To be fair he chooses to say a great deal about Christianity. He repeatedly raises the subject.He claims that atheists don't exist.
But when he is asked to simply clarify if takes the claims of Christianity literally he obfuscates.
Jordan Peterson - Messiah or Poseur?
by cofty 22 Replies latest social current
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Anony Mous
He is rarely asked to clarify, he often gets asked what his position is, often with the goal of classifying him into the "ultra-religious right wing cook" which he understandably never answers outright. He also doesn't want to lie and his viewpoint on Christianity is rarely contained in a single sound bite.
He's admitted to not being a Christian in the strictest sense of belonging to one or another church or believing in the unerring of the Bible but he does believe that the Judeo-Christian message is important in our society and has influenced our morality and it's hard to separate it both from our collective as well as his individual psyche.
I think he struggles with disconnecting the influence of Christianity in his own thinking and he hasn't made up his mind as to whether the whole thing is a psychological byproduct or something he should actually believe.
I don't know the man personally but I do understand where he is coming from when he doesn't want to expound on his position, these days people just want to classify you as religious and then they can safely ignore you and your position because you aren't an atheist.
I am an atheist myself but I do believe that there is a morally superior message in the Judeo-Christian faiths compared to eg Islam or Buddhism which has caused the West to develop as it has.
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cofty
I think you are being far too generous to him.
I have never heard anybody use so many words to say so little as Jordan Peterson.
He has emphatically stated to more than one self-described atheist that they actually believe in God but just don't know it or won't admit it. His exchanges with Sam Harris made it clear he has no interest in communicating clearly. He is a master of obfuscation and equivocation.
As I said earlier he has said some useful things about the culture wars but on every other topic there are many other commentators who are far more interesting. My concern is not that I don't personally feel attracted to his style but that he is becoming the centre of a personality cult that will not end well.