Ivy you are consistently responding to this fork in the conversation that misses my original point, which I don’t think you get and it seems you are entirely distracted on a very different topic of conversation. You are talking about “the way the world really works” and folk psychology. I don’t remember anyone bringing that up except you. Nobody here disagrees with you. Most of us are fully aware why people believe stupid things and I don’t really believe that anyone considers a poor under-educated villager in the Republic of Chad as a bad person or unusually derranged or inherantly stupid because of their belief in Allah. It’s unfortunate that we were designed to believe in crazy stupid shit until certain methods of inquiry are discovered AND valued. Nobody here has argued about this nor have I read a thinkatheist member who has the expectation that human beings could or even should develop critical thinking overnight or even ever at all, or that the people of Alabama should think the way I do (they clearly don’t nor won’t for a long time). I don’t even think that the scientific method is the one and only one, that it must be used and there is something wrong with you if you don’t. But when you put on the “argument through evidence hat” and use “the language of inquiry” and play the critical thinking game, then get ready for rigorous critical analysis. When religious people start passing off creationism as “science” and when nut case Muslim theologists attempt to formalize sharia law through normative ethics…then it is grotesque for them to cry “no fair” when their arguments are torn down (as they inevitably are).
This discussion is about Jordan Peterson, an intellectual and academic who is well educated in the art of debate, problem solving, critical thinking and the formation and criticism of claims (and truth claims). He’s not even an uneducated ignorant. He practices critical thought in his field of study that he is an expert in, sort of kind of does it when it comes to his dubious “identity politicking” and completely loses it when it comes to religion. That would be fine if he put on a different hat. If he donned a “religious priest or theological commentator” outfit and spoke from subjective religious perspective, then I would have no problem with it (well I would cause it’s stupid bullshit but I wouldn’t fault a person for simply expressing their opinions while making it clear they are opinions without the fakery of intellectualism). He doesn’t do that. He does so as an intellectual, in intellectual forums, in question sessions where he mixes psychology, sociology and religion.
With religion he breaks the rules and does so in a very deceptive way and I am nearly certain does so on purpose. His discourse becomes purposefully vague, evasive, confusing, meaningless and in many cases phrased in ways which make it impervious to debate or critical thought. As a player in formal debate, this makes him really truly the worst kind of charlatan. Because he has mastered the tecniques of academic integrity and uses them in his main field of study (mostly with fidelity) yet plays manipulative games of discourse when discussing religion, in a manner and in a forum of similar debate.
It would be somewhat like a tax lawyer who plays by the rules when defending a client when it comes to taxes and fraud investigations gaining a reputation as a respected lawyer and uses that reputation to also moonlights on the side as an under qualified defense lawyer who breaks the rules and ignores procedures in order to get his best friend off scott free for some skanky indefensible crime. Maslow’s pyramid has nothing to do with this (we can save whether or not his theory is really that useful or even true for another discussion).
That’s why he is an intellectual fraud and is dismissed by so many. It’s sad really.
Reg the Fronkey Farmer 1 year, 9 months ago.
Davis.
