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Jordan Peterson's Religious Apologetic Arguments

So yeah even if "belief" is required for the human condition (and let's just go ahead pretend and we've had a 50+ page hijack arguing the exact definition of "belief" to Narnia and back) it wouldn't require belief in absurdities or falsehoods.
 
It seems to me that Peterson put all his money on Pascal's Wager and doesn't dare to deny God in case he gets sent to hell.
It goes beyond belief in belief itself.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Hahaha, yup. That moment was the highlight of the debate. The moment when Peterson for a moment, revealed his inner child and threw a tantrum, lecturing the audience with all his "Oh please! Like any of you know deep down what you believe! You have no idea about the complexity of your own beliefs blablabla"
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Doesn't Sam Harris then tell Peterson that Peterson is right? From around 68 mins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aALsFhZKg-Q

Harris responds: "Yes. Everything you just said about not being fully transparent to yourself is true."

Ron_Tomkins said:
It was one of those moments where the real Jordan Peterson seemed to come out.
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Those moments are usually when someone who isn't a clinical psychiatrist makes a comment that touches on the topic that Peterson finds nonsensical. Sam Harris clearly backs Peterson up on the point that Peterson is responding to.
 
GDon said:
Doesn't Sam Harris then tell Peterson that Peterson is right? From around 68 mins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aALsFhZKg-Q

Harris responds: "Yes. Everything you just said about not being fully transparent to yourself is true."
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Did you miss Harris' words immediately prior to the ones you quoted: "I've never heard so much applause for the evasion of a simple question"?

So yes, he agrees that Peterson is right about something which has absolutely nothing to do with his question.

Sam Harris clearly backs Peterson up on the point that Peterson is responding to.
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Nope.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Peterson thinks that Evolution can produce something like brain pre-forms that necessarily lead to archetype-like characters. Chomsky thought something similar.
Current knowledge says that's wrong.
For all we know, if we could take a time machine and pick up a health early Homo Sapiens baby and raise it like any of ours other, it would not fall out of today's norm.
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That's my understanding as well. I'm honestly not sure what the hell he means by archetype anyway.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Hahaha, yup. That moment was the highlight of the debate. The moment when Peterson for a moment, revealed his inner child and threw a tantrum, lecturing the audience with all his "Oh please! Like any of you know deep down what you believe! You have no idea about the complexity of your own beliefs blablabla"

It was one of those moments where the real Jordan Peterson seemed to come out. Compare that to the Jordan Peterson being interviewed by Cathy Newman. Calm, relaxed, cool, always in control. Of course, Cathy Newman literally hung herself with her own stupid questions, so there was very little to do there at all.
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His problem, of course, is that it's impossible to be more calm, relaxed, cool and always in control than Sam Harris. The man's completely disarming in his level-headedness. So it follows that the relentless assault of logic eventually got to him.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Yeah, well, that's precisely what I mean: He believes in belief. Not in God. Just in the power of believing in God. He believes people need Religion, but not necessarily a literal belief in a deity.
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That matches with the experience I've had with some theists before.

In one example, a friend of mine who was the believer of the group told me that, were he to not believe in god, he'd be devastated because there'd be no justice in the world. Sounds like he chooses to believe because the alternative is undesirable.

In another example, when my paternal grandmother died, a priest came in and spoke the usual platitudes... until he said something very odd. He said that 'we believe she's in a better place now' and something to the effect that this made it easier to accept her death. I'm paraphrasing, but it sounded like he knew there was no logic or reason, but that faith is based on the need to believe in things that make sense of the world, not an actual conviction in these things.
 
Roboramma said:
Did you miss Harris' words immediately prior to the ones you quoted: "I've never heard so much applause for the evasion of a simple question"?
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No, but that has nothing to do with Peterson's 'tantrum'. Peterson simply gives a laugh at Harris's words there.

Roboramma said:
So yes, he agrees that Peterson is right about something which has absolutely nothing to do with his question.
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True enough, but I was responding to Ron_Tomkins's comment about Peterson's tantrum.
 
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GDon said:
No, but that has nothing to do with Peterson's 'tantrum'. Peterson simply gives a laugh at Harris's words there.


True enough, but I was responding to Ron_Tomkins's comment about Peterson's tantrum.
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Of course it does, his "tantrum" was precisely his evasion of Harris' question.
 
Belz... said:
That matches with the experience I've had with some theists before.

In one example, a friend of mine who was the believer of the group told me that, were he to not believe in god, he'd be devastated because there'd be no justice in the world. Sounds like he chooses to believe because the alternative is undesirable.

In another example, when my paternal grandmother died, a priest came in and spoke the usual platitudes... until he said something very odd. He said that 'we believe she's in a better place now' and something to the effect that this made it easier to accept her death. I'm paraphrasing, but it sounded like he knew there was no logic or reason, but that faith is based on the need to believe in things that make sense of the world, not an actual conviction in these things.
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Yup. I'm finding that more frequently, what people call belief turns out to be belief in belief.

The real believers, the ones who literally think they're doing the work of God and going to a better place after the die, are usually the ones who hijack planes and crash them against buildings. Those guys have no trace of a doubt about their belief.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Yup. I'm finding that more frequently, what people call belief turns out to be belief in belief.

The real believers, the ones who literally think they're doing the work of God and going to a better place after the die, are usually the ones who hijack planes and crash them against buildings. Those guys have no trace of a doubt about their belief.
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Belz... said:
That sure explains why they have some affinity towards other believers, even across religions, more than towards atheists.
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It's not really surprising. It is a kind of circling of the wagons on the parts of the religious, and also a type of Rube-Goldbergian argument style.

These days, it is hard to be taken seriously by simply coming out with an argument that values are those that are created by God, and only by following the one true God can you be Good. etc... because you will be asked for evidence. There are some who grasp the nettle and say, "look, a hurricane blew in and killed a bunch of people. That's evidence of sin!" but these people are mostly considered to be cranks and would not be able to sit on a stage with Sam Harris and Douglas Murray and be taken seriously.

So, now you have to come at the topic from an angle where people don't always see you coming and some people are blindsided by it.

"Ah! Have you ever noticed how there are some truths in the Bible which seem to be built into humanity, maybe guiding evolution. Maybe these are there for some cosmic purpose that we cannot doubt and therefore we have to live in a religious mode. Also... lobsters!"
 
Some religious apologetics is, I think, undergoing a pretty meaningful shift in how it is dealing with the concept of belief, trying to take us back to a pre-enlightment version of it.

Essentially if you notice a lot, lot of the arguments we're starting to see out of the religious apologetics is less "I'm right (or can't be proven wrong) because of Contrived Special Pleading Version Y" as it has been for so long but "I'm wrong but it doesn't matter because belief/happiness/whatever" is more important.

Again for a while now that I've been getting this itchy idea in the back of my head that certain concepts actually have been argued into a corner hard enough that the only way for them to survive is to switch to an even more anti-intellectual "Being right is over-rated, I'm factually wrong but that doesn't matter" angle.
 
GDon said:
Doesn't Sam Harris then tell Peterson that Peterson is right? From around 68 mins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aALsFhZKg-Q

Harris responds: "Yes. Everything you just said about not being fully transparent to yourself is true."


Those moments are usually when someone who isn't a clinical psychiatrist makes a comment that touches on the topic that Peterson finds nonsensical. Sam Harris clearly backs Peterson up on the point that Peterson is responding to.
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No, no, no!

You cannot seriously argue that Harris's challenge to Peterson is adequately explained by Peterson's answer. The whole point is that Peterson says something that is true, but not relevant to the question. Harris then demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to answer his question in a satisfactory way, and yet Peterson continues to obfuscate.

He then asks whether the Bible has some significant status unlike any other book, or whether it is just old writings by human beings like ourselves.

Peterson's answer, "I think it's both!"

(He's a man of faith - Bad faith!)

Harris asks where this inspiration comes from (he is clearly asking whether Peterson is positing supernatural origin).

Peterson says we don't know where inspiration comes from.

Peterson is an intellectual charlatan.
 
It's a common tactic, one several posters here in fact base their entire intellectual framework on.

"If you devalue the entire concept of knowledge so that nobody is provably right to your standards, you save yourself from having to admit you are wrong about any specific one thing."

It's an absolutely infuriating intellectual shellgame, picking one specific special pleading "out" to drop only when you are arguing into a corner.
 
angrysoba said:
You cannot seriously argue that Harris's challenge to Peterson is adequately explained by Peterson's answer. The whole point is that Peterson says something that is true, but not relevant to the question. Harris then demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to answer his question in a satisfactory way, and yet Peterson continues to obfuscate.
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:fred: Hey can you come pick me up from work in 15 minutes?
:shaggy: You want me to drive cross-country in 15 minutes? Nobody can do that! If you could do that, you'd be omnipotent!
:fred: Dude, I'm like a mile away. If you're busy, just say so.
 
angrysoba said:
It's not really surprising. It is a kind of circling of the wagons on the parts of the religious, and also a type of Rube-Goldbergian argument style.

These days, it is hard to be taken seriously by simply coming out with an argument that values are those that are created by God, and only by following the one true God can you be Good. etc... because you will be asked for evidence. There are some who grasp the nettle and say, "look, a hurricane blew in and killed a bunch of people. That's evidence of sin!" but these people are mostly considered to be cranks and would not be able to sit on a stage with Sam Harris and Douglas Murray and be taken seriously.

So, now you have to come at the topic from an angle where people don't always see you coming and some people are blindsided by it.

"Ah! Have you ever noticed how there are some truths in the Bible which seem to be built into humanity, maybe guiding evolution. Maybe these are there for some cosmic purpose that we cannot doubt and therefore we have to live in a religious mode. Also... lobsters!"
Click to expand...

Yes. Belief in a way has been forced to evolve. It had to make some decisions to give up certain arguments because they can't hold water. So now, the arguments take a different shape. Basically, the goalposts have been shifted and the discussion is less literal and more abstract, avoiding any clear definitions or any consistent language, so belief can remain safe from any critical analysis/debunking. It's less "I have the absolute truth because God has dictated it to me", and more "But what is truth anyway? Can anyone know? Therefore, God"
 
JoeMorgue said:
It's a common tactic, one several posters here in fact base their entire intellectual framework on.

"If you devalue the entire concept of knowledge so that nobody is provably right to your standards, you save yourself from having to admit you are wrong about any specific one thing."

It's an absolutely infuriating intellectual shellgame, picking one specific special pleading "out" to drop only when you are arguing into a corner.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's "Going Nuclear!"
 
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