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Jordan Peterson's Religious Apologetic Arguments

Belz... said:
I know he's very often wrong, but the broken clock principle applies. Most people are right sometimes. So if a specific claim is made, a person's track record has no bearing on whether the claim is true.
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The whole point behind the analogy with a broken clock is that even cranks, kooks, etc. can be right by accident. If you acknowledge that someone is like a broken clock, then you're criticising them as being a useless barometer of the truth.

So I'm genuinely confused as to your attempt at defending him here. Someone who's only right by accident shouldn't be criticised for being only right by accident, and shouldn't be criticised for the times they're wrong, because they happen to randomly stumble upon being right from time to time? :confused:
 
I Am The Scum said:
Anybody wanna translate this into English?
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I'll take a crack** at it:

"Sam Harris believes in God because human beings take actions to ameliorate undue suffering which is similar to the bible's description of choosing heaven over hell. This similarity means that there are no such things as atheists and therefore Harris is a secret theist."














** by which I mean I should smoke some crack until I find the correct "mindset" displayed by Peterson
 
It's just another variation on the sad old "Atheism is just another type of religion" argument.

Seriously can we can some, any new apologetics? Everything is a either a point already refuted a billion times or if it's new it's just post-truth reality denial.
 
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I Am The Scum said:
Anybody wanna translate this into English?

It is the “self-evidence” of the unacceptability of undue suffering that in part serves Sam Harris as God. More accurately: his Savior is the embodiment of the ethic that motivates each of us to choose Heaven over Hell and to act out that motivation.
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It is the “self-evidence” of the unacceptability of undue suffering that in part serves Sam Harris as God.

Peterson thinks that Harris believes that the unacceptability of undue suffering is self-evident.

More accurately: his Savior is the embodiment of the ethic that motivates each of us to choose Heaven over Hell and to act out that motivation.

Peterson thinks that Harris believes that we are (or we should be) motivated to act to "choose Heaven over Hell."

Peterson touches on the underlying idea in this short video (5 mins 43 secs) from around the 3 min mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi9Q9apHGI
 
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JoeMorgue said:
It's just another variation on the sad old "Atheism is just another type of religion" argument.

Seriously can we can some, any new apologetics? Everything is a either a point already refuted a billion times or if it's new it's just post-truth reality denial.
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Has Peterson's view been refuted, though? His view is consistent with some philosophers over the last several thousand years, including ancient Roman and Greek philosophers. See Karen Armstrong's "History of God", where she describes the evolution of views about God.

For Sam Harris, God is a supernatural creature, existing as a separate entity. This is the God described in Sagan's "dragon in the garage" and Russell's "orbiting teapot" examples. That God is separate to the world. Take that dragon or teapot away, and the universe continues unchanged. Take away Harris's God, and his world is no different.

Peterson's God exists as transcendent values. It is the place-holder for all that is good. Remove that God, and you lose all transcendent values: morality, art, kindness, etc. Removing Peterson's God makes it a very different universe.

Peterson believes that Harris's morality is based on a self-evident claim that there is undue suffering and that undue suffering is bad. But that is a transcendent value. Thus (according to Peterson) Harris "really at heart" believes in God -- at least, God as Peterson understands the term.

I've seen Peterson try to describe this view a few times, both to Harris and Matt Dillahunty. But neither of them want to argue on that basis. They only want to argue on the basis of the God that they disbelieve in, which Peterson also disbelieves in! No wonder they get frustrated at Peterson's refusal to endorse the God that they disbelieve in.

I do blame Peterson for a large part of the frustration. He MUST know where Harris and Dillahunty are coming from. He should be able to clear it up, in my opinion. But also Harris and Dillahunty seem to insist on Peterson defending a God that Peterson personally doesn't believe in. They should know that by now, also. If they've read enough philosophy, they must have encountered such views before. They aren't unique to Peterson. Peterson does describe them from a more Jungian perspective though.
 
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GDon said:
Has Peterson's view been refuted, though?
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It is hard to refute an argument that is based on a very self-serving so-called "definition" of a god.

Based on screwed up definitions, everything seems to make sense somehow.

Peterson's God exists as transcendent values. It is the place-holder for all that is good. Remove that God, and you lose all transcendent values: morality, art, kindness, etc. Removing Peterson's God makes it a very different universe.
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Dillahunty has pointed this out several times. Define god as "everything good that exists", and - boom - without god nothing good exists. The problem here is that this god definition does not have any argumentative value. You might as well call everything good "everything good".

I could make the argument that god is henceforth defined as air pollution. So we all believe air pollution exists, don't we? Therefore we are now all theists. Which is then a BAD thing, because without god all air pollution would go away. Removing my god would make the planet a better place.

This definition doesn't get any argumentation anywhere, and neither does Peterson's.

Peterson believes that Harris's morality is based on a self-evident claim that there is undue suffering and that undue suffering is bad. But that is a transcendent value.
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Prove it. Preferably in a manner that includes an understanding of "transcendent" that makes sense.

Until you prove it, I submit that both "suffering" and "undue" are elements of our evolved morality as a social species.

I've seen Peterson try to describe this view a few times, both to Harris and Matt Dillahunty. But neither of them want to argue on that basis. They only want to argue on the basis of the God that they disbelieve in, which Peterson also disbelieves in! No wonder they get frustrated at Peterson's refusal to endorse the God that they disbelieve in.
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Once again, if you go ahead and argue that god really has no traits of being a person or a being at all, that he therefore doesn't answer prayers or care about your sexual preferences or your morality or you praying to him and has no son and no prophet and so forth, I think you are then getting pretty close to Dillahunty's position - only that he doesn't see any argumentative value in calling such a thing "god".

Are you willing to concede all that?
 
I'm explaining Peterson's views (or how I understand Peterson's views), and not making my own personal argument.
 
Tommok said:
I could make the argument that god is henceforth defined as air pollution. So we all believe air pollution exists, don't we? Therefore we are now all theists. Which is then a BAD thing, because without god all air pollution would go away. Removing my god would make the planet a better place.
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That's a fair point. At that point, you can either reject that definition of god, and therefore not proceed with the argument; or you can accept that definition of god, and proceed based on that definition.

The problem is Harris proceeds without understanding where Peterson is coming from, and Peterson proceeds without adequately explaining his view.
 
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Roboramma said:
Cool, so you agree that he's misguided and that his views have been refuted.
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I don't think he's misguided, and I can't see how you can say his views have been refuted if no-one actually addresses his views. I'm not interested in arguing the validity of his views, which is essentially a faith position. You either accept his premise or you don't.
 
GDon said:
Has Peterson's view been refuted, though? His view is consistent with some philosophers over the last several thousand years, including ancient Roman and Greek philosophers. See Karen Armstrong's "History of God", where she describes the evolution of views about God.

For Sam Harris, God is a supernatural creature, existing as a separate entity. This is the God described in Sagan's "dragon in the garage" and Russell's "orbiting teapot" examples. That God is separate to the world. Take that dragon or teapot away, and the universe continues unchanged. Take away Harris's God, and his world is no different.

Peterson's God exists as transcendent values. It is the place-holder for all that is good. Remove that God, and you lose all transcendent values: morality, art, kindness, etc. Removing Peterson's God makes it a very different universe.

Peterson believes that Harris's morality is based on a self-evident claim that there is undue suffering and that undue suffering is bad. But that is a transcendent value. Thus (according to Peterson) Harris "really at heart" believes in God -- at least, God as Peterson understands the term.

I've seen Peterson try to describe this view a few times, both to Harris and Matt Dillahunty. But neither of them want to argue on that basis. They only want to argue on the basis of the God that they disbelieve in, which Peterson also disbelieves in! No wonder they get frustrated at Peterson's refusal to endorse the God that they disbelieve in.

I do blame Peterson for a large part of the frustration. He MUST know where Harris and Dillahunty are coming from. He should be able to clear it up, in my opinion. But also Harris and Dillahunty seem to insist on Peterson defending a God that Peterson personally doesn't believe in. They should know that by now, also. If they've read enough philosophy, they must have encountered such views before. They aren't unique to Peterson. Peterson does describe them from a more Jungian perspective though.
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I define God as "oxygen". Sam Harris likes oxygen, so he likes God. If he didn't like oxygen, I would like to see him live without it as a true atheist would. He doesn't, therefore he is not a true atheist.
 
Roboramma said:
I think Tommock refuted his views pretty clearly.
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Where did he do that? He actually said that it was "hard to refute", when the argument is based on a very self-serving so-called "definition" of a god.
 
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