Did it make sense? What part? All of it?
Do you acknowledge the correction on what the actual default position of atheists is? Do you acknowledge where the burden of proof, logically, should reside? Did my presentation change your mind about that and clarify things for you?
When i said "you guys" however, i meant it literally:
As these, and others much less civil, were the kind of answers i was getting. Immensely appreciated the level headed and reasonable response though.
You are welcome, but I would advise you to not get hung up on every little perceived slight that is directed at you.
What is the point of this? Is your point of this a rebuttal of my characterization of Peterson's argument? It's not. If anything, it reaffirms what I said.
In the first video, Peterson says that sometimes the objective world and the narrative (metaphorical) world touch, and that the narrative world is the sense of morality, and that we TREAT IT LIKE it is real (which means it's not literally real, only metaphorically "real"). He goes on to say that the ultimate example of the objective world and the narrative world touching is "SUPPOSED TO BE" Christ, which seems "ODDLY PLAUSIBLE" to him. He doesn't know what would happen if anyone really "fully believed" in it, which means he himself does not fully believe in it, because if he did, he would know.
Would any true believer in the divinity and the literal resurrection of Christ phrase it in that way? Of course not. To them, they don't "treat it LIKE it's real". It IS real. The foundational model of morality is not "supposed to be Christ". It IS Christ. They are not unsure if they "fully believe" it. They are confident that they do. He's using the Jungian concept of synchronicity to try to reconcile the complete lack of evidence of the supernatural aspects of Christianity with its real impact on the culture, and all it does is trick people into thinking he's a Christian when all he's doing is redefining the definition of "God", "spirits", "ghosts", and everything else to fit his metaphorical description of his spirituality, when nearly everyone else on the planet is operating on the already established literal definitions of those things.
In the second video, Peterson's journey to "God" is Peterson's journey to his own redefined version of "God", not the same God that most other people have in mind. But Peterson speaks in such ambiguous and imprecise language that the people who want to believe just absorb a superficial understanding of what he's saying and think it reaffirms their own beliefs in a classic example of confirmation bias. So when he says in 6:45, "I'm not an atheist", they think that he means he believes in the God they believe in, when that couldn't be further from the truth. Peterson believes in the narrative that forms around the concept of God and how that impacts the culture around us. That's not Grace. That's not Faith. That's not Divinity. That's not in accordance to Logos. The actual ones. Not the metaphorical ones.
At 8:17 he says that what it means to believe is to "speak the truth and act it out". He talks again how he
acts as if it's real. That the central idea in Christianity is that if you truly believed, that it would be a transfiguring event. This is tangential to the actual central idea in Christianity that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Again, he's talking only about the moral virtues of the philosophy, and not at all talking about it as if it's actually a literally real thing.
At the end of the video, Peterson recites the Lord's Prayer. Again, given the context of that particular video clip, he's only utilizing the metaphorical framework of Christianity to make a moral case to treat each other more nicely.
You want Peterson videos? Here's some.
Here's Peterson admitting that these myths (i.e. fictional parables) are needed for dumb people who can't figure out how to be a good person on their own. Murray expounds on that by relating it to the tragedy of the clergy where they know what they're saying isn't true, but the metaphor is useful to maintain societal cohesion.
Furthermore, here is Peterson trying to answer the question, "If humanity ceases to exist, does God cease to exist?" If you are viewing God as a metaphor, then you would have to answer like Peterson does, because metaphors only exist as a product of human thought. Peterson waxes poetic about how "God" means different things to different people, which should be a big hint that tells you that his version of "God" is probably different than yours. However, if you
actually believe in a literal God, then the answer is overwhelmingly simple - of course God exists if there are no humans. God is eternal and God is divine. God existed before He created Man, so why would He cease to exist if He were to uncreate Man?
In this clip, we are shown yet another example of Peterson using unorthodox definitions to fit his worldview, when he makes the definition of "truth" more ambiguous so that he can fit the fictional metaphor of religion into its framework. "I refuse to use true in the same way that scientists use it". In other words, he's not talking in literal terms or empirical terms.
Here is another clip where Peterson is challenged about the confusion he causes when he changes his personal definitions of words in order to suit his argument.
Again, Peterson is challenged on the ambiguity he sows by his flexible definitions of "God", and when directly asked if the question is "Was Jesus literally resurrected?", and the answer is, "almost certainly not", Peterson has to acknowledge that it's a fine answer. He also freely admits that he never said that what he talks about God is the same as what others (i.e. most other establishment religious types) talk about. When you see Peterson in discussions with Christian apologists, and it looks like they're agreeing about God, they are not actually talking about the same God. (more on this later)
Here's another one where Peterson freely says that there are more "truths" than just literal truths. When he is asked if Jesus rose from the dead and responds, "I cannot answer that", this is a gigantic red flag. In the opening seconds, he affirms he is a Christian, but what kind of Christian can't also affirm that Jesus literally rose from the dead? That's what being a Christian is! He then goes on to say, "it depends on what you mean by 'Jesus'". Really???
When asked if these stories are "projections of the human consciousness", Peterson says that they are.
One might then say, "Oh, but this was years ago and he's since clarified and affirmed his belief in God!". No. He's still as ambiguous as ever, using definitions that suit him and not the mainstream vernacular.
Going back to - When you see Peterson in discussions with Christian apologists, and it looks like they're agreeing about God, they are not actually talking about the same God - here he is with a group of true believers. When asked his thoughts on the actual resurrection, Peterson spends 5 minutes to essentially say, "I don't know", with the implication "but I believe it anyway (metaphorically)", or as he likes to say, he acts like he believes it. And the others think that's fine and dandy even though their interpretation is a literal one.
