Jordan Peterson definition of God

[Belle RoseParticipant]

So there is something special about God that rises above other spectacular and incredible claims?

To me that entire argument is kind of like just trying to bury your head in the sand, or plug your ears

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by  Belle Rose.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I think that to Jordan Peterson, the idea of God is a placeholder for our “higher nature”.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I think there are many examples within our psychology of things dying and being reborn.

@simon – Can you give me an example as I cannot think of any myself.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

The death of certainty, leading to acceptance of uncertainty, leading to new knowledge.

The breaking of old unhealthy habits in favour of more healthy ones.

The breaking of attachments: external supports with which we invest our self-preservation.  For example, relying on a career, or achievements, or possessions, etc. to make us feel good.

The “death of the self” – meaning a relaxing of the need to invest all our actions with our self-preservation, so that actions are just actions instead of the key to saving civilisation (or our personal version of such).

We need to die and be reborn all the time.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

@Reg

Except for JP’s version of God that is “eternally reborn”?

JP utilizes mythological figures and stories to illustrate points that are meant to draw out the underlying meaning or “lesson to be learned.” I have yet to ever hear him express his own personal beliefs about the Christian God except the closest statement to that I saw was him saying he “acts as though he exists.” You know that the concept of being “reborn” is a central part of the Christian Faith. I think what he is saying in that video clip as far as I can tell is including that concept as to the resurrection of Christ. That is what I understand and take away from it anyway

[DavisModerator]

Very few people are real trained scientists that properly understand how to “evaluate claims” the way that you describe. And if there’s anybody on the planet to understand this process the least it is the politicians making the laws!

People use this kind of reason when they try to figure out why their jewelry is missing, defend themselves in court and work out a fair division of household chores. It’s actually stunningly easy and common to use strong reasoning skills when doing this and most do it every day. Many simply become brain-dead or lazy when it comes to world-views or justifying indefensible immoral policies. God has a special “I don’t have to use reason in this case” because how else could the poison of religion survive? It’s quite a stretch to say you need to be a scientist to work out the difference between proving my car was parked in the right zone vs. proving that God created the law and he certainly said fags cannot marry therefore they should. It’s like saying you have to be a trained accountant to do your taxes. Most people can work out those complicated forms and yet still be incapable of managing a small checking account.

You think the laws being passed in Alabama right now that just basically made it legal for them to criminally charged a woman who got shot for the murder of her own baby

Of course. When it comes to religion people become brain-dead dipshits. What does that have to do with your apologetics for God based immoral policies? Alabamans didn’t do it. It was your apologetics not theirs.

Most people are stupid Davis

All the more reason to try not to defend the stupid and their arguments.

To me that entire argument is kind of like just trying to bury your head in the sand, or plug your ears

No its plugging your ears and ignoring and ignoring simple and logical argument. I’m not talking about why people are stupid, I’m countering bad appologetics. Or am I wrong? Is there something logically special about God that justifies the suspension of reason for making truth claims?

And no, comparing the certainty of God’s existence and laws is NOT the same thing as a personal opinion about how government should work. That is a terrible terrible comparison. It don’t claim that democracy is inherently the best and only form of government nor that it was created by a magic star-God because of a per-historic rock carving nor do I say there could be no better system or that I would never change my mind. Through a very simple application of reason and the most basic ethical analysis democratic systems reduce unnecessary suffering, bring prosperity to most (some more than others) offers increasing personal freedoms and avoids tyrannical governments staying in power. It’s my personal opinion that suffering is to be avoided, rights are in general useful for almost all and that the world is a kinder happier place with democratic institutions and part of this is based on factual comparisons with previous political systems. How you can compare that with claiming absolute truth about a bearded man in the sky based on a highly immoral stone-age book and using it to justify absurd laws is beyond me. Apples and oranges.

 

 

 

[DavisModerator]

I think that to Jordan Peterson, the idea of God is a placeholder for our “higher nature”.

That’s another needlessly vague deepity. If God is our “higher nature” then use the term higher nature. Don’t inject judeo-Christian mythology and values into the mix, especially when God’s behaviour in that tradition is often anything but of a “higher nature”. Peterson is trying to make Christian garbage writing and customs and traditions seem more abstract and relatable by using a term that actually means nothing. God is NOT a higher nature. It’s an entity that created us, made the rules, interferes in our lives and judges us. If you stray from this path, you are talking about something else. Anyone who defines God in an abstract way, but still throws Judeo-Christian narratives into the mix is an intellectual douche-kebap.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  Davis.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I believe that JP mentions “conscience” in the mix of what he calls God, and this is part of “God”‘s judging function.  He also says, “God is the source of judgment, mercy, and guilt.” and this is a traditional interpretation.

He doesn’t have to take on the whole Judeo-Christian canon in order to talk about God.

People are free to create.  Things that people create haven’t necessarily been seen before.  There is lots of freedom for JP to make new statements about “God” since the concept is rather vague.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

There is lots of freedom for JP to make new statements about “God” since the concept is rather vague.

Simon, the concept is vague because nobody has a workable definition of what they mean by “God”. JP efforts make the concept even less intelligible. Just reread his idea on the “concept” of God.

Part of the concept of God that underlies the Western ethos is the notion that whatever God is, is expressed in the truthful speech that rectifies pathological hierarchies, that isn’t all it does, it also confronts the chaos of being itself and generates habitable order, that’s the metaphysical proposition, and that’s best conceptualized as at least one element of God; and so I would think about it as a transcendent reality that’s only observable across the longest of time-frames.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Thanks Davis, I was building myself up to respond but just could not do it! I might make another attempt later 🙂

[_Robert_Participant]

JP brings himself to tears on the meaning of life, LOL

As much as I would like to dismiss this guy entirely, when I read his fanboy’s comments…I think well, he’s more helpful than a traditional pastor perhaps. At the same time I am afraid he may be a prototype for how religion will evolve for this next generation. A more rational, well educated social media based version of religion.

I just finished my Financial Aid, Got my GED, Headed back to school. Jordan honestly inspired me, it can be hard but I try to fall back to Jordan’s Teachings..

He inspired to be disciplined and losing 90 lbs and taking care of my skin and becoming the best student of all my classes. and being consistent with my life and and enjoying it the most. Thanks Jordan peterson

Damn. Everybody needs to see this. I cried. So great to see a grown, wise man being so honest it makes him cry. Nobody gets to criticize him for that. Period.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

He is talking about the Western ethos and how aspects of God relate to that.  The two aspects he identifies are: 1) the kind of truth that levels unhealthy hierarchies – in other words, for example, universal education, scientific progress, etc.; and 2) something which imposes intelligible patterns of order onto nature’s chaos.  He says that these are two aspects of the same element of God.

So, whether or not we agree with his proposition, it is understandable.  I think we would have to know more of his theories to be better informed.  From our present point of view, it still seems a bit mysterious why he might make those claims.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

imposes intelligible patterns of order onto nature’s chaos..

Natures chaos?? Nature is not chaotic.

scientific progress….has nothing to do with God or religion. It is religion with its vague and subjective explanations of God that retarded scientific progress for 1500 years.  The successes and triumphs of Science owe almost nothing to religion or God. Science is not concerned with or even cares about religious beliefs.  For centuries theology was based upon supernatural assertions and now modern day theologians do their embarrassing utmost to base it upon the discoveries of Science , as if that was always the case, as if it did not forbid the study of physics, as if it did not burn their books or burn many of those that wrote them.

The two rival divisions of the Christian Church, Protestant and Catholic, have always been in accord on one point, that is, to tolerate no science except such as they considered to be agreeable to the Scriptures. It was the decree of the Lateran Council of 1515 that ordered that no books should be printed but such as had been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of excommunication and fine.

It is easily understood that having declared the Bible to contain all knowledge both scientific and spiritual, and then passing a decree ordering no books to be printed which did not agree on all points with the Church’s interpretation of the Bible, the Church was in absolute control of all thought, both written and spoken.

It was to no advantage for the scholar to investigate any new fields, for all knowledge which was possible for the mind to discover had already been revealed in the Scriptures. Thus declared the Church. We understand why it was that Copernicus did not permit his book to be published until he was dying. We understand also that when Galileo and Bruno had the courage of their convictions, and gave voice to their beliefs, they were persecuted. Galileo was made to recant a discovery that the youngest of children now takes for granted. Bruno was burnt at the stake.

We know that astronomy was at a standstill under Church domination, chemistry was forbidden, and the study of natural philosophy was contradicted; while anthropology, which showed on what mythical foundations the story of the fall of man rests, was squelched. The attitude of the Church on geography was hostile to the truth, as witness the persecutions of those who dared to venture that the earth was round. Botany, mathematics, and geometry, as well as the natural sciences, slumbered. Geology, which proved that the earth was more than 6000 years old, was anathematized; archeologists had the greatest difficulty to expound the truth concerning the antiquity of the human race. In purely civil matters, the clergy opposed fire and marine insurance on the ground that it was a tempting of Providence. Life insurance was regarded as an act of interference with the consequence of God’s will. Medicine met the most strenuous of opposition.

It is impossible in this short study to analyze the specific forms of retardation which the Church exhibited to all of these branches of learning, whose only endeavor it was to search for the truth, to state the facts, and to alleviate and make more bearable man’s sojourn on this earth…..

From the Necessity of Atheism.

And now we have JP, a professor of psychology  and a clinical psychologist who talks as if the soul exists and to whom the mind and body seem to be separate entities. I will not be taking his classes.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

…..his proposition, it is understandable…….it still seems a bit mysterious why he might make those claims.

and..

He is talking about the Western ethos and how aspects of God relate to that..

God does not exist so he is talking nonsense.

 

[DavisModerator]

imposes intelligible patterns of order onto nature’s chaos

We are really going to have to have a deepity competition this weekend. We all get to submit 10 intellectually poignant sounding and yet confusing and meaningless insights and then we will vote for the one that we can turn into a 500 page book: an attempt to explain the foundations for moving towards a concept that will help us suggest a larger meaning of the definition of God. For inspiration you can read those intellectuals who go off the deep end when it comes to religion: Peter Hitchens, Scruton, Jordan Peterson, Sousa. Copying Deepak Chopras style might be a little derivative. Ones that seem serious at first yet on a second reading are helarious gain bonus points.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by  Davis.

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