Debate Teacher Reacts: Sam Harris vs. Jordan Peterson

But what's amazing to me is so like I have to do some work to figure out what

point they think you made.

Zing.

Welcome back to another debate teacher reacts.

Video.

My name is Nate and let's go ahead and jump right in.

Look y 'all voted this week and you told me that what you want to see in this video is Technically not

a debate.

I Looked at it for like a split second and I was like, this isn't a debate.

This is a Gentleman's conversation of disagreement or something, which is actually a really good thing and maybe

I'll say more on that later.

Well today we're looking at doctors Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris.

This took place back in 2018 in Vancouver British Columbia.

I've been there many times.

I love that city.

Well, they sat down and discussed their differences on the issues of religion and its effects.

All right.

Now because this is not a technical debate and there's no formal cross -examination to speak of as far as I can tell

I may or may not declare a winner at the very end.

Okay, I think it really depends on the interlocutors and whether or not they really push their opponents hard enough.

All right, so we'll see what happens here.

Okay, so so that's a that's a that's a lot of points of agreement.

So I also believe that there is a catastrophe of of

Arbitrary moral injunction and that there's a catastrophe of moral relativism and that that that has to

be dealt with and that there are genuine differences between the proper way of

behaving morally and and and the improper way of behaving morally and I think that they are grounded in human human

universals, even though there's a wide amount of variation.

So that that's a lot of points of agreement, right?

So we know that there's two things we want to avoid.

We.

Conceptually speaking which is the moral relativism and this kind of moral absolutism that's grounded in in an

arbitrary Statement of facts that you identify with religious fundamentalism.

I would identify that with fundamentalism more generally.

Not not with religious fundamentalism per se because I see it also happening happening in secular states, let's say like

Nazi Germany or.

So it doesn't seem to be religious fundamentalism per se that's crucial to your argument.

No, it's not.

I would say so that just to close the loop on that.

Okay, that's interesting.

Now, dr. Peterson is setting up.

Dr. Harris here and dr. Harris.

Note this.

Dr Harris just agreed with the point that dr. Peterson is making it's.

It's not just a feature of religions.

Where we see this kind of fundamentalism going on.

Okay.

Now, let's see where this goes.

The only reason why I would focus on religion in particular there is that religion is the only

language game wherein Fundamentalism and dogmatism it what

dogmatism is not a pejorative concept the dogma is a good word in specifically within Catholicism and

The notion that you must believe things on faith that is in the absence of compelling evidence It would otherwise cause a rational

person to believe it that In a religious context is considered a feature not a bug elsewhere

We recognize it to be a bug and that's that's why the the unique focus on religion.

Okay, so so so it all right so is it reasonable to assume that the associate we've already established

at least in principle that there's an association between the Totalitarian regimes let's say and

dog and dogmatism.

Yeah, and the dogmatism that characterizes religious belief yeah, what do you think although at least in principle that

the secularist totalitarian states and the Religious fundamentalist totalitarian states

do differ in one important regard.

Which is that the religious types ground their axioms in God and the secular?

Totalitarian types don't and so there's got to be something about totalitarianism per se that's

independent of.

That's associated with religious belief in the manner that you just described, but that's not particularly associated with the belief

in God.

There's something that makes them.

It's a commonality between them and so do you have any sense of what that might be?

Well, I would I think.

One has to acknowledge that there's something uniquely pernicious at least.

Potentially about religious beliefs because they have the otherworldly variable the supernatural

variable the.

You're gonna get everything you want after you die, so this life doesn't matter.

Issue that right.

That allows for a kind of misbehavior that is especially okay.

Well, so that's not really answering the question, okay, so dr. Peterson identified a

commonality of fundamentalism between some religious folks and Totalitarians I take it.

He means like Hitler and Stalin and Mao, you know, and it appears that dr Harris agrees that this commonality is

not religious in and of itself.

So if a problem with some religious folks is that they share a Dangerous characteristic with other non -religious

folks Well, then that characteristic can't itself be religious since non -religious folks have it too.

That's what dr Peterson is saying and dr. Harris agreed.

Okay, and so the question is what is that characteristic then?

It's a great question.

But dr Harris has not provided an answer yet.

But let's see if he does.

Seems that so that the claim would be that if you if you put forward Axiomatically your claim that

God exists then you can use that claim to justify whatever.

Arbitrary atrocities your system might throw off.

Look at the look at the genius fingers.

Do you see the the genius finger?

Look, look, dr. Peterson and dr. Harris are both extremely intelligent.

Okay in their fields.

They are rock stars.

And so the the genius fingers.

You ever notice this when somebody's truly smart and they're like trying to communicate.

Their genius brain in a normal mouth and it just like the fingers come out because they need help with the genius fingers.

I love it.

Yeah, I guess the only point I was making there is that not all dogmas are created equal.

Some dogmas are on their face more dangerous and more divisive, right?

But what I'm curious about specifically is because it seems to me that the dogmas of the USSR and the dogmas of Nazi

Germany Were as pernicious as any religious dog dogmas and and they may also share

important features with pernicious religious.

But it isn't clear to me from your perspective what those commonalities would be.

Well, so I Mean in some ways you are recapitulating an argument I've made and this is an

argument that I would make against you were you to claim as you've had you have elsewhere that that

Atheism is responsible for the greatest atrocities of the 20th century.

The idea that Stalinism and Nazism and fascism were expressions of atheism

Simply doesn't make any sense.

I mean in the case of fascism and Nazism It doesn't make any sense because the fascists and the Nazis by and large were not

even atheists.

I mean.

Hitler wasn't an atheist and he was talking about Executing a divine plan and he got lots of support from the churches and

the Vatican did nothing to stop him and fascism as you know.

Iii, you know, I mean you could make the argument that Hitler was not a typical

atheist.

But to imply that he was religious is just naive.

I mean any student of history can see that Hitler was not religious if you read up on his life and the things that he Said I mean,

especially his private conversations with his inner circle alone.

You'll see that he hated religions and he particularly thought Christianity was an invention of sick minds and you know,

completely absurd.

I mean he was at the end of the day an Influential politician and that's where a lot of folks get

confused.

Because a 10 -minute search on Google doesn't give you that full picture of Hitler.

Maybe dr Harris will get into this but these arguments about totalitarians Actually being religious trades on an

assumption that religious Ideals cause folks to become totalitarian.

And so if totalitarians act like totalitarians Well, it's because they got it from those religious folks, right?

But that in itself is a claim and if that's all you got in this conversation, it'll only be assumed

without justification.

Somebody needs to challenge.

Dr. Harris on this.

Well, let's see what happens.

No.

Co -existed quite happily with Catholicism in Croatia and Portugal and Spain and Italy

so but even in the case of Stalin what was so wrong with that situation was

Were all of the ways in which it's so resembled a religion.

You had a personality cult you had dogmatism that

held sway to a point where Apostasy and blasphemy were killing offenses, you know, the

people who who didn't tow the line were eradicated and You

know, so to take a more modern example, North Korea is a religious cult it

just doesn't happen to be a one that is focused on the next life or

You know supernatural claims.

So what would magic right?

So there it is.

Okay, all the totalitarian regimes of the world even though many have said they hate religion

many have said they think it's the opiate of The masses right there.

They're actually religious.

Why.

Well because they act religious.

Okay, but now we have two alternative observations here.

Dr. Harris on the one hand implies that totalitarianism comes from religions and dr Peterson says well there is a

human characteristic that both religious and non -religious folks share that caused them to be

Totalitarian, but this characteristic is not in itself Religious.

Now, this is where the clash lies.

Hopefully this gets hashed out.

Okay, so what would be the defining characteristics of a religious totalitarian movement that would make it different from a non -religious

totalitarian movement?

Well, it's just because there's aspects that are similar.

Yeah, they may either very similar.

But the problem is dogmatism.

The overarching problem is believing things strongly on bad evidence and Be.

And the reason why dogmatism is so Dangerous is that it is.

It doesn't allow us to revise our bad ideas in real time through conversation.

It is dogmas have to be enforced by Force or the threat of force because the moment someone has a

better idea You have to shut it down in order to preserve your dogma.

Okay?

Okay, so so the commonality seems to be something like Claims of absolute truth at some level that can't be that

you're no longer Allowed to discuss.

Yeah, okay.

And so, okay.

So that's another point of agreement then I would say because part of the reason that I've been let's say a free speech advocate although I

don't think that's the right way of thinking about it is because I think of Free discourse like the discourse that we're engaged in

as the mechanism that corrects totalitarian excess or dogmatic excess and so I also think that

systems of governance that are laying themselves out properly have to evaluate have to

elevate the process by which Dogmatic errors are corrected over the dogmas themselves.

Which is why I think the Americans are right say with regard to their First Amendment is the process of free speech is the process

By which dogmatic errors are rectified and so it has to be put at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of values.

Yeah, I think you and I totally agree about the primacy of free speech.

Okay.

Okay good.

Okay, so that's another fine.

Yeah.

Good.

Okay, so then we could think there's there's one point that we should just lock in our games here.

It sounds like what you're saying is that the reason to fear.

Religious dogma is really on the dogma side and not the religion side which at least leaves open the

possibility.

That something could exist over on the religion side that doesn't have that characteristic, right.

That often they travel in tandem.

But that the thing to fear is not the religious belief.

It is the dogmatic nature of the way it is.

The other way to say that is the only thing that's wrong with religion is the dogmatism.

If you get rid of the dog I've got no problem with the buildings and the music and the and the paintings.

And wait wait.

No that way to win it.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

That's not a trivial.

That's not a trivial point.

And it's all right.

So it sounds like for dr. Harris the problem with religion is dogmatism.

Okay, but here's the question.

What does he mean by dogmatism?

What is he talking about are we all just gonna talk around this term.

I've heard this term several times now in this conversation, but nobody has asked for a definition.

What does dr. Harris mean by it?

You know, how do we know that when I'm talking about dogmatism you mean the same thing?

Right if what we mean by dogmatism is expressing certain beliefs arrogantly and not allowing challenge or

discussion about these beliefs.

Then you'll find a lot of religious folks saying well, that's not what we do.

Religions contain certain dogmas but holding to and expressing certain religious dogmas is not

dogmatism.

Okay, that's like that's like saying science is scientism.

They're not the same thing but more than that holding to and expressing certain religious dogmas is not totalitarian.

So what dr. Harris still needs to show is the road from holding to and expressing certain

dogmas to?

Totalitarianism and he hasn't done that yet.

It looks like he's just assuming that it always happens now.

Here's the thing I can give you one clear example right now of expressing certain dogmas without

totalitarianism.

Jesus Christ, you don't have to be a believer.

Just look at the history.

Jesus claimed to be God and he allowed those who disagreed with him to kill him for it and he taught his followers to

Have the same attitude as him, which means if his followers are following him wrong that

leads to Totalitarianism right see this is what needs to be fleshed out in discussion.

I've been really interested in the commission of atrocity in the service of belief and

It's tempting to pin that say on on Dogma and then to associate that with religious dogma.

I think that's all tempting but the fact that chimps do it Shows that it can't be a

consequence of something like Religious belief unless you're willing to say that the reason that chimps commit atrocity in the

service of their troop and their territory is Because chimps are religious and so they're not really

just and they don't really hold a secular totalitarian viewpoint.

But they act out they still act out the the atrocity element.

That's characteristic of human behavior.

And so to me that makes the problem deeper than one of mere.

Let's say.

Surface statements surface statements.

The.

Obviously, well, so here's dr. Peterson fleshing out his argument, right?

Okay, so the totalitarian bent that we see as a feature of societies is based not on ideology,

but on our Creatureliness, you know, it's a base nature that expresses itself that we

must overcome in other words.

And because of that it expresses itself in both religious and non -religious context.

So there's his argument and he's provided evidence for this with his observations about chimps.

Okay, so let's see how dr. Harris responds.

The problem of primate aggression which we've inherited along with the chimps is

deeper or at least different than the problem of religious violence or

totalitarian Political structures that get the worst out of people.

So I mean we have we have these Primate capacities that we have to correct for and we're

busily trying to correct for almost everything that we've been evolved to do.

I mean, we're not you know, we don't like the state of nature for good reason and virtually everything that's good about

human life is born of our I would argue culture

based and and you know, highly intelligent and necessary effort to To mitigate what is in

fact natural for us and natural.

There's nothing more natural than tribal violence, which of the sort that you're describing.

Okay, so.

But wait a second.

Okay, so this is where Formal cross -examination would really help.

Okay, dr. Harris.

Do you now agree with?

Dr. Peterson's alternative explanation right.

Because you're speaking as if you do you.

You just said that our creaturely tendencies are deeper than Religion.

So for the record, do you agree or disagree with?

Dr Peterson's position because if you agree then you have to recant your own position.

I mean, that's how this works and what most worries me about religion.

I would say that obviously religion can channel these Primate urges in

unhappy ways so you can get tribal violence.

He gets amplified by religious dogmatism and that should trouble everyone, but it's not unique to religion.

It's also nationalism and it's racism and it's all other kinds of dogmatism but What most

worries me are those cases where?

Clearly good people Who are not necessarily captured by? tribalism per

se Are doing the unthinkable?

Based surely on religious Doctrines that they believe wholeheartedly with without good

evidence.

So you have the person who joins Isis who wasn't even Muslim before they converted, you

know 16 months ago and they go all the way down the rabbit hole to the the

most doctrinaire most committed most Uncompromising view of just how you have to live in this world if you're

gonna be Muslim and they join Isis Based on the

idea that salvation only goes one way and the dying and defense of the one true faith is The

best thing that can happen to you.

There's no question that there are individuals who have made that journey in fact, there are individuals by the thousands who have made that journey and

There are far more benign versions of that.

They're people who just waste their lives I would argue converting to whatever the belief system is and just wasting a lot of time

worrying about hell or worrying about the fact that their Child is gay and the you know, the creator of the

universe doesn't approve of that.

Let's and they're all kinds of suffering that Strike me as truly

unnecessary born not of again ape -like urges but

ideas that any rational person Would if believed would

would follow to that that same terminus?

I mean the thing is if you buy if you buy the fact again to take Islam as as a

current example if you buy The claim that the Quran is the perfect word of

the creator of the universe never to be superseded by anything Humanity does now or a thousand years from now?

That commits a Rational per that then then the exercise of human reason is

bounded by this.

I would argue pathological frame Which leads to certain outcomes that we should really worry us.

So, yeah, this was a verbose exercise in not answering the primary challenge.

Okay, and what helps dr. Harris is ethos here because ethos pathos and logos

matters in Discussions debates all that stuff, right?

What helps his ethos here is his calm demeanor and his erudite use of language.

Okay, but the bottom line is he is not disagreeing with dr. Peterson at all.

It's as if dr. Peterson is saying well, you know.

Maybe the explanation for all home appliances working is that electricity is running throughout the home, right?

And then Sam Harris says well, I see that and I don't dispute that but what bothers me is this one particular

outlet in the corner Over here, you know where the electricity is coming out of that's the real Explanation

that's not an explanation.

That's not an answer to the primary issue of Electricity running into all the appliances and this guy just

spent three minutes going on and on.

About not answering the primary challenge.

So you tell two stories you tell a story about someone who has an absolutely terrible life.

They're in a in a in a jungle where nature is trying to kill them all the time.

And well, they're trying to be killed by nature while nature is trying to kill them all the time horrible.

Barbaric thugs are making their life miserable in every possible way.

Okay, so that's one Pole let's say and then another pole you identify and

these are hypotheticals.

So I guess they're fictions.

That's one way of thinking about it, even though they're extracted from real situations.

They're they're they're meta fictions.

They're meta truths.

That's another way of thinking about it.

You contrast a good life and you know.

That's a life where the person has enough to eat and enough shelter and you know.

They have the things that you would expect people to want you say this is a bad life and you say this is a good Life and so

and then you say that's and then you make a side move.

Which I would say is that that's an objectively verifiable fact.

I would say I don't think it is an objectively verifiable fact.

I think it's a fundamental moral claim and I think that's where you put your stake in the ground.

Right, I would say when I read that I thought well, if you take your jungle story which

you've extracted from a bunch of horrors and compiled and You take your positive story, which

you've extracted from a bunch of horrors or a bunch of Quasi utopias, let's say and

compiled you're two -thirds of the way to a landscape of hell in heaven.

Right.

Well, so then why not continue the abstraction and say look what we're really trying to avoid here is hell.

Oh, yeah, we're really trying to move towards this heaven.

Yeah, but oh, yeah.

But well, no, I don't do that.

You're in a religious landscape.

No.

That's a very complex and Verbose way of making the claim that dr. Harris is essentially

that you know.

What he's doing with his book the moral landscape is he's guilty of doing the same thing that a religious person does.

Okay, he's trying to describe morality without God or religion.

But he's sometimes utilizing the same format as the Bible to do so and so he's sometimes using the same

terms.

He's he's telling stories and he's talking about good and evil.

So really he's doing the same thing as a Christian.

I mean, that's a very weird thing to say and and maybe dr. Peterson is setting up. Dr Harris for something later, but

it seems to me that this is easily dealt with.

You know in terms of a response I mean just because two teachers use illustrations and shared

terminology when they teach doesn't mean they're teaching the same content.

I mean you could say that dr. Peterson is using terminology that I would use.

But not with the same definitions that I'm using and all dr Harris has to do is point out that he's well He's simply using

a methodology and language to communicate because it's effective because that's what's expected in today's culture.

Not because somebody else who said something antithetical to him also used the same

methodology and language.

I Feel like if dr. Peterson had a point to make he stopped short of making it.

This is very interesting because like.

We're talking about this at dinner.

We were talking about this at dinner and how the the overlap or lack of overlap between our audiences and so

like I just heard from your audience there and.

You might have heard from the odd convert but but what's amazing to me is so like I.

Have to do some work to figure out what point they think you made.

I.

Said if you're gonna produce a fiction, why not go right to the end?

Okay, so did produce a fiction.

It's.

You you can tell stories by way of communicating certain ideas.

I mean, that's obviously I'm not saying stories aren't right credibly powerful and useful.

And Inevitable, right?

It's like we we you wait.

I think you are you know, I'm not saying you might not be saying that they're that they're they're not they're not inevitable.

But you are debating their utility and power because you don't know you said that you don't need the story as

an intermediary.

So now we have a few doors open.

Well, I don't know again was the I think the point is just falling flat.

You know, dr. Harris isn't using illustrations that trade on familiar categories to a religious person.

He's using illustrations and shared terminology to communicate an anti -religious message, which by the way agree or

disagree with dr. Harris.

But he is a good writer.

I don't know if you like if you go back and read his books like he's a great communicator and he's doing what I

think.

He has a podcast too or something, but he's doing what I would do if I wanted to be effective today.

He's drawing from Culturally shared references and language and using it to make his own unique

point and there's nothing wrong with that.

So, I don't know plus two.

Here's the other thing like I'm not familiar with dr. Peterson enough, but it sounds like He views the

Bible as merely stories.

Okay.

So in this sense He breaks from traditional Christians who understand the Bible to be more than a mere narrative

that the Bible is actually an historical record of God interacting with humanity.

And it's just a series of Stories that are communicating something.

This whole branch of conversation is just a weird use of time.

I would not have gone down this road this route at all.

I'd be seeking to poke holes in the greater arguments that dr. Harris makes by asking the right leading questions,

you know.

Which means centering on those greater contentions and then fleshing that out and trying to find true clash and

cross -exam.

That's what I would be doing.

This is what happens in the moral landscape.

I think.

Tell me tell me why I'm wrong because I'm really trying to understand it.

See, I think you dealt with GE Moore's problem of infinite regress By by

staking a moral proposition and your moral proposition was look.

Here's a way things can be horrible and Here's the way things can be good.

Can we accept that this is horrible and this is good and that we should move towards good and if the answer is

yes.

We can accept that then we can proceed and maybe we can even proceed with extracting values from

facts.

But we have to accept that a priori.

Yeah, and you insist that we have to accept it because it's objectively true and I don't think

that's correct.

So dr. Peterson is pointing out that in order for dr. Harris to make his arguments in his book the moral landscape, which is

essentially a materialist explanation for objective morality.

And that explanation is grounded in the well -being of humanity.

Ultimately in order to do this. Dr. Harris has to begin with an assumption that well -being is morally good and

dr Peterson is right, even if you redefine morality to mean something more like functional flourishing, you

know or survivability whatever promotes physical well -being and discourages harm

if you do that and You take seriously the notion that God does not exist.

Which means the universe is cold and indifferent to life.

Which is what Richard Dawkins says, but then you still have to begin with a smuggled -in morality that physical well -being is

morally good.

And so therefore whatever harms that is bad or else you have no moral obligation.

There is no responsibility for humanity to obey if you don't smuggle in that moral good and that moral ought.

Then you are left with the true diagnosis of human existence with no God that we are here and there is no ultimate

rhyme or reason To it whether we live or die.

These are all just facts of history and the universe is indifferent to it all and that's not me saying that I'm paraphrasing the

famous Atheists of our time and dr. Peterson is right to push back on this.

It's a smuggled -in morality if we agree that there is some way in

which religious texts carry some kind of Value because they allow

people to figure out how to navigate their lives in ways that might reduce Suffering reduce the

complexity of the choices that they have to make presumably.

You will agree that that would be consistent with an evolutionary interpretation that the fact that the stories themselves

Are yes functional would provide an advantage to those who were deploying them.

Yes, so here's the problem Isn't it then also true that those stories

are responsive to past environments and so the claim that these things might be timeless would be

suspect and in fact you would expect a spectrum of Durability some

stories would be right in a brief moment and yes, okay all that's true all that's true so far so

good.

Well so far so good.

This is this is actually I think quite excellent then because what we have is

a Recognition that there is something to these belief systems that has to do with practical

realities in the past and we also have an acknowledgement that we cannot trust in these things based on

simple faith because even if they are Can be certain to have worked at some point in the past.

We don't know what their relevance is to the present, right?

No.

Okay, so this question is interesting.

Because it takes a small but important leap.

All right, and this leap is a mistake if stories that happen in time are Situational and therefore

they are not timeless.

That doesn't mean that what follows from that is that there are no timeless truths embedded in the

temporal historical stories.

So for example, if I told you a story about you know the time I was late to school.

Well, I went to school in the 80s and early 90s.

All right, so my story about how school worked and The particular clothes I was wearing at the

time and the specific car that took me to school and all that.

It's not gonna hold up 50 years from now.

But the fact that being late has consequences is a timeless idea that will hold up 50 years from

now.

Time waits for no man.

That was the old saying back in the day, right?

And that's true now just as much as it was 2 ,000 years ago, and it'll still be true in the future.

So to point out that the historical situations change over time.

It doesn't undercut the timelessness of the divine revelation that is expressed within them.

That's that's two things about that.

That's exactly why we're having this discussion and You see what happens

in the most profound of such texts is the idea that the process by

which your knowledge is updated has to occupy a position in the hierarchy of values that

Supersedes your reliance on dogma is the fundamental claim.

That's why for example in Christianity The notion is is that the word is the highest of values and that's the

embodied word and that's the thing that mediates between order and chaos and Everything else has to be subject to that

and I would say that's not a claim that's unique to Christianity.

So for example.

Just another thought about what dr. Weinstein said just a moment ago.

You know just just because these timeless revelational truths existed and worked in the past.

That means we have no way of knowing how they work today.

I mean, that's false.

That's what Christians call hermeneutics.

You know the idea that there are revelational truths that are universal across time and they are expressed Situationally

in history in order to glean how these truths apply to the 21st century or whatever time period we're in

is Exactly what pastors theologians and Christians do all the time every day.

It's called hermeneutics.

You say you believe in God.

You have been no, I say I act as if he exists.

You say what I say I act as if he exists, which is a much more precise claim.

Okay, so so then what what.

But in this case what?

It's.

So you act as though God exists.

Yeah, and in addition I've heard you say that I act as though God exists that I'm.

I can't really.

So far it's yeah.

We'll see that the night is young.

Yeah.

So in that sense, I'm not really an atheist.

I've heard you say this so that.

Some of you is well.

If I were really an atheist I would be far more poorly behaved than in fact I am right.

I would be like Raskolnikov committing murders and and assuming there was nothing wrong with it more. It would be more likely.

Yes.

Yeah, okay.

So so that's a big distinction.

What was that.

It's a big distinction.

Well Raskolnikov was I mean as is probably.

Up there as wicked as you get that you would is very different than it would be more likely.

Taking the safety off the gun.

It's not the same thing as shooting it, right?

Yeah, the temptations laid open to Raskolnikov would be more at hand.

Okay, just as they were to him.

So.

What in that.

So in what sense do you mean?

What is the God that you act as though?

He she it exists.

And what is the gut.

What.

What is the God shaped thing?

I must have in my life to prevent me from being a quote real atheist.

Well, okay.

Wow.

What a missed opportunity when you say what is this God you're referring to and what is this God

shaped hole that you think?

I have that is a question without nearly as much teeth as you know.

Can you unpack your argument that I'm not really an atheist that I would be more like Raskolnikov if I were a true atheist.

By the way, Raskolnikov in crime and punishment is a brutal killer a murderer and a thief.

So.

God is how we imaginatively and collectively represent the existence and action of consciousness across time

as The most real aspects of existence manifest themselves across the longest of time frames But

are not necessarily apprehensible as objects in the here and now.

So what that means in some sense is that you have Conceptions of reality built into your biological and metaphysical structure

that a consequence of processes of evolution that that occurred over unbelievably.

Vast.

Expanses of time and so that's that's something that operates across tremendous expanses of time and it plays a

role in the Selection for survival itself, which makes it a fundamental reality.

Jordan if I just cut in here with one question.

Stop with that for now.

What?

So this is An observation maybe for another video.

Okay, but again, I'm not very familiar with Jordan Peterson.

It's very interesting to hear him speak about God.

He speaks about God very much.

So using foundational archetypes and categories.

That's not what Christians do.

Christians speak about God more anthropomorphically, you know, I mean

Christians recognize the grounding of God as the foundation for transcending categories, so to speak, but

God goes beyond these things and is expressed personally as well.

Dr. Peterson doesn't talk about God in that way.

At least not in this conversation.

So, I don't know what you can do with that observation what you will.

Maybe somebody in the comments can help me better understand why that is the case.

But anyway, so I was not hearing in that list of attributes a God who

Could care if anyone masturbated.

I was not hearing a God who depends on what else is stopping you from doing Sam.

Well, I'm sorry, but I miss that.

Well, I said it depends on what else it's stopping you from doing.

Well, okay, so it's.

It's important to do something other than masturbate yes.

Yes, which is which which actually constitutes a problem which is which is harder than it sounds.

I'm.

Not hearing a God a personal God there it is who can possibly

hear anyone's prayers much less answer them.

So so and and good for dr. Harris.

He's noticing what I just noticed and.

So perhaps dr. Peterson has set himself up for some defeaters if he somehow

Invalidates the personal aspect of the God of the Bible.

Okay, but I mean, let's see how this plays out.

I'm wondering what percentage of religious people who would say oh, yeah, I believe in God and it's the most important thing in

my life.

What percentage of those religious people do you think have in mind a God of the sort you just described?

I don't know Sam.

It's a good question because when I go talk to people When I when I talk to people online and use exactly this

terminology millions of people listen.

So it's not so obvious which what percentage of people see it this way.

It's maybe that they have the intuitions, but they haven't been articulated.

Well, I mean this is this is the problem.

This is what worries me about this.

So I mean you you you could do the same

thing with The idea of ghosts, right?

So people traditionally have believed in ghosts.

It's a it's an archetype.

You might say the ghost survival of death is certainly an archetype and we know what most people most of the

time mean when they say they believe in ghosts and I say I don't believe in ghosts

and you say no.

No you you do believe in ghosts.

Ghosts are your relationship to the unseen.

That's a ghost.

So you have a new definition of ghosts that you're putting in in the place provided which I have to say.

Well, of course, I have a relationship to the unseen.

So yeah, I guess I do believe in ghosts, you know you win that argument

but that.

Simply isn't what most people mean by a ghost.

Most people use that simplified argument about my Conception of ghosts as an analogy for the

propositions that I just put for this is what I see you do.

I mean, maybe you have more to say on the topic of God, but this is what I hear you doing with God.

You have defined the God that most people believe in and we know this is the God that most people.

I was asked what God I believed in.

Yes.

No, but I'm asking you what percentage.

Yes.

But you you by shifting the definition you have robbed the the

noun the traditional noun of its Traditional meaning and you're giving you're imparting to

people.

Wait a second.

Wait a second.

I'm not so.

Do you mean by traditional meaning look.

It's one of the one of the elemental claims in the Old Testament.

Is that you're not even supposed to utter the name of God because by defining it too tightly you lose its essence.

And so let's not be talking about what the classical definition of God is here.

Okay, it's a historical non -starter.

Okay, there's plenty of religions.

Can I check in with the audience?

There is an element here where they're both, right?

I mean, obviously what dr. Harris is trying to do is he's trying to pinpoint a more what everybody

would understand to mean God.

Even though this line of questioning was probably not the way you should have gone at all in the first place in that sense Dr.

Peterson is not really helping matters with his own specific definition of God, but what dr Harris doesn't

understand is that this is kind of like the spaghetti monster problem, right like it's a category error to

Assume, you know that God is some kind of floating teapot in the universe.

And so therefore if there's no evidence of this floating teapot in the universe We can safely say that there is no God.

The problem with that is that God is the ground of reality.

He's the ground of being and so when you make the Transcendental Argument like the

cosmological argument that is a valid argument to make because there must be some Explanation that is

the ground of existence in the first place.

That's what the cosmological argument seeks to identify.

And so in that sense, dr. Peterson is corrected to sort of zoom out and show that God is greater than

you know.

Just simply talking about his anthropomorphic facets.

Let me say Sam.

I.

Do not believe in a supernatural God, but the God that I heard Jordan just described.

I Do not have any difficulty understanding why he might care if you masturbate and

I also don't have any trouble Figuring out how he might answer prayers.

Well, well tell me more then.

Well I I can tell you I can tell you I can tell you how a prayer might be.

Here's the problem with this conversation because now it's just way off the rails, you know what I mean?

Like dr. Harris wants to pinpoint some flaws and errors and dr. Peterson's

view I mean, even though this is a gentleman's conversation.

That's ultimately what's going on here.

And so the first problem with all this is he's not asking direct questions to get dr Peterson to

justify his claims.

He's going the long way around and wasting a lot of time.

The other problem is dr Peterson is also taking the long way around in his response and from my vantage point is probably.

Partly because maybe he doesn't want to be intellectually pinned by dr. Harris.

This is why you should ask way more direct questions in cross -examination.

You know you you made this claim now justify it you made that claim.

Do you have any evidence for it?

How do you hold to your argument over here when this evidence over here appears to undercut that?

That's more like what you know cross -examination and debate should be but on top of everything else

I don't think dr. Harris has thought about this if God exists.

Then he is the archetypes and categories that dr. Peterson says he is well, maybe not all of them.

So it's not that dr. Peterson is changing the subject.

He's.

He's just answering a different question that dr Harris is not asking and that's why you need to be way more direct about your questions.

Especially when it comes to these kinds of conversations.

Okay.

You need to make your opponent clearly identify their claims and reasons to support them in order to then

attack these Components for everyone to see.

Wow, this is hard.

I I would say that there there is no clear winner here because the end of the day I don't think the

goal was to win in this conversation, even though there are disagreements and some of those disagreements were very

Vociferous.

The goal was to fully communicate two different viewpoints while seeking to come to agreement.

Okay, that that was stated at the beginning of this conversation.

That's not the goal of a debate.

The goal of a debate is clash.

Okay, the goal of the debate is to best your interlocutor and defeat their contentions.

All right.

That's why I would argue that you need to go back and watch this conversation again and again and again.

Okay, because this is what your conversation should look like your conversations on the street should not look like formal debates.

All right, you need to go back and take notice particularly of how dr. Peterson Frames of the discussion

right like in the first few minutes.

He's trying to affirm.

Dr Harris as much as he possibly can he tries to identify points of agreement to even restate.

Dr Harris's own contentions in such a careful manner that dr. Harris agrees.

And he does agree and then he asks questions about areas of disagreement why to come to an

agreement.

All right, this is first date evangelism.

I mean if you haven't taken a look at my signature method of communicating the Christian faith.

It comes directly from the Bible comes directly from the rules of formal debate.

It comes from the proper order of persuasion.

You have to check out that series.

It trades on exactly what dr. Peterson did in this video.

Well, thanks very much for watching and subscribing.

As always if you have a particular apologetics debate that you want me to Take a look at and react to

definitely.

Let me know I'm collecting all of your suggestions and we're going vote by vote every other week.

On those please.

Also if you have not subscribed, please subscribe and share these particular videos the more that happens.

The more wise disciple will get out to everyone else.

Well, I'll take a break and return soon with more videos.

But in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.