Why is Jordan Peterson both a Christian and not a Christian?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨yarr@feddit.nl⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

JP recently appeared on “Jubilee”, the YouTube channel known for having “debate-ish” videos: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwk5MPE_6zE

The setup here is they will take some person and surround them with tens of their opponents, so you have “Jordan Peterson vs 20 Atheists”.

In this exact video, one of the people asks JP if he’s a Christian and he replies “Don’t be a smartass!”

I haven’t seen someone that espouses so many Christian values and philosophy while trying to hold it at arm’s length. Is this just part of the usual JP tactic where you call into question any terms used in a discussion to sound deeply philosophical?

He seems to have an atypical relationship with Christianity and I can’t decide if that’s some genuine crisis he has OR if he just pretends to hold this stance just to add one more slippery facet to his behavior.

If nothing else, it’s very odd.

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JollyG@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Peterson retreats to a politically convenient solipsism whenever challenged on anything. He is not a serious person.

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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I think that’s a really accurate characterization. He has mastered the art of speaking without communicating.
  
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- pulsewidth@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Succinctly put. In retrospect his behavior is classical grifting, but because he’s so well educated in psychology and has spent decades lecturing students he’s well armed to win over the 16-30yo disenfranchised/semi-intellectual male audience without them realizing.
  
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  - JollyG@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    His presentation of psychology leaves me with the impression that he is someone who is not well educated in the field. And I am saying this as someone with a background in a field that is very close to psychology.
    
    His explanations of human experience and society rely on psychoanalysis and he only seems to cite more recent work when it reinforces his view point. His general approach to understanding human psychology is outdated.
    
    <—-1800’s——psychoanalysis—-1900—behaviorism—-1950s——the cognitive revolution—-present day psychology—->
    
    Petersons view of the mind and society is stuck in he past.
    
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TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
What’s dumber is the video origionally was called 1 christian vs 20 atheists, and you see in the video at least one atheist brought up the video title that they all knew before they started. (In other words, Jordan Peterson specifically volunteered to play the christian in a video that when he agreed to it was called, 1 christian vs 20 atheists) Then later demanded they rename the video.

But further its simple, JP preffers to attack people’s specific stances, from a nebulous position where he never has to give his own stance because he can’t defend his own stance.

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yesman@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
JP is an atheist, but he recognizes the value in other people believing in Christianity. This is because the myths and symbols reinforce his worldview to people who (he views) aren’t smart enough to get there with reasoning.

Also, like all Western Chauvinists, he can’t let go of the idea of “Christendom”.

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- FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  JP expresses a belief in a deity.
  
  That makes him a theist, even if that deity isn’t how we would typically conceive of god.
  
  “God is conscience <that exists beyond the ideal as a social construct>”
  
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  - GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    “What for you mean ‘belief?’ What do you mean by ‘in?’ What does ‘a’ mean?”
    
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  - kelpie_returns@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Reading “god is conscience” in Kermit’s voice was surprisingly hilarious
    
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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  JP is an atheist
  
  He won’t readily admit to that either. He somehow sits in the void between atheists and theists.
  
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  - Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Atheist is a bit of an stupid term anyway. It’s like saying I’m non-golfer.
    
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- pulsewidth@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  He literally wanted to open a church and deliver servons every Sunday. He is not an atheist, he is just a charlatan.
  
  Highly recommend anyone interested in him read this article / open letter written by an (ex) close friend and colleague, back in 2018.
  
  curtismchale.ca/…/I-was-Jordan-Peterson’s-stronge…
  
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JTskulk@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
He’ll never answer any question because it’s an easy way to avoid being pinned down on any position, which makes him immune to all criticism (in his eyes).

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- Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Schroedingers grifter refuses to have his beliefs observed
  
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  - Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, after watching his Jubilee session, Jordan’s debate strategy boils down to…“I’d like to nitpick the definition of every word and supplant it with my own”.
    
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Smeagol666@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I can’t fucking stand Jordan Peterson, I’ve never seen him go through a whole debate without being a disingenuous, obnoxious prick. When he knows he’s backed into a corner, he pulls out the reductio ad absurdum (what is “is”). The only other fake intellectual I hate more is Ben Shapiro and his “Gish Gallop”.

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GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
He’s Schrodinger’s Christian. Mother fucker is so slippery, getting a straight answer out of him is akin to trying to nail jello to a wall. Good luck.

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BeNotAfraid@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Grifters gotta grift

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Misspelledusernme@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve listened to Jordan Peterson a lot in long form conversations. This is my generous interpretation of his views.

Peterson believes that all humans have a hierarchy of values and desires.

Eg _you go to work in order to get money in order to get food in order to live in order to play tennis in order to enjoy yourself… _

At the top of this hierarchy is the thing that you’re ultimately after in life. Jordan defines this thing as “god” and defines the pursuit of it “worship”. Therefore, everyone has a god and everyone worships.

He also believes that the past doesn’t really exist, as much as our societal memory of it. He would say that the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible is “True”, because it is the archetypal brotherly rivalry that we all embody in some sense.

Putting this together. The Bible is “True”. Everyone has a “God” they have a personal relationship with and that they “worship”.

He is essentially defining things such that everyone is a Christian. Then he says that people just don’t understand what Christianity really is.

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- overload@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  He also refuses to admit that most Christians wouldn’t define God in the way that he does.
  
  Peterson is in practice an atheist that has successfully monetised right wing religious conservatives, and can’t risk alienating that base by admitting that he doesn’t have belief in anything close to resembling the way that they do.
  
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- driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  He is essentially defining things such that everyone is a Christian.
  
  My high school friend who became a religious weirdo, said to me that I’m Christian because I’m a good person, dosen’t matter if I said that I’m Atheist. By that logic everything good is Christian because h label everything he found good as Christian.
  
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Devadander@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s not odd. He’s a hypocritical grifter and should be ignored by all

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- CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I was just gonna go with “Who gives a shit?” but you put it better.
  
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themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
He’s a conservative. Conservatives cannot be held to any sort of philosophical or ideological consistency, because their positions on any issue are entirely negotiable. There are no fundamentally conservative values beyond “is this good for me?” That’s why it’s so appealing to conservatives to have a personal savior who fully accepts your apology and offers divine forgiveness for any transgressions.

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- Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Reducing half of country’s population into a caricature like that is nor true or helpful.
  
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  - themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m not reducing anyone to anything. Conservativism is always exactly the same, which is why it’s called “conservativism.” If a conservative isn’t conservative, then they are something else.
    
    It’s not a generalization, it’s the name for the phenomenon.
    
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Sunschein@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I think it speaks to his style of arguing. He doesn’t commit to anything, so he can’t be caught in the wrong on anything. He’s free to take pot shots at his opponents while never giving them an opportunity to hold him accountable for his wrongheaded BS.

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Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
his only purpose for the right is to draw in more socially/incel men to right wing circles, hes funded by russia.

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Live_your_lives@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’m a Christian myself and have listened to a couple of Peterson’s lectures on the Bible and I see him as someone who approaches the Bible with the mind of a conspiracy theorist or a New Age believer. He makes grand claims while using a handful of loosely related facts to support his beliefs and could care less about using a more rigorous approach. To him, any and all notable pieces of imagery in the Bible actually play important archetypal roles for fundamental principals in our grand cosmic reality

In fact I believe JP has outright said that he doesn’t actually believe in the truth of the Bible, that he is at least agnostic towards an actual God, and that he instead uses Christianity more as a vehicle for understanding his own set of beliefs. So, to answer your question, you could fairly call him a Cultural Christian, but it would be very unfair to call him an actual Christian.

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- FreakinSteve@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Okay. So…lemme ask you…
  
  Does that fact that there are an innumerable and wide variety of competing views and ideologies around the very basic teachings of one simple woodworker not tell you that it’s all bullshit?..or do you think that YOUR concept of this religion’s absurd and anti-factual claims are correct and its everyone else in the world who is wrong?
  
  Not asking in disrespect, but asking of every christian.
  
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  - Stabbitha@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    And let’s not even mention the fact that there are countless other ideologies that also claim to be the sole truth, and which one you subscribe to is heavily dependent on where you were born.
    
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  - Live_your_lives@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You have an interesting method of not asking in disrespect, so I’ll just reply this once and leave it at that.
    
    Christianity is based largely around the idea of faith. If God made it so plainly obvious what he was doing that there were no competing views or religions, then Christianity could no longer be about faith.
    
    So how do we know when we are putting our faith in the right thing? Well that would come down to various other factual arguments that, when taken in unison, point to the reliability of the Bible. I, for one, like the minimal facts case for the resurrection and the fact of all the manuscript evidence showing that the message of the Bible is effectively the same as it was in the early church.
    
    I do think that these claims are correct, hence why I am a Christian. Whether or not everyone else in the world is wrong or not doesn’t really matter here, though, of course, it should make one cautious
    
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- pulsewidth@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  He is 100% a Christian - a rather devout and conservative one at that, he just doesn’t like to admit it in public as he doesn’t like to agree to any premise on anything he believes in, or really any statement he’s made - as he’d then have trouble linguistically dancing around it when it was no longer convenient for whatever argument he was in.
  
  If you’ve not read this open letter / article written by a colleague and (ex) close friend of Jordan’s way back in 2018 I highly recommend it to everyone researching him. Though it is long it gives a lot of insight into who he is behind closed doors, and his aspirations.
  
  curtismchale.ca/…/I-was-Jordan-Peterson’s-stronge…
  
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  - Live_your_lives@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s an interesting enough read, however, the only thing I saw that was indicative of Christian belief was his desire to create and lead a church. However, plenty of cult leaders have already done the same. What makes him a real Christian and not just another brand of cultist along the lines of Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses?
    
    I see JP’s public presentation of Christianity as actively steering people away from what it really is. He focuses far too much on a mythologized, deistic form of Christianity and far too little on the beliefs that set Christianity apart. So, regardless of what he might think he believes in secret, I will continue believing, until things change, that someone who has intentionally given such a flawed interpretation for as long as he has cannot truly be called a Christian.
    
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chainysawrs@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
He’s an opportunist. A fraud.

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FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Because Christianity is a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ religion and doesn’t have a singular meaning.

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Buske@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
That’s the grifters secret.

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Opinionhaver@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My understanding is that Jordan doesn’t believe the Bible is literally true, but rather metaphorically true - in the same way people believe a porcupine can throw its quills. It can’t, factually speaking, but if you live as though it can, you’re probably better off than someone who doesn’t and ends up getting too close.

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steeznson@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
A lot of the New Atheists (and adjacent intellectuals) are doing this type of sophistry where they’ve doubled back on their old positions and claimed to be “culturally christian”. It’s partially an admission that they are uncomfortable with the direction secular, progressive society has taken in the past 20 years or so.

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- steeznson@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  “Sophistry” is a negative word btw. Didn’t think I’d need to clarify that but here we are.
  
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Pudutr0n@feddit.cl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I can’t speak for him but lots of people follow whatever religion’s values and may appreciate the metaphors of their sacred texts without engaging in the rituals or belonging to the religion as a community/organization.

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