Jordan Peterson vs 20 Atheists | Surrounded

You're a Christian. You say that. I haven't claimed that. Oh, what is this? Is this Christians versus atheist? Don't be a smartass. Either you're a Christian or you're not. Which one is it? You're really quite something. You are, aren't I? But you're really quite nothing, right? You're not a Christian. Okay, I'm done with him. Hello there. I'm Dr. Jordan Peterson. I'm a clinical psychologist, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, an author, a podcaster, public speaker, and today I'm surrounded by 25 atheists. My first claim, atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're

rejecting. [Music] Good afternoon, Dr. Peterson. How you doing? So, this claim here that atheists don't know what they're rejecting. My background is in studying to become a traditional Catholic priest, daily mass, daily rosary, going on long retreats, deep into the magisterium and biblical hermeneutics. Like, I was thoroughly in it. And it seems like I do know what I'm missing. Is there something that I missed over years of study both this issue formally and living out religion so deeply? Well, you obviously feel that you missed something when you were practicing for the priesthood. Your aim was

off then. So, there's always the possibility that it's still off now. What was off about my aim in the first place? I don't know. That might take a long time to figure out. But then it seems kind of like this no true Scotsman type of fallacy in which you're the arbiter of people's aims and how they understand those aims to be. How is it that you can claim that people don't know something that you know about their life despite not having met them? Well, it's obviously a generic claim just like the atheist claim that there's

no God is a generic claim. In your case, it would have to be specified more. And I'm not claiming to understand what was going on in your mind. But my experience with atheists is twofold. Is that they have a very reductive notion of what constitutes God, let's say, in the Judeo-Christian tradition. and they've often been hurt by someone who was religious or by the religious enterprise or perhaps by God himself so to speak and that's left them with an animous but I think that you have a reductive view of what atheism is. You've defined religion

so broadly to include any sort of having aim in life any sort of cultural archetypes or having a metaphorical substrate and atheism to you is a very specific type of like three people in the world that are these rcolnikov type of they're they want to get away with a perfect murder. Seems like you have the reductive view of what an atheist is. Well, let's start with your claim. Mhm. How do you define the God that you're rejecting? Like what is God to you? You studied in the church, you found that unsatisfactory. How would you characterize

what you rejected? I think the average Christian believer when they say that they're Christian and they believe they mean some sort of God that is all powerful, all perfect is somehow involved in the matters of this world and that we look to them through wisdom and with logos incarnate in Christ. And it also seems like you don't believe in religion in the way that the average Christian says that they believe in religion. And there are as many gods out there as there are believers because everybody has mutually exclusive and different views of what God is.

So it seems like well if everybody had mutually exclusive views of what God is, no one could speak to each other. You're the mere fact of communication presumes a commonality of assumption and definition. And so and it's certainly not the case that I regard any archetypal manifestation whatsoever as equally religious. So that's not a that's not a real claim. Let's let me give you an example. For example, there's a subnarrative in the story of Moses where Moses is rewarded with a glimpse of God. Okay? And that's one of the ways that God is characterized in

the Old Testament stories. Yes. Now, Moses is a faithful servant of God and a good man. At least that's the case within the confines of the story. One possible interpretation. Case within the confines of the story. Obviously what most obviously there when we look at the Bible the Bible can't precisely say anything because there are so many different exoggetical and hermeneutic views of this particular book and that everybody has agreed histo or everybody has disagreed historically on it seems like even the most benign detail about a book this big and it seems like you can

only say that the Bible says something if you p first presuppose that it's univocal. So your claim essentially is that Moses in the Old Testament plays the role of a villain or is irrelevant because the alternative claim is that he's good. No, because we can't talk to those authors. If you are going to start with the presupposition that there's nothing I can say about any of these stories that you're not going to disagree with from the perspective that there are multiple potential competing claims, then I can't speak with you. So, and we also have a

short time here. So, I'm I want to get to the core of what you're arguing here. And I'd love if we could the core of what I'm arguing is that atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting. So I'm trying to give you an example of what's being rejected and its complexity. Okay. So God rewards Moses with a glimpse of the divine. So this is a definition of the God that atheists are hypothetically rejecting. A possible one. I said ah. I didn't say 'the'. I said ah. That is possible. Yes. Okay. So, despite

the fact that Moses is a stellar character and he's had a long and difficult life and can withstand a lot of difficulty and travail, God puts him between two cliffs. So, he can just see a crack of what's in front of him. And when God walks by, he allows him to see his back. Okay? So, the implication and implication of that story is that the divine is fundamentally unknowable. It's a pinnacle experience and that people in their finitude have to be shielded from a comprehensive vision of the basis of reality. Well, that's not the God

that's defined in that manner, right? Is a is not it's not a simple personification. It's not a simple old man in the sky. It's something that in its essence is unknowable and overwhelming. And that isn't in my experience the god that's defined by atheists who are attempting to undermine the story. I mean it's the same claim for example that you're a finite creature and that you face something that in the final analysis is unknowable and that you have to establish a relationship with it regardless of your inability to perceive or even withstand perceiving the whole.

Okay. Is there a problem with that? I mean the problem is that when we look at famously when you've been asked do you believe in God the question becomes what do we mean by God and in the Bible it's not even clear if the biblical authors know what God is because Yahweh has historically emerged from an early storm God a deity that doesn't exhaust the category of deity and that has changed over the Old Testament. Does God have physicality? Does God not have physicality? It seems like yes, if you define religion to mean anybody that

has an aim, anybody that looks at the unknown, anybody who wants to go from chaos to order is inherently religious, then yes, but also in the same way I could define atheist as somebody who doesn't dogmatically believe in a religion or somebody who doesn't regularly attend religious services or belong to a denomination. Help help especially the audience kind of like boil this down. There was a lot of words there that the central claim is that we exist somewhere between the finite and the infinite. a central claim. A central claim is that we exist somewhere between

the finite and the infinite. Infinite. No, I said that we were finite and we had to establish a relationship with the infinite. Yeah. Then in that case then we're all religious. But then I can do the same thing and define one particular element of atheism. It it seems like we both have reductive view of what the other side looks like to the point where a conversation seems incoherent and not just incoherent but not in the way that the average Christian understands Christianity to be. Do you have a problem? Pause there. Sorry. You've been voted out

by the majority. [Applause] [Music] Hey, how's it going? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too, David. David, good to see you. Tell me everything that you know about the Polynesian deity Lono. L N O. I don't know anything about the Polynesian deity Lono. So, you're rejecting something without knowledge of what you're rejecting. I'm not rejecting it no more than I'm rejecting. Do you believe in I don't know anything about Do you believe in Lo? I do believe that he is a deity that exists in the world, exists in the universe, that exists in

the existence of everything. Do you do you believe that Lo I'll answer that question once you answer my question which is do I reject everything that I'm ignorant of? Because that's your presupposition that undergirds your argument and unless you can prove that that's valid then there's no point pres My question is quite simple. Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's formulated accurately. Do you believe that lono exists? Yes or no? I'm not going to answer that question for the reasons I just described. You already insisted that if I reject something that I that if I'm ignorant

of something, I reject it. Do you think that everyone in the world has to know everything simultaneously for that to be valid and true? I think in order for your argument to be true, in order for it to be true that we atheists don't understand what we're rejecting, then you need to also apply that to yourself and to Christians and to Muslims and to any other person on this earth where if you don't understand what you're rejecting the belief in, then you can't reject the belief in it. That's the implication of your of your I

didn't say that I rejected the belief in Lona. I said I didn't know who Lono who Lono was. I didn't say anything about rejecting. That's because I've asked you several times and you haven't. But let me get to my even greater point. You're saying atheists don't understand what religion is or what God is in order to be able to uh reject it fully or completely. We have someone over here who studied it in their own way. I've studied religion. And I have a degree in religious studies, uh, specialty in Christianity and Mediterranean traditions. And further

than that, beyond me, Pew Research studies suggest that atheists and agnostics actually know more about religion and about religious stories, the foundational principles, than believers. That's because they're more religious than they think they are. Okay, you can. Well, they're concerned with deep matters. And one of the defining characteristics of someone who's oriented in a religious direction is that they're concerned with deep matters. Okay? In fact, it's virtually definition, right? But they also have to identify with a religious tradition and accept the foundational stories that go along with it. Well, that would mean more that they're

sectarian than that they're religious. And most people, for example, for example, in the United States deny that they're religious, but accept that they're spiritual. Pause there. You've been voted out by the majority. [Music] Aha. Hi, nice to meet you. How are you doing? Good. How are you? What's your name? I'm Greg. Nice to meet you. Greg. Okay. So, I feel like you're getting at this idea of polyammy where we have multiple related meanings for a word, right? Like for example, a famous painting can be emotionally moving in that it changes my emotional state. And when

I was on the highway coming here to the studio, I was physically moving. I was changing my position. If I said, "I believe the Mona Lisa is very moving." And you said, "You don't really understand what you're saying. It's nailed to the wall." I would say that you're the one who doesn't understand what I'm saying, not the other way around. And the way that relates to this is there are many concepts of God and I'll admit I find a lot of what you say about that interesting. I'm familiar with it. The idea of this kind

of Yian hierarchical thing or as a metaphor or a symbol or the kind of you know atheist materialist literalist idea of a agentic omnipotent omniscient being that intervenes in reality. Right? So when I'm saying that I reject the concept of God, I'm aware of these other definitions of God, but I think that when we use words, we tend to only imply one meaning at a time. So the same way that I would say the Mona Lisa is moving emotionally, but I would not say it's moving physically. I would say I reject the concept of God

in this very literal way. But what literal way? the way that God is this omniscient, omnipotent, agentic, supernatural being that sent his son down and has, you know, caused miracles and all these things like that. The idea of God is like, do you think that there's an underlying unity of things? Could you explain that question? Well, scientists, for example, believe that science unifies in a comprehensive theory. Do you Yes. No. Or that there are multiple competing truths. Those are the options. either things unify or there are multiple competing truths. I think that I know that

for example like in physics people are looking for like a theory of everything. And why do you think they're doing that? It's interesting. It's helpful. But they also believe that there's an underlying unity to things in a sense. Yeah. Like in you mean like the material world and time and space are probably governed by universal laws and principles? Partly that. Yes. Yes. But that the same thing might extend to a broader domain that would include imagination and value. Could you help me connect that to the prompt? Well, I'm trying to define God. The God that

I don't think atheists do a very good job of defining. Here's another question for you. What do you think guides you in your determination of whether or not what you're saying to me is true? Can we go back? Can we stay on what we were talking about? We are. Okay. You're just uncomfortable with the question. No, I I feel like you're just kind of throwing different spaghetti at the wall. I'm not. Okay. I asked you a very specific question. What is it that you think guides you when you're talking to me to help you determine

whether what you say is true? Uh, logic, memory, reasoning, um, sensory information. How do you distinguish that from being governed by something that's false? An interesting question. How do you know the difference when you speak between what's true and what's false? So, you can imagine infer, right? I I can infer. I can from what principles. So, and what what are you getting at? I'm getting at the fact that your conscience guides you. Is that reasonable? Conscience is defined by Icience. My empathy and my reason are my foundation. Find it any way you want. Okay. So,

that's how I'm defining my conscience is my, you know, my kind of my conscience is my sense of, you know, right and wrong. Yeah. Exactly. Where does that come from? I would say that comes from an evolved capacity to empathize and a recognition of the benefits of engaging with and nurturing that capacity. And then that empathy is constrained and guided by reason, right? Like for example, I am driving down the highway, there's a kitten in the road. I'm going to empathetically feel, oh my god, I want to save the kitten, but then reasonably like I'm

going to get hit by a car, right? So that's sort of the process through which I make ethical decisions constrained by reason. Do you think that people can differ in their response to something empathically? Yeah. Is there a mediating principle that can tell you one person who's empathic and another person who's empathic that disagree who's correct? Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think that's where we'd have to, you know, talk it out, right? We do that in real life all the time when we have whether that's a discussion with a friend about the right thing to

do in a situation, whether that's a policy discussion about law, right? That's where we can converse with each other, think about things, explain our perspectives, and then kind of reach a conclusion, right? That that I think we do that all the time. So Elijah, the prophet Elijah defined God in the Old Testament as the voice of conscience within. Okay, that's a definition. So you're you're saying by that definition of God, I see this is kind of goes back to where I'm saying initially. I'm not defining it. Elijah defined So as Elijah's as Elijah defines God,

it's defined that way in Jonah, too. Okay. So as Cardinal Newman also defined it that way. As as I'm sure you know many people who've defined it that way. Um and it's impressive. You're a very knowledgeable person. I'm not trying to be impressive. I'm just pointing out to you how God is defined in the Old Testament. All right. So to respond to that, um I do think there are lots of interesting ways to define God. And that goes back to my then how do we specify what we're arguing about? We use context clues or we

spec or we again it goes back to my example defining God as conscience. Okay. So that's interesting. But then you're kind of expanding the meaning of God. Why not? That's how it's defined in the Old Testament in Elijah and in Jonah. Sure. So, whoever. So, some not whoever Elijah is one of the major Old Testament prophets, right? He's equal in stature to Moses. So, it's not arbitrary. All right. So, that um is interesting, but it's not relevant to the context with which I am using the term God. It's directly relevant. Atheists reject God, but they

don't understand what they're rejecting. You accept conscience as a guide and conscience is one of the defining characteristics of God in the Old Testament. I think you're being intellectually disingenuous. In what way? Because I asked you if you believe that conscience guided. You just asked me a question and then you stopped me from answering it in this setting. You understand the way I am using the term God and belief. Not in the least. I don't understand how you're using it in the least. That's why I'm trying to define it. My definition of God is conscience

is a lot more precise and oriented than your definition of the God that you hypothetically disbelieve in. It's irrelevant to the fault lines of this debate. How is it irrelevant? Because in common parliament when we're talking about atheist, God, belief, not belief. I don't care about common parliament. I'm trying to get to something fundamental. I just I think your point is irrelevant to the way that people tend to use these words. Your point that there are these polysimist you did. I did. Well, I made the point that God was associated with conscience. I just I

just feel like you kind of retreat into this semantic fog. I'm not retreating at all. I'm advancing, sir. You are retreating. All right. Well, it was very nice to meet you. I appreciate the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. It's very brave of you to do this. Thank you. My next claim is that morality and purpose cannot be found within science. [Music] What is up, Mr. Canada? How you doing, man? I'm doing great. What's your name? Brian. I think it's interesting that you say that morality and purpose can't be found in size. Actually, within science. Within. Sure. Sure.

Sure. Sure. Purpose I actually grant you because purpose is subjective, right? Unless you want to boil it down to the purpose of life is just to procreate. Right. Sure. Whatever. Morality is actually something that we do see. Um, we actually have examples of Neanderthalss. uh an older individual was found in a tribe missing an arm, missing teeth, still alive somehow in his 40s, 50s, right? Typically, uh you're a Neanderthal, you can't eat, you can't hunt, you die, right? But we know that members of the tribe are taking care of him, right? So, we know that

at some level early in our evolutionary history, um we actually developed altruism. Um we have examples of chimpanzees who actually have a basic understanding of fairness, right? If you give a chimpanzeee two grapes, right, and uh his buddy gets three, right? He actually freaks out, right? But you give both chimps three grapes and they're good. Um, we have examples of parrots except for the greedy chimps. Except for the greedy, they want four grapes. They want four grapes. You know, those do exist, right? Um, but we have similar examples uh where we do animal tests, right?

And so morality is intrinsic. I think so it precedes science. I think that actually a better way to define it would be that social animals which we are right require some level of morality or into what I'm not disagreeing. Sure. Why do they require that? Because it's the only way that social groups can actually survive. Right. That's my point with regards to science. Thank you very much. Is that precisely the point that you just made that science has to exist within a moral framework that isn't in itself scientific. How is it not scientific? Well, because

it's not derived from the scientific process as you just indicated. It's not derived from the scientific process. It's the fact that hang on a second. We are social animals. We need that to exist as a group. I agree. But you pointed to the morality of Neanderthalss, to the morality of chimpanzees. They didn't derive that from science. They don't need to. That's not how that works. Science explains it. No, science doesn't explain morality. It doesn't explain how social animals would need to be Well, that that's complic that's a complicated question. But we see it though. Yeah.

But explaining the evolution of morality and explaining morality itself aren't the same thing. Okay. So you're asking why does this happen? I ask I'm Yes. That's that's more accurate because we're social animals. We But there's more to it than that. Sure. Sure. For example. So we're moral animals that have a sense of the future. Sure. Okay. That makes us unique and that structures our morale. No, actually there are other animals that can predict the future or not predict. No, tigers. Actually, there was a tiger at the SF Zoo that killed somebody. Um, and so animals

look No, no, no, no. It No, kids threw at the tiger. The tiger actually plotted its escape and it found the kids. I'm not saying that animals can't think. Okay. No, but they can of the future. That's what I'm saying. Voted out by the majority. Thank you, man. Good man. Y [Music] Hey, Jordan Peterson. How you doing? How you doing, man? My name's Luke. Nice to meet you. Good to see you, Luke. So your claim that morality and purpose can only be found in science is a little shaky because I think that your claim is

really being framed to be morality and purpose can only be found in religion. Is that how you're kind of framing it? I would say that the domain of religion is the domain of morality and purpose. Yes, exactly. And also that science is actually structured at least in part technically to eliminate such considerations from its purview a priority. Okay. Right. That's why we define science as valuef free. Mhm. But that has to be wrong because scientists have to prioritize their attention towards something before they can even engage in observation. Okay. And that act of prioritization of

attention is a value predicated act. And so we I can continue. There's all sorts of things we have to assume about science before it can take place. Okay. So what I'm specifically pointing out here is about religion in particular since you yourself are a Christian, right? That's people debate about that and I generally don't discuss it publicly. Okay, I understand that. And me myself, I am a former uh young earth creationist fundamentalist. Oh yeah. Um so I have experience in this. I used to run a Tik Tok channel uh directed about apologetics about the Bible

specifically in this type of facet with morality uh evolution and such and going back and forth with that. So in the Bible it talks a lot about slavery, right? Uh yes. Yes. So in that it teaches you how to take care of a slave rather than saying slavery is wrong. I think it should it says that in the story of Moses. It says slavery is incorrect. It says it's immoral. That's why Moses leads his people away from slavery. But why does the Bible predicate and tell people exactly how to take care of a slave? Isn't

that immoral? Don't Wouldn't you say that culturally we've evolved as a species as he said earlier about empathy? Yeah, I would say that the reason we evolved, so to speak, away from slavery was because the West was founded on Judeo-Christian morality and the presumption that every person was made in the image of God and so slavery itself became immoral and that was established by Protestant Christians in the UK who then convinced the UK government for 200 years to go to war. And wouldn't you say that this is about the cultural evolution of humans in general

rather than just Christian? I think it's the flowering of the ideas that were embedded in the biblical texts across sp long long spans of time. I feel like this is just humans editing based on the cultural evolution. What do you mean by just just? Yeah, just humans. Well, humans editing well based on culture and history, right? We we get better. Well, they did do it based on culture and history, but culture and history have their foundations, too. So, Well, yeah, but we we're talking about slavery. it. So many people bolstered it based on the everyone

ex based on the Bible. They looked at it and they justified it in the United States in the deep south. They justified slavery. Yeah. But the main thrust the main thrust of Protestant thought in particular was stringently against slavery and it was about the only movement in the history of the human race that had an anti-slavery direction which was driven by humans and their understanding. Well, it depends. It's the same with women's suffrage. I mean women's in the the patriarch. You mean it was driven by humans? Humans drove slavery, too. Yes. Exactly. They they So

there's no argument there. If slavery and anti-slavery were both driven by humans, what what does your claim that they were driven by humans have to do with it? Morality based on the culture that within the society that they live in suffrage as well is a very similar topic in the Bible. There are denominations in Christianity such as Pentecostal movement which do bolster women to be pastors, right? Which I I think that's a great thing to do. But most like to disregard. Where do you think the idea that human beings were sufficiently equal to all vote

and not be slaves came from? Humans. Yeah. But so did the idea of slavery. So did the idea of God. Fine. But what's your point? Like you're not making an argument. You're just saying all thoughts come from humans regardless of the thoughts. It's not driven by a higher power. It's driven on our experiences which is what is best for all people. Is it driven by conscience? It could be which conscious is also something that has evolved over time and I think that's something that does evolve with in morality and empathy. Okay. I I don't understand

the point that you're making. My point is that God influenced slavery. People looked at the Bible and went this is moral because God says so. Just like women's suffrage, there's lots of and just like homosexuality. If all human societies were slave owning, so you can't blame that on the Bible. If humanity decided Oh, wait. Address that first. What about human societies were slavers? So you can't blame that on the Bible. Well, you can say it bolstered it. Well, not if you look at the broad sweep of history because it was the Protestant Christians based on

their interpretation of the Bible. It was the Protestant Christian which evolves over time. Let's pause there. You've been voted out by the majority. Well, it was great talking with you. Nice talking to you, too. [Music] Dr. Peterson, good to see you, man. Pleasure. What's your name? Brian. Uh, so the first thing I would like to say is I would like to engage in this discussion in a symbiotic manner. I would not like to engage where there is one clear winner and one clear loser. Emotions are activated and ultimately comes about ego. So, I'm just saying

I'm really trying to understand your position and I would just like you to really try to understand my position. Deal. Okay, sounds good. with that. If you're saying that morality and purpose cannot come from science, is the opposite of that true that morality and purpose can only come from God? That's a way of defining it. Yes. Okay. That's right. That's good. So, I would say that with regard to the first claim, say atheists don't understand what they're rejecting is I would say by definition, God is the unity upon which moral claims are based. That's a

definition, right? Okay. If there is a God, what is the purpose of life? Well, in in the Christian tradition, the purpose of life is to engage in voluntary upward self-sacrifice so that the kingdom of heaven can be established on earth. So, you're trying to make it to heaven and avoid hell. Yes, that's a good way of that's a good way of thinking about it. What is the purpose of heaven? Do you understand? So, so here's the deal. We can get into the opposite of endless suffering. How about that? We can Okay. And so, should we

not try to achieve infinite suffering on planet Earth? And if we can achieve infinite suffering on planet Earth without God, avoiding it. If we can do that without God, then that does that defeat your claim? Well, yeah, except that it doesn't. you circumvented my initial definition because I said that by definition, God was the unified source of morality. And so if we engage in a moral exercise, when you're when you're talking about morality though, when you really reverse engineer it and you get it down to its root, you're a psychologist, it really seems like it

just has to deal with motivation. People are saying there is a god, there is it's more specific than that. Well, I So let me ask you this. So if there is a god and there is a moral code and it doesn't come at your benefit, are you going to follow it? It depends on how you define your benefit. If it if you if it's going to come at your expense, would you still follow it? If God came down and said, "Here is my moral code and you should follow it. But even if you follow it,

you are still going to end up in hell." Are you going to follow it? Well, that was the question that was put to Job and to Christ, right? Because they were required. Hang on, I'm answering your question. They were followed. They were required to withstand trials that would break anyone and maintain their upward orientation regardless. And they did that with the motivation of believing that this omni potent, allloving God would somehow turn it into a benefit. So they still did it solely for their benefit. So no. Well, let's define Hang on. Let's define benefit. Like

if I did something for your sister, would that be to your benefit? Like how are you defining your benefit? Do you mean one of your whims gratified now or do you mean you and everyone you love and know over some reasonable span of time? When when when you're talking about whims, I think you're talking about something that's more dopamine. When you're talking about morality, you're talking about something that's more serotonin and more ultimately satisfying. So, you and I agree on a lot. I mean, when it comes to talking about how men should be masculine and

things of that nature, you and I are 100% in agreement. We just don't agree on the justification that God is the only thing that provides morality. It's not a justification, it's a definition. What's the difference then between a definition and a justification? I mean, it's ultimately psychologically the same thing. Well, we have to define what we're talking about before we can just debate. So, I said that God among other things. I'm actually a non-theist. I'm not an atheist. I believe the human condition is one of uncertainty. And what that means is that I don't believe

that you can conclude there is a God with certainty. And I don't believe that you can conclude that there is a God without un um in the same position. Now, with that, I don't care. I still wake up every day and I have motivation to be a moral person. Define moral. moral what I ought to do. Okay. And how do you what I ought to do? Ultimately, it comes down to what not just benefits me, but what benefits the entire planet, what it benefits the entire system. I think that your entire moral perspective comes from

linear thinking. And when you look at the reality of the universe, it's actually more so holistic. So when you look at how Aristotle defined God when he said that there had to be an unmoved moved or an uncaused cause he was defining God from a linear perspective and you do the same with morality and you do the same with purpose. How do you how does that morality how does my definition of morality hypothetically because because you're saying that there's something that exists in a vacuum that it exists in and of itself and nothing in the

universe exists in a vacuum. Nothing exists in and of itself. It's a whole systemsbased morality. It's a systemsbased reality. And that is what the quantum is. Is there a hierarchical structure? Are some things more important than others? Are some things I think some things lead to more benefits than others? Then by your own definition, some things are more important than others. Yes. Okay. Pause. There. You've been voted out by the majority. [Applause] [Music] How you doing? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I guess since you said morality and purpose cannot be found in

science, um it would just depend on like what you're referencing. If you're saying a description of your psychological preferences would be considered within science, sure. But I don't think that you have to say that it comes from science in order to be like an atheist. As an agnostic atheist, I don't know if God exists and I don't believe that a god exists. And the only ones that I would really reject would be like the all knowing, all powerful, all good, perfect notion of God that plenty of Christians like prescribe themselves. So I guess how is

that relevant to this claim? You're basing a position of morality and purpose in some like notion of God that isn't the same type of notion of God that typical Christians would prescribe. Your notion of God is what? Typical Christians. Yeah. Typically when I talk to Christians, they they say that they believe in an all knowing. What about Cardinal Newman who defined God as conscience? He was a major influence on all of Catholic social theory. How about that Christian? Sure. Um, so do you believe in the all knowing, all powerful, all good notion of God? What

do you mean by believe? Do you think it to be true? That's the circular definition. What do you mean believe? How is that circular? Because you added no content to the answer by substituting the word true and believe. I said you think it to be true. All right. So if you believe something, you stake your life on it. What do you mean by that? You live for it and you die for it. That's what I mean by that. It isn't something that you say. It isn't something that's associated with logical consistency. It's not declarative. It's

not propositional. It's not a figment of your imagination. It's the presupposition of your attention and your action. And you're either fragmented, in which case you worship multiple gods, or there's some unity at the bottom of it that makes you an unstoppable force. Okay. So, you're saying that you don't believe something if you wouldn't die for it? No. Really? No. Okay. So, then how would you define belief? Something you say? I explain like I could believe it is the case that this pen exists, but if someone like threatened my life, right? I would lie in order

to be able to save my life, right? Like I I think you would do that, too. You wouldn't lie to save your life. So sure you you wouldn't lie to save your life. How much do you know about me? I didn't lie to save my career. I didn't lie to save my clinical practice. Would you lie to like save your children, your mom, your dad? I don't think lying would save the Can there ever be a circumstance logically that lying could save someone? Yeah. And if you're steeped in sin, you're likely to live in circumstances

like that. I'll give you an example. If you were like in like Nazi Germany and it is the case that there's like Jewish people in your attic and you're trying to protect them. Would you lie to like the Nazis if I would have done everything I bloody well could so I wouldn't be in that situation to begin with. It's a hypothetical and it's not hypotheticals. No, I can't answer a hypothetical like that because it's Look, don't play games. I'm not playing games. If you present me with an intractable moral choice that's stripped of context and

you back me into a corner, you're playing game. I just told you I would do everything that I could to make sure that I'm never in that situation. By the time you've got there, you've made so many mistakes that there's nothing you can do that isn't a sin. Being born in Nazi Germany and in trying to protect people that you care about, like there could be a Jewish friend that you have and you want to protect them. I think you should give up on that line of questioning. Give up on just like trying to clarify

your position cuz it you don't like Are you like uncomfortable with me asking this question? It's just a basic hypothetical. Like I could ask you it's just a basic hypothetical where where you're you put Jews lives at stake in Nazi Germany. That's just a basic hypothetical. Obviously you would lie in that scenario to save their life, but you're like not trying to answer this question for some reason. I just told you why. Are you anti-fascist? Like so you're anti-fascist? Why are you asking that? I was just asking just clarifying. But like, okay, again, you're not

answering this hypothetical because, you know, it shows that you clearly would lie to answering it find acceptable. Obviously, because I care about truth. I wouldn't be in that scenario. Obviously, right, logically, because that's already happened like that's in the past. You don't have a time travel device. We're bringing this logical hypothetical up to show you that in some circumstances that do happen within the real world, you would lie to save people's lives. So, your definition of truth isn't actually how we're typically using it. So, what you're trying to do is you're trying to muddy the

waters when I ask you like, "Do you believe this? Do you think this to be true? So, you don't actually have to answer the questions. And plenty of Christians don't like that because they clearly see that you don't really like want to be associated with Christianity. Imagine that I was in a situation where the best I could do as a consequence of my previous mistakes was to tell the least amount of lie I could manage. But that would likely indicate that I had made all sorts of catastrophic catastrophic errors on my way there. So, so

you would lie to save someone's life. So, again, you do believe it to be true in that circumstance even though you like lied in that scenario. So clearly without the context that I put it in, you were not willing to die for it. You were not willing to let other people die for it. So that's not what you see to be true. Then seemingly you're doing exactly what I said you were doing at the beginning of the conversation. You're generating an impossible restricted hypothetical with no precursors to back me. How is it possible? Is there

something contradictory about it? Nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you. My next claim is that everybody worships something, including atheists, even though they might not know it. Hi, good work. Thank you. Hi there. I'm Zena. So, I want to start off with like defining terms. Um, how do you define worship? Prioritize. Prioritize. So, almost like having a preference over something rather than the other. It's a hierarchy of preferences. Yeah. And you use it to direct your attention, right? So whatever you're attending to, you're worshiping, right? So I've kind of become a little bit

familiar with your idea of like this value laden hierarchy, right? And you kind of posit that at the bottom of this hierarchy or you could call it top or bottom, I suppose. At the bottom of this hierarchy, this this foundational priority in your life is going to be considered God. Is that correct? Yes. Right. I'm trying to imagine a situation in which could there be that someone has a priority at their foundation that is different from someone else's? Oh, definitely. Right. So we can have different conceptions of God. That's why we fight, right? So essentially

there is no there's not one god but there are multiple gods and these gods exist in some realm of truth like like it's true that this person has one god and it exists. Yeah. Probably better to think about it as multiple values but that there's a hierarchy of values with something at the bottom. Right. But the at the bottom is God and there that's a definition. Yeah. Yeah. So at the bottom is God and every there can be multiple people with different conceptions of God and they are each valid and being called God. So there

are multiple gods that exist. It depends on what you mean by valid. So far so good, but it depends on what you mean by valid because I would say that some foundational conceptions don't play out when they're implemented. So if you put the wrong thing at the foundation, you end up in hell, for example. That's what happens in totalitarian states. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying so they're not all equal like all foundational principles are not equal even though they might be equally foundational. Right. Right. So what makes one kind of foundational tenant like better

than another one? That's an excellent question. Um iterability. Imagine that you play a game with someone and you're a kid and it's fun. So then you play again and again and again. So repetition. It's Yeah. It's playability across multiple iterations. So then you have a friend and a friend is better than having a game, right? So that's one. Breth of application is another. So if it's just for me now, it's not as good as something that would be benefit to both of us across time, right? So we're explaining like characteristics that can be applied to

like these types of like foundational values. But why is it that that this iterability makes it better? And what does better mean? Well, one hallmark of better is likely to be selected voluntarily. So, it's invitation. Another descriptive kind of quality. So, we're talking about characteristics that in some type of system with a goal, an output being like we could maybe say happiness, right? Or or some some type of harmony. Harmony, right? Yeah, that's better. Not happiness precisely because it's too short term. Exactly. So, as someone who is an atheist, right, I can explain that within

a system, there are things that we can see as better or worse to meet this goal or meet this output. But what I what we're interested in though is what could make these things regardless of any system. Right. Well, imagine that you set up a system and you implement it and it produces the opposite results to which you intend. Okay. That's not a good system. Exactly. Right. So, the foundational principles are lacking because when you implement them, the game degenerates instead of moving towards the aim. Right. So we're talking about within a system that when

we talk about something being moral right just absolutely moral it means that without a system right this thing is is simply moral with no reason like stance independent this thing is good so I'm trying to figure out if such thing can exist and if so do you believe that these things are moral in of themselves like self-evidently moral or are they moral in in accordance with the system I can't define them any more accurately than I already did really okay in regards to morality when We talk about the divine when we talk about God and

religion these moral tenants and religion right and God exists as good because it is God right so it's self-evident right without any kind of goal or output this thing is good so I so I want to figure out how there's an element of that that's true in so for example in the story of Job Job is unfairly tortured in consequence of a bet between God and Satan so Job is emblematic of someone who's being hurt for no apparent reason. Okay. So, Job's response to that is that he refuses to lose faith in himself and he

refuses to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of being. Okay? And those are like those are axiatic decisions. They're not exactly evidence dependent because he is suffering. There is an arbitrariness in that that's reminiscent of what you claim. So, I'm essentially trying to figure out do you believe that something can be good like stance independently? Something that can be good. I don't know what you mean by stance independent. You mean independent of people? Independent of people. We can use that or or more so I want to be more specific. Something that can be good, right?

Regardless of any end goal. It's just good. No, I think good is tied up with goal. Goal. Okay. I completely agree. So in a sense, this is why that's why the religious goal in Christianity is the establishment of the heaven, the kingdom of heaven on earth. It's goal dependent. Okay. Right. or it's in it's in reference to a goal. So or the goal would be the imitation of Christ. Someone's goal, right, can be something that doesn't encompass being in congruence with God or being with God. No, the thing that they want to be inong That's

right. That's right. That's good. That's great. The the thing they want to be in congruence with is fundamentally equivalent to their God. So what makes someone a Christian and what makes someone not a Christian? What makes like like that's what I'm trying to figure out because that's a good question. Yes. Yeah. Well, probably the deepest answer to that is willingness to shoulder your cross voluntarily and trudge uphill regardless of circumstances. Okay. So, someone can believe in someone can have a God because in your definition, your first preference that is God, right? So, someone can believe

in God, right, and not be a Christian, right? Yeah. Well, there's a statement that Christ makes in the Gospels. He says, "Not everyone who says Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven. So, not that that they're even saying that they believe in God, but they just No, no, but that's why I'm saying this to you is that Christ himself points out that there's a difference between people who say they believe and people who act it out. And the fundamental issue is the action rather than the stated belief. But he also says that, you know,

to be saved, right, you must believe God has has died for your sins or or that God has resurrected in some way. So it's like I don't necessarily think that we can take from the Bible and say that like acting in accordance with God necessarily means or acting in accordance with you know the principles of God like for example sacrifice like you talk about means that you are Christian. I don't see how you can get that from the that interpretation and then you know kind of justified as I don't think that the fact that you

sacrifice is sufficient to make you Christian. So can we repeat once again what you believe makes someone Christian? There's many things but one of the most fundamental is that you believe that the cosmos itself is founded on the principle of voluntary self-sacrifice. Best founded let let me offer you a contrary example. So I could assume that power rules and so that my assumption would be if I can make you do it I win right and I can found a whole society on that. That happens a lot by the way and that's also how societies tend

to degenerate. And so that would be a society that was founded on the principle that you get to sacrifice and I don't have to. Right? Now the the contrary to that would be something like you give up voluntarily and with courage all the things you need to situate yourself properly in relationship to the future and other people. Right. Right. So then there's a there's a harmony. That's why I talked about harmony earlier. So you navigate your life right in accordance kind of to this principle of self-sacrifice. Can I can I say it in that way?

Yes, you can definitely say it that way. That's exactly right. And navigate is the right term. Someone does not have to have any awareness of Christ of the story of of of Jesus and they but let's say 60% of their actions, right? Or more whatever kind of metric you want to use um are in line with this self. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Christian thinkers of the Middle Ages dealt exactly with that problem when they were talking about the pre-Christian philosophers, for example. And they noted the similarity, let's say, between pre-Christian Greek thought and later Christian

thought and presumed that there were moral actors outside the Christian domain. Right? Christian though, is that person? Well, to some degree, again, that's a matter of definition because they wouldn't be proclaiming Christian propositions, but they're acting out the pattern, right? Yeah. So, you imagine that full Christianity would involve a dozen things. And you can imagine someone who knows nothing of Christianity say acting out eight of them. Right. Right. So then they'd be 81 12ths Christian or something like that. But to be like a full Christian, how can someone say I am Christian? Like I I

am Christian. Not 812ths but Christian. Well, I I hesitate to do that personally because I think it's the kind of goal that you be very careful about proclaiming the technical. But belief is not necessarily to be mostly Christian. Belief is not necessary. 812s or you know right well it depends on what you mean by belief. See because I would say that acting out the pattern is the deepest form of belief. Now you could add to that what you say. So you know maybe in the optimal situation how you act and what you imagine and what

you say they're the same right? But you can imagine a hypocrite who says all sorts of wonderful things and does nothing and you could imagine another person who acts in a very positive manner but proclaims nothing. So what I'm kind of seeing is like a descriptive a really a really um comprehensive but descriptive analysis of human action, human thought and by by which we can characterize people and put people in boxes but I don't see why in boxes. When I say in boxes I mean like I can categorize you based on your actions not based

on necessarily what you say but based on your actions that you are more so or less so Christian right things like that right so we can categorize people as Christians. Well, I would say more or less voluntarily self-sacrificing. That that's Yeah, but but that's also what we came to though is that someone can be like 60% or 70% Christian based on simply just acting in that way. Richard Dawkins is like that. I I watched that debate. Let's pause there. You've been voted out by the majority. Very good. Thank you so much. Really very thoughtful. [Music]

Hey Dr. Peterson, how are you? Danny, nice to meet you. What's your name? Danny. Danny. You say atheists worship things or people or places, whatever. Um, can you be very clear about your definition of worship again? Attend to, prioritize, and sacrifice for. Okay, that's it. That's your understanding of worship. Well, I could flesh it out, but that'll do for the time we have. Okay. Do Catholics attend to Mary? Well, yes. Okay. So, do they fit that description of worship? Yes. So, you would say Catholics and other people that rever Mary like the Eastern Orthodox tradition

worship Mary. Well, they might not put her in the highest. But you would put it that way. No, you just said it. You're taking it back. There's still a hierarchy. Okay. There's a hierarchy, but in within the There's something at the top. All right. You can worship. Mary is quite a ways up the hierarchy, but not at the top. Let's Let's go over your definition of worship again. What's your definition of worship? attend to attend to do prioritize do Catholics sacrifice for what do Catholics attend to um do they prioritize Mary over all other human

beings? No, I didn't say over all did I I didn't add that to my you understand I said there was a hierarchy as well. You you attend. So you can attend to something trivially or you can attend to it deeply. Now you're adding stuff to the definition but your original definition I added the hierarchy part at the beginning. Are you familiar? Are you familiar with the immaculate conception? Why is that relevant? Because you go to a Catholic church, don't you? Or you've attended recently. You're interested in Catholicism, aren't you? Sure. All right. Are you familiar

with their doctrines somewhat? Okay. You're you're familiar. How do they regard How do they regard Mary? Why are you asking me that? Because you're a Christian. You say that. I haven't claimed that. Oh, what is this? Is this Christians versus atheist? I don't know. You don't know where you are right now. Don't be a smartass. And I mean, either you're a Christian or you're not. Talk to you if you're a smart ass. Oh, either you're a Christian or you're not. Which one is it? I I could be either of them, but I don't have to

tell you. You You don't have to tell me. I was under the impression I was invited to talk to a Christian. Am I not talking to a Christian? No, you were invited to I think everyone should look at the title of the YouTube channel. You're probably in the wrong YouTube video. You're really quite something. You are, aren't I? But you're really quite nothing, right? You're not a Christian. Okay, I'm done with him. Three, two, one. Hi there. Hi. Nice to meet you. What's your name? Gerard. Hello, Gerard. Nice to meet you, sir. So, you've said

that worship is when you prioritize and sacrifice for something, right? Yeah. Okay. But there's a hierarchy in there. Sure. So, I prioritize and sacrifice for my wife more than I would prioritize and sacrifice for a random person on the street. Right. Probably. Yeah, presumably. Do I worship? I don't know. I've seen some pretty bad pretty bad marriages. assuming a good marriage. Are you saying I worship my wife? I'm trying to define worship. That's what I'm asking. So prioritize and sacrifice I do. The higher it is in the hierarchy, the more what you're doing is akin

to worship. But even in your trivial acts of attention, you're prioritizing and partaking in worship even if you don't know it. So I am partly well with regard to your wife say. So why do you value your wife? You do value your wife. I love her. So I prioritize and I sacrifice for her. Right. Right. So that's within the confines of love, let's say. What else does it serve? What else does what serve? Your love in your marriage. I mean, I'm married to my wife because I love her. That's also why I prioritize and sacrifice

for her. I certainly wouldn't think I worship her and I don't think anyone else would make that argument. Make a definition. Okay. Yeah. That that there's a hierarchy of attentional priority. And as you move up it or down it, depending on whether you think about it as a pinnacle or a foundation, you move more towards worship. Right? So even the small things, I'll give you an example. Imagine you go on a date. Mhm. Well, and imagine that your aim is a long-term relationship like a marriage. Okay. Now, imagine that your aim is short-term sexual gratification.

Your pattern of attention is going to vary during the date depend on your ultimate end. That's the hierarchy. The way that you attend to your wife is dependent on your ultimate aims, even if you don't know it. So, at what point is it worship? Because it sounds like you're saying worship is almost a spectrum, right? It's it's not a binary. It's not a It's kind of like That's a good question. When is when is when is it worship as opposed to just I love my wife? The closer you get to the top or the bottom,

the more it's like it's more like how close to the top? Because I don't think I worship anything. And if you're saying I have to hit a certain threshold for it to be worshiped, it is possible I don't worship anything then, right? It's not possible that you don't worship anything. What do I worship? Because you wouldn't attend. Well, love. So you think I worship love? Do you attend in consequence of love? See, I'm trying to define something. What do you mean worship? I told you what I meant. What do you mean? So I mean it

a wor something you worship is something that you have a reverential view for in a manner in which you believe it to be above and beyond normal things you like. Like like you have that attitude towards your wife. I have that attitude. Do you privilege her to compared to other women? I of course I privilege her compared to other women but I don't worship her. Nor does she worship nor does she worship me. By the definition you just offered. Yes, you do. Because we tal you just offered a definition that involved prioritization and elevation. Well,

and thinking that she is divine above and beyond what a normal natural phenomenon can be. Not other women. No. Beyond any human being could ever be. I will prioritize her over other she is. You're making the assumption that the only the thing at the top or the bottom has anything to do with worship. And I'm saying that's not true. It's a hierarchy of prioritization. And there's something there's either something at the top or the bottom depending on the metaphor. Or you're fragmented and confused. Those are the only options. You're either going in many directions, okay?

Or you're going in one direction. So let's suppose I'm fragmented and confused. Then you agree I don't worship anything. No, then you'd worship multiple things. How but so what's the threshold when it's worship, right? I prioritize a lot of stuff. I said that the closer you get to the pinnacle or the closer Can you quant you give me some sort of metric? How close do I got to get to this pinnacle? Do you know the difference between cheap literature and deep literature? Yes. Okay. That's the same issue. And how do you how do you distinguish

between them? What's the difference between cheap and deep? I mean, it's really an opinion based thing, right? I mean, it just opinion that is better than a porno magazine. Well, I've spoken to people who think to kill a mockingb bird's cheap. It's one of my favorite books. So, I mean, people will differ on opinion. Well, just because people are stupid about things doesn't mean that their opinion is valid. That's certainly true. I agree with that. Okay. Well, do you think there is a hierarchy in literary quality? I think that there is a hierarchy to an

extent in literary quality, but I think once you get to a certain threshold, it is just opinion. Like I agree, doky is better than a porno mag, but is Fcott Fitzgerald better than Ernest Hemingway? I don't know. Yeah, fair enough. Why? Why do you think that? Because of what a book is, what literature is. Dosyki, he follows what literature is the purpose of more than the porno magazine. Okay, good. Good. Well, so it's about purpose. Yeah, sure. Sure. Let me give you an an analog then. The depth of worship is analogous to depth of literary

significance. And the closer you get to what's deep, the more religious and worshipful your practice. And maybe you don't know what's at the bottom, but something needs to be or you're confused. Well, so to use your analogy then, how deep do I have to go for it to be worshiped? Do I have to be catcher in the ride? Do I have to be war in peace or It depends on what depends on what you're seeking for. I'm seeking to know whether I worship something. you've claimed I worship something and I want if you want to

have a deep and meaningful life then you have to go all the way to the bottom or the top and in so far as you're capable of doing that because otherwise you'll be fragmented and miserable and anxietyridden and hopeless. So I have to worship something to have a meaningful life and if I there's no difference between those two things. Okay, they're the same thing. So if I don't worship anything, my life will not be meaningful. Correct. Well, that's the definition of nihilism. Okay, so if I'm a nihilist, I don't worship anything. That's true. And then

you Okay, you just said everybody worships something. I think you've just agreed there is a class of people that doesn't. Well, they're incoherent in their worship and hand gestures like that aren't going to help. All right. Okay. If you're incoherent and fragmented and aimless, which is what happens if your objects of worship are unstructured and chaotic, then you're going to be anxietyridden and without hope. That happens. That's a technical argument. But there's happy nihilists. How do you how do you explain that there are happy nihilists then because you just said they the mere fact that

you state that there are happy nihilists doesn't make it true like what's your evidence that how do you measure nihilism and how have you associated it with happiness and what's your definition of happiness and have you compared them to religious people because if you do by the way it's clearly the case that religious people over the long run have better mental health it's a well doumented fact in psychological literature so your your claim is just a claim it doesn't stand on anything so you disagree with the claim that there exists even one happy nihilist. You

didn't say that. Okay. Would you agree there exists at least one happy nihilist in the universe? I have it's not a question that has any meaning as far as I'm concerned because it depends on what you mean by happy and it depends on the duration that you're trying to calculate over now and then there's probably some deluded soul who thinks he's a nihilist who's momentarily pleased with himself. But as a long-term strategy to deal with the future, to get along with yourself and with others, it's sadly lacking. That's why nin re warned that when God

died, as he announced in 1850, that people would be flooded with pointless, anxietyridden, hopeless nihilism. And that was what would attract them to, example, for example, to the false gods of totalitarianism, which is exactly what happened because everybody worships something, even atheists who think they don't. Aren't there unhappy Christians or devoted believers? So, worshiping something is neither sufficient nor necessary for happiness. then well terrible things can come your way regardless and that does happen but it's the case that even when circumstances become deeply troublesome that how you're oriented makes a big difference so I'll give

you an example so the book of Job deals with the issue of unfair suffering so Job is a good man who has everything taken away from him in the most painful possible way to settle a bet right with Satan yes and so He makes the axiomatic presumption that he won't lose faith in himself or in the spirit of being itself and that helps him remain calm and forwardl looking through his time of trial. Doesn't he absolutely curse God? No. His wife tells him to do that. Thank you. Thank you. My final claim is that atheists

accept Christian morality but deny the religion's foundational stories. [Music] Hi there. It's very nice to meet you. I'm Ian. Hi. Yes. Uh so God says that you can own people as property. He says that you can beat them with a rod, too. Uh he commands genocide and Deuteronomy and uh in Numbers and in Samuel. I mean, they have a godamn baby barbecue in Numbers. Like, is is all of this in line with Christian ethics? No. So then God doesn't fit within Christian ethics. Well, the biblical library is a continuing story and everything wr written in

it has to be contextualized by the entire text. There's 65,000 hyperlinks in the biblical text and you can take pieces of it out out of context and criticize them and that's what you're doing. But that's a mistake. I think it's an analytic mistake because you're putting the cart before the horse. I really don't think so. I think that if we if we say that something is Christian ethics, then I think that all of the books essential to Christianity would fit with it. Especially if it's like the main character when we're talking about how do you

deal with the morality of war? How do you think you should deal with the morality? Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Because I feel like the the morality like I feel like Christian ethics like this is kind of I I guess I just think it's like kind of an absurdity to say that God doesn't fit within Christian ethics, but sure. Well, we can go on my ethics. That's totally fine. I don't know what you mean by an absurdity. What game are you playing with? I just think that it's an absurdity to say that the Christian God doesn't

fit within Christian ethics. That like the Christian God isn't like Christian. You said that the specific statements that you made don't take the context of the stories into account and so that your analytical approach is faulty. Don't put words in my mouth. Sure. Then let's go through the example. Yeah. So, oh, and I apologize. So, let's go through the example. So, in 1st Samuel 15:3, God says, "Go and and slaughter the Amalachites, slaughter the men, the women, the children, the infants. What's the justification for that? Is that within Is that in line? That's a good

question. That's a good question. I don't really know what to do with the terrible blood soaked saturated history of the human past. I don't know. And I don't think anybody knows. I mean, what you try to do in your own life, as far as I can tell, is to conduct yourself in a manner that makes such things much more unlikely. I totally agree. We're all saddled with the problem of the catastrophes that got us here, aren't we? Yeah. But this one was commanded by God. That's the problem. That's what differentiates it from anything else is

that this one, it's God saying, "Go and do this atrocity." Do you think that there's ever such a thing as a righteous war? I'm skeptical. I'm not sure. I It would probably be situational. Well, right. Right. Fair enough. This certainly wasn't a just war. The context for the Amalachite slaughter is that 400 years earlier, they fought one battle which they lost, and God says, "That's it. I'm going to wipe them off the face of the goddamn earth." And then 400 years later, he commands the Israelites to genocide their great great great great great grandchildren. That's

not a just war at all. And also a genocide is not a war. Well, a genocide can be a war, but absolutely not. The genociding of the Amalachites, the men, the women, and the infants, that's not a war. The infants aren't combatants. Look, I already said that it's very difficult to look at blood soap past and to know exactly what to do about it. The answer I gave to the gentleman who was sitting here before you is that it's necessary to read a text like the Bible at all of its levels of analysis simultaneously. And

there is a directional morality that emerges across time that has its roots in the Old Testament for example with its restrictions against murder specifically that makes itself manifest in the Christian texts as the insistence on voluntary self-sacrifice as the foundational belief. That's a profoundly antiviolence ethos. Do you have the belief in your theology? What do you think of that? Wait a sec. Now redress what? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm about to address it, but I'm addressing it with a question. Do you think that God is by his very essence perfect? Uh you'll have to provide

more. Sure. Just like maximally great and all like the great qualities. Yeah. Like flawless. Yeah. So So does a flawless thing change? Does a flawless thing reveal like more and better information over time? Or would a flawless thing say, "Here's what's good. Here is the the absolute good thing to do at all circumstances in time. Well, we know some of that. Wait, that's one. That's totally fine. But presumably No, no, no, no. You don't get to stay over that with a straw man of my position. It's a straw man of the argument. So, the argument

is wait a sec. You find one maxim that's transcendent across situations. I didn't say any of those words. I'm not sure what Congress part of. Don't be a smartass. I'm sorry. Seriously, I mean it. If we're going to have a serious conversation, conduct yourself properly. Okay. Okay. Rephrase your question so that because I must have missed it. I tried to answer it. So, in my mind, I I guess by my lights, a perfect being doesn't change. A perfect being if they're maximally good, maximally moral. Does our understanding of the perfect being change? Our understanding might,

but I agree. How do we distinguish between that though at the human level? How do we distinguish between whether between our transforming understanding of perfection and perfection itself? We can only Yeah. Well, we can only presumably presumably a perfect being would be revealing all of these aspects all the time, especially if God's outside of time. I don't know how a God who's outside of time revealing different things at different times. That just seems like incoherent to me. Imagine something that's perfect. Sure. And complete. Sure. Okay. and it's trying to communicate with creatures who are anything

but that. Sure. Well, they're going to get it wrong. Sure. Okay. Now, do you wait a sec, do you blame that on the interpreters or the phenomena itself? Uh, so like for example, are you perfect in attending to your conscience? Hold on. At the point in time when God is literally the one who created us, he could have created us in a way where we would always be receptive to these principles where we don't have to go across like a learning curve where, you know, maybe we'll understand thousands of years, thousands of years into the

future, maybe we'll do it. Oh, also if you believe in an all- knowing God, then free will is impossible. Uh because if let's not go. Wait, because you you threw you threw free will into the mix. I Well, that was the answer to your question. You said why would God Well, you know, thousand years of deep thinking philosophers would disagree with you. But and a thousand years of or at least like the last 50 years of philosophers would disagree with you. these analytic philosophers, people like Graham Oppy make arguments about the the incompatibility of of

omniscience uh and free will that if God created this world, if he chose this world instead of that world, then he makes it causally inevitable every single action that you were going to make. If he made a world where we were just electrons in love, then none of this would have happened. But by making us in this world knowing exactly what's going to happen in the future, it makes all of those events inevitable, which means that they're all causally determined, which means that we have no free will if you believe in an all good God

or an all knowing God that made everything. Well, have it your way. Okay, cool. So then the free will these fails. Well, it fails for you. That doesn't mean you've disproved it. I mean, you tried the argument. Yes. You tried to make a case for a causally deterministic universe. I don't think there's any evidence for that at Do you think that God could have created a different universe than the one that he created? I have no idea. Okay. So then there's going to be a double bind, right? So either he couldn't have done it, in

which case he lacks a power, or he could have done it, in which case we don't have free will because he chose this world instead of that world, making the the events of this world instead of that world inevitable with his infallible knowledge. I don't understand where you're headed. Well, it just means that the free will defense fails. Like all this like and under your view, if you want to have it fail, no problem. I don't know why it's relevant to the issue with Do you acknowledge that under your view free will doesn't exist? No.

Oh, then do you want to respond to the argument? You'll have to phrase it more clearly so that someone like me can understand it. Yeah, I got you. So, so God already knows in advance everything that's going to happen. Which means that by making this world instead of that world, everything is inevitable. Which means that God's act of causing this world instead of that world doesn't mean determined. It's causally inevitable. If God chooses this world instead of that worldly determined causally inevitable means determined. No, it doesn't. Absolutely yes it does. Well, have it your way.

Okay, that's not the case. You've been voted out by the majority. Please return to your seat. [Music] Jordan, nice to meet you. Very zippy. What's your name? I'm Liam. Hi, Liam. How are you doing? Um, I'm doing well. How are you? Not too bad. surrounded by atheists. Um my my question to you, let me scoot in would be what does it mean to accept Christian values precisely or Christian morality? It means to aim up as hard as you can no matter what happens to you. Okay. Okay. So I think that I think that that's a

very broad definition of what Christian Yeah. It will come in handy at some point in your life, right? But I think that many different like disciplines and theologies. Well, you asked for a truncated answer. I mean, there's other ways of representing a situation, but I wanted to give you something that was kind of foundational briefly. Yeah, that makes sense. Doesn't mean it's, you know, exhaustive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could, you know, I could say that you you would have to believe that Christ is God and he died for your sins, right? But that's in a

very difficult way to understand. That's the same claim. Yeah. Yeah. If there are other theologies and disciplines Yeah. that have similar types of values. Yeah. How how then is that definition mean? Like wouldn't those also be Christian values under your definition? That's a good question. I spent a lot of time studying different religious systems from all over the world and found multiple interesting layers of concordance. So for example in ancient Egypt their god Horus who was the reviving god of the totalitarian state the corrupt to he was the god of attention right and the Jews

hypothetically came out of Egypt and there was cross talk between Egyptian and Jewish foundational morality and then that bled into Christianity I mean human beings all over the world have come up with moral systems that fit roughly into a pattern and and they're they're very usefully studied you You know, I learned a lot about Christianity by studying Daoism, for example, like a lot. So, I think you can make a case that Christianity formalized the landscape of good and evil more comprehensively and in more detail than any other religious system. And I think that that's part

of the reason that it defeated paganism and spread so broadly across the West and is still dominant, still understructures our culture, for example. The way you feel about Horus or Daoism or something is how I feel about Christian morals, I think. Yeah. But how do I feel about them? Well, that you you took inspiration from them, you learned from them. Maybe that's a good start, you know, cuz I would say that actually constitutes belief. Uh, you know, like you said, well, look, right, right, right. In Noah, in the story of Noah, right, Noah is inspired

by the apprehension that all hell is going to break loose. Okay. He regards that inspiration as God. Okay? Right? And when God comes to Abraham, he comes to Abraham as the spirit of adventure. It's inspiration. One of the definitions of God in the Old Testament, unsurprisingly, given the derivation of the word, is inspiration. And so if you take inspiration from Christian ideas, then in so far as you do that, you are in fact a believer, which was my point with regards to atheists not understanding. But have you taken inspiration from Dowoism or from studying Egyptian

mythology? Definitely. So then you believe them under that definition. Yeah. But I've incorporated them into something I think that's more comprehensive. It is it possible to to take inspiration and to appreciate the teachings without being a believer in their truth claims? I I it dep No, I don't think so. But I think you see you're you're there are different kinds of truth claims, right? There's propositional truth claims, which are the truth claims of what you say. And then there's embodied truth claims, which is the truth claims of what you do. That should be prioritized optimally.

What you say and what you do would be brought into harmony. But I would say if you had to prioritize, it should be what you attend to and what you act first. And that's what Christ actually says in the gospels because he points to the Pharisees, for example, who say all the right things but don't do any of the right things and points out very clearly that that's not acceptable. I I just I don't know. I don't know that the Christian morality those those principles originate in Christianity because you brought up other uh other things

that predate Christianity that you can like very closely tie connections to. Well, I don't think they do originate precisely. I mean, I don't think the Christian claim is exactly that they originate Christianity. So, if I'm living those values, how is it that I'm living the Christian values and maybe not the Egyptian values or or something else there? That was good. That was good. Yeah. Hi. Hello there. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? Good. What's your name? I'm Kumari. So, I was curious about this like Christian morality that you're talking about because a

lot of my issues of Christianity have to do with the base morality of it. Specifically with like the idea of like the rapture and how we see people that aren't going to come up with us with the rapture and that concept of heaven and hell. I don't really agree with that morality, but if you could explain that to me and how I do agree with that, I would love to like hear. Well, I I can't explain the rapture to you because that isn't something I concern myself with. And that's more of a sectarian belief than

something that's central to Christianity. Now, there's all sorts of evangelical Protestants who might disagree with that, but that doesn't have anything to do with me. You asked a more deeper question with regard to, let's say, heaven and hell and judgment. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a tough one, right? I mean, sin, you could put it this way. Sin is what puts you in hell, right? And so then you might ask, "Well, how do you know you're in hell?" Ha, how about you do anything to get out of it? Can I ask you? How about you know

that you put yourself there? Do you think is sin like a part of Christian morality? What What do you mean exactly? Sin as a part of Okay. It's it's derived from an archery term and it means to miss the target, right? And so it presumes that there's such a thing as a central target and that you can miss it in many ways. And the consequence of that will be your life will be ridden with anxiety. Your life will be pointless. People will turn against you. Don't believe in sin at all. Well, do you believe in

error? Have you made any mistakes? What if I believe that the mistakes that you make that they're fixable and so that no sin is finite and that the idea that's a Christian belief of the idea of hell? I don't believe that's also a Christian belief by the way. A Christian belief is hell. No, that there's no sin that Well, there's one. The sin against the Holy Ghost is unforgivable, but that's really the sin against the process that would enable you to learn. But is the there's a Christian belief that hell does exist and if I

commit sin, I'm going to go there. Correct. Yes. So what if I don't I don't believe in that. Like I think that when you can I explain a little bit. Okay. Thank you. I think that when you commit sin that it's because of a lot of environmental factors in your life like where you were born and who you were raised by and so there are certain things that lead you down a dangerous path and once you are dead I think you're kind of removed of that person there's no like there are no factors of the

earth what happens after death so I would ask you in these times that you've suffered terribly in ways that you thought would never end do you believe that you had any causal role in that like did did you play a part in that in my own suffering. Yeah, maybe sometimes I would say that there is a part that I played in. Okay, that's the thing to find out. I think that maybe it's like a concept of free will that I don't really believe in somewhat of free will that I think that there are certain things

in your life that lead you to do certain behaviors. And so when you commit those sins, you go to hell. I'm not too sure why you would still be reaping the consequence of that. I I like I said, I can't address that. Do you believe that you can change? I do. Do you believe you can change for the better? I do. Do you believe that when you change for the better, you abandon the things you've done in the past that weren't good? I think that you can. Okay. Then that's very much in keeping with Christian

doctrine. Can you explain to me how that's in keeping with Christian doctrine? You would go to hell for those things. Believe you can. You believe you can improve. Yeah. Right. And you believe that if you improved, you would let go of things that were impeding you. That's a sacrifice. You believe that improvement would be upward. And you believe that you have agency in that? Yeah, those are all Christian presuppositions. I guess I dis maybe we have different opinions of what Christian morality is. Yes, sounds like I think that my opinion of Christian morality is something

that I don't really agree with and maybe you would define that as like the foundations of Christianity. Let me give you an let me give you an example. So if you want to atone, which means to unify yourself and unify that with the world, then the first thing you have to do is figure out what you did wrong. and admit it. That's a confession. That was good. Thank you. Nice to meet you, too. I picked Zena because I think she asked genuine questions and wasn't trying to win. Okay. Well, hello again. Hi there. My claim

is Jordan Peterson's framework for understanding Christianity is probably not the one that the Bible intended us to use. In regards to the way that you interpret the Bible, I don't see you have said in some circumstances that there's not a way to kind of say whether or not ontologically the historical claims made by the Bible are true. Like for example, the story of Cain and Abel. You've said that this story is like a metatruth in the sense that it is it exists all throughout time culturally and the way that you define metatruth I don't see

the distinguish a distinction between that and like a metaphor right but if and you also said that you cannot say whether this story was true you can say that it exists eternally you know metaphorically but it is you can't say that it's true and if you can't say that there are historical facts being said in the Bible as stories that haven't that weren't really said with much ambigu ambiguity. How can we say that we can understand the Bible in the way that it's meant to be interpreted? Like how if you cannot make any claims about

these stories, right? You don't know whether they're true, true or false. How do you know that your interpretation is the correct way? See, that's why I picked you. You ask intelligent questions. Thank you. Yeah, that was good. What do they say? By their fruits, you'll know them. Okay. Right. Well, so one of the things I look at is the impact of what I'm doing. Right. And so I know a lot of evangelical Christians, a lot of Catholics, a lot of Orthodox Christians, a lot of people from other faiths and they've told me like many of

them that they found my interpretations very helpful and that it deepened their faith. And so that's interesting because I wouldn't have necessarily expected that to be the case. And I've also talked to thousands of people who've told me that they came to understand the foundational stories of their culture better as a consequence of listening to me and that they did everything they could to sort out their lives and that it worked. That's many different pieces of evidence that all converge on something like the practical and conceptual utility of my approach. Now, is it the same?

There are a lot of there is a lot of approaches to biblical interpretation historically and what I'm doing is possibly less new than you think. Yeah. I want to make a claim on whether this evidence is enough, right, to substantiate whether or not your interpretation is going to, you know, be more plausible, right? Be the most plausible because in regards an open question. Yeah. Right. You bet. So in regards to how we interpret the Bible and how we see the Bible, something can add value to someone's life. An interpretation can add value to someone's life.

Interpretation can connect you to your conception of what your faith is. But if it's the quote unquote interpretation that God does not intend, that can lead to a plethora. That's certainly the case. That's why the medieval Christians were so concerned about heresy. Exactly. Yeah. because they felt and that's why the Catholics objected so much to the Protestant Reformation because they believed that the fractionation of Christianity would result in an indefinite fractionation. Right. Well, and that's exactly what's happened, right? So, yeah, that's definitely a problem. I think one of the foundational principles, for example, there's a

foundational principle in the Old Testament of hospitality, right? So, what you want to do if you set up your local environment properly is to make it welcoming to people voluntarily. And so one of the ways you could judge the validity of the interpretation of a classic story is that whether is whether or not that interpretation might be regarded by someone as welcoming. Does that represent something you'd actually like to have if you were acting in your own interest in the long run? Right. And we we can talk about that like like do protect you from

fear might be another one. Exactly. So we can talk about like how these interpretations of the Bible like if they kind of resonate with us and I but I do and I think that that can in some case be some kind of like evidence. Oh this might be true but I think we need to ask is this evidence damning? Right? Is this evidence certain? Right? So but I do want to look at again the consequences and our understanding of this interpretation once more. So we look at again the story of Cain and Abel and we

say yeah so I believe this is a meta truth. I believe that this story is resonant throughout cultures. That is all true in Danny and I'm sure that there is some in some way the story was put in here for the reason right to to tell us about you know fights between brothers but also you can't say I do know or I don't know that this story is false or true in an onlogical historical sense as a historical fact were there two people like like that were specifically referenced. Okay. I don't think that's knowable but

I'm not sure why it matters to you. So the reason why it matters to me is because we need to know how we should interpret the things that the Bible says and the things many ways right right but like if we interpret sometimes poetry sometimes history sometimes facts metaphor the reason why it's important right very important is because for example you can talk about something like God says I believe it's like 1 Corinthians 15:17 something about how belief in God specifically a as someone who resurrected or as someone who died for our sins is important,

right? But we have to look at if we can interpret that as just like you have to believe that God is a symbol of sacrifice. That is different from believing that there was an actual person named Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. So if you believe one and not the other, that can be the difference between you going to hell and you going to heaven. So if we cannot make like we we cannot say that we know whether or not certain historical facts in the Bible happen like even as just like

events like because the events matter because again God dying for our sins on the cross was an event. If we can't say that we know these things happened, these things did or didn't happen. This then leads us to kind of like the conundrum of how do we know what we are meant to believe? What the Bible intended for us to believe? And this can be very very important to like our fate. Do you see that? Yep. I've got no disagreement with any of that. What sort of response do you want from that? You pushed me

beyond the limits of my knowledge. Really? Well, I think that's there's so many things you can't know. I'm struggling. I know that the biblical stories are the foundation of western culture. I know that the consequence of those stories has been the genesis of a society that is in the main freer and more abundant than any societies have ever been. I don't exactly understand the relationship between those stories and that outcome, but it's not nothing, right? But I don't know I don't know the answer to the questions that you're asking. You know, it's it's the case

that forever when people have been interpreting religious stories, they wrestled with exactly the question that you just described. When is it fact? When is it poetry? When is it music? When is it metaphor? When is it ritual? When is it time bound? But what I'm saying is that your interpretation of the Bible, if you cannot tell us again if these historical events happened or not, that can be deciding factor in if someone is like damned to hell for eternity or if they go to heaven. Right? So that's why I'm what I don't concern myself so

much with that particular question, you know, like that that would be something that would stem more from an evangelical viewpoint. And I'm not putting that down, by the way. I don't You're asking me a question I really can't answer. Okay? I'm not claiming even that my interpretations are canonically correct. I can only tell you the consequences of having released them into the world, let's say. Right. So I guess we've kind of come to a conclusion about that which I've kind of wrestled with your your framework and pushed it kind of to its kind of to

its end at least in the way that you can answer my question. So I don't know that we can more wrestle with that. See I don't I guess the problem is you see I don't exactly understand I don't think anybody does the relationship between fact and destiny. You know well there they're are different realms in a way because knowing what the world is made of doesn't help you navigate through it. Not really. It doesn't provide you with a foundation for navigation, but knowing the facts of the world is obviously useful. And the relationship between those

two things, part of that's the mystery of Western civilization and the continued competition between science and religion to bridge this kind of understanding between fact and destiny is like an important question that it the burden is on Christianity to answer and specifically interpretations of Christianity. And if we can't do that, why is the burden on Christianity? because it posits right the interpretation right is going to be a way to understand God but if it's faulty right that can what evidence would you s what what evidence would you accept that would be an interesting question because

I haven't met I've seen people try to answer the question and I've never really been moved because I can always attack and then against kind of get to this point where the answer is I don't know well here's an answer pause there I'm sorry that's time all right well thank you so much for the well I definitely picked the right person that was very good so much very good I don't like talking to win. But there were portions of all the conversations that were truly productive and that it's instructive for people to see the distinction

between a debate that's aimed at local victory and dominance, let's say, even of ideas and a discussion that's predicated on mutual exploration and establishment of like a harmonious understanding and peace. Jordan Peterson out of all of the kind of theists that are on the internet, he is one of the better ones in regards to just like being genuous as a person, but I do feel like he does a lot of I I guess word play that can make it a little bit difficult and kind of just muddies the waters in regard to what we define

as Christianity and atheism. Jordan Peterson I credit to turning me into an atheist. I had a blast talking to him today. I think if the average person followed what Jordan Peterson said, they'd realize that fundamentally Jordan Peterson is not a Christian. In fact, uses many atheistic principles and operated under bad faith by seeming to forget what basic words meant when he didn't want to answer a question. His definitions can kind of shift a little bit depending on the moment. And I think that he wasn't afraid to flex that definitional muscle. And I felt really good

about our conversation. I thought that it highlighted some some key issues in Jordan Peterson's theology. I hope he reflects on these issues and maybe deepens his perspective on them in the future. With Zena, she was able to build up such a rapport that he chose her in the end and they were able to have an extended dialogue, which is something I had hoped for. So, uh, maybe I learned a little something from Zena about being more cordial. It's extraordinarily useful to be able to model productive debate and conversation for people and see how my thoughts

were landing with people who are particularly skeptical and to put that in front of a large audience and to assess the consequences.