Theism/atheism debates

What is truth, anyway?

I love a good paradox. How about this statement is false? :slight_smile:

Truth is what correspondents with reality

Truth is: which Correspondents are in touch with reality? :face_with_monocle:

So then, what is reality?

What is reality? @discobot quote

:left_speech_bubble: Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention. — Jim Rohn

Thanks @discobot but I think Peterson will destroy you.

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Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.

DB likes it. :thinking:

This probably means JP is… the Antibot! :astonished:

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That’s true, but those other lectures don’t belong in the religion thread :slight_smile:

Oooh, no. Literature is full of wonderful observations on human nature that philosophers consider too trite to think about.

He does tend to leap about a bit - that’s just his speaking style - but I think it’s unfair to call it random. What you just said is an accurate summary. The point (or at least the one I take away) is that Western morality is one outcome of many equally likely possibilities - some of which appear vile to us but which are not inherently irrational.

He is lampooning the idea that Western-style morality necessarily emerges as a consequence of human rationality. If that were true, then we’d have to dismiss ISIS (for example) as a bunch of irrational sub-humans, which in itself would suggests that humanity on the average isn’t as rational as it thinks it is … and therefore that there is no basis for the emergence of rational morality.

If you accept that ISIS radicals are human beings and therefore are basically rational (given their warped axioms) it’s clear that there are many possible incarnations of “morality”, some of which are diametrically opposed to our own.

Peterson then moves to: well, where do those axioms come from? And his answer is “God”, with the proviso that man creates God in his own image. The implication is that there’s a sort of positive feedback loop thing going on.

Why not? Surely if it’s as trivial as you think, there’s a straightforward rebuttal.

Fair point, but I was using if as shorthand for 21st-Century European morality, which as you rightly point out is the product of an evolving meme. I couldn’t think of a better word/phrase to describe it. Nevertheless, it has evolved along a predictable path from well-known axioms that have remained more-or-less constant for a thousand years or so.

I don’t think he said that. It’s worth watching his other videos on religion because he explains his views with a lot of nuance. He was merely flagging up the thing we call “religion”, or faith in something bigger than ourselves, as a prime motivating factor in the development of all cultures.

I may have said the same about a philosopher :slight_smile:

That’s worth lampooning, but his conception seems as one-dimensional.

No doubt. But it’s almost not worth saying–we can easily see that different cultures, sub-cultures and even individuals have different conceptions of morality.

I’m not seeing why he says that. “The God idea” is certainly part of the picture, but he hasn’t shown that it’s the only part or irreplaceable as he seems to allude.

I’ve said enough in my responses to you I think.

I’d go with “Christian culture” personally, but I guess it’s debatable.

I started watching his Bible series. Interesting but I kind of lost interest in the first one after an hour. I’ll probably look at some of the others and some of his debates, definitely. Should have more to say then!

He was merely flagging up the thing we call “religion”, or faith in something bigger than ourselves, as a prime motivating factor in the development of all cultures.

Well, it depends on what you mean by “prime”. That might not be so merely :slight_smile: The force of his ire suggests not so merely, but hard to say in such a short video. It’s a little unclear to me exactly what of the typical “New Atheist” arguments he’s objecting to, which might give me some more insight.

Difficult to “argue” for or against Faith . UNLESS…
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For theist, prime reality is God. For atheists, the material.

So then, what is God?

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Oh shut up, John! :unamused:

For atheists, opium of the masses and also dead. For Christian theists, When Moses asked who god was he said “I am” Aka the alpha and the omega (the beginning and ending letters of the Greek alphabet) aka the Logos (the word). God is transcendent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent unless it’s goes against his nature, creator and sovereign of the universe in space, time and matter and transcend over space time and matter but still personal (if not personal and that would be deism, which I sometimes defer to when I’m not sure) God is the father, son and the Holy Spirit (The doctrine of the trinity is important to point out Christianity is a monotheism and not a polytheism) Athe savior of man. This is the best definition I can write off the top of my head. There’s been many theologians that have written about what God is and is not. And I’m not sure if our finite words can ever fully describe a Infinite being.

Please @yyy give me a harder question next time would ya :sweat_smile:

Haha,

It’s not easy or comfortable. But I think it’s extremely important to argue for, or at least defend your position and why you believe it. If anything, I think it’s healthy and I welcome it because a conversation or argument If you mist allows you to come closer to the truth. I love arguing, but I love truth, and also being right :grinning: However, I like often like to be stumped when questioned about what I believe in, because it allows me to go and find out what I don’t know. I do however don’t like to argue with people that aren’t interested in the truth and aren’t willing to consider they could be wrong. Religion and faith is a subject that is littered with that attitude coming in with the stance that you’re not intelligent if you believe in God when they actually are really poor about being able to defend atheism or don’t even know why they have that world view. I respect a educated atheist because there is a strong case for it. But an uneducated one that thinks they’re so smart and beyond backwards religion is annoying. Also because not all religions are equal, in fact I can only consider one to be true and still have a hard time reconciling that for myself.

Why?

You’ve just asked me questions far smarter men and women who has had way more time to think about struggled to answer.

Why? :wink:

He makes a mean pina colada too.