordan Peterson's argument remind anyone else of the Muslim apologetic of how perfect the Quran is? It's the most perfect, beautiful book & therefore the work of God/Allah.
I think my biggest frustration with the work of Jordan Peterson, is the way he uses language. He seems to redefine critical terminology in atypical ways, and without any notice that he is doing so. While I recognize that language is complex and fluid, and communication misunderstandings are hardly rare, there is some burden on a speaker to speak in ways that are understood. JP is entitled to use language in any way he sees fit. But that doesn't obligate us to jump through all the hoops of researching his use of words, simply to grasp what it is he is trying to say. I frequently see JP fans respond to critics, with a simple "You don't understand". And frankly that is probably true. But I lay a lot of the responsibility for that, squarely at the feet of Jordan.
if someone does not understand Jordan Peterson after making a 1 hour analysis that probably took significantly longer to make, it's not their fault, it's Jordan's fault for being so confusing, vague, and roundabout with even the most simple questions that him being CHRISTIAN is still up in the air as a question being asked. if i have to do some divinchi code Bullshit to just decypher what one man is saying, that man is trying to deceive someone. if your answer to "do you believe in god" starts with questioning LITERALLY every word in that sentence, your not trying to answer the question.
Most of the time he doesn't even have a point, he just continues on some tangent to deflect from having to defend his often absurd or meaningless statements.
no we do understand. He simply makes up completely absurd psychological definitions of God that no one else uses, and claims that we are all religious based on those definitions. That's all he's doing. Its stupid and wrong. And not only is he confused when it comes to basic definitions, he is wrong about the facts of virtually everything else. Vaccines, global warming, Canadian law. You name it...whenever he has spoken about literally any issue of importance, he delivers nonsensical conspiracy theories. He's not an intellectual, and his fans are basically just worshippers who don't understand what they are listening to, because they can't piece together how it makes no sense for themselves, so it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind.
@@mwmatthews1 Pretty much, I see his writing and speaking (I haven't indulged in much of it) as an elaborate justification for how he feels, while trying to hide how he feels.
Atheism is completely stupid. Water itself destroys atheism because it can never change. It’s the only thing that stays the same, and no life can work without it. Water has no age nor can it be destroyed.
If I'm getting what Brandon is saying, Peterson is making a case that fiction becomes truth when we want it to. Certainly a lot of secular beliefs ("our economy has to keep increasing for our welfare") are based on the same kind of thing.
well when you can assign any arbitrary meaning to any word whenever, like Peterson does, and sprinkle in a handful of blatently absurd lies on top, you can basically futon a metaphysical uno revolve anyclock.
Depends on how you see Atheism. In the case of JP he sees it in the cliché sense of "People who have never really examined morals and just say there is no God in the sense that they want to do what they want without consequences and therefore don't believe in any sets of spirituality because that would make them question their actions in their hyper materialistic world". I base that on one conference he did on one of his 12 rules, "Tell the Truth (or at least don't lie)". He talks about atheists and he says they are "people who see themselves as just one spec of dust in the universe, and because they're such a tiny thing there is probably no big consequence about what they say or do, so it doesn't matter what they do, they can just do anything". As I said, that cliché of "super materialistic little punk". A bit of a boomer take if you ask me.
If I were to try to come up with a sweeping theory of religion covering the whole world, taking a particular text as the starting point, I wouldn't take one from the Abrahamic religions. I'd go for the Bhagavad Gita or at a pinch the Lotus Sutra. Both are at a point where they're looking at the diversity of beliefs and practises of their respective traditions and trying to make some sense of it all, and not just saying "this is the new sense, you shall follow this". The bit in the Bhagavad Gita about the four yogas is particularly apt, as is the Lotus Suta's emphasis on skillful means. It's much easier to shoehorn Christianity into those frameworks than to shoehorn Hinduism and Buddhism into Christianity.
Probably because Hinduism is one of the oldest (still practiced) religions on earth and of the big ones it is the oldest. So probably it influenced all the others to some degree.
Jainism has the concept of Anekāntavāda (multi-sidedness), meaning no single perspective can fully express the complexity of reality. this is illustrated with the Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant, where each feels a different part of the elephant and interprets it as a tree, fan, snake, etc. if peterson actually wanted to do some Universalist comparative religion deal, start there.
I see what you're saying, but such a book will not likely reach a large audience. Why? Because the Big 3 (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are the most relevant/influential faiths in the West (where the vast majority of the intended audience live). Sure, many Westerners have an academic interest in Eastern faiths, but few practise them. It's much more effective to present a universal myth by utilising the scriptures best known to the public.
@Charlotte_Martel I did say "taking as a starting point" - it doesn't mean you have to stay there. The best thing would be to have some - a _lot_ - of comparative religion.
Abraham and ancient China literally had the same God with the same events of Genesis prior to Abraham. The Chinese also recorded when Jesus came to the earth and died in it, saying, “a man has died for the sins of the world”. You have no clue how stupid you are being.
[voice of the woman peasant in Monty Python's Holy Grail]: "Didn't know we had an argument. I thought we simply don't accept the claims made by theists due to the lack of corroborating evidence."
I can make sense of Sam Harris when he uses obscure words and references. He's actually a great speaker, JP on the other hand is the substrate of word tripeology
I’m a Christian, but I enjoyed this so much. You speak with such eloquence you are thoughtful and engaging, I strongly dislike Jordan Peterson for all kinds of reasons, his elitism et cetera one can go on. I subbed, looking forward to more.
Oh, I would, too! I grew up on him, and the thing about him is that, unlike Peterson, he's a good writer and knows his craft. That makes it harder to find the speciousness, especially since I read him long before I found your Secular Bible Study and nonstampcollector.
Also hoping for "The Case for Christ" and "Evidence That Demands a Verdict." But "Mere Christianity" should definitely be 1st due to its influence and longevity.
And which version of the bible did he use? There are so many different versions and it’s been added and subtracted so many times and mistranslated that you might as well read the Dr Seuss version
Ok so under the category "things I'd never think I'd do for real", I had a closer look at what he's actually writing, and no better way to start than at the start. His introduction in 1.1. highlights a connection between God's "activity" as made evident by the word "moving", and a "deep" emotional effect that is described by being "moved" by something. _"God is what we encounter when we are moved to the depths"._ So far, so flowery. Now the translation "moved" in Genesis 1 isn't totally exclusive to the KJV, but most other translations describe God's spirit as "levitating" or "hovering" over the surface of the water. This is also consistent with translations in other languages, like _"schwebte über dem Wasser"_ in the Luther Bible, or _"aleggiava sulle acque"_ in the Italian version according to the Episcopal Conference of Italy. Admittedly some translations, like the standard French protestant Louis Segond Bible also use "moving" _("mouvait au-dessus des eaux"),_ although others again describe it as levitating _("l’Esprit de Dieu planait au-dessus des eaux", La Bible du Semeur)._ What I've seen so far indicates that Hebrew מְרַחֶ֖פֶת is indeed more consistent with "hovering" or "levitating", but that's as far as I'm willing to go in absence of any scholarly experience in that field 🤔😂 Nevertheless his imagery is entirely dependent on a specific translation that looks extremely doubtful to me, and so it falls apart entirely if that translation is faulty. Because "levitation" or "hovering" not only lack any connotation of "activity", but certainly fail to describe the emotion of being _"struck by something deep",_ as he calls it. Which leaves us with exactly the hollow pop-cultural pseudo-philosophical babble that JP is known for. And that is only the beginning...
Finally someone pushes the elephant in the room into the middle and points the finger! I will never not find it incredible that the majority of Christians base the entirety of their belief on translations of their supposedly God-given texts. Signed, a real-life translator. (* Mormons obviously excepted.)
@mikeesrandomchannel Then explain why your kingdom is nothing more than a sad and dead replicant of mine? The love is dead in marriage. The identity of man is dead. Man started drawing and embracing death and magic which then produced more death. Everyone that hates God loves death.
Love that you’re addressing jp. There are occasional glimmers of profundity in the things he says, but more often than not he is a charlatan who preys on the pretentiousness of his audience
He really is a charlatan. He squirmed and wiggled and talked and talked and talked in circles so as not to be pinned down as a Christian. Notice how after being backed into a rhetorical corner and his admission of his beliefs, suddenly he's not so glib about trying to deflect from that topic.
Anything Peterson has ever said or written that is even remotely "profound" was said or written by someone else long before Peterson entered the public eye.
@ yes isn’t it funny how he suddenly turns into a postmodernist whenever it’s convenient? But I actually hadn’t realized that. I was always under the assumption that he didn’t actually believe in a literal god because he always abstracts god into obscurity. But the fact that he embraces it is so bizarre? Do you think him feigning agnostic was a way to seem unbiased or centrist?
24:24 - the oldest story known to survive is VERY different from the first story ever told. The first story ever told wasn't told only a few thousand years ago! As usual though, great video. Always good to see more holes being poked in JP's analysis of his holy texts.
Jordan is very clever. But all successful con artists are clever. He knows lots of big confusing words, so his word salad nonsense is difficult to decipher. As an average intelligence person myself, its easy to see how someone could think that Peterson is some kind of genius
Jordan using the bible as his only argument against atheism, giving it special treatment & pretending like there's no other creation myth other than Genesis, shows just how biased he is. he didn't destroyed atheism, he destroyed his own honesty by pandering to the Christian audience.
First...What is "the atheist argument?" As an atheist myself, I have no argument, I just don't have any reason to accept that any religious claims are true. I don't accept the War God of Abraham to be any more real and authentic than Thor or Ra, or any other member of the gaggle of gods.
I get you! And I will take things even further by saying that I personally don't believe in the supernatural realm at all - in any way, shape or form. Not one shred of evidence that convinces me. I may encounter such evidence eventually, who knows? But so far nothing in my 60+ years on this planet.
I just read an in-depth review of JP's We Who Wrestle With God (I have not read it), and it seems like evangelicals will not like his take, as they take the OT literally. Mainline Christians might like it. Thanks for taking the hit and reading it for us!
Daniel Dennett would have simply said "So, this book here, is the perfect example of a deepity. As the author is constantly trying to balance precariously between two meanings, and can always retreat to one when they fail to defend the other.
Here's a supposedly omnipotent entity. Now imagine that samw omnipotent entity in any kind o struggle with something as puny as a human being who is not omnipotent. The whole thing is utterly absurd.
@@rongravelle603 Philosopher: a person engaged or learned in philosophy, especially as an academic discipline. By this definition couldn't anyone be a philosopher?
@@t2nexx561 He didn't say he wasn't a philosopher, he said that if this is what passes for philosophy, then philosophy is in decline. For some who constantly quotes definitions, you sure don't seem to have much reading comprehension.
@@v0Xx60 Huh? I wasn't purposing that he said he wasn't a philosopher though. If JP is being presented as a philosopher and he's the representation of its decline then you would have to define good and bad philosophy.
@@t2nexx561 Then why would you give a definition that amounts to "what qualifies someone as a philosopher" and not actually mention anything about the quality of the philosophy being presented?
You mentioned water representing chaos, and my mind produced an image of a complete object Rising from a rough sea, and it occurred to me, that the surface of the water is one of the only places we encounter objects emerging whole into our environment, appearing to be created in their final forms in real time as they emerge
Please stop it with the blind devotion of that man. No he's not missunderstood. He just likes the sound of his own voice. And he's very obviously a christian. A new age christian who loves to spiral into nonsensical theology, very much into Jesus.
The very existence of “cultural Christians” like JP is weird to say the least. It really begs the question of what it actually means to be Christian or religious then. JP doesn’t seem to adhere to Christianity because he actually believes it, but because he sees it as a useful, pragmatic tool for social order.
Some myths depict God as the Phallus. Wrestling with this "God" may result in a volcanic eruption. See Deuteronomy 32.18, where the Phallus aka "rock that begat thee" claims to be the creator. The word Israel actually means god (el) is the phallus (ysra).
Why is it people do not accept the various pantheons of ancients, including the pantheons of the Canaanite’s but they believe in this monotheistic Sun god Aten pushed by an Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten to control the priesthood and exported it back to Canaan. Monotheism is easier to control than pantheons which have rival religious devotees.
The main point here is that JP thinks Christian belief is necessary in order to have moral behavior, and therefore it is "true" in some constructive sense. Two problems with that: 1. Argument ad baculum (argument from consequences) is a fallacy. 2. The premise that Christian belief is required for morality is simply false. Atheists are generally moral, somewhat more so than Christians IIRC. Ask "what fraction of us prisoners are atheists".
Agree on that, I think this is the problem with many "conservatives" (for lack of a better term). I'd chat with them, and given I'm not Abrahamic (Shinto-Buddhism), they'd often ask me "But how do you know morals? How do you know what's bad? If you're not judged at the end, how can you trive to be good? What created you and how does it tells you what's right or wrong?". They have this idea that all that is "good" depends on pages in a book. I find that scary, especially that we have more rights now as a atheist/laic world than when we believed the Bible to be The Law.
The only “atheistic argument” that I’m aware of is “Your god claims are fallacious and I don’t believe them”, so the proper way to defeat it is to present a valid and sound god claim while providing evidence to support it. Gonna go out on a limb and assume JP doesn’t do that.
I’m looking forward to this series! There’s never a bad time for taking JP down a rung or two hundred, and the best way to do it is with smart, to-the-point identification of logical fallacies. You excel at it, Brandon.
Jordan Peterson these days is more of an influencer or entertainer than a doctor. He is making a fortune writing books, doing potdcsts, and charges $200,000 to $300,000 in speaking fees. Like any businessman he realizes that conservatives are his market and particularly with people that want to belief thier "faith" is real but they need a "doctor" to reassure them.
Sad how many people would rather get "self help" by paying someone to tell them lies they like to hear, over using that money to improve their lives using scientifically informed pursuits...
It's annoying to see so many people attack the person and not the argument. While I agree that the argument is flawed, it's not necessary to attack him.
Agreed. Im actually pretty taken back. Usually the comments here are more about the arguments but i think a lot of people saw JP in the thumb and came just to comment without watching
@@gowdsake7103 I'm saying claims should be substantiated. Everyone just name calling is doing nothing more than muddying the water. People that support him aren't going to stop just because you call him a con man, it may even have the opposite effect. Just like telling a christian that god is the author of confusion without any supporting that claim would probably just anger them and cause them to harden their stance. If you don't feel like doing that every time, then don't, someone else will, just look for the comment and like it to give it more visibility.
after pontificating so prolifically in your comments here - i notice the wit and brevity of your attendants. Wow! You have quite the apt and elegant audience, Mindshift. [impressed, i am.]
Brandon, thanks for doing this analysis. It's good someone dissects Peterson's arguments and points out the fallacies. I don't read his stuff but I listen to some of his talks not because I think he makes good pints but as a study of how someone can effectively rope in huge followers with very bad rhetoric. He reminds me of a self-help guru, his carefully chosen clothing, his poses on stage, his overuse of words several levels above his audience's understanding, the emotional stroking...so thanks again for doing the painful analysis exposing the flaws and dishonesty in what he presents.
I appreciate Jordan Peterson's classroom lectures on RUclips. He has enhanced my understanding of Psychology, which is his specialty. However he muddies the waters by mixing religion and politics with the academic proficiency of his scholastic accomplishments.
In first ever discussion between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, on Harris’ podcast, he pushes back at Peterson using the Bible (biblical themes) as analogies for truth, Harris observes that he could make the same meaning claims from reading a recipe book.
oh dear - In the original written language of the text, the word "moving" is "מְרַחֶ֖פֶת" or "rachaph" . It's more like hover, or flutter in English - Its only used 2 more times in the bible and is directly referencing physical movement, like shaking. At no point is the word used to directly describe being emotionally moved in the way we would use it in English. This is utter drivel from JP. The water representing chaos reference makes sense because that is consistent with the narrative of genesis - But isn't that just Petersons whole deal? Pepper that word salad with the occasional logical thought to lend it an air of authenticity? He's honestly an insult to the world of philosophy and reason .
I will not be wasting my time with this book. Peterson writes how he talks, with overlong, overcomplex sentences and with lots of word salad to hide the fact that he isn't really saying anything of importance. As for demolishing the atheist argument; at its core, atheism is simply saying "I don't believe your God claims." How can my lack of belief be demolished? Unless Peterson has found genuine, verifiable evidence for the existence of God (spoiler, he hasn't), he is just trying make more money by bamboozling the gullible.
To my mind Peterson is the modern epitome of a sophist… I despise his politics, ideas, character, etc but I’m watching this because I respect the channel. Thanks for a slogging through this for us lol
The mistake a lot of people make is in assuming that Peterson is in anyway a clever man, he is not. All of his vaunted wisdom is a collection of buzzwords and plagiarism from greater minds, over which he coats a veneer of sophistication that is so shallow, if you were to scratch the surface it would crumble to dust. I would gain more insight from watching paint dry than wasting my time reading his latest money grab.
14:17 WE ARE CHILDREN OF MOTHER EARTH! IN AN EXTREMELY LITERAL SENSE! SO IS EVERY OTHER BIOLOGICAL ORGANISM! ISN'T THAT "DIVINE" ENOUGH FOR _MR._ PETERSON!? 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you for covering this. Great example for how there is a risk associated with some intellectuals to get caught up thinking they can explain what I think of is generally unexplainable, and playing expert in matters they clearly have no academic background in. We live in a time where scholars and resources have helped put things in a more truthful perspective when it comes to understanding ancient text and culture. I think Peterson applies a fair amount of guess work using big words. I am not the sharpest pencil around and follow Peterson as much as possible to keep tabs on who the major social influencers are. It’s very important to listen to both sides. Many folks buy into his philosophy. I don’t.
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
Thursdays will now be a catch-all for any book related content. For now, I will be switching back and forth between Beyond The Bible, Dissecting The Divine, and We Who Wrestle With God. Thanks for being here!
Awesome.
We're here for it!🎉🎉
Brandon, this sounds great.
Jordan Peterson is a shill for Israel.
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
Jordan Peterson.
“Does greed admit anything is impossible?” Asks Satan
Peterson can’t demolish anything except clarity.
If vaseline was a person....
He can’t make up his mind who he is. Sad.
My Christian dad told me to watch a speech from the “brilliant” Peterson… I did out of courtesy, and it was a lot of flowery academic language that I fundamentally didn’t agree with. When I asked my dad if he knew what the words meant, he didn’t know. He just sent it to me because it was “too smart” for him to understand and against my opinion as an atheist. It exactly helps people who already believe feel there are “super smart” retorts to atheists… So smart, many of them cannot understand what he’s saying… 🤨🙄🫤
You should probably read more
@ The problem for people like Peterson is that I’ve read enough to recognize pseudo-intellectual grifters when I see them.
I’m not saying Peterson isn’t smart, however I do tend to agree with the people that say he’s a “stupid person’s smart person”. Whenever he speaks he seems to be deliberately obfuscating and unclear to the point where somebody not paying attention might just assume he’s making a great esoteric point
Bingo! He's intellectually dishonest and that's why I detest his speaking.
100%
He is smart enough to fool stupid people into following him.
he's like a continental philosopher, basically
As a Torontonian. I am saying that Peterson isn't smart. Even when he was teaching here he received numerous complaints about spouting off clearly incorrect statements to students as if they were fact.
He'll claim that he *must* be smart because his papers have a lot of quotations but he is NOT the primary author on the majority of his papers, especially not the most quoted ones. Which is to say, it's not exactly Peterson who has been quoted a lot, but people Peterson has worked for. The man *still* hasn't completed his "Maps of Meaning" personality test project, which was one of the most consistently funded soft-science projects in the province: then he complained "bias" when his funding was pulled due to lack of results.
The man's entire career started because he (in the most good-faith interpretation possible) could not understand Ontario bill C-16 and refused to do literally 5 minutes of research. And when the legal experts corrected him: he actively ignored them (and coincidentally started making a bunch of money... hmmmmm!). Also he claimed that "enforced monogamy" would present serial murder against women by incels (which is, of course, insane).
Hey ChatGPT : Said the following sentence in jordan peterson style: I like pizza
ChatGPT: “Now, you see, when I say that I like pizza, it’s not just a casual preference-it’s an intricate interplay of culture, biology, and psychological significance. Pizza represents a harmonious balance of flavors, textures, and even social connection, and that’s not something to take lightly.”
New prompt:
How would Jordan Peterson deny the existence of pizza?
Jordan Peterson might deny the existence of pizza by deconstructing the concept and challenging its definition through a philosophical and linguistic lens. It might go something like this:
“Well, the first thing you have to ask is, what do you mean by pizza? People throw around the term ‘pizza’ as though it’s this self-evident entity, but when you break it down, it’s much more complex. Is it the crust? The sauce? The cheese? If you change one of those elements-say you put pineapple on it-some people will say, ‘Well, that’s not pizza anymore!’ So even within our collective understanding, the definition of pizza is highly contentious.
And then there’s the cultural aspect. Pizza as we know it didn’t exist until relatively recently in human history. It’s a product of specific cultural and economic conditions in post-industrial Italy. Does that mean it has an ontological status, or is it simply a social construct?
From a metaphysical perspective, you could argue that pizza is not a thing in itself but rather a manifestation of broader culinary patterns. It’s not that pizza exists, per se-it’s that we project the idea of pizza onto a collection of ingredients that we’ve been trained to perceive in a certain way. And if that’s true, then pizza doesn’t exist in any objective sense. It’s merely an abstraction.”
In this explanation, Peterson would likely focus on the fluidity of concepts and how language shapes our perception of reality, ultimately concluding that “pizza” might just be a convenient label without inherent existence.
That makes more sense than Peterson
Say "I like pancakes." in a Jordan Peterson style.
Well, you see, it's not merely that I like pancakes-it's that they represent a fundamental embodiment of order within the culinary chaos of breakfast. You take disparate ingredients, chaotic in their own right-flour, eggs, milk-and through the imposition of discipline and precise action, you create a unified and harmonious whole. In that sense, pancakes are a small but meaningful manifestation of the archetypal journey toward meaning and sustenance. So, yes, I like pancakes, but it's deeper than that.
Crazy part is it actually does this😂😂😂
This isn’t Petersonian enough, needs bigger more obscure words and an insinuation that progressive thinkers hate pizza
OMG 😂😂😂
"Well it depends on what we mean with "demolish", and also what we mean with "atheism". And what we mean when we say "mean". "
Bingo. That was the Sam Harris/Peterson debate in a nut shell. Thankfully, Alex didn't let him get away with that nonsense in the Dawkins/Peterson debate.
It depends on what you mean by "."
Whenever he does that, I can't help but think of Prez. Clinton saying "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Conservatives never let him hear the end of it for that. But Peterson is lionized by the same kind of folk for the same kind of evasions.
I hate that I automatically read that in his voice.
I love the way he pulls that schtick when addressing even the simplest, most clearly stated and unambiguous arguments or phrases odf his opponent, directly before or after spouting a string of assertions based on convoluted and ambiguous use of language. It's a such an incredibly cheap and tawdry practice, and one that disqualifies him instantly as a good faith interlocutor.
- Occupation?
- Stand-up philosopher.
- What?
- Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension.
- Oh, a bull***t artist!
🤣🤣🤣
Did you bullshit last week?
I smell once again the stench of dirty money...
Anything that sells, I suppose.
Where have the days of legit self-reflection gone?
You are nuts! N-V-T-S, NUTS!
@DavidRichardson153 He's my agent, Swiftus!
JP is to religion what Deepak Chopra is to quantum physics.
Ouch! lol.
😂😂
The resemblance between Deepak Chopra and Jordan Peterson extends to basically every subject, not just religion.
Peterson's stance on climate change is as nonsensical as his takes on whether Jesus really came back from the dead for example.
and what De Souza is to biblical analysis.
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
Ahhh...Jordan Peterson. The absolute *GOAT* of pseudo-intellectuals
Agreed
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
He's smarter than you think he is, and not as smart as he thinks he is, at least in relation to this topic.
@@rationalmuscleNo he is not. I have a good bit of educational baggage myself, so I can see when he is BSing. He name drops names of thinkers whom he knows few will recognize and just take his word for it. Well, I know those and know he doesn't understand.
Except he isn't a pseudo-intellectual, he's just wondered off the reservation. Why else would he be able to keep widening the field of discussion the minute he gets challenged? A pseudo-intellectual, lacking knowledge and an agile mind wouldn't be able to do that.
I'm sure you mean something else, but he's no dummy, and he isn't short of learning on the topic.
Atheism vs. Christianity is a false dichotomy. If he thinks atheism is so terrible, he should be plugging all religions, not just one.
Christians see atheism as an attack on their beliefs. If you truly believe something is true, then how is someone who lacks a belief in your beliefs, an attack. If you were secure in your beliefs, shouldn't you just shrug off the atheist?
bam
not all religions are equal
@@bruvance prove it
@@felixstone3.14 One the 10 commandments is that God (referring to Christian or Jewish depending who who's reading) is the only God yet Hinduism has multiple.
No not all religions are not equal as equal means the same.
However I do think it's up for debate which religion is / would be best for JP's argument
I recently commented somewhere else that Jordan Peterson is the world's greatest word waster, and somebody else misread it as 'word wrestler', which I think works even better. Peterson likes to fight words and knock their very meaning into oblivion so that he can sell empty logorrea.
He's a sophist. There's a word for what he does already, it's all specious reasoning.
@@matthewgagnon9426 fair enough.
til a learned the psychological term for being verbose. thanks
We Who Wrestle With Words
I think of him as a word-wrestler because he never bed a polysylabic word he actually understood. He loves using big words but it's clear he doesn't understand most of them.
" it's pretty, it's poetic." Right. Start by stroking the hypothalamus, place readers in the warm and fuzzy emotional state you want them in, then lay on your ideology. They are already there.
Brandon speaks very articulately and nonetheless speaks with clarity, that is the sign of a good communicator who knows what their talking about and it`s everything Jordan Peterson is not!
Appreciate that man
You're correct, but Peterson is still an incredibly communicator.
He's just not trying to communicate substance, but rather his vast intellect and deep understanding of whatever topic he's talking about.
He employs his rhetorical skills to sound smart without saying anything if substance most of the time, and he's very successfull with his methods
@@sirsuntar8717I've seen him talk about veganism and he comes off as an idiot without even a surface level of understanding. I only have a bachelor's in psychology but I can see through his bullshit.
Peterson is unbelievable at being clear at communicating ideas (when he wants to be), but the stuff he talks about is nonsense. He deliberately makes it hard to understand what he means sometimes because he doesn’t want people to know that he’s actually an atheist.
So I agree in a sense, but the dude is incredibly good at being precise. I didn’t want to believe it because I kind of despise the man, but you can’t watch the talk with him and Dawkins and not come away thinking that he’s brilliant at communicating difficult ideas.
@@sirsuntar8717 Couldn`t agree more I think Jordan Peterson has the ability to be a very good communicator when he wants to be when he actually has substance to say.
For the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone takes Peterson seriously for even a minute! He uses soooooo many words to say absolutely nothing!
He's perfect for christians who are grasping for straws. To them he sounds intelligent.
He is only beaten by Ben Shapiro in spoken word salad/minute.
Read more grow your vocab
@@t2nexx561 " Read more grow your vocab " - How would that help? Word salad with fancy words is still word salad.
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” Paul writes. “It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
His book is so huge because no editor wants to grope through the fog of Peterson's reasoning.
Transcend your petty “reasoning”
Reasoning? I call it *seasoning*. Seasoning in the manner one might - maybe in desperation - try to season a smelly pile of shit to try to make it just slightly more palatable.
…what
How tragic to know we live in a world where Peterson is STILL considered a legitimate intellectual esteemed by millions after he 1) Admitted in a debate on Marxism with Zizek that he had not read a single one of Marx's works and 2) asserted authoritatively in a debate with Dillahunty that only a supernatural intervention could account for the ability of an individual to quit smoking cigarettes.
The "quit smoking" thing is what broke JP. That was the saddest thing to watch. I quit smoking when my son was born. I did not believe in any gods then and still don't. I know at least 5 of my friends did the same thing.
through drugs mind you. Not just supernatural crap to quit smoking, you must take psychedelics, is what he lied
@LGpi314 he would dishonestly say that you THOUGHT a supernatural presence was not involved but there was. Any objection from you can be responded with that. There's no winning with this guy.
And he has that in common with everyone I've ever heard screaming about "Marxism!" None of them have read a word of his, none of them have the slightest clue what Marxism is, it's just a generic scream-word for "anything I don't like." Same with Socialism, Liberalism, Woke, Progressivism, Satanism, etc etc. And the good holy righteous perfect people love him because they're just like him in that regard.
The "debate" with Zizek was a complete s*** show. We should remember the agreed format of the debate would be a discussion around The Communist Manifesto that Peterson claimed he had read prior to the debate.
Having cringed though the debate myself however several things became clear. Either Peterson lied and did not read it, or at most skimmed though it or he did read it and showed he lacked the most basic intelligence to understand what Marx and Engels wrote because throughout the talk he makes claims regarding what Marx believed that is either not supported by the text in question or worse it contradicted by it. For a more detailed breakdown of this I highly recommend the youtube vid, Learning about Marx with Jordan Peterson (feat. Anarchopac and Red Plateaus).
A more fundamental issue however is that while Zizek is indeed a popular philosopher and a critique of the modern neo-liberal capitalist model, he is a terrible person to have a debate with about Marxism taking the supposably pro or defence of Marxism side because and I can't stress this enough, Zizek is not, nor has he ever been a Marxist and is fundamentally opposed philosophically speaking to Marxism being a kind of eccentric Hegelian with the maintenance of capitalism being a foundational part of his political ideology, his indulgent use of Marxist references in his writings being mostly performative to antagonise the right to generate controversy.
Because of this Zizek spends pretty much the entire debate bemoaning the decline of the enlightenment values in modern society and is not interested in debating Marxism at all. Once Peterson actually starts to grasp this during the debate, no doubt he was totally ignorant of what Zizek's philosophical views actually were, you see his attitude soften as he starts to realise how much the really agree with.
If Peterson actually went up against a academically acclaimed Marxist and attempted to debate Marxism his embarrassingly poor understanding of Marxism and shallow arguments would be exposed very quickly which is why I frankly don't think it will ever happen.
Brilliant, you did it again. He waffles for a living. I thought I was the only one who gets the creeps when he speaks.
Many thanks!
Google “Jordan Peterson grandma dream”…you’re welcome. 😏
I'm soo happy to see the term "waffles" out in the public 😂 a dishwasher in a kitchen I used to work at earnes himself that nickname by waffling around lmao
@@NealBones it's a proudly South African saying I think?😁
@@fishinthesea3454 Do you know more about the origin than where it comes from? It's hard for me to connect that phrase to actual waffles made from batter.
It's deeply disturbing that Jorpet thinks that humans have to think of other humans as something more than human in order to treat them as humans.
Personally I'm fine treating humans as humans because they're humans.
I don't need a layer of woo to justify being a decent person.
100%!
I definitely like this comment.
Why do you treat humans better than say a cow or a pig? What trait do they have?
@@LiamBeanComedy I didn't mention any animals apart from humans. Only your imagination is filling in the idea that I treat other animals better or worse than humans.
Try not putting words in other people's mouths, it makes you a better human if you don't.
@@ziploc2000 you’re a silly sausage. only my imagination? Ok you’re the perfect vegan who has never harmed an animal in any shape or form, you house share with pigs and cows, buy them Christmas presents and treat them exactly like other humans. If that’s the truth then yes, it’s my imagination. I doubt it though. Well I know it because it’s impossible not to harm animals and have any form of diet. Don’t play childish games and appeal to mystery. If I’m wrong, enlighten me
Jordan considers himself a thinker but the best he got is "I can demolish your skepticism" instead of doing what no human has done in human history: Proving the validity of his religious beliefs.
He is just another grifting preacher with just more word salad than the usual grifting preacher.
"what no human has done in history: proving the validity of his religious beliefs" you can't prove this though, can you?
@@t2nexx561 Did the entire world miss the big day a theist demonstrated that there is something to their reality defying claims? Dont pretend someone did that. We both know you believers have nothing but hot air.
@@Z4r4sz What about reality thats being denied exactly?
@@t2nexx561 Is this your first day talking about insane claims of christians for the past 2.000 years?
A god nobody can detect in any way, the earth being formed through magic less than 10k years ago, a magical flood that lacks any evidence, a virgin getting pregnant from said god nobody can detect, a magical iron age hippie walked on water and turned water into wine, dragons, magicians parting a sea so a million former jewish slaves can leave egypt but egypt having no record of said million slaves or the plagues, a talking snake, talking fire, angels, demons....
These things never happened and never existed. This is christians denying reality by claiming they happened and existed.
So I ask again, how did the world miss the event of a christian proving ANY of that?
@t2nexx561 I wouldn't bother, these folks are natural born contrarians, always have an answer and ironically end up missing the point entirely..
Peterson still doesn't understand that there isn't an "atheist" argument. He doesn't seem to understand how a person cannot believe in something that has no worthwhile cause for its acceptance. I have little confidence that he truly understands the difference between fiction and reality.
He understands these things all too well. And he's figured out how to make money from them.
It's worse than that. He insist that fiction and reality, mythology and history, fantasy and fact, are all really the same thing. He is postmodernism taken to its extreme conclusion.
@@richardfurness7556 I think so. He is just trying to sell a book to atheists/the non religious. I mean what trying to prove that atheism is false amounts to is saying that people who don't accept that there are gods, basically don't care and never think about it much actually do believe in gods and angst about it all the time. Hardly a sophisticated argument and certainly not going to persuade people that are not religious that they are.
I listened to Jordan Peterson when he was sane. Celibrityhood has driven him over the edge. He's convinced himself that no matter what garbage he dreams up, people will tell him it taste good.
He has clearly morphed with his celebrity, dressing like a “dandy” at every opportunity.
It sounds like when being famous and at a high societal status gets over your head...
Then it comes to the point you shrug off all accountability...
Once with good intentions, distorted by the desire for nothing but achieving the wealth... and for what? To please your peers? Whoever it may be?
it's a grift
He just realised he could make more money with his drivel.
@@vinceporter228 Sounds like the takeaway is all "Whatever sells".
Yes, now I feel double guilty for sending a resume which I will never hear an answer from.
How can someone demolish, ‘I don’t believe any gods exist’?
He is not good at rational thinking and science... one day he told students that people in the past knew about DNA because they were drawing intertwined snakes; he also thought that Musk invented electric cars...
By presenting a God, that's literally it, but of course Peterson will try and convince you he already has.
@jdevlin1910 He’s presenting the true creator of all things.
@@justice8718 Yo mama?
To understand JP, you need to understand that he is a post modernist. He rages against them, then uses all their tools.
Yep, I find his projection and lack of self awareness fascinating for a psychologist.
@@CatDaddyGuitarit’s the drugs. Opioids create pure delusions.
I think your defining post modernist wrong
@@t2nexx561 he waffles between attacking PM and then uses some of the lingo to push certain points when needed. It's hard to pin him down sometimes.
@@CatDaddyGuitar I think that’s kind of the point. Your opponents can’t counter your beliefs if they don’t understand what your actual beliefs even are.
Jordan has a rare gift to be able to use many, many words yet say so little. 🤣
I don't have a nice thing to say about Jordan Peterson, so I'm shutting up. :)
lol!
You make an excellent point about confining yourself to Christian scripture. It is magnitudes harder to argue convincingly against pantheism and yet - to my knowledge - there is no-one railing against atheists from a pantheist standpoint.
Cos pantheism isn’t an organised religion, there’s no pantheistic bible…. Closest thing is Spinoza
Pantheism isn't that difficult to argue against. It assumes a form of monism that's been long debunked.
@@lucyferos205 also, if everything is god I’m equal to dog poo and that’s not great for the old self esteem
@@lucyferos205 how can a metaphysical concept like that be debunked? If religions and spiritual beliefs were easily “debunked” like that then there would probably be fewer competing religions
@@LiamBeanComedyIt's also not good/functional for society if we treat killing a fly on the same level as killing an innocent person.
Jordan's goal is to wear out his opponent with confusion and obfuscation.
He likes to milk his religious audience and they are as such gullible and love it.
We love the spirit of giving, and we call people who don't like Christmas things like scrooge or grinch. So really, this proves that Santa Claus is real, he lives at the North Pole, and he has elves who make presents. Notice how the world was so much better when everyone you knew believed in Santa, and now things are so much worse? It's a necessary belief! Buy my book where I demolish the argument that the presents you received as a kid were actually bought by mom and dad.
lol, well done!
🤣🤣🤣
As someone who doesn't care for Christmas, I feel attacked lol
I would argue that Santa is better than Jesus cuz in many Christian beliefs good people can still go to hell if they don't believe in God but Santa doesn't care what you believe as long as you're nice.
The Michael Ploog's Santa comic book has to be a scripture of yours. If not, I don't join your group.
Seriously, read that comic, it's great.
My dad used to tell me when I was a kid “keep it simple stupid”. The more words you have to use to describe something the more you blur the truth.
"if you can't explain it to a 6 year old, then you don't know it well enough"
Yep. I teach my co-workers routinely at work and they love me. Not only do I obviously know what I'm talking about but I say it simply enough so everyone can understand without feeling like I'm talking down to them.
The truth Peterson wants to blur is that he’s not qualified to opine in most, or maybe all, of the fields he opines about. As far as I know, he’s accomplished nothing in any field except turning himself into a brand.
Yes, it's Occam's Razor 🪒
Perhaps he thought you were stupid, but he proved he was the dumb one. Keep it short 'n' sweet is more edifying.
I'd love to see you sit down with Alex O'Conner for a few hours on the topic of secular bible study
Jordan Peterson is to religion what Michael Jordan is to religion.
My first question is, 'What exactly IS the atheistic argument?'
There isn't one. Atheists just look at RELIGIOUS "arguments" and say "Nope. Not for me. I don't buy it". That's not an argument, it's just a statement of fact, like when I go out to dinner and people can't believe I don't like avocados. "What?!? You don't like AVOCADOS???"
They think I'm crazy, but it's just the way I am. You like avocados? Good for you, I guess ... I don't.
Same with atheism. I'm a lifelong atheist, perfectly comfortable with it; no "struggle" involved. It's religious people who have the burden of proof and persuasion.
Did you ever hear the old saying that "Atheism is a religion in the same way that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby"? Think about that.
I think it was when he was humiliated by Matt Dillahunty 😆
There is no evidence that any "god" exists. There is evidence that humans created "god" to fulfill an emotional need to explain the inexplicable mysteries and suffering of life. God is used to justify the establishment of religion to instill fear and control over others for social cohesion and conformity to social norms. God only exists in the mind of the believer. He is made to be (or say) whatever one wants Him to be (or say). Asking Him questions is asking oneself questions. Following God's guidance reveals who one is.
That is my atheist argument in a nutshell, at least for now.
It's "can you actually demonstrate those god claims?"
Of course, that isn't an argument, but we're talking Peterson here, meanings of words are optional to that clown.
i guess any counter argument to theistic arguments
On behalf of Canada, sorry.
lol! that one got me.
@@PeterHowe228 Another Canadian who is sorry 😢😢
Well, some of the US's exports haven't been great for Canada, so sorry back.
I'm another Canadian who is embarrassed by JP.
Not to worry Canadians. Australia has produced a far more dangerous and damaging human than JP. Rupert Murdoch.
Jordan Petersoon is the king of nonintellectual false dichotomies masked as legitimate intelligent interloculation.
@@FeliciaByNature ohh I like that 👍🏼
Intellect: the faculty of reasoning and understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic matters. You don think he fits this definition?
@@t2nexx561that may be the definition of intellect, but I think part of being an intellectual implies the desire to clearly Express and transmit your ideas to others, not to confuse and obfuscate meaning in an effort to sound more intelligent than you are
@@t2nexx561 Intellectual: appealing to or engaging the intellect. If JP were engaging the intellect he wouldn't rely on false dichotomies to paint himself as a person of superior intellect to sell his books. I stand by what I said. He is nonintellectual in his argumentation. JP himself could be described as anti-intellectual if you prefer.
Don't use different words and then nitpick my argument based on your own personal misunderstanding of the entire argument.
@@sordidknifeparty Does JP try to sound more intelligent than he is? I dont think so, have you read Nietzsche? Every dam near sentence is a reflecting of your accusation and yet is one of the most renowned philosophers ever unless you disagree with this ofc.
Jordan Peterson is in it for financial gain. He will say anything to sell his books. Personally I don't believe he believes anything he preaches. Just another typical for profit evangelist. Thanks Brandon for exposing truth. I always enjoy your wisdom.
I completely agree. He’s a grifter which is why he’s loathe to state his definitive position or beliefs as he knows it will alienate his fanboys who are predominant white Christian males. Makes me lose a ton of respect for him.
@@joshuanewsted2560 It's sad because I became a better person (at least I believe so) because of his work, from his early conferences to his 12 Rules book (or even getting me to read Jung's work). Then there was the Cathy Newman thing, wich already made me believe he was going down a path of being a rockstar and therefore going to crash eventually, but still had hopes he would be wiser. Then there was the coma, the second book (I have yet to read it, tho), him joining the Daily Wire and now becoming a meme, and not in a good way.
I think he's a tool for the Wire to be that "Good Atheist" they always talk about, wich is basically a Christian that doesn't explicitely says he's a Christian and can be turn into one. (Like Darwin to Jesus mentioned, because yes, they believe this is the only good kind of atheist, since they still can become borgs, I mean, good wholesome Christians). As of JP, I guess that's the only hand that reached to him so he's ready to say gibberish and get the money. Another case of "how the mighty have fallen" and all of that stuff.
What's deeply necessary to our survival. The sun.
Yes. Plus : Water. Breathable air, which means plants. Earth and arable earth.
And Reese's peanut butter cups
"Dare to wrestle with God!" Talk about grandiose. Peterson hasn't wrestled a single thought over the past 12 years. He doesn't plunge into the deep waters of humanity, he skates over the frozen surface of a cranberry bog.
He's a privileged man that lives in a bubble.
Jordan Peterson: one of those men who confuse big words with big thoughts.
Brandon, you're incredibly even-handed, and it's appreciated, as is your diligence to read War and Peace, The Sequel.
Mr. Peterson can believe whatever he likes...and so can I.
This past weekend, my wife and I went to see Alan Parsons perform live. When we looked at the marquee of the venue, we saw that Jordan Peterson would be making an appearance the following evening. We both burst into laughter because Parsons' lyrics are far less convoluted than Peterson's ramblings. At least Alan Parsons can set his rumination to music!
Does Jordan Peterson's argument remind anyone else of the Muslim apologetic of how perfect the Quran is? It's the most perfect, beautiful book & therefore the work of God/Allah.
Well, seems to me all 3 Abrahamic religions and their endless variations claim the same.
I think my biggest frustration with the work of Jordan Peterson, is the way he uses language.
He seems to redefine critical terminology in atypical ways, and without any notice that he is doing so.
While I recognize that language is complex and fluid, and communication misunderstandings are hardly rare, there is some burden on a speaker to speak in ways that are understood.
JP is entitled to use language in any way he sees fit. But that doesn't obligate us to jump through all the hoops of researching his use of words, simply to grasp what it is he is trying to say.
I frequently see JP fans respond to critics, with a simple "You don't understand". And frankly that is probably true. But I lay a lot of the responsibility for that, squarely at the feet of Jordan.
He’s a “baffle them with verbiage dressed up as BS” I this move towards religion is disingenuous. “I’m not a bigot but my religion demands I be one”
if someone does not understand Jordan Peterson after making a 1 hour analysis that probably took significantly longer to make, it's not their fault, it's Jordan's fault for being so confusing, vague, and roundabout with even the most simple questions that him being CHRISTIAN is still up in the air as a question being asked.
if i have to do some divinchi code Bullshit to just decypher what one man is saying, that man is trying to deceive someone.
if your answer to "do you believe in god" starts with questioning LITERALLY every word in that sentence, your not trying to answer the question.
Most of the time he doesn't even have a point, he just continues on some tangent to deflect from having to defend his often absurd or meaningless statements.
no we do understand. He simply makes up completely absurd psychological definitions of God that no one else uses, and claims that we are all religious based on those definitions. That's all he's doing. Its stupid and wrong. And not only is he confused when it comes to basic definitions, he is wrong about the facts of virtually everything else. Vaccines, global warming, Canadian law. You name it...whenever he has spoken about literally any issue of importance, he delivers nonsensical conspiracy theories. He's not an intellectual, and his fans are basically just worshippers who don't understand what they are listening to, because they can't piece together how it makes no sense for themselves, so it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind.
@@mwmatthews1 Pretty much, I see his writing and speaking (I haven't indulged in much of it) as an elaborate justification for how he feels, while trying to hide how he feels.
You don't "disprove" atheism. The task is to demonstrate the existence of a god.
He not writing for logical people, he is writing for his audience.
Exactly, if he could demonstrate a god I would not be atheist nor would any reasonable person
Atheism is completely stupid. Water itself destroys atheism because it can never change. It’s the only thing that stays the same, and no life can work without it. Water has no age nor can it be destroyed.
Exactly.
I was a JP fan for a while but now believe his biggest specialty is playing Word Salad.
You can't demolish something that doesn't exist. Atheism is a response to a claim, not an argument.
How can a man who once referred to God as the "greatest fiction" possibly think he has an argument against atheism?
If I'm getting what Brandon is saying, Peterson is making a case that fiction becomes truth when we want it to. Certainly a lot of secular beliefs ("our economy has to keep increasing for our welfare") are based on the same kind of thing.
well when you can assign any arbitrary meaning to any word whenever, like Peterson does, and sprinkle in a handful of blatently absurd lies on top, you can basically futon a metaphysical uno revolve anyclock.
Depends on how you see Atheism. In the case of JP he sees it in the cliché sense of "People who have never really examined morals and just say there is no God in the sense that they want to do what they want without consequences and therefore don't believe in any sets of spirituality because that would make them question their actions in their hyper materialistic world".
I base that on one conference he did on one of his 12 rules, "Tell the Truth (or at least don't lie)". He talks about atheists and he says they are "people who see themselves as just one spec of dust in the universe, and because they're such a tiny thing there is probably no big consequence about what they say or do, so it doesn't matter what they do, they can just do anything". As I said, that cliché of "super materialistic little punk".
A bit of a boomer take if you ask me.
JP is slowly turning into the real-world equivalent of The Riddler.
Was always that, from the very beginning, it's just that more and more people now can see that.
If I were to try to come up with a sweeping theory of religion covering the whole world, taking a particular text as the starting point, I wouldn't take one from the Abrahamic religions. I'd go for the Bhagavad Gita or at a pinch the Lotus Sutra. Both are at a point where they're looking at the diversity of beliefs and practises of their respective traditions and trying to make some sense of it all, and not just saying "this is the new sense, you shall follow this". The bit in the Bhagavad Gita about the four yogas is particularly apt, as is the Lotus Suta's emphasis on skillful means. It's much easier to shoehorn Christianity into those frameworks than to shoehorn Hinduism and Buddhism into Christianity.
Probably because Hinduism is one of the oldest (still practiced) religions on earth and of the big ones it is the oldest. So probably it influenced all the others to some degree.
Jainism has the concept of Anekāntavāda (multi-sidedness), meaning no single perspective can fully express the complexity of reality. this is illustrated with the Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant, where each feels a different part of the elephant and interprets it as a tree, fan, snake, etc. if peterson actually wanted to do some Universalist comparative religion deal, start there.
I see what you're saying, but such a book will not likely reach a large audience. Why? Because the Big 3 (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are the most relevant/influential faiths in the West (where the vast majority of the intended audience live).
Sure, many Westerners have an academic interest in Eastern faiths, but few practise them. It's much more effective to present a universal myth by utilising the scriptures best known to the public.
@Charlotte_Martel I did say "taking as a starting point" - it doesn't mean you have to stay there. The best thing would be to have some - a _lot_ - of comparative religion.
Abraham and ancient China literally had the same God with the same events of Genesis prior to Abraham. The Chinese also recorded when Jesus came to the earth and died in it, saying, “a man has died for the sins of the world”.
You have no clue how stupid you are being.
[voice of the woman peasant in Monty Python's Holy Grail]:
"Didn't know we had an argument. I thought we simply don't accept the claims made by theists due to the lack of corroborating evidence."
😂
I thought we were an autonomous collective!
@@rongravelle603 Jordan Peterson followers: Help! Help! I am being repressed.
@@rongravelle603We live in a dictatorship!
@@BluStarGalaxyhahaha 😂😂
I can make sense of Sam Harris when he uses obscure words and references. He's actually a great speaker, JP on the other hand is the substrate of word tripeology
Yes, it's about clear sentence and paragraph construction. Which requires clear thinking as well as skill in the craft of words.
Hitchins was another great wordsmith
Sam Harris is one of the best.
I enjoyed some of his early videos, but then he began to enjoy his own videos too and now he's trying to sell me a car that doesn't exist.
I’m a Christian, but I enjoyed this so much. You speak with such eloquence you are thoughtful and engaging, I strongly dislike Jordan Peterson for all kinds of reasons, his elitism et cetera one can go on. I subbed, looking forward to more.
The only thing the book is a danger to is what lingering shreds remain of his credibility as a serious thinker.
As a psychologist he was lucid and entertaining. Then he had a breakdown and wrote it all down.
He is just getting old.
"Jordan Peterson" cannot be used in a sentence with the word "serious" without the intervening word "not".
Don't know if you have or not, but I'd love to see you tackle C.S Lewis. He's held up like a Saint in apologetics
As I see it, Mere Christianity is basically stacked atop one huge argument from incredulity.
Oh, I would, too! I grew up on him, and the thing about him is that, unlike Peterson, he's a good writer and knows his craft. That makes it harder to find the speciousness, especially since I read him long before I found your Secular Bible Study and nonstampcollector.
Also hoping for "The Case for Christ" and "Evidence That Demands a Verdict." But "Mere Christianity" should definitely be 1st due to its influence and longevity.
Okay but Jordan... what do you mean by book?
And which version of the bible did he use? There are so many different versions and it’s been added and subtracted so many times and mistranslated that you might as well read the Dr Seuss version
And what does he mean by "mean? "
Define you!
Jordon Peterson is the poster child for the dangers of Clinical Psychology.💙
Or philosophy
Peterson is the master chef of the word salad. Dude should carry a bottle of Ranch in his pocket.
Sorry Jordan, if something is fiction, it is, and I cannot stress this enough, NOT real, no matter how much you like it.
Ok so under the category "things I'd never think I'd do for real", I had a closer look at what he's actually writing, and no better way to start than at the start.
His introduction in 1.1. highlights a connection between God's "activity" as made evident by the word "moving", and a "deep" emotional effect that is described by being "moved" by something. _"God is what we encounter when we are moved to the depths"._ So far, so flowery.
Now the translation "moved" in Genesis 1 isn't totally exclusive to the KJV, but most other translations describe God's spirit as "levitating" or "hovering" over the surface of the water. This is also consistent with translations in other languages, like _"schwebte über dem Wasser"_ in the Luther Bible, or _"aleggiava sulle acque"_ in the Italian version according to the Episcopal Conference of Italy. Admittedly some translations, like the standard French protestant Louis Segond Bible also use "moving" _("mouvait au-dessus des eaux"),_ although others again describe it as levitating _("l’Esprit de Dieu planait au-dessus des eaux", La Bible du Semeur)._
What I've seen so far indicates that Hebrew מְרַחֶ֖פֶת is indeed more consistent with "hovering" or "levitating", but that's as far as I'm willing to go in absence of any scholarly experience in that field 🤔😂
Nevertheless his imagery is entirely dependent on a specific translation that looks extremely doubtful to me, and so it falls apart entirely if that translation is faulty. Because "levitation" or "hovering" not only lack any connotation of "activity", but certainly fail to describe the emotion of being _"struck by something deep",_ as he calls it.
Which leaves us with exactly the hollow pop-cultural pseudo-philosophical babble that JP is known for. And that is only the beginning...
In the beginning was the word and the word was misrepresented!
Finally someone pushes the elephant in the room into the middle and points the finger! I will never not find it incredible that the majority of Christians base the entirety of their belief on translations of their supposedly God-given texts. Signed, a real-life translator. (* Mormons obviously excepted.)
@mikeesrandomchannel
Then explain why your kingdom is nothing more than a sad and dead replicant of mine? The love is dead in marriage. The identity of man is dead. Man started drawing and embracing death and magic which then produced more death. Everyone that hates God loves death.
@@justice8718 Nonsense.
Love that you’re addressing jp. There are occasional glimmers of profundity in the things he says, but more often than not he is a charlatan who preys on the pretentiousness of his audience
He really is a charlatan. He squirmed and wiggled and talked and talked and talked in circles so as not to be pinned down as a Christian. Notice how after being backed into a rhetorical corner and his admission of his beliefs, suddenly he's not so glib about trying to deflect from that topic.
Anything Peterson has ever said or written that is even remotely "profound" was said or written by someone else long before Peterson entered the public eye.
@ yes isn’t it funny how he suddenly turns into a postmodernist whenever it’s convenient? But I actually hadn’t realized that. I was always under the assumption that he didn’t actually believe in a literal god because he always abstracts god into obscurity. But the fact that he embraces it is so bizarre? Do you think him feigning agnostic was a way to seem unbiased or centrist?
If it happens to contain something actually profound, I imagined it just slipped through by accident.
No there isn't.
24:24 - the oldest story known to survive is VERY different from the first story ever told.
The first story ever told wasn't told only a few thousand years ago!
As usual though, great video. Always good to see more holes being poked in JP's analysis of his holy texts.
Jordan is very clever.
But all successful con artists are clever.
He knows lots of big confusing words, so his word salad nonsense is difficult to decipher.
As an average intelligence person myself, its easy to see how someone could think that Peterson is some kind of genius
To me, you worded this very aptly. Being clever is really different from being intelligent.
Jordan using the bible as his only argument against atheism, giving it special treatment & pretending like there's no other creation myth other than Genesis, shows just how biased he is. he didn't destroyed atheism, he destroyed his own honesty by pandering to the Christian audience.
He's just another, fancy dancin' apologist.
He thinks western culture is the best thing ever, so he just wants to prop it up. Even if that includes a God he doesn't believe in himself.
The Bible is the one true book and ancient China backs it up.
Once again amazing video Brandon. You're doing amazing work for humanity.
I am sorry I cannot watch your video. The man is impossible. Love your channel. Keep it up. Thank you.
First...What is "the atheist argument?"
As an atheist myself, I have no argument, I just don't have any reason to accept that any religious claims are true.
I don't accept the War God of Abraham to be any more real and authentic than Thor or Ra, or any other member of the gaggle of gods.
I get you! And I will take things even further by saying that I personally don't believe in the supernatural realm at all - in any way, shape or form. Not one shred of evidence that convinces me. I may encounter such evidence eventually, who knows? But so far nothing in my 60+ years on this planet.
I just read an in-depth review of JP's We Who Wrestle With God (I have not read it), and it seems like evangelicals will not like his take, as they take the OT literally. Mainline Christians might like it. Thanks for taking the hit and reading it for us!
Daniel Dennett would have simply said "So, this book here, is the perfect example of a deepity. As the author is constantly trying to balance precariously between two meanings, and can always retreat to one when they fail to defend the other.
I went forward a bit and Jordan Peterson got even sillier
Wrestling with God sounds about as productive as shadow boxing.
Fantastic analogy.
Heh :)
Here's a supposedly omnipotent entity. Now imagine that samw omnipotent entity in any kind o struggle with something as puny as a human being who is not omnipotent. The whole thing is utterly absurd.
Shadowboxing is one of the most utilized trainings by boxers to become pro-boxers. Atheist non-intelligence manifests itself in full force here.
I mean, Jacob got a new name out of it at least
I admire your courage in covering a JP book. I couldn't bring myself to do it, to me it's looking for grains of corn in a pile of donkey's droppings.
If he passes for a philosopher then philosophy ain’t what it used to be.
@@rongravelle603 Philosopher: a person engaged or learned in philosophy, especially as an academic discipline. By this definition couldn't anyone be a philosopher?
@@t2nexx561 He didn't say he wasn't a philosopher, he said that if this is what passes for philosophy, then philosophy is in decline. For some who constantly quotes definitions, you sure don't seem to have much reading comprehension.
@@v0Xx60 Huh? I wasn't purposing that he said he wasn't a philosopher though. If JP is being presented as a philosopher and he's the representation of its decline then you would have to define good and bad philosophy.
@@t2nexx561 Then why would you give a definition that amounts to "what qualifies someone as a philosopher" and not actually mention anything about the quality of the philosophy being presented?
You mentioned water representing chaos, and my mind produced an image of a complete object Rising from a rough sea, and it occurred to me, that the surface of the water is one of the only places we encounter objects emerging whole into our environment, appearing to be created in their final forms in real time as they emerge
So basically God is the Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer?
G.eneral warl.O.r.D = G.O.D
In reality it is the Omnissiah from whence the image of the Emperor comes thru with the sacred light of technology. PRAISE THE MACHINE GOD!
His goal isn't to invalidate the atheist argument. It's to validate the average cultural christian.
Please stop it with the blind devotion of that man. No he's not missunderstood. He just likes the sound of his own voice. And he's very obviously a christian. A new age christian who loves to spiral into nonsensical theology, very much into Jesus.
The average right wing Christian
Well said
The very existence of “cultural Christians” like JP is weird to say the least. It really begs the question of what it actually means to be Christian or religious then. JP doesn’t seem to adhere to Christianity because he actually believes it, but because he sees it as a useful, pragmatic tool for social order.
@@tangerinetangerine4400 I didn't read the OP's comment as being support for Peterson, to me it was commenting on his fundamental dishonesty.
Considering how off Mr. Peterman is on almost everything, I highly doubt he even formulated or understood an “atheistic argument” properly.
I wrestle with God as much as Thor wrestled old age or Heracles wrestled Thanatos, fictionally.
Love it.
Some myths depict God as the Phallus. Wrestling with this "God" may result in a volcanic eruption.
See Deuteronomy 32.18, where the Phallus aka "rock that begat thee" claims to be the creator. The word Israel actually means god (el) is the phallus (ysra).
Why is it people do not accept the various pantheons of ancients, including the pantheons of the Canaanite’s but they believe in this monotheistic Sun god Aten pushed by an Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten to control the priesthood and exported it back to Canaan. Monotheism is easier to control than pantheons which have rival religious devotees.
You wrestle with God 'fictionally', what do you even mean by that?..
@@Reece-3601 it means that since god is fictional, they can wrestle with them fictionally. pretty simple.
The main point here is that JP thinks Christian belief is necessary in order to have moral behavior, and therefore it is "true" in some constructive sense. Two problems with that:
1. Argument ad baculum (argument from consequences) is a fallacy.
2. The premise that Christian belief is required for morality is simply false. Atheists are generally moral, somewhat more so than Christians IIRC. Ask "what fraction of us prisoners are atheists".
Agree on that, I think this is the problem with many "conservatives" (for lack of a better term). I'd chat with them, and given I'm not Abrahamic (Shinto-Buddhism), they'd often ask me "But how do you know morals? How do you know what's bad? If you're not judged at the end, how can you trive to be good? What created you and how does it tells you what's right or wrong?". They have this idea that all that is "good" depends on pages in a book. I find that scary, especially that we have more rights now as a atheist/laic world than when we believed the Bible to be The Law.
The only “atheistic argument” that I’m aware of is “Your god claims are fallacious and I don’t believe them”, so the proper way to defeat it is to present a valid and sound god claim while providing evidence to support it.
Gonna go out on a limb and assume JP doesn’t do that.
I’m looking forward to this series! There’s never a bad time for taking JP down a rung or two hundred, and the best way to do it is with smart, to-the-point identification of logical fallacies. You excel at it, Brandon.
Appreciate that!
Jordan Peterson these days is more of an influencer or entertainer than a doctor. He is making a fortune writing books, doing potdcsts, and charges $200,000 to $300,000 in speaking fees. Like any businessman he realizes that conservatives are his market and particularly with people that want to belief thier "faith" is real but they need a "doctor" to reassure them.
Sad how many people would rather get "self help" by paying someone to tell them lies they like to hear, over using that money to improve their lives using scientifically informed pursuits...
There are people who make a living just by explaining how Joredan Peterson is lying about the research he supposedly is quoting to make his case.
Pretty wild!
Jordan Peterson apologists, lol!
The Peterson industrial complex?
It's annoying to see so many people attack the person and not the argument. While I agree that the argument is flawed, it's not necessary to attack him.
Agreed. Im actually pretty taken back. Usually the comments here are more about the arguments but i think a lot of people saw JP in the thumb and came just to comment without watching
You think a con man should be just accepted?
@@gowdsake7103 I'm saying claims should be substantiated. Everyone just name calling is doing nothing more than muddying the water. People that support him aren't going to stop just because you call him a con man, it may even have the opposite effect. Just like telling a christian that god is the author of confusion without any supporting that claim would probably just anger them and cause them to harden their stance.
If you don't feel like doing that every time, then don't, someone else will, just look for the comment and like it to give it more visibility.
What exactly is the argument? I couldn't wade through all the muck....
after pontificating so prolifically in your comments here - i notice the wit and brevity of your attendants.
Wow!
You have quite the apt and elegant audience, Mindshift. [impressed, i am.]
Hats off to you, Brandon. Trying to read his stuff or even listen to him in interviews boggles the mind. Thanks for all you do.
Brandon, thanks for doing this analysis. It's good someone dissects Peterson's arguments and points out the fallacies. I don't read his stuff but I listen to some of his talks not because I think he makes good pints but as a study of how someone can effectively rope in huge followers with very bad rhetoric. He reminds me of a self-help guru, his carefully chosen clothing, his poses on stage, his overuse of words several levels above his audience's understanding, the emotional stroking...so thanks again for doing the painful analysis exposing the flaws and dishonesty in what he presents.
I used to find him interesting, but his Christian-Right grift has removed any respect I ever had for him.
I look forward to the next section of this.
Yep. Subscribed. Thx.
I appreciate Jordan Peterson's classroom lectures on RUclips. He has enhanced my understanding of Psychology, which is his specialty. However he muddies the waters by mixing religion and politics with the academic proficiency of his scholastic accomplishments.
He cannot give anybody a straight answer when they ask him the very simple question, which is do you believe in God yes or no.
In first ever discussion between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, on Harris’ podcast, he pushes back at Peterson using the Bible (biblical themes) as analogies for truth, Harris observes that he could make the same meaning claims from reading a recipe book.
oh dear - In the original written language of the text, the word "moving" is "מְרַחֶ֖פֶת" or "rachaph" . It's more like hover, or flutter in English - Its only used 2 more times in the bible and is directly referencing physical movement, like shaking. At no point is the word used to directly describe being emotionally moved in the way we would use it in English. This is utter drivel from JP. The water representing chaos reference makes sense because that is consistent with the narrative of genesis - But isn't that just Petersons whole deal? Pepper that word salad with the occasional logical thought to lend it an air of authenticity? He's honestly an insult to the world of philosophy and reason .
I will not be wasting my time with this book.
Peterson writes how he talks, with overlong, overcomplex sentences and with lots of word salad to hide the fact that he isn't really saying anything of importance.
As for demolishing the atheist argument; at its core, atheism is simply saying "I don't believe your God claims." How can my lack of belief be demolished?
Unless Peterson has found genuine, verifiable evidence for the existence of God (spoiler, he hasn't), he is just trying make more money by bamboozling the gullible.
Landed on this channel today 24/11/2024. Just subscribed
Oof. You're on the wrong track, buddy.
To my mind Peterson is the modern epitome of a sophist… I despise his politics, ideas, character, etc but I’m watching this because I respect the channel. Thanks for a slogging through this for us lol
The mistake a lot of people make is in assuming that Peterson is in anyway a clever man, he is not. All of his vaunted wisdom is a collection of buzzwords and plagiarism from greater minds, over which he coats a veneer of sophistication that is so shallow, if you were to scratch the surface it would crumble to dust. I would gain more insight from watching paint dry than wasting my time reading his latest money grab.
14:17 WE ARE CHILDREN OF MOTHER EARTH! IN AN EXTREMELY LITERAL SENSE! SO IS EVERY OTHER BIOLOGICAL ORGANISM! ISN'T THAT "DIVINE" ENOUGH FOR _MR._ PETERSON!? 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you for covering this. Great example for how there is a risk associated with some intellectuals to get caught up thinking they can explain what I think of is generally unexplainable, and playing expert in matters they clearly have no academic background in. We live in a time where scholars and resources have helped put things in a more truthful perspective when it comes to understanding ancient text and culture. I think Peterson applies a fair amount of guess work using big words. I am not the sharpest pencil around and follow Peterson as much as possible to keep tabs on who the major social influencers are. It’s very important to listen to both sides. Many folks buy into his philosophy. I don’t.
Very good analysis, cant wait for more of your review of the book