The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 451. Navigating Belief, Skepticism, and the Afterlife | Alex O'Connor

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down in-person with philosophical-oriented YouTuber and podcaster Alex O’Connor. They discuss the proper use of skepticism, the true meaning of belief and prayer, the mythological and historical nature of the Bible, the level-of-analysis problem, and the potential for the use of AI to examine epistemology.Alex O'Connor is a philosophy-oriented YouTuber, podcaster, and public speaker with over 750,000 subscribers on YouTube. He graduated in 2021 from St. John's College, Oxford University, with a BA in philosophy and theology. In 2023, he launched the “Within Reason” podcast, which has featured guests including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Slavoj Žižek, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Rory Stewart, amongst others. He has debated issues of religion, ethics, and politics with figures including Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Douglas Murray, and Piers Morgan. - Links - 2024 tour details can be found here https://jordanbpeterson.com/events   Peterson Academy https://petersonacademy.com/    For Alex O’Connor: On X https://twitter.com/CosmicSkeptic?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CosmicSkeptic/ On Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cosmicskeptic On Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@CosmicSkeptic 

So I'm here today speaking with Alex O'Connor, who's flown in from London. I'm in LA. He's known also as Cosmic Skeptic and he runs a podcast within Reason. And so you can subscribe to and listen to that podcast, watch it on YouTube. Alex was recommended to me by a friend of mine, John Vervecky, who is a professor along with me at the University of Toronto. I've done a lot of different public events with John, many conversations.

And Alex has interviewed many of the people that I'm interested in, including Richard Dawkins, and he is very interested in religious matters, although he's not a Christian. And we believed jointly that it would be useful for us to meet and to hash out our differences in viewpoint and similarities and see if we could get together and move together somewhere valuable and enlightening. And so that's what we're trying to do.

That's what we try to do with the conversation. It focuses mostly on the nature of belief, I suppose. That's probably the easiest way to sum it up. What it means to believe something. What it means to have a religious belief. What it means to be committed to a belief. We talk fair bit about the distinction between, let's say, the distinction between fact and fiction and the idea that fact reflects the real, but so does fiction.

And so welcome to the discussion of all that. So first of all, thank you for coming here. It's a long way from London. We're in LA and so that's a long ways. And so, and in so far as you're going to disagree with me, I'm pleased that you're exhausted from the flight because that'll slow you down and that'll be helpful. So anyways, seriously, thank you for coming.

And so let's start with this, Cosmic Skeptic. Right, okay, so how do you come up with the name and why the conjunction and what do you think the advantage is, if any, in relationship to the emphasis on skepticism? I'll give you the official and the unofficial story. The official story is that Cosmic sort of implies universe, space, big thinking. And skeptic sort of situates me within a tradition of people who are interested in interrogating their beliefs to their sort of fundamental grounding insofar as that's possible. And skeptic is spelt with a K because most of my listeners are American.

The unofficial answer is that when I was younger, I knew a guy who was a musician and started a SoundCloud account with the word cosmic in it. And I thought, hey, that sounds like a cool word. And I was starting a YouTube channel and wanted something that sounded cool. And I thought skeptics sounded cool next to it. And I spelled it with a K because I got it wrong. I see. Okay, okay.

Well, who knows the actual derivation? And it's a good combination though, because it, it, well, it's catchy. So that's nice from a marketing side, but it also has this, it's an interesting allusion to the combination of revelation and critical thinking that actually makes up actual thinking, right? Because the problem with being concerned with a vast plethora of ideas is that many ideas are misleading and wrong. And so you have to learn how to combine that openness and curiosity with the capacity to separate the wheat

from the chaff. And that's the utility of skepticism. I mean, it can degenerate into a kind of argumentative nihilism. That's the downside. But properly applied, it separates the wheat from the chaff, right? And the purpose of that is to keep the wheat. Well, skepticism can only ever be essentially destructive because you're being skeptical of something. Somebody's putting something forward and you're sort of responding to that with skepticism. And so for a lot of people, if skepticism is the thing that you do, then you sort of

end up chipping away and ending up with nothing. Whereas skepticism is really supposed to be a tool that you use. It is destructive, but in the way that you might sort of carve a piece of marble. You're intending to get a statue out of it. Yes, yes. Well, that's the thing to always keep in mind is skepticism in the service of something. Exactly, yeah, it's a tool.

It's a methodological tool. It's not a world. You mentioned too, so I'm interested in your progression in your thinking in relationship to that, because you mentioned just before we actually went on air that had you come to see me a couple of years ago, you might've been more inclined to, I'm

putting words in your mouth to some degree, so correct me if I'm wrong, to strive for a victory or to make your point, something like that. And you alluded to the fact that your thinking around that has changed to some degree. I suspect that's probably a consequence of experience. So what's changed? In part, it might have something to do with becoming a podcaster and speaking weakly to people. And you can't keep up that energy. You can, but it becomes totally unwatchable.

And nobody wants to engage in that all the time. I think there are times when it's worth doing. And to be clear, I still like to disagree and do so essentially unapologetically and bluntly. And that can still come across as quite rude. But I think that the way that I would think about a conversation is that, well, what are we about to do here? A debate. We're about to debate an issue and I'm going to try to win. And that's, and not even, I mean, maybe there's sort of an element of pride in there you want

to go for that sake, but also you really think, well, I want to win because I think I'm right about this. And if I don't, then, don't then I must have just not expressed myself properly. I think I, you know, what I probably meant when I was saying that is that I would have had more of that cap on than now after having so many conversations with so many people and realizing that not only is it more constructive for myself, I've learned a lot more. You know, now I'm here like, hey, I might learn something today.

That would be great. Even if I just learn something about what your worldview is. But also people listening just unanimously say that they prefer it. It's a much- Well, the skepticism. So one of the things you learn as a therapist, for example, is that being right is not very helpful,

especially when you're trying to help someone because whether you as the therapist is right has very little to do with the positive outcome for them. You still want to maintain the skepticism. And one of the ways of doing that in the manner that's helpful is that, like if I'm talking to you and you say something I don't understand,

that's the right place to be skeptical. Because if I don't understand what you said, well, it might be my ignorance, but it also might be like lack of clarity and pointedness on your part. And so one of the advantages of disagreeing with someone is to point out to them in a positive way where they're lost in the fog. Because if you're sufficiently lost in the fog, you tend to run into sharp objects and that's not very pleasant.

So, but the skepticism, and this is obviously what you alluded to, I would say as a consequence of learning from the podcast is the skepticism should be in service of rectifying your ignorance, rather than in service of making your point or winning the argument. Problem with winning a bloody argument is that

the victory can seduce you into thinking that you were correct, and you're never sufficiently correct, right? Yes. And so, I don't like debates fundamentally. I've never really enjoyed them. I probably when I was really young, you know, before I was,

I stopped doing this when I was about 23, I would take a certain amount of pleasure in being able to obtain intellectual victory. You know, it was also a way I defended myself when I was young and it was effective, but it's not the optimal way to conduct a conversation. This is one of the reasons why people like Rogan are so successful because Joe, Joe pushes

point but he always does it in the service of learning. Yes. He doesn't do it in the service of victory. Yeah, yeah. I think I think you've probably put your finger on it there. But what you were saying a moment ago about precision, about sort of thinking clearly and understanding somebody else clearly,

I think the reason why I'm excited to speak to you today is because you're someone who celebrates being precise in your speech. And I've always appreciated your desire to make sure that you're really understanding what somebody else is saying. I've made attempts in the past to, I mean, my channel is mostly focused

on the philosophy of religion. And I've made attempts in the past to try to understand your worldview. Your religious worldview. And I made a video essay. And some of the things I said there, I think at least one thing in particular, I'd probably think I was wrong about. But what I was trying to do there, I've seen that people would ask you on interviews and podcasts,

you know, do you believe in God? Do you think that Christianity is true? And it was sort of, you would sort of struggle to answer the question. And I thought to myself, well... People comment the question with a priori commitments about what they think truth constitutes. Yeah. That's a big problem. There must be something important that's being left out of the sort of precondition of that question or conversation

if it's so unimaginably difficult to answer, you know. Well, I'll give you an example. I watched that essay this morning, right? And I also wanted to talk to you about your discussion with Dawkins. Yeah. So people say, ask me, for example, do you believe in God?

And I think, well, I don't know what you are driving at with that question, because I don't know what you mean by believe. Most people, modern people believe that a belief is a description of accordance with a set of facts. Sure. Right.

Well, I don't think that's what belief means in the religious sense in the least. So I just think that's a non-starter. If you have something to do with what you act out, right? It has to do with what you're, what you believe is what you're willing to die for fundamentally. It's what you're committed to or live for if you think about it as life in the most extensive manner It's a matter of commitment. So I understand what you what you mean in the religious content Yeah, but religion is a big topic religion is is a is a It's a mighty, you know area to be to be talking about but when I talk about belief in a more mundane sense

Yeah, like I believe that this chair exists. Yeah, like that is a belief that I hold I sort of can't help but hold that belief because I can see it, right? Well, that's a place where your action and your statements align. Exactly. Right. You believe in the chair and you're sitting in it. It's like, fair enough.

Which is why I totally agree when you say that what you believe might really be what you act out. But I think when people are looking for essentially definitions, and just a second ago you said, well, what is it to believe? And you said, well, what you believe is what you're willing to die for.

I'm not willing to die for my belief that this chair exists. Maybe. Maybe in a broad sense. Maybe. Hard to say. If not believing that the chair existed required me to sort of give up my trust in my sense data, then I might literally die by accident by sort of walking off a cliff because I don't trust my eyes anymore.

Well, it's also not something that you're likely to forego, given your role, let's say, as a rational skeptic. That's right. Seriously, like it's a commitment that you've made to a certain view of reality. But you understand surely that when somebody asks, do you believe in God, although they're asking the sort of subject of the belief, is a much more grand entity,

the word belief itself, for them, at least in their question, even if you think it's an appropriate question, they mean something much more mundane. They mean like you believe in the existence of church. It's hard to know what people mean. You know, like one of the things I've noticed, for example, is there are no shortage of Christian trolls.

Right? I mean, there are atheist trolls and there's engineering trolls. There's lots of trolls, but there are Christian trolls. And the Christian trolls, when they ask that question, and it's often the Christian trolls who ask that question, what they mean is, are you in my club? Exactly. Right.

And my answer is, I'm not even sure you know what club you're in. So there's a trap in the question, which I don't appreciate, because I don't like questions that have traps in them. Yes Now not everybody who's asking that question has a trap but many people do and so I find that Off-putting let's say because it's manipulative in terms of that that Descriptive belief that's something we could go into I think we should do that because it does get to the core of the matter that you were attempting to untangle, let's say, in your essay. Yeah. I mean, my understanding of, and I had to sort of piece together different things

you'd said in different interviews. And I suppose the reason I had to do that was because I didn't have you in front of me. So I'm grateful to have the opportunity now. It seems to me that when you speak of God, you mean something like that, which is at the, I don't know if you'd rather say the basis or the top, the basis or the top of a value hierarchy. And it begins with the recognition that anything that anybody does requires some kind of value. Even just to do something as simple as sitting in a chair or picking up a glass. Well, you don't do anything without it being oriented towards a value. Exactly, right. And so even to perceive the glass, it's something you've spoken about before,

why do I see the glass as one object? Even though it's got multiple parts, it's got a side and bottom and top, I see them together in a way that I don't see the cup and the table as one object. Well, you said before, it's because I can grip it. It's sort of functional. It's because I can use this cup. And the reason that I see it in that way is because I can then drink from it. And the reason that I want to do that is because I sort of value my health.

And there's sort of a value regress that goes on. Always. And more broadly, this comes out in the question of like, you know, why are you writing an essay to get a good grade? Or why do you want a good grade to get a good job? Why do you want a good job to get money? And you keep going back and back.

It has to terminate somewhere. That's right. Because otherwise there would be nothing to sort of lend that value. Well, otherwise you'd always be in an infinite regress. You just die of questioning. Yeah, you literally... It's the kind of regress in which the value that you have for A actually borrows the value from B. You don't value A at all without B.

So it doesn't get it without B. And B doesn't get it without C. And C doesn't get it without D. So if that went on infinitely, there's nothing to give the entire sequence value in the first place. And so there's gotta be something at the basis here. And then you said, at least on one occasion, that we'll call that place, whatever's at the top there,

we'll call it the divine place. And you said we'll make that a definite definition. Now, I'm kind of, I'm fine with this, but it seems to me that what you're doing is you're giving a definition of God that makes him, or makes it him, whatever, unavoidably exist, and also makes it a quite different entity to the entity described by a great deal of, for instance, your Christian listeners who will say that God is not the basis of a value hierarchy.

God is an omnipotent, omniscient, agential being with consciousness that intentionally brings about human beings and sent down a physical man to sacrifice his life in order to save us from our sins. Now, that means that when someone asks you, does God exist, and you say, well, look, I think that's almost an inappropriate question. At times, you sort of imply that you don't even believe in atheists because you sort of act as if you believe in God. If what you mean by God is just...

Well, Dawkins himself admitted he was a cultural Christian. That's another matter, because that's much more specific. I mean, that's cultural Christianity, right? This is just... But it's a reflection of the same problem. But, you know, when a Christian says to you, I mean, very clear that that's what I mean by God. I don't know if you do believe in the omniscient omnipotent agential being but

If you start talking about the inevitability of believing in some basis of a value Obviously talking about so obvious from the traditional Judeo-Christian perspective that God is properly conceptualized as a being That's that's probably right. So so it's tricky right because One of the ways that you can approach God traditionally is in relationship to a being, but that's a veil. So why do I say that? Okay, so let's speak about it religiously first, then we can speak about it conceptually. So there's a tremendous insistence in the Judeo-Christian tradition that God is outside of the categorical structure, right?

Like seriously outside. Elijah, the prophet establishes that God is not in nature. He's not in the earthquake, he's not in the conflagration, he's not in the storm, right? So that doesn't mean that nature doesn't speak of God, but it does mean that whatever God is, is not in the natural world. Okay, now we can extend that.

Not bound by time, not bound by space. Well, does that make God a material object? Because when people say is God real, which is a variant of the question, is do you believe in God? It's like, well, God's immaterial and outside of time and space. So if your definition of real is material things

in the domain of time and space, then we're not talking about the same thing. Now, usually people approach that question of belief with some materialistic framework like that in mind, even if they don't know it. The Christians, let's say, who put this question forward in the hope of getting the answer they want to hear are materialistic and enlightenment minds,

even though they don't know it, because they have an implicit definition of what constitutes real. Is God real? It's like, no, no, God's hyper real. That's not the same thing. I think that the physicality of God is an interesting question.

In the Old Testament tradition, it seems to evolve as far as I can see. If you look at some of the earlier descriptions of God, you've got a God who walks through the Garden of Eden. You've got a God who has a council of angels and the accuser. You have a sort of, it's being at least conceptualized as a much more physical being.

And as time goes on, God becomes less localized. And I've heard a lot of theories as to why that's the case. I've just done an episode on my own show. Yeah, I'm not sure that's true exactly. I don't think there's a clear historical progression like that. There is a constant tension between God as ineffable and then God as manifest in a manner

that's comprehensible, right? And if, so Mircea Eliade had mapped the consequences of this out to some degree. So he was very interested in Nietzsche's proposition that God had died. Most people, including Nietzsche, regarded that as like a unique historical event. There was a religious tradition, the enlightenment arose, in consequence, we became skeptical about

God, and in 1850, the philosophers decided that he was no longer necessary or real. But Eliade, who is a brilliant historian of religions, has noted that this has happened many, many times, that God has vanished, disappeared. And one of his explanations for that is that a God that's too ineffable, so that's completely outside of the categories of time and space, let's say,

and who doesn't make himself present as a being, who doesn't have a heavenly council, who has no hierarchy between the pinnacle and earth itself, let's say, and who doesn't make himself present as a being, who doesn't have a heavenly council, who has no hierarchy between the pinnacle and earth itself, tends to float off into space. Becomes so abstract that you can't have a relationship with it, and then he disappears. In many ways, this is what Christianity provides

with the New Testament and the figure of Jesus. And that's why I think for a lot of Christians, the more important question for you, and the question that they're interested in, and you're quite right that a lot of people are like, I want to get you on my team. I have no dog in this fight, I'm not a Christian, but I know that a lot of Christians are frustrated

when they begin asking about Jesus, who's a much more physical entity. It's a real human being. It's someone of flesh and blood. It's someone who's physically crucified by the Romans. It's a very different question. It's a very different question. And then is seen as a human being, it's someone of flesh and blood. It's someone who's physically crucified by the realm. It's a very different question, it's a very different question. And then is seen as a physical entity, at least according to the canonical tradition,

by his disciples after he died. So when somebody asks you, do you believe that that happened? And when I've seen you ask about that question, you tend to still speak in terms of the psychological and the mythological. I think the frustration is that, as you've just said, Yeah.

these are two different conversations. I don't mind frustrating Christians in that regard either, because the truth of the matter is, with regard to the gospel accounts, that the mythological and the historical are inextricably cross-contaminated. Sure. There's no pulling out the historical Jesus, right? That's a non-starter. And why that is, I don't know.

It's very mysterious. It's very hard to understand, as are the, let's say, the accounts of the resurrection. Okay, so what do I think about that? Well, I think that denying the historical reality of Christ is, I think that's just a fool's errand. I don't know why anybody would bother with that's just a fool's errand. Of course. Why anybody would bother with that.

So a man exists called Jesus, we have that much. Yes. Now, Christ, now there's a claim that is attributed to Christ that he is the embodiment or the incarnation, the fulfillment, let's say, of the prophet and the laws. Yes. I think that's true. Yeah. What does that mean?

Well, you know, what did, I think it's in the gospel of John, I think gospel of John closes with a statement that something like, if all the books that were ever written were written about the gospel accounts, that wouldn't be enough books to explain what it had. Yeah, if it was like, yes. If all the things that Jesus did. Yeah, yeah, and it's, there's a truth in that.

The truth is that profound religious account is bottomless and the biblical representations are like that. There's no limit to the amount of investigation they can bear, not least because the text itself is deeply cross referenced. So there's like, there's an innumerable number of paths through it. It's like a chess board. And so it's inexhaustible in its interpretive space. That's true.

And that's a problem too, because it means it's also susceptible to multiple interpretations, including potentially competing interpretations. I think a lot of people interpret pool, for example, the earliest New Testament source as saying that, if Jesus did not literally rise from the dead, if there was not a man who stopped breathing

and then started breathing again, then your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. That is Christianity is undermined. Now that means that, and Paul doesn't say sort of, believing that that's false is really bad. He says, if you do not believe this proactively, then your faith is futile. So if you don't proactively believe that yourself,

then I think when a Christian asks you, do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus? Are you a Christian? I think you must be committed to saying no, at least under that interpretation of Paul. And even if you're not sure, I mean, it's fine. If I say to you, do you think that a man physically rose from the dead?

And you say something like, well, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't there, but I think it has a lot of mythological significance, or I think that maybe it happened in a different sense or it happened in the sense that good fiction happens, then fine. But it needs to begin with that caveat of the simple sort of historically speaking, I don't know. And I know you don't like to pull out the historical Jesus from the mythological, but it's an important question to ask. No, of course. It's a very good objection.

So I just did a seminar on the Gospels with a crew of about eight people and it was the same crew that walked through Exodus with me with a couple of variations. And we spent a lot of time on the resurrection accounts, for example. And of course, that was the toughest, let's say, that was the toughest morsel to chew and digest. The thing about the resurrection accounts is that they're all, look, so I could say something like this, which will just annoy people, but it doesn't matter. I believe the accounts, but I have no idea what they mean.

When you say you believe the accounts, do you mean, and I hate to be sort of pedantic here, it seems pedantic, but do you mean you believe that these are things that happened such that if I... That's a strange thing. I know you don't like that. Let me put it this way. If I went back in time with a Panasonic video camera and put that camera in front of the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, would the little LCD screen show a man walk out of that tomb? I would suspect yes.

So that to me seems like a belief in the historical event of the resurrection, or at least of Jesus leaving the tomb, which means that when somebody says, do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, it doesn't seem clear to me why you're not able to just say, it would seem to me yes. Because I have no idea what that means. And neither did the people who saw it. I mean, I suppose one of- Look, here's, let's approach this obliquely, let's say.

The miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Yeah. Okay. So people will say, well, do you believe that happened literally, historically? It's like, well, yes, I believe that. It's Yeah. Okay. So people will say, well, do you believe that happened literally, historically? It's like, well, yes, I believe that it's okay. Okay. What do you mean by that? That you believe that exactly. Yeah. So, so you tell me you're there in the way that you describe it.

Right, right. What do you see? What are the fish doing exactly? And the answer is you don't know. You have no notion about it at all. You have no theory about it. Sure. You have no theory about it. So your belief is, what's your belief exactly? I think a Christian might say something like, my belief is that I have no idea looking at

those fish what I would see in the process of them being converted into enough food for the 5,000 to eat. I have no idea what I would see. But I do know that what I would see is the fish end up being spread amongst the 5,000. In the same way, if I opened up the water jar, what would I see when the water became wine? I have no idea. Does it sort of blend from one color into another?

Does it suddenly snap? Does it disappear and then reappear? I don't know. But what I do know as a Christian is that I would see something, at some event in which when I look at the beginning, it's water and when I look at the end, it's wine. And I mean see something, at some event in which, when I look at the beginning, it's water, and when I look at the end, it's wine.

And I mean, actually, I don't mean that Jesus turning water into wine is some kind of inextricably mythological story and the question of whether it happens sort of doesn't matter, or maybe it happened in a meta manner or maybe it happened in a hyper-reality. I would be, as a Christian, committed to saying that it happened historically. I'm more inclined rather than to believe.

I'm more inclined to understand. And then when I hit the limits of my understanding, I think, I don't understand that. Now, do I believe it or not believe it? I think often, especially with regards to biblical matters, let's say, I have a suspension of belief and disbelief. Yeah, that's fine too.

I think part of the reason that I've been able to be an effective interpreter of the biblical texts and a relatively scientific interpreter is because I approach the texts with respect, the same respect that I would approach a lab animal. It's like, I don't know what this is. Like, I seriously don't know. And I'm not going to come at it with axiomatic assumptions that are unquestionable. I'm going to try to see what's right in front of my eyes. I'm going to try to see what mystery reveals itself if I take this phenomenon seriously.

This is one of the things that I find puzzling, for example, about Dawkins, because Dawkins formulated the idea of meme, which is by the way, the same idea as archetype. It's exactly the same idea, except he just stopped. It's like, okay, there are memes they're selected for. Okay. Selected on what basis exactly?

Does that mean there's a hierarchy of memes? Are the memes more likely that, are the memes that are conserved more likely to be, what would you say, viable organisms? And if they're viable organisms, are they microcosms? This is really interesting in terms of the survivability because there's a point, I've spoken to Richard Dawkins, well, a number of times, but twice on my podcast. And the second time somebody pointed out to me that there might be a point of agreement between

you two that has been overlooked, which is that I don't know if you've ever come across the evolutionary argument against naturalism or the argument from reason, the idea that if you're a materialist, you can't trust your reasonable faculties. So Alvin Planting formulated this very well, very geniusly I think, in saying that if you believe that evolution by natural selection happens materially, what does natural selection select for? Survivability. So if you're a materialist, that means that the very rational faculty that you're using right now evolved not to be sensitive to truth, but to survivability.

Yes, that's right. And if that's the case, well, why do you believe in the truth of evolution? Well, because you've been rationally convinced of it. But the thing that you've just assented to, the belief itself has just undercut the process by which you came to that belief. Look, there's a whole,

the New England pragmatists figured this out like 1880. Yeah, now I think this is a fascinating, I think it really is just a... It's exciting. It's a novel. That's for sure. That's for sure. It's actually a point where Darwin and Newton do not come together. How do you mean?

Well the Darwinian definition of true and the Newtonian definition of true are not the same thing. So here's the thing, here's the thing, you had a conversation with Sam Harris, you've had a number, but one of them, I don't think it was a live event, I think it was before that, you're talking about truth. Yeah, it was a very awkward first, second talk I had with him, I was extremely ill. It was, do you know, it was awkward to listen to because it felt very much like, and I remember at the time thinking, you know, what is this Jordan Peterson talking about? Like truth is like Darwinian, truth is about like survivability. What do you mean? Truth is true the way an

arrow flies. Yeah, right. And now I asked Richard Dawkins about the evolutionary argument against naturalism. Yeah. Well, how can you know that what you believe is true? And he said, because believing true things makes me more likely to survive. Hey, boy, watch where you go with that. I didn't catch it at the time, but I thought to myself afterwards, it was one of my commenters on Patreon actually had mentioned this, he was listening to Richard, and I said, but you know, but okay, maybe,

but sometimes it's at least possible that something that's false helps you to survive. You know, the rustling in the bushes, believing that that's a lion every time, or a tiger, even if it's not, that helps you to survive, because that one time that it is, you're still going to run away, and it costs you nothing to run away when it's or a tiger even if it's not, that helps you to survive because that one time that it is, you're still going to run away and it costs you nothing

to run away when it's not a tiger. So believing it's a tiger, even when it's not, it's going to help you to survive. That's why we have a negativity bias. Yeah, and Dawkins says, well yeah, of course, there are some circumstances where believing something false could be beneficial to survival. And I said, well, how do you know that two plus two

equals four is not one of those? And it seemed as though he was just saying that believing that would not be advantageous to our survival, which might well be true. But if that's the case, then suddenly I'm listening to what you're saying about truth being more sort of Darwinian and related to survivability. And I think maybe you two would agree there.

And I think, well, why is it that when you sit down with Richard Dawkins, you find it difficult to have a conversation with each other? And well, I think it's partly because we don't know each other very well. That's right. And so and also, there are things he knows that I don't know. And there are things I know that he doesn't know. Now, I would say in my defense that I what would you say? I'm more of the aware aware of the things he knows that I don't know that he is of the things

I know that he doesn't know, right? So for example, as far as I can tell, Dawkins doesn't know anything about the Jungian tradition of literary interpretation. And that actually, if you're gonna talk about religion, that's actually a fatal flaw, right? So, and you know, he's called me, for example, drunk on symbols, it's like, well, the imagination

is a biological function and it has a structure and a purpose and it has its own logos, its own intelligible order. And if you're not aware of that order, that doesn't make me drunk on symbols. It just means you don't know what you're talking about. Now that frustration that you appeal to there, when you hear Richard Dawkins, I think Terry Eagleton said that listening to Dawkins on theology is like listening to somebody write

a book about biology whose only knowledge of the subject is having once read the great British book of birds. And okay, fair enough. But that actually turns out to be a real problem. And it's a problem with regards even to the meme idea, because you don't have to extend Dawkins work very far to understand that religious stories are memes. Sure. Right? Yeah. Well, and there's a hierarchy of memes and some of them are very functional. But then here's the thing, like that frustration that you're sort of throwing in that direction. Yeah. I think people throw it towards you when you say,

well, religion, you don't have to look very far to see that religion is a meme. Well, without further clarification, and of course, there's going to be it. You can understand why to somebody first listening, that sounds almost atheistic. Or religion is a meme. Right. Religion is not a true historical account of, you know, the history of the universe. It's not a true historical account. It's a meme. Religion is not a true historical account of the history of the universe. It's not a true historical account. It's a meme.

Now, when you say that the resurrection of Jesus. Well, what does it mean historically that the spirit of God brooded upon the primordial waters? Like, what does that mean historically? No one knows what that means historically. I don't think that at least most of Genesis or parts of Genesis are supposed to be, I mean, the Bible is a library, right? It's not a book and that means that it's going to contain different genres.

That's for sure. And so when we know... Yeah, and some of them are more historically accurate and some of them tilt more towards that kind of elusive, I don't mean elusive in the, I mean, A-L-L-U-S-I-V. Yeah, sure. Right? That elusive and symbolic form that characterizes Genesis 1. Sure.

Because there are different genres here, it depends on what story we're talking about. And I think that what I often observe you doing is we might talk about Christianity, and if you aren't comfortable committing to a historical ideal, you'll start talking about the spirit moving over the face of the waters, which is obviously a much more mythological ideal, and not quite equivocating them, but moving between them too quickly,

and not delineating them enough. So if I asked you, you know, do you think that the spirit moved across the face of the waters and you said to me something like, I think it's still happening. Right, that is what I would say. I'd say, hey, fair enough. Yeah, that makes sense.

It always happens. It happened at the beginning of time and it's always happening. When somebody says, did the Exodus story happen? Did the Jews enslaved in Egypt break free of their slavery and move to the promised land across the desert for 40 years? Did that happen? You have also said, of the Exodus specifically, it's still happening.

Yes. Now, to me, that's far more inappropriate than saying that the spirit is still moving across the face of the waters, because I think what people mean there is, do you believe that these people in that time period actually did this in such a way that, for instance, might show up in an archaeological report? Well, I think that's the simplest answer to that is probably. Sure, and that's fine too, but then... We don't know.

To the degree that there's been archaeological investigations into the kinds of biblical narratives that you've described, the archaeological evidence tends to fall on the kinds of biblical narratives that you've described. The archaeological evidence tends to fall on the side of historical accuracy in relationship to the Bible quite surprisingly often. Clearly you spent more time in Exodus than probably any person I've ever met in person, right? Clearly the story sort of captivates you and you think it's really important and can teach us a lot.

It's a remarkably deep story. I think most people speaking to you already know that you think that, right? And so when they ask you a question, when they suddenly say to you, but do you think it really happened? Well, what the hell does that mean? You must know that what they mean is what I was talking about a second ago, which is that sort of... What?

Okay, so fine. So it's easy just to turn this around. It's like, okay, what exactly happened in your historical account when Moses encountered the burning bush? I don't need to know exactly what happened. What I need to know is that... I'm not asking you specifically or attacking you for that. What I need to know is that if I sort of went to the Egyptian desert at sort of the time that this story is alleged to have taken place in history.

Would I see a mass movement of Israelites from Egypt into the promised land? Would I see people with feet walking through the desert leaving footprints? Well, let's take it apart rationally. But you also understand that when someone's asking that, and you want, like, even if you don't like the question, you must understand what someone's asking. Oh yes, well I understand many of the things that they're doing simultaneously. You must also understand that when you then say it's still happening, people just go, what are you talking about? Yeah, well I would say that's not my problem.

But it becomes a problem when you understand that someone's asking a quite banal historical question. Yeah, but you don't get to do that. But why not? Because the stories that you're dealing with aren't banal. I agree, but like... So you can't reduce them to something banal. Even if it's, what would you call it, even if it's reassuring, this actually happened.

Well, then what do you do with the burning bush? This actually happened. It's, well, then what do you do with the burning bush? So what was actually happened? One comparison I would make is between this and talking about fiction more broadly. Yeah. Well, you got it right earlier, you know, I would say, you knew, you noted that the, the stories in the, in the, in the biblical library leap across genres. Yes. Well, we know this because sometimes they're poetry and sometimes they're songs. You know? Yeah, exactly.

And so, in any given story, there's going to be historical account, plus mythological overlay. And you know, you have to be a discriminating reader to kind of see what's different. And you don't just get to say, well, all the mythological symbolism is historical reality. It's like, no, it's mythological symbolism is historical reality. It's like, no, it's not. But here's the thing, for example. So like take a piece of trivial fiction,

like Forrest Gump. Yeah. Right? We say like, okay, did that happen? Now I think that what you'd probably say is something like, well, I don't think the events literally occurred, but I think that they obviously get at something that's sort of perennially true about human nature.

Right, exactly. But then suppose I said- That's right. So they happened to, they existed Right, exactly. But then suppose I said to you... That's right. So they happened to... They existed as a pattern. But there's a scene in Forrest Gump when, you know, I think he meets the president. Is it JFK at the time?

I think he goes and meets John F. Kennedy. Yeah. And so I said to you, well, is JFK the... Like that part of that specific part of that story, is it true that JFK was the president? Right. And you would probably just say, yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't say anything more complicated.

And even though the subject as a whole of like, is Forrest Gump true? Is Hamlet true? That's a complicated question. Very. But specifically, when I say, but interestingly, there's this little point I want to make in this board discussion. Do you think that JFK was actually the president? You would say yes.

Why do you think it matters to people? Like, I don't know. These are ancient accounts. Maybe that's the biggest problem that you have with people who are asking these questions. It is. What point are you trying to make here? The point is, I know what the point usually is, is the people who are asking the question believe that true and unerringly means objectively happened in history like the things that we're seeing

right now happen. It's like, well, no, that's not how that's, that's not what those stories are like. For me, some of it is, but for a Christian when asking you that it's probably because for them they have an understanding of Christianity that requires believing in that kind of truth. For me, and the reason why I hope that like me asking these questions will be less frustrating to you is because I have no desire for that. I don't care about that. I'm genuinely just interested in what you think. And so my desire to know whether you think Exodus historically happened goes no further

than a point of interest about your beliefs. Well, so there's elements of the, especially the setup to the Exodus story that strike me as very, very plausible historically. So, for example, the Jews before the Pharaoh of that time were under the guidance and protection of Joseph and the previous Pharaoh. And they regarded the Israelites as benefactors, because Joseph had helped save the kingdom, and his people were welcome. But that was forgotten. And so the new Pharaoh and the new Egyptians regard the appallingly successful Jews as destructive interlopers, and they make them slaves.

It's like, well, can you believe that? It happens all the time. It's happening right now. So it's very plausible. In this particular case saying it's very plausible. It's like saying something like, well, yeah, it could have happened. I don't know. Well, I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. So when somebody asks, did the Exodus really happen? That word really, when they say, if I just say... Yeah, really is the crux.

If I said, did the Exodus happen? And I'd understand why you would then say, well, you've got to understand what kind of story this is. Fine. But then if somebody says, yeah, but did it really happen? Well, which parts of it? Even if they're not expressing it very well, like what they're getting at there is they're trying to emphasize the historicity. They're trying to say, yeah, but did it're getting at there is they're trying to emphasize the historicity. They're trying to say, yeah, but did it historically happen? Probably is what they mean by the word really there.

Right. But the thing is it speaks of their, see, they have a problem is that Christians who ask that have a metaphysics that's not Christian. So it's a non-starter, the question. It's like you're asking me the question. It's like, you're asking me the question a materialist atheist would ask. And you want me to give you an answer that bolsters your faith,

but the presumptions of your question are enlightenment atheistic. So it's like, I don't know how to play that game. So do you think that to be a Christian, you don't need to believe in the historicity of the Exodus or the resurrection of Jesus, for example? Well I think those are separate issues actually. Okay, yeah, that's probably right as well.

And interesting, you know, I spent, last night, it was a bit of a time delay, so it feels like longer, but last night I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. I said, you know, I'm speaking to Jordan Peterson tomorrow, I was thinking how can I prepare for this? And we ended up, my friend is Sheehan's name, we ended up having a conversation about whether Hamlet is real. Right. And that was probably better preparation than anything else I could have done.

Yeah, that's a good question. So take, if somebody asks, you know, was Hamlet a real person? And sort of naively I say, have you heard of the story Hamlet? Oh no, is that a real person? I would say no. However, there is a sense in which, and I'm trying to understand what you're saying here. There is a sense in which there are a lot of characters, infinitely many characters that Shakespeare never wrote about. Yeah.

Right? Those characters seem to exist less than Hamlet does. Yeah. Even if Hamlet exists less than Jordan Pease and Alex O'Connor do in the real world. Well, Hamlet might exist more. Than me. Me and you. Well, okay. You exist more than me and you.

Well, okay. One of the things you point into in the analysis that you did, the talk I had with Jonathan Pazio, is my somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment that God is the ultimate fictional character, which I think is a hilarious line, by the way. Yeah. Which by the way, I think I misunderstood. Now that I've watching that back, that's the thing I say I think I might have misunderstood. Maybe that's what you were about to tell me. I shouldn't interrupt.

Well, let's walk through that. Yeah. Because people see, and this is part of this underlying materialist atheist enlightenment ethos. People think that fiction and fact are opposites. It's like, no, they're not People think that fiction and fact are opposites. It's like, no, they're not. Not at all.

Okay, so let's use an analogy to begin with. What's more real? Things or numbers? Okay, now I'm not going to make a case for either of those positions. I'm just saying that's an actual question. You talk to mathematicians, they think, well, numbers are way more real than things. Things are evanescent, they disappear,

they flash in and out of existence. Numbers are permanent. And then you could think about it biologically. It's like, well, how useful is numeracy to survival? Like very, right? When you become numerate, you're powerful in a way that the mere grip you have on the individual facts doesn't afford at all. So there are forms of abstraction that are clearly more real than the things from which they're abstracted, or at least as real.

I would say more real, because they're so powerful. Well, fiction is an abstraction, right? And so did Hamlet exist? It's like Hamlet is the pattern of character that existed in multiple people over a very long period of time. And so Hamlet is an abstraction, like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment.

Did Raskolnikov exist? It's like Raskolnikov existed in the soul of every Russian from like 1850 to 1990. Right, and so is it real? It's like, it's hyper real. Fiction is hyper real. It's a meta truth as you put it in that podcast. Now is that real?

Well, when someone says, is that a geek, if they've listened to what you've just said and understood it, then if they still ask the question, but is it real, you must understand that what they mean is like, you know, like, did a woman, did Aliona Ivanovna get hit in the head with an axe? Right. Like, yes or no? Did that happen?

And again, you could still resort to saying, you know, it happened in the heart of every Russian who's ever thought about killing their mother-in-law. Well, I would say no to that specific question. But no, right? No is the answer. You know, it happened in the heart of every Russian who's ever thought about killing their mother-in-law. Oh, I would say no to that specific question. But no, right? No is the answer. And so, and we can say no with confidence because we know that Dostoevsky sort of thought this up.

With something like the Egyptians walking through the desert, we can't as confidently say it's something like, no, that didn't happen. But we'd have to be more humble in saying something like, I don't know. But the comparison I made in this video, I put two questions side by side. You were asked by Douglas Murray, did Raskolnikov exist? And you say, well, I think that the events literally didn't happen, but that kind of misses something

and there's something more to talk about. And then you're asked- The pattern is extremely real. Sure. Then you're asked about Cain and Abel. Yeah. The story of Cain and Abel happened. Yeah, that's a better example. A famous, you know, the story of Cain and Abel happened. Yeah, that's a better example.

You know, the question, did that happen, you know, begs the question if you've got it, you've got to consider any sort of, in a way that it seems strange to me that the ease with which you were able to say of Raskolnikov and Dostoevsky, well, no, that didn't literally happen, of course, but you've got to understand that there's another sense in which we've got to talk about the truth of the story Well, the Cain and Abel story is is quite complex because you could you could imagine easily that There was a Fratricide at some point in the past that was of sufficient emotional magnitude to have stories aggregate around it

Absolutely, right. That's that's so it's easiest to presume that they're because why not it's easiest to presume that they're, because why not? It's perfectly plausible that a primordial murder of that sort happened in the memory of that tribal people and was represented in that manner. Now, as the account in Iliad has done a very good job of pointing out how this develops too. You could think of Iliad's work on the mythologization of stories as an extension of Dawkins idea of the meme. Because Iliad discusses in great detail how an account mutates to, what would you say?

To be maximally memorable across time. So it mutates, you can take there is a core that's true, let's say in a narrow historical sense, but the account mutates to be optimally adapted to the structure of memory that characterizes the human psyche. And that comes out in story, like the story of Jane and Abel. Right, right, and you get a maximally memorable story. Now, that's a meme. Is it true? Mmm. That's a hard question because you see...

I think Cain and Abel probably belongs more on the sort of brooding over the face of the waters category than it does Exodus category, for example. Like, so I think with Cain and Abel, sure. Yeah, well, there's very little detail in it that would make it a specific historical event. Yeah. I mean, because it's two, well, there's very little detail in it that would make it a specific historical event, right? Yeah. I mean, because it's two generic brothers and there's a generic murder. But it's interesting too, because even in the case of a specific fratricide, let's say,

that actually happens in the world, well, there's all sorts of principalities involved in the background, right? So for example, I spent a lot of time looking at Dylan Klebel's accounting of his mental state before shooting up the Columbine High School. Yeah. Well, if you read that, it'll make your blood run cold. Oh yeah. He's obviously possessed, whatever that means.

Whatever that means. I'm happy to accept the word possessed. Well, look what he did. Knowing, in part, I take this the wrong way, knowing that I'm speaking with you. I'm not going to take that as literally as I would if I was speaking to evangelicals. Yeah, well, literally is a very hard thing

in a circumstance like that. Because people invited something in and it wasn't pleasant and it had its way with him. Right, and the results, although dreadful, were nowhere near as dreadful as he was hoping they would be. Right, it's dark. And is that real? So what happened there?

It's like, well, one way of describing it is that, a alienated young man shot up a high school. Another way of representing it, which may be more true, is that it was another what would you say? punctuated episode of a cosmic drama that's been going on forever And it isn't obvious to me at all which of those two accounts is more real Well, it depends on what specific questions being asked for example right now now suppose that you were a witness to this crime and

Suppose that you were a witness to this crime and the police pull you into questioning as a witness. And they say, we're trying to gather information to try and, you know, catch the suspects. Suppose that there's no suicide involved. You know, the suspects at large. They're trying to get your help. And they say, so, Dr. Peterson, what happened? And you say, well, I think what happened was the continuation, sort of a punctuation in the long paragraph of the

cosmic drama that is our human existence. And the police was like, that's not what we meant. Okay, but like, come on, help me out here, man. Like, really, like, and I think that's that's what people are doing with the religious question. Well, that's a level of analysis problem. So we went back when we started this discussion, you talked about the infinite regress for purposes for writing an essay, right? So what are you doing when you're writing an essay? Well, you're making horizontal and curved marks with a pen. Sure. Right? Well, right. So, but there is a a cosmic tree of

events in every micro event, right? And when people events in every micro event, right? And when people, when they're looking for eyewitness testimony, they're asking you for something like the highest possible level of narrow resolution you can manage. Ian McGillchrist just told... Yeah, that's right. I just spoke with him and unfortunately I think we lost about half of the footage, so I'm not sure how much that will be seen in the world but he brought to my attention, I'm sure he said it was John Ruskin who talked about having a, you see in the garden you

see like a square and you think it's like a white square in the garden inexplicably and then you go a bit closer and you see it's actually a page, it's a book and then you look a bit closer and you see it's got words on it and then you see a microscope and you see actually it's got like ridges and then you go a bit closer and you see it's got words on it, then you see the microscope and you see actually it's got like ridges, you know, and then you go a bit closer and you actually see atoms bumping into each other, and you go a bit closer and you see sort of waves and energy, and you're sort of like, well, which of those is the real thing you saw? Right.

Well, and the thing is, is that that hierarchy that you just described, this is the cosmic tree of life, this is Agnesil. It's like you have got the quantum level and the atomic level and the molecular level and so forth up to the phenomenal level. That's not where it stops. I started to understand this when I was thinking something very peculiar. This is decades ago.

Thought people will go to a museum to look at Elvis Presley's guitar. It's like, what the hell are they doing? So you can imagine that you have a display case and you haveley's guitar. Yeah. It's like, what the hell are they doing? Yeah, yeah. So you can imagine that you have a display case and you have Elvis's guitar in it. And now you take that guitar out, let's say it's a mass produced guitar, just for the sake of argument,

you replace it with a identical model from the same year. Yep. Okay, now is that Elvis's guitar? And people will say, and you can think this is so strange, people would say, well, even if I couldn't tell the difference, I would rather look at Elvis's guitar. And then you think, well, what, is that some kind of delusion, like what the hell's going on here?

No, the answer is this is what Duchamp was on about when he, I think it was Duchamp, who put the urinal in the art gallery. It's right, what he was pointing to, and it was brilliant, was that much of what we perceive as the art gallery. It's right. What he was pointing to, and it was brilliant, was that much of what we perceive as concretely real is actually dependent on a hierarchical context that isn't part of the apprehension of the object. So when you go to see Elvis's guitar in a museum,

the perception is informed by the context. It's like, well, you're an Elvis fan and you know a lot about Elvis history and you know that this is Elvis's town and the object itself partakes in that higher order unity. That's the unity that extends off to heaven. Every object partakes in that embeddedness above. Like for the reductionist types, you'd say, well, what's this made of?

Right? It's like, well, it's, it's molecules and then it's atoms and then it's like quantum, quantum, whatever the hell exists down in the quantum level. That's what this is made of. It's like, wait a second, it's on this table. It's in this room. It's of this time. That's all this thing too.

Yeah. You know, and that's the higher order conceptualization, but it's just as much part of the object. Yeah. And a reductionist view doesn't take that into account, and that's a big problem. I think it's true that, you know, looking at Ruskin's book, Piece of Paper, it would be silly to always say, well, what's that in the garden over there? Oh, it's a bunch of atoms bumping into each other. That would be ludicrous.

Right. Well, that's also, so back to our discussion of Darwinian utility. It's like, well, it's the wrong level of functional analysis. But look, surely it would also be inappropriate to do the opposite. That is like to always think at a higher resolution than people are obviously sort of practically trying to. So for example, if I was close enough to see, and I was interested in what paper is made of, and I said, what is this? And someone said, oh, it's a white square in the garden.

So well, that's inappropriate. You've gone too high. You need to focus down, right? And I feel like where you might criticize the reductionist materialist for going to higher resolution or too narrow, you go too wide on issues of religious historicity. Well, you want to hit the target squarely, right?

And that's hard. So in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ addresses that to some degree. So his injunction for paying attention properly takes local and distal into account simultaneously. He says, okay, this is what you have to do first of all. You orient yourself, so this is the highest level of orientation, right? So this is the divine orientation. It's the thing at the top of Jacob's ladder. It's the value at the pinnacle of the value hierarchy. You put what's properly highest first and foremost

in the theater of your imagination, right? And then you align that with the belief that other people have the same intrinsic value as you and that are a reflection of that infinite value. You start there, then you pay attention to the moment. Yes, Tolstoy wrote about this in his confession. He sort of, he was, I love it. It's like a hundred pages long.

You can read it in notaries. Yeah, it's a great book. This wonderful account of essentially him sort of trying to battle with his reason and his faith. And he eventually concludes that he was looking in the wrong place. He was looking amongst intellectuals. And he found that he looked, I think he sort of,

he quite dismissively called him like the simple people and just your everyday person, the working man. And he found that it was something, I think he sort of, he quite dismissively called him like the simple people and just your everyday person, the working man. And he found that it was something about sort of, you know, if you take someone who's starving and you bring him and you tell him to sort of take this metal pump and just pump it up and down and don't tell him why and he does it and the water starts flowing. It's like you have to actually do the thing, you have to live out the thing and then you get to see why it works. I understand that. I think that's probably true. He also says, Tolstoy that is, in that same account,

that he found that there was an exactly inverse correlation between the specificity of an answer and like the importance of the question. I can tell you exactly how many molecules are in that glass of water, but who cares? Right. And the more the question becomes about, you know, humanity, human life, the important stuff, the less specific the answer necessarily has to become. So I understand there is a... So you've alluded there to or indicated the relevance of value for perception, right? You nailed it with that observation because as you pointed out, any phenomena can be analyzed at multiple levels of the hierarchy that it exists within. Okay, so what makes the choice of level of analysis appropriate?

Well, it's something like, it is something that's akin to Darwinian utility. It's something like that. You can think about it less abstractly, is that you want the level of resolution that gives you maximal functional grip in relationship to your pursuit. Absolutely. So what's your pursuit? Well, two questions. What is your pursuit?

What should your pursuit be? Yeah. Well, your pursuit's necessarily nested inside a hierarchy of pursuits. And when I said that God is the, what would you say, the ultimate pursuit that sits at the apex of the progression of pursuits, that is Jacob's ladder. That's what that's indicating in that vision, is that every, every act of perception unites earth and heaven. Yep. heaven. And the perception itself is invisibly dependent on whatever it is you're worshipping.

But like here's one problem, right? Yeah. So that's very comical. Because I think I see what you're saying and I hope, you know, what I tried to do in making that video essay about your religious views and I suppose I wasn't, the main thing I was trying to do was sort of offer an interpretation, trying to get to grips with it and I hope that you feel as though at least I'm making an effort here to really try and get what you're thinking at. One problem is that, you know, in the early church there was a debate around the

physicality of Jesus' resurrection. So the canonical tradition ends up stipulating that Jesus physically resurrected, you must believe that otherwise you're a heretic. Yeah, and that's part of the Catholic particular emphasis on the divinity of the body, which has a real wisdom rather than a disembodied soul. You also have like the Gnostic tradition, broadly speaking, the Gnostic tradition in early Christianity that's so popular that Valentinus nearly becomes the Bishop of Rome. He's nearly the Pope.

Yeah. And there's, I talked about this the other day and I should have looked it up. I can't remember which church, Father, it was that was telling the church community, the church community, when you go to a new place, don't ask to be taken to the Christian church, ask to be taken to the Catholic church, because otherwise you might end up in a Gnostic church. It was so popular. And a lot of the Gnostic tradition says that the thing that's being gotten wrong is the idea that there was this literal resurrection. No, no, the kingdom of God is here and now. The resurrection is inside of you and you attain it through gnosis. I mean, the Gospel of Thomas, which is probably the most famous non canonical gospel and could

have been written at the same time as like the Gospel of John. This is an early text. It doesn't even mention the resurrection. Doesn't mention a crucifixion. It's a list of sayings. And the very form of that book, as one scholar whose name I've forgotten, unfortunately, has pointed out of that collection shows that these whose name I've forgotten, unfortunately, has pointed out, of that collection shows that these people believed that the thing that's important is

not what Jesus did, but what he said. The thing that's important is the knowledge. The thing that's important. Yeah, right. And so this resurrection stuff sort of doesn't matter. Now the thing is, in that early church community, somebody who said, well, this question of like, the resurrection is a physical, you know, historical event that you're kind of missing the point. The thing that matters is like, you know, the resurrection that takes place inside of every person. Yeah.

It sort of sounds a little bit like the kind of approach that you would take. Now, if that's true, that would mean that in the early church, you'd have been condemned as a heretic. Yeah. So when a modern Catholic says to you, you know, Jordan Peterson, are you Christian? You know, what do you think about Catholicism? I think that the reason that they're interested is because if it's true what I'm saying, then they would have to say, oh, I suppose at least according to my understanding of Catholicism, I can't count you among my number.

So I think that's probably why people are interested. And I wonder if you agree. Well, that's a genuine, that's a, that what would you say? That would constitute a genuine form of inquiry. Yeah. And I wonder if you feel like you're that's a genuine, that's a, that what would you say? That would constitute a genuine form of inquiry for sure. And I wonder if you feel like you're, I mean, I don't know. I mean, see, one of the things I really like about the, the bodily tradition of the resurrection is that it, see what it does that's so remarkable

is that it doesn't desacralize the body. That's very, very important. You know, I think the fundamental problem with Gnosticism is that it becomes a, it's very easy for it to become a doctrine that's contemptuous of the body and contemptuous of the material world. A great deal of the Gnostic tradition literally believes that the material world is created by an evil demon.

Right, exactly. Well, exactly, exactly, exactly. And Jesus comes to save us from that. And the insistence on the bodily resurrection is a medication against that. And it's an effective one. I would really love to ask about Genesis. This might be a bit of a tangent and tell me if it's uninteresting to you, but there's one Gnostic text called the Testimony of Truth that was discovered

in the Nakamadi Library. And this is buried probably around 300 AD. So it must be earlier than that. It's a fairly early text. And this text identifies the serpent in the Garden of Eden with Christ. And this is fascinating to me because when I read- But it's a leader to illumination.

Yes, exactly. Now when I read- I as a leader to illumination. Yes. Yeah. When I read- I know there's an Austrian tradition that makes the serpent a higher god than the original god because he's the agent that calls to conscience. Yeah. Now, of course, the serpent- The consciousness.

Yes. Now, the serpent is never identified as Satan or the devil except by Christian tradition. It's just the serpent. Now, there's so much interesting about this. When I first read the Genesis, when I really- Well, even the classic Christians often regarded the fall as the, what would you say? Faithful, but heaven sent error

that made the incarnation of Christ both possible and necessary. Yeah, sure, sure. So it's very interesting, because there's a gloss on that, where even in traditional Christianity, the serpent becomes- It gives you Christ. That's right. Yeah, sure, sure. So it's very interesting, because there's a gloss on that where even in traditional Christianity, the servant becomes a- It gives you Christ. That's right. Yeah, it gives you Christ.

And Jesus at one point can compare himself to a servant in the gospel of John, early in- Oh yes, yeah. He'll raise himself up. Accept his life and lift it up. Oh yes. Like Moses lifts up the serpent. Insanely perfect.

See, that's one of the passages actually. Sorry, I don't wanna derail you from your tangent, but that's one of the passages that I've concentrated a lot in this new book that I've just finished, We Who Rest With God, because that equation that Christ manages with his identification with the serpent in the desert, that is so stunningly brilliant

that I cannot possibly imagine how anyone could have thought it up. It's to identify him with the source of the poison that to gaze upon, what would you say? Redeemed the Israelites in the desert. There's so much in that, that it's really a kind of miracle. That serpent on the stake, that's the Sclepius, it's the same symbol. So that just in itself is something stunning to contemplate.

There is something amazing there. I think, well, obviously I'm not going to go as far as saying that I can't imagine that was thought up, maybe not by somebody. It's complicated with the Bible, of course. And there's a lot to say there. I mean, the author of the Gospel of John is obviously a sort of theological genius in the way that the authors of the synoptic gospels at least weren't as much. So it's believable to me that that could be the case. But besides the point, because that's another complicated thing to talk about.

But when I first, it wasn't the first time, but the first time I really tried to read the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden. I was doing it in the service of sort of producing a video. I was like, I want to make sure I want to revisit the story, make sure I sort of understand it properly. I'm reading this text and God says, you can eat of any of the trees, but not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Immediately you think to yourself, why not? You know, why wouldn't? And some people like to say, oh, it's because that's actually by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you get to dictate morality. It doesn't read like that to me. It reads to me like knowledge of good and evil. Let's just take it at face value to start with.

It's like, why not God? Why not? Well, we're not told, but don't do it because in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now the serpent comes along and the serpent is described as more cunning than any of the animals that God created. I don't speak Hebrew, unfortunately, but where it says, for example, more cunning than any of the beasts that God had created, that could mean of all of the beasts that he'd created or more cunning than the beasts

that he had created, almost as if this is a being in the garden that God himself didn't actually create or God isn't sort of connected to in the same way. Because why is the serpent there in the first place is a question that's worth asking. Okay. That's for sure. So you have the serpent and that word cunning, I thought to myself, well, what does that mean? So I looked it up and it's the word like Arum or Arum. I don't know how to pronounce it, but I looked elsewhere

in the Old Testament and it's used in a few different ways. You know, it means cunning. It means subtle. Subtle, yeah. Throughout Proverbs, it's used consistently to mean sensible. It means prudent. And so there's one reading of this, you know. Now the serpent was more sensible than any of the other beasts of the Garden of Eden.

And he comes to Eve and says, did God say that if you eat of that tree, you'll surely die? And she says, yeah, that's what he said. And he says, you will not surely die in the day that you eat thereof. God just knows that you'll become like him, knowing good and evil, and he doesn't want that.

So Eve looks at the fruit and she eats the fruit. And does she die in the day thereof. God just knows you'll become like him, knowing good and evil, and he doesn't want that. So Eve looks at the fruit and she eats the fruit. And does she die in the day thereof? Well, again, a complicated question, but on face value, no. She doesn't die. She gives them to Adam, he doesn't die. And what does happen? Well, God says to them, or God says, now they have become like us, knowing good and evil, they must be banished from the garden so they do not outstretch their hand and eat from the tree of life. So it seems to me that you've got this serpent who could plausibly be described as the most sensible of the animals telling Eve, seemingly, the truth.

The people who regard Milton's Satan as what? An admirable revolutionary tend to have the same attitude towards the serpent in the garden. And it's a complicated, it's a very complicated issue because even to the degree that the serpent is an agent of Lucifer, which I think is an extraordinarily profound, what reading and overlay on that initial story, I think it's remarkable. Lucifer is the bringer of light, right? Yeah, Jesus himself is referred to as Lucifer at one point in the gospel, which is quite a fascinating side name. Well, I guess the question is like illumination,

to what end? I do think that the interpretation that you rejected with regard to the consumption of the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil is moral presumption. It's the sin that Nietzsche suggests to everyone as the medication for the death of God. We have to define our own values. It's like, no, we can't do that.

But it's knowledge of good and evil. Yeah, but it's more than that. It's the consumption of the essence of moral knowledge itself. It sounds to me that I can never contradict an exegesis. That may be the case, but if I read this text naturally, if I just say, well, how does this naturally reach to me? It reads to me like you have, and that's say, well, like, how does this naturally read to me? Yeah. It reads to me like you have. And that's why I brought it up, because you consider this Gnostic tradition, right? The evil demiurgic creator of the universe.

And the author of the testimony of truth says, you know, what God is this? What God is this? That firstly, you know, condemns man for wanting to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And secondly, lies to him about what's going to happen when he does and recognizes, and we're missing like 50% of the text, like it's ripped to shred, these Gnostic texts, it's fascinating.

I think the gospel of Judas spent about 30 years in a safety deposit box in New York City and he destroyed the whole thing, it's a fascinating story. But so we don't know for sure, but there's a point where it seems to identify this serpent with Christ, with Jesus. And reading that, I'm like, that makes a lot of sense to me on a surface reading of Genesis. Part of it reflects the ambivalence about the human rise to self-consciousness.

Is that a good or is that something good or something evil? Because why does God then say, now they've become like us knowing good and evil, they must not be allowed, we must banish them, lest they reach out their hand and eat from the tree of life. And then guards eat him with the with the sherebim with the flaming sword. It seems to me that God is saying, you know, because we're told that because of the fool, now man can't inherit eternal life and Jesus must come to save him. But as soon as they eat of this tree, God banishes them. They don't, they don't see God banishes them.

I don't have an interpretive problem with that part. Yeah, that's, I don't know what sense to make of that. I should ask Jonathan Pagio, because I suspect he'd have something to say about that. I think that the one way of interpreting the account of the fall is that it was the inevitable consequence of Adam and Eve's overreach. And so they end up banished not so much

because God wants them out of the garden, but because in their pride, they threw themselves out of the garden in their overreach. And I wrote about this, it's very hard for me to generate the entire interpretation on the fly. I wrote about this extensively in this new book that I'm publishing in November,

trying to take apart that particular issue. Because what seems to happen in the Adam and Eve account is that you have an illusion to the function of male and female consciousness. First, you have Adam who names and subdues and orders. Right, so he's an extension in some ways of the logos, right, in human form. And God's curious enough about that

to bring everything to Adam to just see what he'll name. But the command is for Adam to bring everything to Adam to just see what he'll name. But the command is for Adam to put everything in its proper place in this hierarchical organization with its proper name. And Adam can do that if he's an adequate and faithful reflection of the logos. Then Eve is created as the counterpart to that. And it's something like, well, there's an ordering

tendency and there's the order that that produces. But then there are things that are on the margin that aren't accounted for by the divine order and they need a voice. And Eve is the voice of... You think about this biologically. What does a woman do in the context of a family? She brings the attention to that which is vulnerable and has not yet been properly incorporated. So what do you mean by that? Well imagine that you have a well constituted family and there's a new baby. Well the baby doesn't fit in. The baby is an anomaly.

The baby is an individual that has its own idiosyncrasies. And the mother who's sensitive to the needs of the infant, she's going to be the voice of that. She's going to knock on the door of the ordering principle and say, you need to make some adjustments here so that what can't fit does. If it feels... Because... Yeah, and again, I'm trying to be... To understand what you're saying and trying to be charitable.

It does seem to me that this is an unnatural interpolation in that sort of... It seems like maybe it's too much. Like, I don't know if that's... You can make that work, right? You can make that work. There's always... This is the kind of objection that Sam Harris had to the sorts of things that I said. He said, well, you can interpret a cookbook that way. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and this is... Look, this is a huge problem. This is the problem that postmodernists dangled in front of everyone. It's like, well, what's the canonical interpretation of a text?

The answer is no one knows. Right. And so does that mean that there's an infinite number of interpretations per text? Yes. Which one's correct? Hey. Now, that problem, I think, to some degree, has actually been technically solved. While the large language models do this.

You bet. So, I've been talking to one of my colleagues about a new discipline, which is something like computational epistemology. Well, because the large language models track patterns of interrelationships between words. Okay, so when you're trying to interpret something like the story of Adam and Eve, the story is the words, the story is the letters, the story is the words, the story is the phrases, the story is the sentences,

and the paragraphs, and the chapters, and the whole biblical corpus, plus the entire bloody culture. And all of that bears on those interpretations. So you say, well, am I overreaching my interpretation in relationship to Adam and Eve? And I would say, well, that's a very difficult question. And it's possible to overreach and it's possible to overinterpret. Specifically with the female in the family.

Well, the thing is though that there is... Could any other person, like having not listened to this conversation and not spoken to you. Daoists would know that. But any other person in the world, sort of read the story of Adam and Eve and similarly say, well, I think that this is because Eve is representing what a woman does in a well oriented family, which has to do with, you know, when you have a child, it's sort of a, it's an anomaly, it's something new and it's the woman that brings that.

Well, Eve stands for the voice of the serpent. Yeah. The thing that's excluded. That's true, but I mean- Yeah, but that's exactly the point is that that's exactly. So would someone else come to that conclusion? I would say, well, people can make that decision for themselves when they read the text,

but I would say it's very much in keeping, let's say with Taoist interpretations of what masculine and feminine are. It's not an infallible way to understand whether an interpretation is correct. But I think it's helpful to know if you read a novel, there's that sort of joke that school children make about like, it doesn't matter what a novel says,

it'll be like the curtains were blue and the English teacher will say, well, let's unpack that, let's look at what that means. Right, and people make fun of that because that's their experience in school. I think that one way to understand if we're doing this appropriately is if two people simultaneously think, oh, actually, the fact that the curtains were blue is significant here, if you consider this. So it seems to point to that. If people can independently, even if they don't get it quite the same,

recognize that that's significant. It's helpful to understand that there's something legitimate about that kind of analogy. Definitely. This is actually part of the reason that I became so interested in the Jungian, Iliad, Eric Neumann School of Mythological Interpretation, because that's exactly what they did was they took patterns of interpretation, let's say of masculine and feminine from multiple cultures and look for overlap. Okay, when I wrote Maps of Meaning, so I did that. I used the Jungian works in that regard, but I also used what I knew about neuropsychology

and neuropsychopharmacology, with the presumption being that if all of these pointers pointed to the same thing, it was probably there. That's multi-method, multi-trait construct validation fundamentally. And the notion is that your senses do the same thing. If your eyes and your ears and your sense of smell and your taste and your touch all report the same thing, then you have a reasonable probability of assuming, of surviving if you assume that it's true. Now that's not perfect because the reason we talk is that I don't wanna just rely on my own senses

even though there's five of them. So I've got a quintangulation happening which is a pretty decent way of specifying truth. I wanna know if your perception shows concordance, right? We want this converging evidence. Now it's trickier with textual interpretation, you know, partly it's trickier too, because mere consensus is not sufficient.

You need deep expertise. Okay, so why would I say that? Well, we have these large language models, for example, and they're doing statistical analysis of textual interrelationship at every level, right? Billions of parameters. So the letter conjunctions, the word conjunctions, the phrase conjunctions, the sentence conjunctions,

the whole bloody thing, but even they're prone to go astray. And the reason for that is that they're overrated to the present. Like, so we have the alignment problem as a consequence, which is, well, how do we trust the AI interpretations? Well, the same problem obtains for human beings, the alignment problem.

How do we align ourselves? Well, that's what a classical education did, right? And that was steeping in the ancient texts. Why? Because the ancient texts are distillations of patterns that have existed over thousands of years. And if you know the patterns, you orient yourself properly. And that also makes you immune to...

See, the problem with the convergence notion is it can produce a false consensus. Like all the Nazis agree, well, that's a problem because they were wrong. You think we should be sending chat GBT to Bible school? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I have a colleague. We've been training AI systems on classic texts. They're way more useful. I use one all the time. We haven't released it.

How is it more useful? It's not woke. Seriously. It's not ideologically adamant. But surely it is, I mean, it's ideologically controlled and confined just in a different way. No, I don't think it's ideologically confined. An ideology doesn't need to be bad, especially given that like as a non-believer in Christianity, I see Christianity as an ideology, right? That's a good objection. This goes back to the point that you made.

This goes back to the point you made about people taking the right to themselves to define the moral order, let's say, in the Garden of Eden. Okay, so what's the problem with that? The problem is, is that the proper interpretation is bounded by the actuality of the cosmic order, right? So it isn't the postmodernist say, well, it's just one ideology. It's either this one or this one.

But then that's all grounded in power as it turns out. So they've got something at the bloody pinnacle anyways. That philosophy either degenerates into a kind of incoherent nihilism or it turns into a power play. It's like, no, there are canonical interpretations. Well, what are they? Well, that's what's encapsulated in the religious text is canonical interpretations. Okay, why are they canonical? Okay, I'll give you an example. You tell me what you think about this is good. This is a good rejoinder to dark to dark and

selfish gene. Okay, so God is conceptualized in the story of Abraham as the call to adventure. Yeah. Okay, so Abraham is privileged. He's rich. He's in a state of infantile security. He doesn't have to do a damn thing till he's like 70. He has rich parents. He doesn't have to lift a finger. Okay. And then a voice comes to him that says, get the hell away from your zone of comfort. Leave your family, leave your tent, leave your community, go out in the world. Okay, well, so what is that?

Well, that's the same impulse that drives a child to develop. It's the impulse that drives a man to continue to mature. Right, so you could think about it as an instinct if you want, the instinct to growth. Okay, God makes Abraham a deal It's such a stellar deal. He says look if you listen to this voice of adventure If you commit to it if you live by its dictates and you make the proper sacrifices along the way This is what will happen to you

You'll be a blessing to yourself Okay, so that's a good deal. That's a nice start, right? So you don't have to be miserable and self-conscious, right? Aware of your own nakedness. You can start to walk with God again, okay? But more, you'll do that in a way that will ensure your valid reputation. So that's a good deal

because you wanna have a reputation that's distributed in the social community, obviously. And if it's based on something real, so much the better, then you're not a charlatan or a fake or a psychopath. Okay, but that's not all. Says, you'll do that in a way that'll enable you to establish a permanent dynasty that will cascade down the generations.

And that's not all either. You'll do all that in a way that's beneficial to everyone else. So this is so cool because it speaks of, it's something like the tree of life. It speaks of a concordance, right, between the instinct to mature and develop, that calling of adventure, the pathway that actually works best for you, the pathway that works best for you and establishes something permanent in a manner that enhances your reputation that cascades down the generations. Okay, now Abraham is offered, if he follows this pathway, God says, well, you'll be the

father of nations. Okay, so now imagine this. This is contra the selfish gene, let's say. The human pattern of reproduction. Dawkins' mistake was that he thought reproduction and sex were the same thing. And they're not, they're not, especially not in the human case.

Because human beings are high investment, long-term maters, right? So we have very few offspring and we invest like mad in them. Pair bond, you live long enough to be grandparents, you put a multi- okay, so that means that to be the proper father, you have to act out a sacrificial ethos. Okay, the idea in the story of Abraham is that if you act out that sacrificial ethos properly, which aligns the spirit of adventure with the harmony of the community,

you will act in a manner that best ensures the long-term survival of your offspring, right? So you could imagine it's not just the contribution of sperm to egg, it's the development of an ethos of paternal care that increases the probability that your children will be successful, but also in a way that increases the probability that your children will be successful, but also in a way that increases the probability that their children will be successful.

All right, so that's an alignment with a genuine cosmic order. It's not arbitrary. And so there are interpretations, we'll say, they're not just ideologies. They're not just arbitrary interpretations of the way the world lays itself out. They are in harmony with the cosmic order.

And that's what makes them deep, sacred, fundamental. And in the truest possible sense, that is the proper rejoinder to the postmodernists. It's like, see, this is why they insist. It's why they're so anti-science in their ethos too. And this is where Sam Harris has got a point because Harris likes to make a case for objective morality. Objective, it's like transcendent is the right word, not objective.

But did it actually happen? I'm kidding. What I was really interested thinking about that, and I just had three hours with Sam Harris, we sort of went around on that question. I agree that I think his system fails essentially for what it's worth. He's got a point. He wants to ground morality in something that isn't a mere postmodern illusion.

And there's something to be said for that. I want to know how much like, the story of the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible, the story of Abraham. Okay, train a large language model on that because it's integrated into the cosmic order, however you want to say it. How far do you go with this? I mean, like, do you train this model on the New Testament?

I don't know. Do you train it on the epistles? We're playing with them. I don't know. Do you train it on John Milton? Good question. Dante. That's a very good question. So imagine that at the foundation you have the biblical library. But then you have, like you said, the secondary literatures. What about the Quran? We want

to train a separate one on the Quran. Then we want to have them debate. Yeah. Well, it's really interesting in the case of Islam, because there's an insistence in the Islamic world that the entire epistemology is actually contained in the text and nothing else. I think the mistake that people make in comparative religion between Islam and Christianity is that they think that the Bible and Christianity

is what the Quran is Islam. I think in Islam, the word becomes a book and in Christianity is what the Koran is to Islam. Yeah, right. That's just not the case. In Islam, the word becomes a book and in Christianity, the word becomes a person. I think Jesus is to Christianity what the Koran is to Islam. Right, absolutely. And that's a big difference. I think that's a mistake that people make, partly because, you know, the Koran is infallible. Right. You can't think that any word of the Koran is wrong because it's the literal and altered word of God.

Whereas with the Bible, you've got a bit more leeway, say it's mythology or maybe there's a historical contradiction, but it's not actually that much of a problem. However, if you had Jesus in front of you, you can't contradict him. I think that's an important distinction for people to keep in mind. Well, that also makes the logos the living word. Yeah. Right? That is a very important distinction. It makes it more difficult to put forward the somewhat naive criticism that I think people often make of the gospels as contradicting each other.

Because again, like we're talking like historically here, you know, was Herod on the throne at the same time, Carinius was the governor of Syria as Lucid. And it's sort of like, in a sense, who cares? I mean, one of the points that my friend, my friend John Nelson has made brilliantly is, have you ever come across the concept of the, what do they call it? The Churchillian drift, where a bunch of quotes

that Churchill never said just get attributed to, you know. I find that the best breakfast is a- That's part of the pattern of mythologization. If someone says, you know, I think- They fall into his orbit because they're of his type. I think the best breakfast is a... That's part of the pattern of mythologization. If someone says, you know, I think... They fall into his orbit because they're of his type. I think the best breakfast in the morning is a glass of champagne, a hearty glass of champagne, right? He never said that, but people sort of think maybe he said...

Sounds like something Churchill might have said. Same thing happens with C.S. Lewis. Now, the point that my friend John pointed out to me was that, well, if all you had, the only information you had about Winston Churchill was a book of apocryphal quotes that people had attributed to him and agreed that he'd said, you'd still probably get a pretty good idea about who Winston Churchill was. And that's something you can do with the Bible.

That's partly because you... Or the Gospels. Well, you put something, you see, let's say that there's a three-dimensional shape on the wall and you want to, the wall's like flat white, you can't really see it. So what you want to do is you want to throw a bunch of like garbage at the wall, so to speak, and the outline, despite the fact that everything you throw at the wall is garbage and it lands in many different places. If you throw enough of it at the wall, you'll get the shape. Yeah. Well, it's partly because you can imagine that there's a set of apocryphal, there's

a set of sayings that have been, what, mis-remembered, but a fairly comprehensive set. You're still going to be able to extract signal, right? There's going to be noise, there's going to be signal there. That's partly because the truth will be encoded in the panoply of the- That's why it's a bigger problem if somebody points out like some flat historical, if that was discovered, just like a flat historical contradiction in the Quran. That'd be a big problem because the Quran is the literal word of God. If someone points out a flat historical contradiction in the Gospels, it kind of doesn't matter as much because you're able to accept that maybe that is just a contradiction, but the thing that matters is the word of God and the word of God is not the gospel

of Luke or the gospel of John, but the person that they were sort of writing about. Well, that's also partly, you see that you just pointed to another reason why I don't like the over concretized questions. It's like you're looking for truth in the wrong place there, buddy. I understand that, but it also depends on what kind of truth you're looking for, right? Because for me, as an interested third party. Everything depends on that. I'd really like to know if Jesus actually wrote in the dead as a historical fact.

I'd love to know if there was a real exodus. You know, like that's really interesting and important to me. Now, as somebody who doesn't believe that those things did happen, I still have access to the meaning of the story of something like a resurrection. Let's assume just for the sake of- But I'm not a Christian. It's not enough for me to say, well, you know, do I believe that, you know, self-sacrifice is at the basis of a meaningful life? Oh, maybe, but that's not enough to make me a

Christian because I don't believe it's the case. I'm also, I'm quite interested actually how, I mean, you're obviously quite attracted to Christianity and the Christian story. I mean, you keep Jesus on your jacket, but I'm interested how that dovetails with your insistence on personal responsibility as the way to live a proper and meaningful life, given that the story of Jesus is one of vicarious redemption. I sort of throw my sins on him. You know, he takes responsibility

for the sins that I've committed. Yeah, well, I'm, you know, I'm- I wonder how those go together. Well, I'm, what would you say? No, Jesus will clean up your room for you. Look, it's really good to have a divine ally. And I think the more unerringly you aim upward, the more you walk with God. And that does mean that Christ is beside you. And so that is a reflection of the truth

of vicarious redemption. But that doesn't mean you have nothing to do, right? And Christ makes that very clear in the gospels. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, right? Only those who do the will of my father. You must be willing to hate your brother and your father. Well, there's, it just your father. There's a tension there because the Vicarious Redemption idea is a reflection of the mercy

of God. It's like if you, and I believe this to be the case, as I said, if your aim is upward, then God is your ally. And so he's there with you bearing the cross, but you're still obliged to carry it, right? And you see that in the story too, that's embedded in the passion story because there's an insistence in traditional Christianity

that the suffering and the death that a man would experience in that situation were real, despite the fact that God was also experiencing it, right? So there's this duality. And I think that's reflected in the idea of vicarious redemption when it's understood properly. It's like, yes, you'll have...

Here's another way of thinking about it is that if you aim upward unerringly, you have the spirit of what's good, what are you saying? You've established a relationship with the spirit of what's the highest good. Well, then that's with you. And that's not just a reality. It's like the ultimate reality. It's Nietzsche even alluded to that when he said, if you have a why, you can bear any how. Yeah. Well, what why? Well, the ultimate why. Well, what does that enable you to do? To bear the ultimate how? And that's exactly what the

passion story is. And so, there is a vicarious redemption there because if you do it properly, you don't have to do it alone. But that doesn't mean that there's nothing on you. And you see that too. There's an insistence in the entire biblical library that what humans are called to do is real. We're made in the image of God. We're participating in the process by which possibility is transformed in order. We're building, as far as I'm concerned, we're either building the city of God

or we're building its alternative, right? With the domain of hell. Actually, right, actually, really, as well as metaphysical. I mean, it's interesting you say hell and actually in the same sentence because. Well, it's easy to believe in hell than heaven. Well, one of the other criticisms that I made of you in this video was that I felt like you

were appropriating religious language illegitimately to apply a sense of the sacred to profane things, to mundane things. And that's perhaps one example. So I can give you a few examples. I mean, one is implied in what you just said there, but you said it, I think, explicitly to Matt Fradd recently on Pines with the Quinus, where you said, if you have studied any amount of history and you don't believe that hell is real, then you're an idiot. Now, I understand, I think, what you mean by that, because hell, like, you know, hell

is a place on earth in many respects, right? Like, if you study history and you look at just like what levels of depravity humanity can sink to, like, and you could quite poetically say, well, if hell isn't the right word to describe that, then I don't know what is. Right. Something like that, right? But clearly, a theological conception of hell does not exist on planet Earth. It's somewhere you go after you die.

It's not so clear. I wouldn't say it's so clear. Well, certainly not in the Jewish tradition. And, okay, maybe not in the... Okay, maybe not, but like a modern Christian who asks you, for example, do you believe in hell and you know what they mean. They mean the place you go after you die. The place you go after you die. And when you respond and say sort of, well, of course hell is real.

Well, you don't believe in hell. Have you studied any amount of history? If you've, if you've, you know, it's sort of, it feels like you're sort of describing two different things. Yeah. The other area where this, this, this largely happens, I think, is when you said that the very act of doing science. See there's a concordance there between that concept of eternal punishment in the afterlife

and the hell that unites all totalitarian states. But I don't know what the concordance is. I don't understand. And I don't speculate generally on anything that's, let's say, beyond death. I mean, what the hell can you say about that? I don't have anything to say about that. But that's another I don't know point, right? So if I ask you, for example, you know, do you think that Hitler is being punished now? You know, I mean, he's dead, but is he being punished?

Or did he ever get punished? See, the answer to that question is something like, what is the relationship between the evanescent consciousness of man and eternity? And the answer is, we don't know. Yeah, when Matt Fratt asked you, do you believe in an afterlife, you said that something like your behaviors or your actions resonate through eternity.

Yeah, well, there's that, which is, you know, in a way an evasive answer too. But the thing is we don't understand. We exist in relationship to the infinite, obviously. What that relationship is, I don't, no one knows how to conceptualize that in the final analysis. I don't understand the relationship between our binding temporarily and eternity. Like, is there something permanent about our conscious experience? I don't know. I think you excite your Christian listenership when you say, like, not only, you know, do I believe in hell, but you can't not believe in hell.

I mean, are you serious? You seriously don't believe in hell? And they think, oh, here's a strong sort of warrior. Well, and you go, while the others... But then they realize that what you mean by hell is just like... Well, it's so... Lots of human suffering and catastrophe, you know, on the planet Earth. But it's more than that, because it's more than that, you know, because it is the case that the invitation to hell is offered by the eternal usurper of the moral order.

That's true. You end up in of the moral order. That's true. You end up in hell because you lie. That's also true. And so- But when you say that's true, you end up in hell because you lie. Yeah. What do you mean?

Well, the totalitarian state, let's say. You're not allowed to use the word hell, right? Like what is the thing you're describing? You end up where? In a totalitarian state. Yes. And that's fine. A state of ultimate misery.

I think this is where somebody might be prone to confusion. And you could say that's their fault, maybe it is, but if somebody's listening to you and do you believe in hell? And you say, of course I believe in hell. How can you not believe in hell? And they go, oh, thank goodness, because that of course is my worldview. I'd love to know how I can defend my vision of hell. And then they realize that when you say hell, what you actually mean is something like totalitarian

human regimes. I guess I mean at least that. Sure. Right, and so I'm often trying to make a minimal case, right, if I'm trying to elaborate on the meaning of a religious text. What I'm trying to say in all humility is, it means at least this.

Now, does that cover the entire territory of the meaning? That's very unlikely. You're going to give an exhaustive account? I don't think so. What does that mean in eternity? It's the same question, and then we should draw this part to a close. It's the same question in some sense as the reality of the resurrection of Christ. So the Christian interpretation is Christ defeats death in hell. So the Christian interpretation is Christ defeats death in hell. Okay, well, the logical objection to that is, well, where's the evidence for the defeat? Since death still exists and so does malevolence.

Well, the Christians then will escape, so to speak, into something like a symbolic interpretation and say, well, it's true in eternity. And I think fair enough, like I do believe, I do believe that the idea that Christ defeated death in hell is true, but I don't know what that means. And so, and that, does that bother me? Well, I'd rather know when I'm continuing to investigate it. But like, I do know, for example-

I am Hersey Ali, who recently became a Christian. She just had a conversation with Richard Dawkins. Yeah. It hasn't gone out yet. I was there. I had the privilege of being there. Oh yeah. So I've already heard it.

You know, I know what they spoke about. But one of the things that I am does is, and I've described it as sort of almost comical, the way that I am talks about her struggle with depression, suicidality, total hopelessness, and then finds that by praying, she's able to sort of elevate her life. And then comes to Richard Dawkins sort of,

but do you believe that Mary was a virgin when she gave? But it was funny. It was, I couldn't. Right, right, level of analysis problem. At the same time, I sort of understood it. And Dawkins says, but surely when you go to church, you're having these feelings, and you must recognize that the things he's saying at the pulpit are nonsense.

And Ianne said that she chooses to believe it. She says that I no longer find it to be nonsense because what she implied, and I don't want to put words in the mouth, I can't remember, but it was something like, look, I've been so captured by this meaning that although I don't really understand what it means to say that Jesus was born of a virgin, I just choose to believe it. Now that's fine, but what she does,

what I was going to say is what she does is says that this to me is like a mystery. I don't really know exactly what it means, but I choose to believe that it's true. And I wonder if that's something like what you're doing here when you say that you that it's true. And I wonder if that's something like what you're doing here when you say that you believe it's true but you don't know what that means. Well, I can just tell you what my experience has been

in this sort of thing. So I've spent a lot of time digging into the substructure of mythological accounts, right, in many different cultures. Now, and my experience continually is the deeper I look, the more that's there. And so, and then I see things come together And my experience continually is the deeper I look, the more that's there. And so, and then I see things come together that make sense that I thought were disparate. And that there doesn't seem to be any limit to that.

And so now when I see things that are disparate or even contradictory, I think, well, as you already pointed out, given the nature of the biblical library, there's room for some contradiction. But more than that, I think, well, that might be illogical or irrational, or I might just not understand it. And my experience has been that that presumption

turns out to be the case far more often than not. And so, you know, you can imagine that you can get the apprehension of a pattern and you can think the pattern is compelling. And then there are details within the pattern that you don't know how to reconcile. But this is what Ayan is doing in accordance with your account. It's like, well, I'm willing to, I'm not willing to forgo my view of the pattern because of some lack of concordance with details, especially given that I'm ignorant. Yeah. No, like, well, I can only tell you what has been the pattern of my investigations.

It's like the more deeply I, this is knocking and asking, the more deep, the more I see, the more is present. I guess, you know, to conclude, I suppose. So suppose I'm somebody and broadly this is true, you know, I think the gospel story is are fascinating and resonant. I like the idea of the resurrection of Christ, the way that it's criticized as this evil human sacrifice, I think is misleading. I have all of those parts, but I'm not a Christian. And I suppose the question... In what way are you not? Well, that's what I mean. To help me understand what you mean by this, you know, what is the difference between someone

who's not a Christian and not... That's a good question. They're not some new atheist type. They're not like, I wouldn't worship God even if... No, that's a very... They're just not a Christian and someone who is. I think Dawkins is like 90% Christian. That's what people keep saying about him.

Well, I think partly because I do believe that he is committed to the truth. He does believe that the truth will set you free. He does believe that there's an intelligible order. He believes that the investigation of the intelligible order is redeeming. This is, it's a shame we don't have a bit more time to do the science thing. Perhaps that will happen in another conversation. So you know, who is and who isn't a Christian? That's not an easy question.

And that's again why I started our conversation. I think it's inappropriate for you to try to say who is and who isn't a Christian? That's not an easy question. And that's again why I started our conversation. I think it's inappropriate for you to try to say who isn't who isn't, but just abstractly, like what you think the difference is. Like what is it that, you know, under what conditions? Christians hoist their cross and walk uphill. Right. OK, so I heard you say that before as well, right? But like. But that is what I think.

That's the difference. Not to sort of try to be too left brabrained about this, but like in practice. Yeah. What do you mean? Like perhaps two sort of symmetrical questions. What conditions under which, what are the conditions under which somebody could say... How careful are you with your words? Well, I try to be careful.

Okay. Well, that's a good approximation to Christian conduct, right? Because that's worship of the logos. Fine, but that's really a serious part of it. I don't know if that will be enough. I certainly don't know if the word worship there is particularly appropriate. How profoundly do you value it?

To the extent that it helps me to convey my ideas properly. I don't worship the words that I'm using themselves. No, no, I understand that. I don't care about the words, but the words are a tool and the reason that I'm as precise as I can be is in service of trying to communicate my ideas. For what purpose? So that whatever it is that I'm feeling or thinking in my head, if I could somehow take a medical instrument and prod your brain to make the same thought arise, that would be

really helpful to me because you'd see the world how I see it. That is what language is, it's that tool, except instead of prodding your brain with a physical bit of metal, I'm prodding your ears with vibrations in the air, but I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm just trying to make that thought arise so that you can see the world as I do

and so that I can see the world as you do. To what end? Well, I don't know. Well, how about productive harmonization of vision? But fine, yeah, it depends on the conversation, right? So like in this instance, it will be, I mean, I came into this conversation, I suppose, with a goal to more thoroughly understand your world view,

which is more specific than usually with these conversations it would be let's try to learn so much from each other and convince each other of something. In this case I really was just fascinated to sit down and try to understand, you know, what does Jordan Peterson think about religion? Like that's probably the goal, which maybe is a slightly inappropriate goal to come into a conversation with, but that's really what I've been trying to understand. So I suppose that's the goal. So it's the idea, we can wrap this up with, let's say, a Christian observation, is that there's a notion, a classical Christian notion that wherever two or more are together in

Christ's name, the Spirit of God is there. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, as far as I'm concerned, what it means is that if you're unerring in your choice of words, if you're seeking with them and exploring and I'm doing the same, and then we do that together, that's a mutually redemptive process that spirals upward. And that's a Christian endeavor. One of the conditions under which somebody can say they're a Christian and be either lying or wrong, and the condition under which someone can say, I'm not a Christian and be either lying or wrong, if you see what I mean.

That's a very good question. Well something came to mind right away when you asked that question, for much instantly. There's a reason that Christ is represented as the person who took the sins of the world onto himself. Well, that's the essence. It's like the world is a fallen place and you have the responsibility to do something about that. And the degree to which you take that responsibility onto yourself, that's the degree to which you are follower of Christ.

I suppose it's not an on and off switch. That was an unfair to frame it as such, I suppose. the degree to which you are follower of Christ. That's a definition. It's not an on and off switch. It's not unfair to frame it as such, I suppose. It's not like you either are on or off switch. It's not like you're a Christian or you're not. It's like you're more or less. When Jacob decides to be a good person instead of a bad person,

he builds an altar and it signifies his willingness to sacrifice his past self. I think that people decide in many ways and maybe multiple times whether they're going to aim up or not. Now that's that initial commitment. It's like a baptism in a sense that you decided that you're going to aim up. Okay, well now you can do that badly because you will. And you see this in the Old Testament accounts of the prophets all the time.

A lot of them are pretty reprehensible when they first find their feet, but you can stumble your way uphill. And that is the essence of Christian belief is to stumble your way uphill with the maximum load you can bear. And the thing that's so fascinating about that is that that's also the pathway of maximal meaning.

And that meaning is exactly what enables you to bear the load. So it's a very paradoxical, what would you say? It's a very paradoxical reality. And I think the essence of the Christian faith is the imitation of Christ. It's not the mouthing of the words. Now, that doesn't mean the words shouldn't be in accordance with the commitment. They should be. But the commitment can't be reduced to the utterance.

The commitment is the carrying. Yeah. And the carrying in relationship to a goal. In the imitation of Christ. It's in the imitation. The text, the book, the imitation of Christ, you won't be judged on what you say, but what you've done. Yeah, well, and I don't mean,

that also doesn't mean that the treasure that you stack up on earth is an indication of your transcendent value, right? You shouldn't fall into the justification by works heresy. But with that coda firmly in mind, I don't think there's anything in that proposition that isn't in accordance with the gospel accounts. Christ calls on his disciples to be followers, right? To walk the same path. And they're given the power to do the same things because of that. And Christ says himself that the people who come after him, which means us, will be capable of more than he managed.

Right, well, that doesn't mean that there's no redemption by proxy, let's say, because we already covered that, is that if you aim up, you have the spirit that's inviting you up, you've invited it to take residence in you. And that's true, that's true, as far as I can see. I think it's the most accurate way of construing the situation. That does give you a form of, it gives you what I am found, right?

It gives you a spine. But that doesn't mean you don't have a cross, right? And that, you see that insistence in the gospel accounts, as I said, you know, the insistence that Christ suffered as a man, despite having God, being God, that God, those are both true at the same time. So the Christian pathway is the pathway of maximal self-sacrificial responsibility. Right. Well, I hope those who have been wondering whether you should be legitimately cool to Christian in their worldview, in their version of Christianity, will be helped by this conversation. I mean, I suppose that's in part what I'm trying to do too here is for people who sort of, who say to you,

just say what you think. It's complicated, you know, but hopefully. Well, I am trying to say what I think. It's just the world's a complicated place. Yeah, well, hopefully we're helping to make it. It's nice to get your words in pristine order, but the more complicated the topic, the longer it takes to manage that with stellar precision. Yeah, well it's taken us probably nearly two hours now just to get about around to the idea of maybe, well maybe you don't know if the Jews walked through the Egyptian desert, but maybe that also doesn't...

They're still walking through the Egyptian desert. Maybe they're still walking. Good to talk to you. It's been fun. All right. So everyone, I'm going to continue this conversation. We're going to continue this conversation on the Daily Wire platform. And so I think I'll talk to Alex a bit, something a bit more personally.

I want to find out how he managed his podcast and why he's interested in the things he's interested in, in what his pathway to that occupation was and what his hopes for the future are and all of that. And so if you want to join us on the Daily Wire side, please do. Thank you to the film crew here. We're in LA. Right, we're in LA. And thank you very much for coming all the way from London.

That was, it's very good. And it was a fine conversation, much appreciated. And thank you all of you who are watching and listening for your time and attention. Well, hopefully we'll see you on the Daily Wire side. And if not, then well, for the next podcast. were a side, and if not, then well, for the next podcast.