I'm a clinical psychologist, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, an author, a pod caster, public speaker, and today I'm surrounded by 25 atheists.
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You're a Christian. You say that. I haven't claimed that. Oh, what is this? Is this Christians versus atheist? Don't be a smart ass. Either you're a Christian or you're not. Which one is it? You're really quite something, you are. Aren't I? But you're really quite nothing. Right? You're not I'm done with him.
Hello there. I'm doctor Jordan Peterson.
I'm a clinical psychologist, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, an author, a pod caster, public speaker, and today I'm surrounded by 25 atheists.
My first claim, atheists
reject God,
but they don't understand what they're rejecting.
Good afternoon, doctor Peterson. How are doing? So this claim here that atheists don't know what they're rejecting.
My background is in studying to become a traditional Catholic priest, daily mass, daily rosary, going on long retreats, deep into the magisterium and biblical hermeneutics like I was thoroughly in it.
And it seems like I do know what I'm missing. Is there something that I missed over years of study, both this issue formally and living out religion,
so deeply?
Well, you obviously feel that you missed something when you were practicing for the priesthood. Your aim was off then.
So there's always the possibility that it's still off now. What was off about my aim in the first place? I know. It might take a long time to figure out. Then it seems kind of like this no true Scotsman type of fallacy in which you're the arbiter of people's aims and how they understand those aims to be. How is it that you can claim that people don't know something that you know about their life despite not having met them? Well, it's obviously a generic claim, just like the atheist claim that there's no god is a generic claim. In your case, it would have to be specified more, and I'm not claiming to understand what was going on in your mind. But Yeah. My experience
Mhmm. With atheists is twofold,
is that they have a very reductive notion of what constitutes God, let's say, in Judeo Christian tradition.
And they've often been hurt by someone who was religious or by the religious enterprise or perhaps by God himself, so to speak, and that's left them with unanimous. But I think that you have a reductive view of what atheism is. You've defined religion so broadly to include
any sort of having aim in life, any sort of cultural archetypes, having a metaphorical substrate.
And atheism to you is a very specific type of, like, three people in the world that are these Raskolnikov
type of they're they're they wanna get away with a perfect murder. It seems like you have the reductive view of what an atheist is.
Well,
let's start
with your claim. Mhmm.
How do you define the God that you're rejecting? Like, what is God to you? You studied in the church, you found that unsatisfactory. How
would you characterize what you rejected? I think the average Christian believer, when they say that they're Christian and they believe, they mean some sort of God that is all powerful, all perfect,
is somehow involved
in the matters of this world and that we look to them through wisdom and with the logos incarnate in Christ. It also seems like you don't believe in religion in the way that the average Christian says that they believe in religion. And there are as many gods out there as there are believers because everybody has mutually exclusive
and different views of what God is. So it seems like Well, if everybody had mutually exclusive views of what God is, no one could speak to each other. The mere fact of communication
presumes a commonality of assumption and definition. And so, and it's certainly not the case that I regard any archetypal manifestation
whatsoever as equally religious. So that's not a
real claim. Let me give you an example, for There's
a sub narrative in the story of Moses where Moses is rewarded with a glimpse of God. Okay? And that's one of the ways that God is characterized in the Old Testament stories. Yes. Now, Moses is a faithful servant of God and a good man. At least that's the case within the confines of the story. One possible interpretation. Case
within the confines of the story, obviously.
What does it obviously.
There's When we look at the Bible, the Bible can't precisely say anything because there are so many different exegetical and hermeneutic views of this particular book and that everybody has agreed or everybody has disagreed historically on, it seems like, even the most benign detail about a book this big. And it seems like you can only say that the Bible says something if you first first presuppose that it's univocal.
So your claim essentially is that Moses in the Old Testament plays the role of the villain or is irrelevant? Cause the alternative claim I'm is saying that we can't know because we can't talk to those If
you are going to start with the presupposition that there's nothing I can say about any of these stories, that you're not going to disagree with from the perspective that there are multiple potential competing claims, then I can't speak with you. And we also have a short time here, so I wanna get to the core of what you're arguing here, and I'd love if we could The core of what I'm arguing is that atheists reject God,
but they don't understand what they're rejecting. I'm trying
I'm a clinical psychologist, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, an author, a pod caster, public speaker, and today I'm surrounded by 25 atheists.
No current published review applies to this claim.
Atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting.
No current published review applies to this claim.
My background is in studying to become a traditional Catholic priest, daily mass, daily rosary, going on long retreats, deep into the magisterium and biblical hermeneutics like I was thoroughly in it.
No current published review applies to this claim.
It seems like I do know what I'm missing. Is there something that I missed over years of study, both this issue formally and living out religion, so deeply?
No current published review applies to this claim.
You obviously feel that you missed something when you were practicing for the priesthood. Your aim was off then. So there's always the possibility that it's still off now.
No current published review applies to this claim.
My experience with atheists is twofold, is that they have a very reductive notion of what constitutes God, let's say, in Judeo Christian tradition. And they've often been hurt by someone who was religious or by the religious enterprise or perhaps by God himself, so to speak.
No current published review applies to this claim.
You've defined religion so broadly to include any sort of having aim in life, any sort of cultural archetypes, having a metaphorical substrate. And atheism to you is a very specific type of, like, three people in the world that are these Raskolnikov type — they wanna get away with a perfect murder. It seems like you have the reductive view of what an atheist is.
No current published review applies to this claim.
There are as many gods out there as there are believers because everybody has mutually exclusive and different views of what God is.
No current published review applies to this claim.
If everybody had mutually exclusive views of what God is, no one could speak to each other. The mere fact of communication presumes a commonality of assumption and definition.
No current published review applies to this claim.
The Bible can't precisely say anything because there are so many different exegetical and hermeneutic views of this particular book and that everybody has agreed or everybody has disagreed historically on, it seems like, even the most benign detail about a book this big. It seems like you can only say that the Bible says something if you first presuppose that it's univocal.
No current published review applies to this claim.