Jordan Peterson vs. Sam Harris on God

[Rational Agnostic]

Who is Peterson? I have never heard of him.

He's a "self-help" psychologist guy who uses big words but never says anything useful whose audience is mainly males in their 20s. He appeals to the religious right by making lectures on bible stories, occasionally pretending to be a Christian, but is almost certainly a closet atheist trying to make money off of a repackaged concept of God and religion that appeals to his audience. Ironically, he has been hospitalized and sent to rehab for severe drug addiction to a drug that he routinely prescribes his patients.

 

[Thief]

This one perhaps - I was thinking about starting a thread on it and the implications of the 10% having an IQ of 83 or less (at 9:00 mins):

that's one of them
the other is played before a group of students as he paces the floor

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Omg The Lobster King!!
Is he out of his drug induced coma yet? Not trying to be mocking when I ask that, like I don’t wish ill upon him. But after being touted as this big name philosopher for so long, it’s surreal watching his drug induced downward spiral.

I hope that his ordeal will teach him compassion for those struggling with addiction, as compassion is something his philosophy is void of.

 

[Thief]

He's a "self-help" psychologist guy who uses big words but never says anything useful whose audience is mainly males in their 20s. He appeals to the religious right by making lectures on bible stories, occasionally pretending to be a Christian, but is almost certainly a closet atheist trying to make money off of a repackaged concept of God and religion that appeals to his audience. Ironically, he has been hospitalized and sent to rehab for severe drug addiction to a drug that he routinely prescribes his patients.

low blow dude

his family has suffered cancer and the stress put him to use of strong chemistry for the stress
the kind of treatment for which you have to wean off with help

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

He's a "self-help" psychologist guy who uses big words but never says anything useful whose audience is mainly males in their 20s. He appeals to the religious right by making lectures on bible stories, occasionally pretending to be a Christian, but is almost certainly a closet atheist trying to make money off of a repackaged concept of God and religion that appeals to his audience. Ironically, he has been hospitalized and sent to rehab for severe drug addiction to a drug that he routinely prescribes his patients.

Psychologists can't prescribe drugs. You're thinking of psychiatrists, who are actual medical doctors.

 

[shmogie]

He's a "self-help" psychologist guy who uses big words but never says anything useful whose audience is mainly males in their 20s. He appeals to the religious right by making lectures on bible stories, occasionally pretending to be a Christian, but is almost certainly a closet atheist trying to make money off of a repackaged concept of God and religion that appeals to his audience. Ironically, he has been hospitalized and sent to rehab for severe drug addiction to a drug that he routinely prescribes his patients.

So he is an MD? Not the kind of preacher that I have any interest in hearing.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

low blow dude

his family has suffered cancer and the stress put him to use of strong chemistry for the stress
the kind of treatment for which you have to wean off with help

Actually he has set himself up to be mocked since his ideology promotes a sort of stoic machoness where any sort of weakness is not to be tolerated.

"But again, all we have to go on is reports from his daughter, whose family has a strong financial incentive to spin away any suggestion that the man who made his name engaging in a kind of intellectual Spartan cosplay is hopelessly addicted to a sedative. In fact, Mikhaila has jokingly alluded to how bad an addiction diagnosis would be for her father’s lucrative self-help brand, which purports to rid adherents of weakness through grit and self-sacrifice. “We figured we should let people know [the facts] before some tabloid finds out and publishes [that] Jordan Peterson, ‘self help guru,’ is on meth or something,” Mikhaila said in a video update after Peterson checked himself into rehab in the U.S.

Still, as soon as Peterson’s initial stint in rehab became public in 2019, threads sprang up in Peterson-related forums about whether his fans should think less of him in light of his struggles with benzodiazepines. “He was using a drug to escape the pain of reality, period. Call it whatever you like, but it doesn’t change the facts,” wrote the user KingLudwigII on Reddit."
What Happened to Jordan Peterson?

 

[firedragon]

I actually don't really care about Sam's political/religious/moral commentary. However, his insights on the nature of mind and how to deal with negative emotions are actually very profound and useful. Of course, they're not really unique to him, but he articulates them well.

oh he is articulate.

 

[Father Heathen]

I've never been much a fan of Peterson. Absurd Christian mental gymnastics to justify a belief he knows otherwise can't, doomsday prophesy over an adjustment in Canadian law, and he consistently failed to impress me or challenge my views (Harris basically wrecked my former views on free will). Though, Harris at times I do find to preachy to the choir.

Isn't he also rabidly transphobic?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I guess neither character I find all that intriguing after processing their views, though I recall watching this debate, and I've of course watched enough of them when wading through youtube. Peterson ultimately doesn't question the onus of our western civilization, which is something that many psychologists still refuse to do - to put psychology into speaking terms with the more acute realities of ecology, to paraphrase an idea from Theodore Roszak. It an annoying fact about people in the former field, no matter how interesting their ideas can sometimes be. Peterson doesn't seem to think the environment can really go belly up, or overpopulation can happen, or that nature has a history of having an extremely malleable nature (possibly relevant to the gender stuff etc). Ultimately, I wonder if it is all of these incongruities that have unfortunately been eating Peterson. I suspect there is a lot of debate in the man's own mind. Harris I find to be a blunted in his effect, as he is ultimately an atheist materialist, and I simply cannot see things like that, for many reasons I've posted elsewhere.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

This one perhaps - I was thinking about starting a thread on it and the implications of the 10% having an IQ of 83 or less (at 9:00 mins):

There's another peterson point there, that surely must eat away at him since is a thinker. How can he argue so vehemently for sink or swim capitalism against ubi, if he knows that we perhaps cannot all compete in an economy that's tightening down on mental horsepower. I think the truth is that he ultimately can't. Or at least you can't do it and maintain that the human experience is permeated by some kind of compassionate spiritual presence

 

[SomeRandom]

I hope that his ordeal will teach him compassion for those struggling with addiction, as compassion is something his philosophy is void of.

Agreed. Especially since he does seem to have attracted quite a following of impressionable young men. I mean I get it, I followed some rather “problematic” people during my life. But for whatever reason, either discouraged by Peterson or not, I’m not sure, the circles that praise him don’t seem to have that much incentive for introspection. I hope I’m wrong in such an observation, of course. That’s just the impression I’ve gotten. No judgement though.

 

[Shad]

Gah.

 

[Shad]

Who is Peterson? I have never heard of him.

He got 15 mins of fame when leftist manufactured outrage to go after him and a law in Canada which mandates pronoun speech. This was years ago.

 

[Thief]

not to be …..redirecting...

Freud was on cocaine

 

[Thief]

I’m not sure, the circles that praise him don’t seem to have that much incentive for introspection. I hope I’m wrong in such an observation,

I am rather introspective
grew up that way

it led me to a method …..and someone here at the forum called me on it
lectio divina
I had to look it up

the ability to take a line of thought and apply it
to one's own self
then to the guy next to you
to see the event as if you were standing right there

I suspect Peterson is quite capable

 

[Samantha Rinne]

.

Couldn't get past the three minute mark

Question: Why should anyone care what this guy thinks? (I've never heard of him before)

.

You got further than me! I didn't watch the damned thing.

If you need 40 hours to explain that Jesus died on the cross, you failed.

Jesus died on the cross. There are numerous reports of a historical Jesus to the point where no serious (which excludes most of you guys) historian disputes that there was a person of Jesus. Even if he performed no miracles and fulfilled almost none of the prerequisites of the Messiah. Still died on the cross.

Virtually all scholars support the historicity of Jesus and reject the Christ myth theory that Jesus never existed [13][14][15][16]

Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia

By the way, Muhammad despite being a supposedly historical figure it is said that there is not even "a scrap of information of real use in constructing the human history of Muhammad, beyond the bare fact that he once existed." [4]

Historicity of Muhammad - Wikipedia

And a few people even doubt that much!

The Freedom Fighter's Journal: THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD NEVER EXISTED!

1. No record of Muhammad's reported death in 632 appears until more than a century after that date.
2. The early accounts written by the people the Arabs conquered never mention Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur'an. They call the conquerors "Ishmaelites," "Saracens," "Muhajirun," and "Hagarians," but never "Muslims."
3. The Arab conquerors, in their coins and inscriptions, don't mention Islam or the Qur'an for the first six decades of their conquests. Mentions of "Muhammad" are non-specific and on at least two occasions are accompanied by a cross. The word can be used not only as a proper name, but also as an honorific.
4. The Qur'an, even by the canonical Muslim account, was not distributed in its present form until the 650s. Casting into serious doubt that standard account is the fact that neither the Arabians nor the Christians and Jews in the region mention its existence until the early eighth century.
5. We don't begin to hear about Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and about Islam itself until the 690s, during the reign of the caliph Abd al-Malik. Coins and inscriptions reflecting Islamic beliefs begin to appear at this time also.
6. In the middle of the eighth century, the Abbasid dynasty supplanted the Umayyad line of Abd al-Malik. In the Abbasid period, biographical material about Muhammad began to proliferate. The first complete biography of the prophet of Islam finally appeared during this era-at least 125 years after the traditional date of his death.
7. The lack of confirming detail in the historical record, the late development of biographical material about the Islamic prophet, the atmosphere of political and religious factionalism in which that material developed, and much more, suggest that the Muhammad of Islamic tradition did not exist, or if he did, he was substantially different from how that tradition portrays him.

Yup, there is more evidence for someone named Jesus than there is for this supposedly historical Muhammad.

But more importantly, it is not even necessary for Jesus to have existed as a living person because beyond all historical records and accounts even from Muslims, Jews, and non-Christians, he also was a mythic figure. You may ask, "Doesn't this dismiss his historicity?" No, in fact, it doesn't, any more than our presidents chopping down cherry trees or throwing quarters across large rivers. The myths are there to explain something about the person.

But, I said it wasn't necessary for Jesus to be a historical person. Why did I say that?

John 1:1-2

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

Some random quibbler, "But that's the Word of God, not Jesus." Yeahhh ummmm.

John 1:14

14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.

Before Jesus in Christianity, there were numerous Jesus-like figures (either born as a result of immaculate conception, resurrecting, or some other aspect). And there continue to be Jesus-like figures.

1. The Buddha
2. Krishna
3. Odysseus
4. Osiris
5. Horus
6. Mithra
7. Quetzalcoatl
8. Zoroaster
9. Adonis
10. Dionysis
11. Merlin
12. Thor (to some extent)
    
13. Hell, Superman and some of the Star Wars characters qualify (including Rey)

Did a historical Jesus exist? Yes. Did a mythical Jesus exist for all recorded history? Yup!

 

[SomeRandom]

I am rather introspective
grew up that way

it led me to a method …..and someone here at the forum called me on it
lectio divina
I had to look it up

the ability to take a line of thought and apply it
to one's own self
then to the guy next to you
to see the event as if you were standing right there

I suspect Peterson is quite capable

I’m sure Peterson is capable. But he never seems to seems to apply it, at least not openly. Maybe he does so in private. I dunno

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Isn't he also rabidly transphobic?

I dont know. The bit I do know, maybe (though not rabid as far as I know), or he could just be stupid. Like his eagerness to take on the Christian martyrdom and repression for his beliefs when he thought he would be punished heavily for braking an anti-discrimination law, but regarding such laws he's one of the many little boys who cried wolf.

 

[Skwim]

You got further than me! I didn't watch the damned thing.

If you need 40 hours to explain that Jesus died on the cross, you failed.

Jesus died on the cross. There are numerous reports of a historical Jesus to the point where no serious (which excludes most of you guys) historian disputes that there was a person of Jesus. Even if he performed no miracles and fulfilled almost none of the prerequisites of the Messiah. Still died on the cross.

Of course the key requirement here is that these reports come from non-Christian (unbiased) sources. Do they? From what I've read, at the very most, secular sources suggest there was a man, or several men, who fit the description of a traveling preacher who could well have been named Jesus. And where there are more specific mentions of a Jesus-like preacher there is considerable disagreement about what he did and did not do. Most scholars question the authenticity of such events. So at most it's quite plausible there was a Jewish preacher named Jesus. But such plausibility ends there. All other claims remain unsubstantiated.

.