JP recently appeared on “Jubilee”, the YouTube channel known for having “debate-ish” videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwk5MPE_6zE
The setup here is they will take some person and surround them with tens of their opponents, so you have “Jordan Peterson vs 20 Atheists”.
In this exact video, one of the people asks JP if he’s a Christian and he replies “Don’t be a smartass!”
I haven’t seen someone that espouses so many Christian values and philosophy while trying to hold it at arm’s length. Is this just part of the usual JP tactic where you call into question any terms used in a discussion to sound deeply philosophical?
He seems to have an atypical relationship with Christianity and I can’t decide if that’s some genuine crisis he has OR if he just pretends to hold this stance just to add one more slippery facet to his behavior.
If nothing else, it’s very odd.
I’ve listened to Jordan Peterson a lot in long form conversations. This is my generous interpretation of his views.
Peterson believes that all humans have a hierarchy of values and desires.
Eg you go to work in order to get money in order to get food in order to live in order to play tennis in order to enjoy yourself…
At the top of this hierarchy is the thing that you’re ultimately after in life. Jordan defines this thing as “god” and defines the pursuit of it “worship”. Therefore, everyone has a god and everyone worships.
He also believes that the past doesn’t really exist, as much as our societal memory of it. He would say that the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible is “True”, because it is the archetypal brotherly rivalry that we all embody in some sense.
Putting this together. The Bible is “True”. Everyone has a “God” they have a personal relationship with and that they “worship”.
He is essentially defining things such that everyone is a Christian. Then he says that people just don’t understand what Christianity really is.
He also refuses to admit that most Christians wouldn’t define God in the way that he does.
Peterson is in practice an atheist that has successfully monetised right wing religious conservatives, and can’t risk alienating that base by admitting that he doesn’t have belief in anything close to resembling the way that they do.