Is Faith/Religion needed to live -- my analysis of Jordan Peterson

[Mock Turtle]

Everyone has an ideology whether they realise it or not.

Ideologies are how we explain to ourselves how things should be and what things are desirable or detestable. Someone with no ideology would have no ethics, principles or values.

Ideology or philosophy? I prefer the latter, and can accept that.

 

[MonkeyFire]

As a fan of the recently popularized Jordan Peterson, I'd like to analyse a particular assertion of his.


Firstly, I like him for his (mostly) critical thinking and considerable knowledge. However, he is (sort-of) religious, and a few things I disagree with him about.


He has said that everyone must have a 'kind of' religion or perhaps 'faith' in order to live. I would like to question that.


His logic is: everyone must necessarily live 'as if' there is something to live for, i.e. a purpose, a meaning. He says that atheists must have a 'faith' that there is more to death and 'the end', and that there must exist this 'purpose' in order to get up and go to work and deal with life.


But I disagree, and would make a simple analogy:


If you have a job interview, you are advised to behave 'as if' you have a real chance of getting the job. It's no good going and thinking you can't. But can we describe this as 'faith' or behaving 'as if' you will get it?


I think not, because it is a rational weighing up of possibilities, not 'faith'. At the interview, you neither accept nor deny either outcome. You consider both. You imagine 'what if' you have a real chance of getting it. But you also know you might not. You behave in a way that judges the possibilities and outcomes. But you don't behave literally 'as if' you will get the job, because that would literally mean going, having the interview and then saying "well, thanks, so when do I start?"


So, is it possible to live while considering that life has a continual, meaningful purpose, without having religion or faith? I think yes, because you can suspend belief. You can live 'in the hope' that it will have purpose, without knowing for certain.

Faith in life creates hope.
Faith is the basis of all life, supreme reality, or mundane reality.

 

[Augustus]

Ideology or philosophy? I prefer the latter, and can accept that.

Suppose you could use either, but I'd personally stick to ideology otherwise you have to use different words to describe the same thing which risks people thinking they are two different phenomena one of which is better than the other ('You have an ideology, but I have a philosophy').

Ideology is another term that is mistaken as pejorative and many people think they are not affected by the kind of ideological biases that affect others. This is cognitively impossible, although some are better at mitigating them than others. .

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

But it's not only biology that determines out thoughts. Millions of people suffer from depression, for example, and would disagree about there being a point.

I didn't say it was only biology that determines our thoughts. In fact I said, specifically, that our intellectualism is what let's us believe we're "rising above" our biology - when, in fact, sometimes this "above" place is a detriment to what otherwise could be left to simple, biological drive.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Not really. Can you choose balancing a ball on your nose as your purpose in life?

Me personally, no. But there are people who spend their lives mastering the ability to balance ladders, chairs, etc on their heads and or noses, and it certainly appears to be at least be one of the purposes they've chosen for themselves in this life. If they derive pleasure/satisfaction from doing so, more power to them.

 

[Trailblazer]

That's the point of faith. It's about having a conviction about a purpose, in spite of absence of reason.

Faith in the absence of reason is blind faith.
There is such a thing as a reason-based faith.
There is a reason to believe we all have a purpose.

 

[Jumi]

Easy for who? Maybe you. But maybe not for everyone.

If it's easy for me and a lot of other folks and has been so since time immemorial, it kind of takes the edge off the argument that it's necessary.

 

[Trailblazer]

But a sense of purpose is not hard-wired into our brains.

No it isn't. We have to search for it.
If we search, we might find. If not we won't find anything.

 

[Trailblazer]

That doesn't sound like the 'faith' that many religious people have. They have a conviction.

True, some religious people only believe but others know.

 

[scott777]

No. Why would I? They are autonomous beings. They should live according to their own chosen purposes and goals.

They are not autonomous until you have given them life. So the question of purpose is still relevant. Generally, is there a purpose of living, and propagating life? That's closer to 'ultimate purpose' that you say you cannot conceive of.

 

[scott777]

I'd probably do better if faith and religion were not around.

How can you be sure?

 

[scott777]

I explained my comment. You say I'm wrong while offering no reason. Do you have a reason to reject my explanation?

If you're referring to reward and punishment, the reason is that people don't automatically behave with the same morality that you do. So that's evidence that it's not hard-wired. What evidence is there that it is hard-wired? If it were, how do you explain the Nazis, for example? Or the extermination of Native Americans?

 

[scott777]

Faith in life creates hope.
Faith is the basis of all life,

I have to agree, though it doesn't necessarily mean modern civilized humans still need it.

 

[scott777]

Me personally, no. But there are people who spend their lives mastering the ability to balance ladders, chairs, etc on their heads and or noses, and it certainly appears to be at least be one of the purposes they've chosen for themselves in this life. If they derive pleasure/satisfaction from doing so, more power to them.

I'm sure it could be an obsession or a living - but a purpose in life??

 

[scott777]

Faith in the absence of reason is blind faith.
There is such a thing as a reason-based faith.
There is a reason to believe we all have a purpose.

That's a good distinction - but i'd say belief in a god is very close to blind faith. I can't see any element of reason.
As for purpose, what's your best reason?

 

[dianaiad]

That doesn't sound like the 'faith' that many religious people have. They have a conviction.

They may have all the convictions they want. They still don't KNOW.

Knowledge is absolute. That is, when you KNOW something is true, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that this something is NOT true.

The example I always (and I do mean 'always') use is...I BELIEVE that the sun is shining right now. I have a great conviction that it is. All the evidence available to me says it is. The sky is blue, it is very hot, I can look right at it if I'm stupid enough. It's right. up. there. I have such faith and conviction that it is that I will plan my day and my life as if there is no chance that it isn't shining right this second.

But I don't really know that it is shining right this minute, do I? It could have exploded 4 minutes ago and I wouldn't know about that for four more minutes, give or take a bit. The probability that it did is incredibly low, of course, but someday some form of life (or not) is going to be going about its business on this planet accepting that the sun is shining right then....and....oops...

Knowledge isn't about what anybody thinks. It's about what IS.

Faith is about what one does about one's belief; does one trust one's beliefs enough to behave as if one's beliefs are true?

If you have faith that the bridge will hold you up, you will cross it.
If you say you believe that the bridge will hold you up, but refuse to cross it, then you don't have faith...

And in neither case do you KNOW that the bridge will do so. You can only KNOW that, once you have crossed it, it did. Hold you up, that is.

 

[scott777]

If it's easy for me and a lot of other folks and has been so since time immemorial, it kind of takes the edge off the argument that it's necessary.

Easy for people to live without any faith? Since time immemorial?

 

[scott777]

True, some religious people only believe but others know.

I think the vast majority of the world's religious people have a conviction. 'Belief' is very ambiguous.

 

[scott777]

They may have all the convictions they want. They still don't KNOW.

Knowledge is absolute. That is, when you KNOW something is true, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that this something is NOT true.

The example I always (and I do mean 'always') use is...I BELIEVE that the sun is shining right now. I have a great conviction that it is. All the evidence available to me says it is. The sky is blue, it is very hot, I can look right at it if I'm stupid enough. It's right. up. there. I have such faith and conviction that it is that I will plan my day and my life as if there is no chance that it isn't shining right this second.

But I don't really know that it is shining right this minute, do I? It could have exploded 4 minutes ago and I wouldn't know about that for four more minutes, give or take a bit. The probability that it did is incredibly low, of course, but someday some form of life (or not) is going to be going about its business on this planet accepting that the sun is shining right then....and....oops...

Knowledge isn't about what anybody thinks. It's about what IS.

Faith is about what one does about one's belief; does one trust one's beliefs enough to behave as if one's beliefs are true?

If you have faith that the bridge will hold you up, you will cross it.
If you say you believe that the bridge will hold you up, but refuse to cross it, then you don't have faith...

And in neither case do you KNOW that the bridge will do so. You can only KNOW that, once you have crossed it, it did. Hold you up, that is.

That's a whole can of worms. Philosophers have asked questions about 'absolute knowledge' for a long time. How do you know your knowledge is absolute? IMO, there's no such thing.

 

[QuestioningMind]

I'm sure it could be an obsession or a living - but a purpose in life??

Why not? Many people feel that their purpose in life is to be the best darn (fill-in-the-blank) that they can possibly be. I suppose that there might be SOMEONE out there who feels the their purpose in life is to become the best Nose Balancing Expert EVER.

Why is it so difficult for you to imagine that people might have different purposes in their lives than you do?