Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1196 ｜ Where the Jordan Peterson vs. Atheists 'Jubilee' Debate Went Wrong

00:00:00.780 Jordan Peterson debated 20 atheists.

00:00:04.180 We'll go through some of his answers today, and I will give you what I would say as a

00:00:11.460 Christian to some of these atheist claims.

00:00:15.300 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:18.060 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:19.100 Use code ALI at checkout.

00:00:20.240 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:21.360 Code ALI.

00:00:30.000 Hey, guys.

00:00:32.320 Welcome to Relatable.

00:00:33.220 Happy Wednesday.

00:00:34.240 Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.

00:00:37.400 All right.

00:00:38.260 Today, we are talking about Jordan Peterson's recent debate on Jubilee.

00:00:44.440 That's a YouTube channel.

00:00:45.820 They have a series called Surrounded, where they have one person who holds one position

00:00:51.140 and then 20 to 25 people surrounding that person in a semicircle who hold the opposing position.

00:00:58.500 So, for example, they've done Ben Shapiro versus 25 Kamala Harris voters, one progressive

00:01:05.960 versus 20 conservatives, Dr. Mike, I don't know who that is, versus 20 anti-vaxxers, one

00:01:14.060 LGBTQ activist versus 25 conservatives.

00:01:18.240 So that's the kind of thing they do.

00:01:20.540 They've done Charlie Kirk versus like 20 woke students, which was just a piece of cake for

00:01:27.540 Charlie, because that's basically what he travels around the country doing.

00:01:31.500 And that has like 28 million views.

00:01:33.360 So these are very, very popular debates.

00:01:37.080 A lot of people watch them.

00:01:38.560 They're extremely clippable.

00:01:40.040 And so you see the clips circulating social media.

00:01:42.960 And the most recent debate is Jordan Peterson versus 20 atheists.

00:01:48.940 Is it 20 or 25 atheists?

00:01:50.680 A lot of atheists.

00:01:51.720 And at first, the YouTube video said one Christian versus 25 atheists.

00:01:59.720 And then they changed that very quickly because Jordan Peterson does not actually publicly identify

00:02:05.760 as a Christian in this debate.

00:02:08.280 He says that.

00:02:09.100 That's not just me trying to determine what his faith is.

00:02:14.940 He actually says he doesn't identify as a Christian.

00:02:17.580 And we see that throughout the debate.

00:02:19.380 There are a lot of clips circulating and a lot of people criticizing Jordan Peterson for

00:02:26.120 his answers to these theological apologetics questions and challenges that are being lodged

00:02:32.640 at him from this variety of atheists.

00:02:36.340 And so I wanted to go through some of the claims that are being made by these atheists and 0.95

00:02:43.440 what I would say to them as a Christian and not just what I would say to them, the opposing

00:02:52.760 atheists, but also what I would say to you, because I get so many questions from you about

00:02:59.420 a variety of things, but specifically about theology.

00:03:02.960 What do I say to this?

00:03:04.700 How do I answer this question?

00:03:06.780 And so I will go through, we'll play some clips, go through some of the things being

00:03:11.320 said, what I really agree on with Jordan Peterson and the things that I disagree on and would

00:03:19.520 have answered differently.

00:03:21.580 And I will reference scripture in some of these.

00:03:24.260 And I know that a lot of you out there will be like, well, atheists don't believe in the

00:03:27.480 Bible and so you can't say that.

00:03:28.980 And I will explain why I reference scripture in some of my answers, but also know that I

00:03:34.480 am communicating to you, my Christian audience, people who believe in God's word as inerrant, 0.96

00:03:42.420 as infallible, as authoritative, because I also want you to understand why we believe what

00:03:49.880 we believe and how we contend with these arguments.

00:03:53.100 Now, I am not an apologist by trade.

00:03:56.860 There are a lot of people out there who are much better versed in apologetics than I am,

00:04:04.200 but I do know my Bible, not perfectly.

00:04:07.940 And again, a lot of people are superior in that realm to me.

00:04:11.160 They've just been around longer.

00:04:12.380 They've been studying longer than I have, but I have been gifted by my parents, by my

00:04:21.080 upbringing, with a lot of evangelical, theological, and apologetics training.

00:04:29.420 And I like to think about these things.

00:04:31.560 And I'm very thankful for the wisdom that I have gleaned from professional apologists and

00:04:36.840 theologians and scholars who are much, much smarter than I am.

00:04:40.320 And they have given us a huge gift in the books that they've written and the wisdom that they

00:04:45.440 share.

00:04:46.000 And I've been able to glean from that.

00:04:47.560 So I hope to be able to share some of that clarity with you today in a way that's edifying.

00:04:54.720 Okay.

00:04:55.120 So let's go through some of these clips and we can't go through all of them.

00:05:00.320 This is like an hour and a half debate.

00:05:02.160 And so if you want all of the context for every single question and every single answer,

00:05:07.940 then you can go and you can watch that.

00:05:11.440 I'm not trying to decontextualize or misrepresent anyone.

00:05:15.660 I'm not trying to slam Jordan Peterson on this.

00:05:19.040 As I said, and as I will say, there are some things that he answered that I thought were

00:05:23.220 really good that I would affirm and say as well.

00:05:26.720 And then there were other things that I'm like, that is not at all the Christian perspective.

00:05:30.400 And I'm kind of confused about what exactly is going on here.

00:05:35.880 So within this debate, there are four claims that are made by the one opposing person in

00:05:43.900 the middle.

00:05:44.760 So in this case, the, I don't know, I guess I could call Jordan Peterson the thereto,

00:05:49.040 theist, because they changed it from Christian versus atheist to Jordan Peterson versus atheist.

00:05:54.560 So I think I could safely say that Jordan Peterson believes in God.

00:05:59.180 I think he's been visiting Catholic churches.

00:06:02.060 I think that his wife became Catholic, but he hasn't said that he's become Catholic.

00:06:06.560 So I think that I would say that he's a theist.

00:06:09.880 So he goes through these four claims and everyone around him is trying to contend with these claims.

00:06:17.720 And they literally race to the chair to try to debate with Jordan Peterson.

00:06:23.400 There seems like there's some voting process by the other participants that when the person

00:06:28.840 debating Jordan Peterson either like uses a logical fallacy or they've just like spent

00:06:34.780 enough time arguing with them, they raise their red flags and they're ready to move on to the next

00:06:40.480 person.

00:06:40.860 And then a cluster of them races to the seat.

00:06:43.740 They take their seat.

00:06:44.380 They have a few minutes to debate.

00:06:45.500 So it's very fast paced, very high stress and intense, probably for everyone involved.

00:06:51.280 But here are the four claims that they're supposed to be contending with that Jordan Peterson makes.

00:06:56.600 Claim one is atheists reject God, but they don't know what they're rejecting.

00:07:01.340 And then we've got claim two, and that is morality and purpose can't be found within science.

00:07:10.860 And then Jordan Peterson's third claim is that everyone worships something.

00:07:15.900 And then his last claim is that atheists accept Christian morality.

00:07:22.980 They just deny the religious foundation of Christian morality.

00:07:29.740 So we'll go through some of these clips and I'll tell you what Jordan Peterson said and

00:07:34.700 what I would say to these things, both to you and in some way to these atheists.

00:07:40.160 But before we get into it, let me go ahead and pause and tell you about our first sponsor

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00:09:34.280 All right.

00:09:40.720 Claim one.

00:09:42.140 Atheists don't know what they're rejecting.

00:09:45.680 So Jordan Peterson said atheists reject God, but they don't actually know what they are rejecting.

00:09:52.520 So here is someone named David, one of the atheists that rushed to the chair, got to the 0.88

00:09:58.060 chair first, sat down, and asked this question.

00:10:01.900 Sought one.

00:10:02.320 Tell me everything that you know about the Polynesian deity Lono, L-O-N-O.

00:10:09.040 I don't know anything about the Polynesian deity Lono.

00:10:12.340 So you're rejecting something without knowledge of what you're rejecting.

00:10:17.060 I'm not rejecting it.

00:10:18.600 Do you believe in Lono?

00:10:20.260 I don't know anything about it.

00:10:21.060 Do you believe in Lono?

00:10:22.520 Do you believe that he is a deity that exists in the world, exists in the universe, that

00:10:27.040 exists in the existence of everything?

00:10:30.160 Do you believe that Lono is a deity?

00:10:31.600 I'll answer that question once you answer my question, which is, do I reject everything

00:10:36.660 that I'm ignorant of?

00:10:38.580 Because that's your presupposition that undergirds your argument.

00:10:41.720 And unless you can prove that that's valid, then there's no point in...

00:10:44.600 My question is quite simple.

00:10:46.720 Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's formulated accurately.

00:10:49.180 Do you believe that Lono exists?

00:10:53.180 Yes or no?

00:10:54.360 I'm not going to answer that question for the reasons I just described.

00:10:58.620 Okay, so here's what I would say.

00:11:01.860 You don't have to know something to reject it.

00:11:06.160 You don't have to understand something to reject it if what you accept precludes the validity

00:11:12.280 or existence of the thing you're rejecting.

00:11:16.320 Okay, so let me explain what I mean.

00:11:18.160 So I am a Christian.

00:11:20.240 Christians believe in the triune God of the Bible. 0.63

00:11:24.120 The God we believe in says this about himself in Isaiah 44, 5.

00:11:29.080 I am the Lord, and there is no other.

00:11:31.640 Besides me, there is no God.

00:11:34.340 So because I am a Christian, because Christians believe in God, and because Christians believe 0.82

00:11:41.380 the Bible is God's word, and because the Bible tells us that there is no God besides my God,

00:11:48.300 I don't believe in Lono or any other false God.

00:11:52.040 You don't have to know something or understand something even to reject it.

00:11:57.700 I married my husband.

00:12:00.100 I reject all other men, even though I don't know most of them.

00:12:04.980 But marriage is, by nature, by definition, exclusive.

00:12:09.440 And so you are announcing your rejection of all others when you enter into that covenant.

00:12:16.080 The Christian God is, by nature, exclusive. 0.99

00:12:20.020 And believing in him means believing that he is the way, the truth, the life, as we read

00:12:25.780 in God's word in John 14, 6.

00:12:28.080 And again, you may say, well, atheists don't believe that.

00:12:32.300 They'd rebut that by saying they don't believe in God.

00:12:34.640 They don't believe in the Bible.

00:12:35.680 Yes, but that's actually irrelevant right now to the question that's being asked, the

00:12:41.260 claim and the counterclaim that are being leveled right now.

00:12:44.660 What's relevant is that it is logically and theologically possible to reject an idea or

00:12:51.560 an entity that you don't know about or understand.

00:12:56.140 And Jordan Peterson's claim that atheists reject what they don't understand can still be true 1.00

00:13:03.280 in light of this answer.

00:13:05.340 Because Jordan did not actually claim that you can never reject that which you don't

00:13:11.400 understand.

00:13:11.900 That's not what he said.

00:13:12.600 That's what this atheist is assuming that he meant by his claim, but that's not actually

00:13:17.480 what he said in his claim.

00:13:19.120 He claimed that atheists specifically reject that which they don't understand.

00:13:25.200 Not that no one can reject anything that they don't understand.

00:13:29.400 Now, I don't know if Jordan Peterson's claim is true.

00:13:35.000 It's not a claim that I would make in a debate because I have found through experience that

00:13:42.440 you are more likely to win an argument if you overestimate your opponent rather than underestimate

00:13:50.160 him.

00:13:50.700 So you go into an argument assuming that your opponent is very smart, very logical, prepared,

00:13:59.840 has a full understanding of what they believe and why.

00:14:05.220 When you assume that going into an argument rather than assuming that your opponent is stupid

00:14:10.240 and that you're so much smarter than them, when you assume that they are smart and logical,

00:14:15.120 you will come up in your preparation with much better arguments.

00:14:20.080 I would assume that everyone in that room knows Christianity well and is well-versed in the

00:14:28.180 arguments against it.

00:14:29.300 Now, I don't know if that's true, but it is a safer assumption.

00:14:32.700 It's safer for me to assume that than to assume that they don't know what they're talking about

00:14:38.800 and they don't know what they're rejecting.

00:14:40.540 Because then when they prove very quickly that they're not stupid, that they do have a good

00:14:46.800 understanding of what they're rejecting, then you're left looking unprepared.

00:14:52.120 And I'm not saying that Jordan Peterson is consciously thinking these people are stupid

00:14:57.760 and I'm so much smarter than them.

00:14:59.600 I'm not assuming that he's thinking that.

00:15:02.420 But to start with the claim that atheists never know.

00:15:05.920 They don't know what they're rejecting when they are rejecting God.

00:15:08.900 I think that is a difficult and dangerous and slippery place to start as a debater.

00:15:16.460 But for the record, like this guy didn't actually have a good question.

00:15:19.980 Because again, he's not actually directly addressing the claim that Jordan Peterson made there.

00:15:28.320 He's not really contending with the argument.

00:15:30.700 He thinks that he made a good claim, but he didn't really.

00:15:35.040 Okay, then we have someone who is addressing this claim one named Greg.

00:15:40.280 Actually, he went before the Lono guy.

00:15:44.000 So his, no, his name is not Greg.

00:15:46.280 It's Kate.

00:15:46.720 He says,

00:15:48.380 My background is in studying to become a traditional Catholic priest, daily mass, daily rosary,

00:15:54.860 going on long retreats, deep into the magisterium and biblical hermeneutics like I was thoroughly in it.

00:16:00.840 And it seems I do know what I'm missing.

00:16:04.600 Is there something that I missed over years of study,

00:16:08.060 both of this issue formally and living out religion so deeply?

00:16:13.580 And Jordan Peterson said, Well, obviously, you know, there's something that you were missing during this training for the priesthood.

00:16:21.260 But Jordan Peterson didn't really elaborate on that.

00:16:25.060 I would say in the beginning, Jordan got better throughout the debate.

00:16:28.360 He seemed very agitated, I would say, by the first people who sat down across from them.

00:16:33.020 And it's true that the opponents are going to be kind of adversarial.

00:16:36.720 Everyone is feeling very tense and agitated because it is so quick.

00:16:41.340 And it's such an intense experience.

00:16:43.440 Even just the look of it is very intense.

00:16:46.880 And so there was a lot of tension, I would say, between them.

00:16:51.980 But I don't think that Cade got a very good answer for what he said,

00:16:57.240 because he's trying to say, Okay, you're telling me I don't know what I'm missing,

00:17:00.900 but I know religion.

00:17:03.280 I know Catholicism.

00:17:04.740 I studied the Bible.

00:17:06.380 I studied these religious traditions.

00:17:09.140 I prayed every day.

00:17:10.120 How could you tell me that I don't know what I'm missing?

00:17:12.760 And I think that that's a fair point,

00:17:14.720 which is why I don't think the claim that you don't even understand what you're arguing,

00:17:19.200 atheist, is a good place to start.

00:17:21.680 Because then how do you respond to someone like this who has been studying religion and

00:17:27.940 Catholicism specifically for so long?

00:17:30.920 But the truth is, Cade misses what it actually means to be a Christian.

00:17:38.260 It's not primarily about formality of study.

00:17:42.020 It is not about how deeply religious life is lived out.

00:17:46.520 It's not about how many times you pray the rosary.

00:17:49.880 It's not about going to seminary.

00:17:52.500 It's not about participating in the worship team.

00:17:56.940 This is actually what separates Christianity from every other religion in the world. 0.96

00:18:02.960 We don't become Christians by the behavior that we live out.

00:18:08.660 We don't become Christians or become reconciled to God through works of our own.

00:18:16.100 The Bible actually says that our righteousness is like filthy rags, but we are justified by

00:18:24.500 grace through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

00:18:29.440 We read that in Ephesians 2, 8 through 9.

00:18:33.220 We read in Titus 3, 5 through 6,

00:18:35.560 There is a saying that says often heaven is missed by 18 inches.

00:18:56.440 18 inches is roughly the distance between the head and the heart.

00:19:01.480 So it could be possible, Cade, that you did have the head knowledge, that you knew about

00:19:06.680 the doctrines of Catholicism.

00:19:08.920 You participated in the sacraments, but that you didn't know the gospel, that you didn't

00:19:14.380 understand it, that you didn't really believe it.

00:19:18.160 I think that's true of a lot of people, whether you're Protestant, whether you are Catholic,

00:19:23.020 that you can have all of the head theological knowledge, but it's never been embedded into

00:19:28.080 your heart, so that you can look at a chair and say, I know that's a chair, but you'll

00:19:33.000 never sit in it because you don't really believe that it can hold you.

00:19:35.940 That means you have knowledge of what something is, but you don't have faith in its function,

00:19:42.040 in its power.

00:19:43.640 And in Christianity, it is the faith that is given to us as a gift of grace by God that

00:19:50.140 saves us, not our actions.

00:19:52.940 So maybe this is what Jordan Peterson was implying when he said, well, obviously you

00:19:58.140 missed something when you were studying for the priesthood.

00:20:02.300 I might say the same thing, but I would want to explain what he actually missed, that just

00:20:08.500 because you have a cognitive understanding of Christianity does not actually mean that you

00:20:14.900 understood God, or you understood what it means to have a relationship with God, or you

00:20:18.900 understood the crux of what it means to be a Christian, which is the gospel.

00:20:25.640 So I would say that that was a missed opportunity there.

00:20:28.520 And again, when you have someone who doesn't identify as a Christian, you're debating with

00:20:33.500 a bunch of people, as we'll see later, who thought that they were going to be debating

00:20:37.460 a Christian.

00:20:38.000 You get a lot of things that are just missed.

00:20:42.400 They're kind of speaking past each other because there are different expectations and different

00:20:47.700 definitions of things.

00:20:49.200 And we see in this debate that Jordan Peterson doesn't actually believe in God as the Bible

00:20:58.320 describes God.

00:21:00.000 He believes in God as your conscience.

00:21:04.340 Here's thought two.

00:21:06.060 So Elijah, the prophet Elijah, defined God in the Old Testament as the voice of conscience

00:21:11.540 within.

00:21:12.260 Okay.

00:21:12.560 That's a definition.

00:21:13.440 So you're just, you're saying by that definition of God, I see, this is kind of goes back to

00:21:19.220 where I'm saying initially.

00:21:19.740 I'm not defining it.

00:21:21.020 Elijah.

00:21:21.480 Okay.

00:21:21.820 So as Elijah's, as Elijah defines God. 0.51

00:21:24.280 It's defined that way in Jonah too.

00:21:25.700 Okay.

00:21:26.100 So as Cardinal Newman also defined it that way, as I'm sure, you know, many people who've defined

00:21:30.280 it that way.

00:21:31.560 And it's impressive.

00:21:32.500 You're a very knowledgeable person.

00:21:33.700 I'm not trying to be impressive.

00:21:35.160 I'm just pointing out to you how God is defined in the Old Testament.

00:21:38.260 All right.

00:21:39.000 So to respond to that, I do think there are lots of interesting ways to define God.

00:21:45.360 And that goes back to my kind of opening statement.

00:21:46.580 Then how do we specify what we're arguing about?

00:21:49.520 We use context clues or we, again, it goes back to my example of the Mona Lisa.

00:21:53.760 I'm defining God as conscience.

00:21:55.520 Okay.

00:21:56.300 So that's interesting.

00:21:57.460 But then you're kind of expanding the meaning of God.

00:22:00.580 No, I'm not.

00:22:01.200 That's how it's defined in the Old Testament.

00:22:02.960 Okay.

00:22:03.380 In Elijah and in Jonah.

00:22:04.980 Sure.

00:22:05.200 So whoever, so some.

00:22:06.500 Not whoever, Elijah is one of the major Old Testament prophets, right?

00:22:10.380 He's equal in stature to Moses.

00:22:12.300 Okay.

00:22:12.720 So it's not arbitrary.

00:22:14.140 All right.

00:22:14.560 So that is interesting, but it's not relevant to the context with which I am using the term

00:22:22.680 God.

00:22:23.140 It's directly relevant.

00:22:24.460 Atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting. 0.69

00:22:27.860 You accept conscience as a guide and conscience is one of the defining characteristics of God in

00:22:33.820 the Old Testament.

00:22:34.560 I think you're being intellectually disingenuous.

00:22:36.840 In what way?

00:22:37.920 Because, again.

00:22:38.620 I asked you if you believe that conscience guided you.

00:22:41.100 You just asked me a question and then you stopped me from answering it.

00:22:43.840 In this setting, you understand the way I am using the term God in belief.

00:22:48.900 Not in the least.

00:22:49.780 I don't understand how you're using it in the least.

00:22:52.180 That's why I'm trying to define it.

00:22:53.660 My definition of God as conscience is a lot more precise and oriented than your definition

00:22:59.260 of the God that you hypothetically disbelieve in.

00:23:02.880 Whew! 0.99

00:23:03.660 Okay.

00:23:04.040 I've got a response to that.

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00:24:43.460 Okay, let's respond to that long clip.

00:24:45.420 And I know it was longer than clips I typically play, but that's because there was a lot of

00:24:49.300 context.

00:24:49.620 I actually wanted to play their whole exchange.

00:24:51.840 I really liked this guy.

00:24:53.120 His name was Greg.

00:24:54.100 I just really liked his demeanor.

00:24:55.860 So he's trying to get Jordan Peterson to nail down his definition of God, which is fair

00:25:01.580 because for any conversation, especially a debate that you have, you need to define your

00:25:05.940 terms.

00:25:06.480 I learned that even more during 2020 when we're talking about racism and justice and equality

00:25:13.760 and equity, all of these things have so many nowadays malleable meanings.

00:25:18.860 And for Christians, we need to be able to define what they are for everyone, but especially

00:25:23.560 for Christians.

00:25:24.200 So we define them in reality and morality and the Bible, most importantly.

00:25:28.860 And when you're having a debate with someone that you have a totally different worldview from,

00:25:32.940 you need to be able to decide upon a shared definition so you can have a conversation.

00:25:37.800 That's like the basis of communication.

00:25:39.880 That's why the Tower of Babel was such a curse, because no one had the same words.

00:25:45.260 So he is trying to nail down, what do you, Jordan Peterson, actually believe about God?

00:25:51.200 So we can debate if we even disagree.

00:25:54.100 So they both agree.

00:25:55.680 They both agree on that.

00:25:57.060 They both agree that they can't really have this debate if they can't see eye to eye on

00:26:02.140 who God is.

00:26:03.280 But as a Christian, I have no idea what Peterson is talking about there.

00:26:08.260 Like, I have no idea.

00:26:09.500 I share Greg's frustration here.

00:26:12.460 God is not conscience.

00:26:14.820 He's not.

00:26:15.540 Not according to the Christian worldview.

00:26:17.440 He's not.

00:26:17.820 Maybe there are some people who call themselves Christians who would say that, but there are

00:26:22.080 a lot of people who call themselves Christians who say a lot of wacky things, and that is 1.00

00:26:25.960 why we have the Bible as our authority.

00:26:29.040 God convicts our conscience, our mechanism of discerning right and wrong.

00:26:34.280 He can use his Holy Spirit to convict us of right and wrong.

00:26:38.240 I think he can choose to reveal to the non-Christian what's right and wrong. 1.00

00:26:42.520 I think being made in God's image, having eternity written on the human heart, as we read

00:26:47.480 in Ecclesiastes 3.11, I think all of that gives all people some innate sense of justice

00:26:56.360 versus injustice.

00:26:57.460 In the New Testament, we see this word conscience quite a few times.

00:27:01.980 Several times, Paul references his own conscience, saying, my conscience is clear.

00:27:06.240 I have a good conscience.

00:27:07.760 So he's saying, in context there, and even if you look at the original Greek, he's saying,

00:27:12.080 like, I told the truth.

00:27:13.740 I did what I said I was going to do.

00:27:16.880 I acted with integrity.

00:27:18.780 I obeyed God.

00:27:20.020 I did right by others.

00:27:22.300 In 1 Timothy 4, we read that in the end times, sinners' consciences will be seared.

00:27:28.500 That word seared, that means burned to the point of no longer having functioning nerve endings.

00:27:34.440 So meaning that their consciences won't be able to feel the prick of conviction.

00:27:40.880 So God is not conscience.

00:27:44.300 He created the conscience.

00:27:46.100 He can govern the conscience, but he himself is not conscience.

00:27:50.760 He doesn't give us that option in Scripture.

00:27:54.300 Genesis 1.1, very first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, says

00:27:59.620 that God created the heavens and the earth.

00:28:02.460 So in that very first verse, we read that God is far more than conscience.

00:28:07.600 He is creator.

00:28:08.580 And in John 1, we see that Jesus is this God, that everything God the Father did in the Old

00:28:14.160 Testament, Jesus participated in as the second and equal person in the Trinity, along with

00:28:21.180 the Holy Spirit.

00:28:22.280 So that means that God is creator and he is savior.

00:28:27.060 So if I were there, I'd say we are talking about, I am talking about God is the creator

00:28:33.440 of the universe, the authority over all of it.

00:28:36.800 The God is defined by the Bible, Alpha, Omega, the whole shebang.

00:28:41.380 And then we could go from there.

00:28:43.400 Obviously, that person would disagree that that entity exists, that God exists, but we

00:28:48.260 would need to agree that that is who we are talking about.

00:28:51.400 This person claims, this person, Greg, who seems like a nice person, misguided, I would

00:28:59.120 say, but nice.

00:29:01.000 He claimed that his conscience is dictated by empathy restrained by reason.

00:29:07.560 Okay, that's interesting.

00:29:08.760 That's actually better, I would say, than what a lot of progressives would say.

00:29:12.140 They would say that they are led by empathy, completely untethered empathy.

00:29:16.300 No parameters on their empathy.

00:29:17.600 That's why I wrote the book, Toxic Empathy.

00:29:19.840 But Peterson asks a good question to Greg.

00:29:22.940 He says, what is the mediating principle between two people's contradicting empathetic feelings?

00:29:29.380 If that's what you're led by, if you're led by empathy that is bound by some sort of reason,

00:29:35.360 what if two people have contradicting ideas of like, what is most empathetic in that scenario?

00:29:41.640 And Greg concedes that that's a good question, and he doesn't really know if he has the answer

00:29:48.280 to that.

00:29:48.840 Greg says, you know, that's when you talk it out.

00:29:51.440 And I just wish that they would have gone further on that, because that's really it.

00:29:57.260 That's really it.

00:29:58.280 And the guy didn't have a good answer for it, is that the atheist really doesn't have a

00:30:02.300 good answer for why morality exists or where it comes from.

00:30:06.060 But they all agree that some kind of moral principle is necessary to govern society.

00:30:10.940 So I would ask when he says, you know, it's empathy guided by reason.

00:30:15.660 I would have asked him, what is reason and why?

00:30:20.140 Like, what reason is guiding you and why?

00:30:23.100 Why does your empathy have to be dictated by reason?

00:30:26.480 And what guide are you using to constrain your empathy and define your reason?

00:30:32.080 He uses an example, Greg uses an example of he's driving and he sees a kitten being stuck

00:30:38.980 in the middle of the road.

00:30:40.140 He says he would feel empathy for the kitten and he'd be really sad, but he wouldn't stop

00:30:44.980 because, he says, reason tells him it's dangerous to stop for the kitten.

00:30:49.640 So is it self-interest that guides your reason to constrain your empathy?

00:30:55.660 Is it interest for others' well-being?

00:30:57.900 Which one?

00:30:58.840 And if so, why?

00:31:00.040 Why is your life, Greg, or the life of the people on the road more important than this

00:31:06.460 kitten's life?

00:31:07.220 What tells you that?

00:31:08.800 It's not reason alone.

00:31:11.020 It can't be reason alone that's constraining your empathy in that case.

00:31:15.380 It is an inherent understanding that your life and the lives of the other humans on the road

00:31:22.880 are more important than this singular kitten's life.

00:31:26.140 And I bet that calculation would change, hopefully, if you saw a grandmother or a child standing

00:31:32.900 in the middle of the road.

00:31:33.880 And the question is why?

00:31:36.060 The question is, what are the inputs for the atheist moral calculations?

00:31:42.320 It's not just reason.

00:31:44.640 It's not just rationale.

00:31:45.840 It's not just logic, because reason alone cannot tell you why your life is more valuable than

00:31:53.220 a stray cat's life.

00:31:55.200 That is the interesting question, and I've never heard an atheist answer it well. 1.00

00:32:01.480 So I wish that they would have gone more into that.

00:32:05.740 Now, this idea of God as conscience, Peterson, when he says Elijah, refers to God as conscience.

00:32:15.580 I was trying to figure out what exactly he meant by that.

00:32:18.260 There could be something that I've never heard of.

00:32:20.140 There could be a teaching that I have not seen.

00:32:23.440 I think he might be referring to God speaking to Elijah after the whirlwind, after the storm,

00:32:31.220 in a still, small voice, he might be proof texting that.

00:32:39.080 So he might be taking that and saying, oh, still, small voice.

00:32:42.580 That kind of sounds like how we refer to our conscience.

00:32:47.280 But Elijah certainly did not believe that God was simply conscience.

00:32:52.980 Elijah would have believed, would have known, as Moses knew, like that God is the great I am,

00:33:00.280 that he is the creator, that he is the lawgiver.

00:33:03.580 He is the beginning and the end.

00:33:06.340 God spoke to Moses through a burning bush, not as his conscience, but as his God, as his ruler,

00:33:15.680 to tell him how to save and preserve his people.

00:33:19.280 And so just because God decides to talk to Elijah in a different way than he talked to Moses,

00:33:25.180 does not mean that God is conscience.

00:33:28.120 Again, God can govern conscience, as he did for Moses, as he did for Elijah, as he does 0.89

00:33:34.440 to his people, but that doesn't mean that God is conscience.

00:33:38.800 So that's a different definition there.

00:33:42.060 I think that this section of the debate brings to light the fact that Jordan Peterson's belief

00:33:49.120 in the scriptures is not actually based on a Christian understanding of who God is and

00:33:55.440 what Christ has done to save humanity.

00:33:58.800 Like, Christ is not just an archetype.

00:34:00.880 This is not just a meta-narrative that we can kind of, like, copy and paste here today.

00:34:08.020 It's not just that.

00:34:10.740 I think that there are symbols and lessons and archetypes that we can look for in the Bible,

00:34:19.020 but that's not the point.

00:34:21.060 That's not the point of Scripture.

00:34:23.200 That's not the point of the ark of redemption.

00:34:25.720 That's not the point of Christ.

00:34:27.380 That's not the point of God's eternal plan of redemption.

00:34:33.680 Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, 19,

00:34:35.940 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

00:34:43.920 So it's not just that the Bible gives us some good lessons and some good regulations or that

00:34:49.300 Jesus helps us navigate this life in some kind of upward trajectory.

00:34:53.300 As I heard Jordan Peterson say throughout this debate, it is that he gives us real resurrection

00:35:00.120 hope for the next life.

00:35:02.340 And if he doesn't give us that, then we are a people to be shamed and we should be embarrassed.

00:35:08.060 Christianity, without the hope of the resurrection, without the hope of the next life, 1.00

00:35:12.520 the greatest evangelist in the world, Paul says it is embarrassing.

00:35:16.220 So I see this a lot.

00:35:18.260 I've seen this with Richard Dawkins.

00:35:19.700 I've seen this with a lot of people who seem to be really attracted to the traditions of Christianity

00:35:26.880 and the lessons of Christianity who don't buy in to this whole Emmanuel God-made flesh thing,

00:35:34.260 this whole resurrection thing.

00:35:36.560 And we could look at that and say, well, that's useful, that's practical, that's better than

00:35:42.980 believing in Islam.

00:35:44.560 And yes, pragmatically, that may be true, but the Bible says it's actually embarrassing

00:35:49.640 to have that kind of short-sighted, just, earthly faith.

00:35:54.060 And it is.

00:35:55.520 Why sacrifice for something that is going to end you up in the same place as atheism or

00:36:01.300 anything else will lead you to?

00:36:05.860 All right.

00:36:06.420 Okay.

00:36:06.880 So the second claim, that's just the first claim.

00:36:09.160 We're only in the first claim.

00:36:10.500 The second claim is morality and purpose, Jordan Peterson says, can't be found within science.

00:36:18.580 All right.

00:36:18.920 We'll get into that in just a second.

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00:37:38.940 Okay, now we have Lucas.

00:37:42.100 So under this claim that morality and purpose can't be found within science, and I guess

00:37:47.500 the implication, although maybe it's too far to say the implication, is that morality and

00:37:53.780 purpose have to be from God, I would say from Christianity, not just from any supernatural

00:38:02.140 entity, but that seems to be the implication here.

00:38:05.600 And actually, the implication is what most of the debaters are debating against, and maybe

00:38:11.460 that's their error, or maybe it's a safe assumption.

00:38:14.700 But that's what this person, Lucas, is doing.

00:38:16.720 He says that he is a former Young Earth Fundamentalist YouTube apologist.

00:38:22.460 Interesting.

00:38:23.580 And yet, he doesn't know the answer to one of the most basic—it's a good question, but

00:38:29.320 one of the most basic apologetics questions, which is, like, why did God allow, or does

00:38:36.320 God allow bad things to happen?

00:38:38.480 And how do we reconcile the fact that slavery existed in the Old Testament, and God seems

00:38:45.380 to not have done anything about it?

00:38:48.160 Here's thought three.

00:38:49.120 In the Bible, it talks a lot about slavery, right?

00:38:52.640 Yes.

00:38:53.220 Yes.

00:38:53.560 So in that, it teaches you how to take care of a slave.

00:38:55.980 Rather than saying slavery's wrong, I think it should say that.

00:38:58.960 No, it says that in the story of Moses.

00:39:00.680 It says slavery is incorrect.

00:39:02.180 It says it's immoral.

00:39:02.760 Well, that's why Moses leads his people away from slavery.

00:39:05.220 But why does the Bible predicate and tell people exactly how to take care of a slave?

00:39:10.680 Isn't that immoral?

00:39:11.540 Don't—wouldn't you say that culturally we've evolved as a species, as he said earlier about

00:39:16.000 empathy?

00:39:17.120 Yeah, I would say that the reason we evolved, so to speak, away from slavery was because

00:39:21.540 the West was founded on Judeo-Christian morality and the presumption that every person was made

00:39:26.100 in the image of God.

00:39:27.480 Wouldn't you say—

00:39:27.880 Well, slavery itself became immoral, and that was established by Protestant Christians 1.00

00:39:32.300 in the UK, who then convinced the UK government for 200 years to go to war on slavery.

00:39:36.520 And wouldn't you say that this is about the cultural evolution of humans in general, rather

00:39:40.440 than just Christianity?

00:39:41.880 No, I think it's the flowering of the ideas that were embedded in the biblical texts across

00:39:46.580 long spans of time.

00:39:48.480 I feel like this is just humans editing based on the cultural evolution of morality.

00:39:54.020 What do you mean by just?

00:39:54.640 Um, okay, I liked the last part of Jordan Peterson's answer there, because he is absolutely

00:40:01.720 right.

00:40:02.340 And I'm sorry, but this is not actually a good, sound, interesting argument from Lucas.

00:40:08.340 I think he could have stopped where he said, well, why doesn't the Bible condemn slavery?

00:40:11.820 But then to say that human beings in general have evolved to the point of not liking slavery,

00:40:17.280 that's just not true.

00:40:18.960 That's just not true.

00:40:20.020 I mean, look at the world.

00:40:21.160 Uh, this is such a basic talking point from secular progressives, and I find it so interesting

00:40:28.660 how many apparently former fundamentalists, former churchgoers, they claim that they had

00:40:34.900 been in church forever, they transition into these atheists or agnostics, and they come 1.00

00:40:39.240 out swinging with the most basic, tired arguments about the Bible and Christianity.

00:40:43.360 I see it on social media every single day.

00:40:45.840 Okay, here's what I would say.

00:40:48.440 Not every part, and this is like mostly to Christians, but I'd probably try to explain

00:40:53.440 the Christian position to an atheist like this too.

00:40:55.740 Not every part of the Bible is prescriptive.

00:40:58.340 Some of it is just descriptive.

00:41:00.440 It's true that the Old Testament law did not ban outright the owning of slaves.

00:41:05.560 But we see in Deuteronomy 24 and elsewhere in the Old Testament that slavery was to be the

00:41:11.760 last resort for someone who could not provide for his family.

00:41:15.620 It was actually a way for destitute people to be cared for.

00:41:20.060 And in Deuteronomy and Exodus, God gives very clear specifications for how slaves were to be

00:41:26.520 treated.

00:41:27.220 They had rights as image bearers of God.

00:41:29.660 They had protections under the law.

00:41:31.540 They were not to be treated as objects or as property.

00:41:34.760 God is categorically, we see it throughout Scripture, against oppression.

00:41:39.960 The kind of slavery that Israelites were enduring in Egypt was oppressive, and God freed them from

00:41:46.800 that.

00:41:47.480 And in the New Testament, slavery in the Roman Empire was acknowledged.

00:41:53.160 Slaves were told to obey their masters, but they were also encouraged to seek freedom if they could.

00:41:59.540 And masters were instructed to care for their slaves in, for example, Ephesians 6.9.

00:42:06.300 Slaves were told that in Christ, they had the same position before God as free people did. 0.98

00:42:13.100 Galatians 3.28.

00:42:15.380 Paul doesn't tell Philemon to free Onesimus, but encourages Philemon to welcome him as he would a brother.

00:42:24.860 So it is true that the Bible does not outright condemn every single form of slavery, but the

00:42:35.800 biblical attitude toward slaves as made in God's image, as people with rights, as people

00:42:43.160 fully able to receive salvation by grace through faith, receive riches in Christ, completely contradicted

00:42:51.320 how every other culture and religion has viewed slavery throughout history, which was and still

00:42:58.820 is in many cultures today an amoral fact of life.

00:43:03.460 It was not, as Jordan Peterson pointed out, until Christians in the West started making an 0.81

00:43:08.820 issue of slavery that it was eventually fought against and defeated.

00:43:13.720 Slavery still exists today around the world.

00:43:16.600 To say that people have just evolved, and so we don't accept slavery anymore.

00:43:21.140 I mean, that is so myopic.

00:43:23.240 And it is so often atheists and progressives who say that, well, we Americans, we're just

00:43:29.820 so blinded by our Western lens, and we just need to open our eyes to the way that other

00:43:36.000 countries do things.

00:43:37.220 Well, Africa still has slavery. 0.94

00:43:40.240 China still has slavery. 0.96

00:43:42.080 Africa sold slaves to Americans hundreds of years ago, and they still sell and use slaves 1.00

00:43:48.900 to this day.

00:43:49.640 China makes its Uyghur Muslim population slaves. 0.89

00:43:53.640 So no, humanity in general has not evolved.

00:43:57.620 Christianity's influence has grown.

00:44:00.020 I've talked about this many times, how in the Roman pagan world, people's worth was determined

00:44:06.520 by their logos, little L logos.

00:44:09.620 So their ability to reason, their ability to rationalize.

00:44:13.240 And it was believed by the scholars of that time that only the adult free male had the

00:44:18.260 fullness of logos, and therefore the adult free male only had the fullness of value as

00:44:22.860 a human being.

00:44:23.560 And consequently, other kinds of people were treated as subhuman, especially children.

00:44:30.980 That's why abortion and infanticide, a terrible practice called exposure, where unwanted newborns 0.99

00:44:36.660 were placed on a hill, exposed to the elements to die.

00:44:40.260 All of that was a widespread, well-documented practice.

00:44:45.200 And it took years and years to change that, to stigmatize those practices, to stigmatize

00:44:52.120 child sex slavery, which was rampant in the pagan Roman Empire at the time, to stigmatize and

00:44:59.200 eventually criminalize the mistreatment of the poor and the homeless and the sick.

00:45:06.140 And how was that stigmatized?

00:45:09.320 How were those brutal practices eventually criminalized?

00:45:13.660 How were they eventually replaced with taking special care of the widow and the child and

00:45:20.260 the orphan and the sick and the poor?

00:45:22.760 It didn't just evolve in that way.

00:45:25.160 It was Christians.

00:45:27.080 Christians entered the scene.

00:45:29.340 Christians who preached the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.

00:45:33.480 Christians who worshipped a God who came to earth as an embryo, who was heralded by the

00:45:41.060 kicks of an unborn John the Baptist, who was born as an infant in a manger, who, as an

00:45:48.040 adult, against the protestation of his disciples, said,

00:45:51.780 Let the little children come to me, for such as these belong the kingdom of heaven.

00:45:56.740 This Jesus who healed the sick, who helped the poor, who told his people to do the same.

00:46:04.040 The people, the followers of the way, Christians, little Christ, changed how the world saw children. 1.00

00:46:12.280 Changed how the world defined right and wrong.

00:46:16.780 Changed how the world defined justice.

00:46:19.580 Jesus introduced the world to the concept of human rights that didn't just naturally happen.

00:46:26.560 How in the world would that naturally happen?

00:46:28.800 Can't you look at history?

00:46:30.320 Can't you look at the world today and see that humans err towards oppression and selfishness and

00:46:36.920 violence and injustice?

00:46:39.180 And it takes effort to go the opposite direction.

00:46:43.000 Holy Spirit empowered efforts to go the opposite direction.

00:46:47.200 So even just the most basic observation can see that human beings don't evolve towards

00:46:54.100 empathy and goodness and virtue.

00:46:56.760 Christianity has forged Western civilization in a way that has completely revolutionized 0.99

00:47:04.100 how the world sees people.

00:47:06.080 And Jordan Peterson is right that, well, we'll get to that.

00:47:11.180 I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

00:47:13.040 That progressives take for granted the rights and the values and the virtues that have been

00:47:21.100 long heralded by the West, and they reject their religious, their Christian foundations.

00:47:27.480 So this person who claims to know so much about the Bible really doesn't know that much about

00:47:34.700 Christianity.

00:47:35.300 Christianity.

00:47:36.760 Okay, let's move on.

00:47:38.980 I'm running out of time here, and so I have to skip ahead.

00:47:43.060 There are some other interesting questions that were asked by different atheists under that

00:47:47.520 second claim, but we just don't have time for it.

00:47:50.420 So here's claim three.

00:47:52.620 Everyone worships something, including atheists. 0.99

00:47:56.340 So Zina, I think she's one of my favorite participants in this debate.

00:48:01.960 She asked some really good questions.

00:48:03.260 Jordan Peterson really liked her too.

00:48:04.760 Here's what she has to say.

00:48:05.880 Stop four. 0.70

00:48:07.060 What makes someone a Christian and what makes someone not a Christian?

00:48:10.560 That's what I'm trying to figure out.

00:48:11.640 That's a good question.

00:48:12.980 Yes.

00:48:13.660 Yeah, well, probably the deepest answer to that is willingness to shoulder your cross

00:48:18.100 voluntarily and trudge uphill regardless of circumstances.

00:48:22.980 Okay, so she goes on to say that she doesn't think you can get that definition of Christian,

00:48:30.400 what Jordan Peterson just articulated from the Bible,

00:48:33.000 and that anyone could orient their lives in that way without being a Christian, and she

00:48:39.000 is correct.

00:48:39.960 Like, I just appreciate that she, a lot of these people, not all of them, but she, at

00:48:45.600 least, has a good understanding of what Christians say we believe.

00:48:51.500 Like I said at the beginning, it is always better to start from that position, and she's very

00:48:57.820 effective, I think, in this conversation because she's steel-manning the argument. 0.65

00:49:03.320 She's not straw-manning it.

00:49:04.380 She's steel-manning it.

00:49:05.500 She is trying her best to accurately represent what Christians believe so then she can properly 1.00

00:49:10.980 argue against it.

00:49:12.500 The truth is, is that being self-sacrificial does not matter, I mean, spiritually, eternally

00:49:19.500 at all, unless you believe Jesus is who he says he is, God, and that he died for your sins

00:49:28.060 and rose from the dead.

00:49:29.320 But lots of people are self-sacrificial who are not Christian.

00:49:32.880 Christianity is a faith.

00:49:34.980 It is a faith.

00:49:36.240 It is not a set of rules.

00:49:37.980 Faith is something you believe.

00:49:40.120 Hebrews 11, 1.

00:49:41.380 Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

00:49:44.660 Think about that.

00:49:45.780 Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

00:49:49.380 The conviction of things not seen.

00:49:53.080 Galatians 3, 24 says that we Christians are justified.

00:49:56.580 We are made right, made righteous before God by faith.

00:50:01.440 We are justified by our faith.

00:50:04.780 Peterson says that when Jesus says, not all who say, Lord, Lord, will be saved, he mentions

00:50:10.360 that verse in this debate.

00:50:12.600 He says that the differentiator between those who just say, Lord, Lord, and those who are

00:50:17.360 really Christian is about your actions.

00:50:20.220 And I could see how he would think that may be from Matthew 25.

00:50:23.760 But as he also points out in different parts of this debate, you have to look at scripture

00:50:28.280 in light of the rest of scripture.

00:50:29.900 You have to look at scripture in context.

00:50:32.020 And when we see that, we can see that when we do that, we can see that it's not your works

00:50:37.700 that justify you.

00:50:39.300 It's not true that the differentiator for Christians is the behavior.

00:50:44.340 It's about who actually believes it.

00:50:48.140 And the work will follow true faith and true belief, but it is the faith given to us by God's

00:50:56.700 grace that justifies us.

00:50:59.080 That's Ephesians 2, 8 through 10.

00:51:01.640 It's not the works of the law that justify you.

00:51:04.660 It is not your righteousness.

00:51:06.680 It's not your good works.

00:51:08.340 It's not your prayers.

00:51:09.780 It is actually the faith that is given to you by God that justifies you and makes you

00:51:15.400 right before God.

00:51:17.480 So he's simply not correct when he defines what it actually means to be a Christian.

00:51:23.140 All right.

00:51:24.140 We've got someone who's pointing out, well, it doesn't seem like you are a Christian,

00:51:27.800 Jordan Peterson.

00:51:28.640 And Jordan Peterson's got an interesting answer.

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00:52:26.020 All right.

00:52:33.220 So this person, Danny, says, uh, well, I don't think you're a Christian.

00:52:37.860 Stop five.

00:52:39.000 Are you familiar with the Immaculate Conception?

00:52:40.900 Why is that relevant?

00:52:41.880 Because you go to a Catholic church, don't you?

00:52:43.320 Or you've attended recently.

00:52:44.360 You're interested in Catholicism, aren't you?

00:52:46.080 Sure.

00:52:46.620 All right.

00:52:46.980 Are you familiar with their doctrines?

00:52:48.700 Somewhat.

00:52:49.180 Okay.

00:52:49.560 You're familiar.

00:52:50.520 Their doctrines are very deep.

00:52:50.880 How do they regard Mary?

00:52:52.740 Why are you asking me that?

00:52:53.840 Because you're a Christian.

00:52:55.860 You say that.

00:52:56.760 I haven't claimed that.

00:52:57.960 Oh, what is this?

00:52:58.620 Is this Christians versus atheists? 0.97

00:53:00.860 I don't know.

00:53:01.820 You don't know where you are right now.

00:53:03.240 Don't be a smartass.

00:53:04.500 Well, either you're a Christian or you're not. 0.70

00:53:06.280 Because I won't talk to you if you're a smartass.

00:53:07.520 Oh, either you're a Christian or you're not. 0.93

00:53:09.280 Which one is it?

00:53:10.660 I could be either of them, but I don't have to tell you.

00:53:13.300 You could be you.

00:53:13.860 You don't have to tell me.

00:53:15.020 I was under the impression.

00:53:16.100 It's private.

00:53:16.240 I was invited to talk to a Christian.

00:53:18.440 Am I not talking to a Christian?

00:53:20.240 No, you were invited to.

00:53:22.220 I think everyone should look at the title of the YouTube channel.

00:53:24.820 You're probably in the wrong YouTube video.

00:53:26.600 You're really quite something you are, aren't I?

00:53:28.760 But you're really quite nothing, right?

00:53:30.460 You're not a Christian. 1.00

00:53:31.000 Okay, I'm done with him.

00:53:35.420 Okay, Reddit, Timothy Chamolay.

00:53:38.500 He was a snooty.

00:53:41.160 I didn't like Danny, okay?

00:53:42.820 I didn't like Danny.

00:53:44.020 I liked some of these other participants did not like Danny.

00:53:46.620 I actually do not blame Jordan Peterson for how he reacted,

00:53:49.800 because I don't think this guy was trying to have an honest debate.

00:53:53.040 This clip is going around as some sort of like dunk on Jordan Peterson,

00:53:59.260 but I don't see it as that.

00:54:02.640 Like I see this guy as acting in bad faith.

00:54:06.140 Okay, so I will answer this.

00:54:09.180 And obviously I am a Protestant.

00:54:11.320 I'm sure that you have gathered that if you are new here.

00:54:13.680 And I really appreciate my Catholic listeners so much.

00:54:16.780 And there's so much that we, so much that we agree on.

00:54:19.820 And so many things I appreciate about my Catholic friends and followers.

00:54:23.740 But what I'm about to say is probably going to ruffle feathers,

00:54:28.320 which I totally understand.

00:54:30.200 So just stick with me.

00:54:32.040 Okay, I'm not totally sure what Danny was getting at

00:54:37.740 when he was asking about Mary and if Catholics worship Mary.

00:54:42.420 I am all for a good veneration of Mary debate,

00:54:45.220 and I'm going to get into some points in a second,

00:54:46.840 but I'm not sure what he was trying to prove here

00:54:48.860 or how the Catholic veneration of Mary would disprove Peterson's claim

00:54:53.560 that everyone worships something.

00:54:56.720 Maybe he was going to say,

00:54:58.240 I'm going to give Danny the benefit of the doubt

00:55:00.000 and act like he had like a thought out argument here.

00:55:03.280 And maybe he did.

00:55:03.920 So to assume the best,

00:55:05.700 maybe he was going to say this,

00:55:07.920 that Catholics say they don't worship Mary,

00:55:10.300 but they pray to her.

00:55:11.500 They have iconography of her.

00:55:13.360 They prioritize her. 0.75

00:55:14.360 They ascribe to her superhuman qualities,

00:55:16.100 like the ability to understand all the languages of the world

00:55:19.280 and carry those prayers to God.

00:55:22.140 And Danny, this atheist, might be saying, 1.00

00:55:25.800 well, that seems to fit your definition of worship.

00:55:28.780 And Jordan's definition of worship is to attend to or prioritize.

00:55:32.540 And Catholics attend to, he might say, and prioritize Mary.

00:55:36.800 But they say they don't worship her.

00:55:38.680 So Danny is probably trying to argue in the same way atheists attend to 0.98

00:55:43.900 and prioritize certain things, but they don't worship them.

00:55:48.040 Okay.

00:55:48.460 As a Protestant, I would say, no, that is worship.

00:55:54.860 I know Catholics say that they don't worship Mary.

00:55:58.080 I totally understand that.

00:55:59.400 But I would say praying to an icon of something daily

00:56:02.820 and giving someone characteristics that are biblically only reserved for God.

00:56:08.440 Jesus is the mediator between God and man.

00:56:11.180 Jesus gives us peace.

00:56:12.580 The Holy Spirit tells us what to pray, hears our prayers, intercedes for us.

00:56:16.940 Jesus is the only sinless one.

00:56:19.160 Jesus is the only one who was immaculately conceived.

00:56:22.380 All of that, no matter what you call it, does seem to amount to worship.

00:56:27.260 And by the way, this is an aside.

00:56:29.960 We don't see this reflected in Scripture at all.

00:56:32.180 The Bible gives us the best picture of what the early church was like in Acts and in the epistles.

00:56:37.300 We see no mention at all of honoring Mary in this way, not even a slight implication of it.

00:56:43.940 So that line of argumentation from Danny wouldn't have worked on me.

00:56:48.000 But Peterson is right in this claim.

00:56:51.300 Everyone worships something.

00:56:53.160 You might worship money, your job, your free time, sex, sports.

00:56:58.520 And I don't think prioritize and attend to is a bad definition of worship.

00:57:04.040 But there's more.

00:57:06.080 I would say it is what do you orient your life around?

00:57:09.920 What directs you?

00:57:11.320 I'd argue that most atheists today, and even those who claim to be religious, worship the God of self.

00:57:20.120 It can also mean to adulate or to adore or to praise.

00:57:29.400 And so there, I think, is an expanded definition of what worship can actually mean.

00:57:36.540 And I think that the claim is an interesting one.

00:57:39.460 And I wish they would have gone a little bit different of a direction, at least with Danny.

00:57:46.120 Is that his name?

00:57:47.640 At least with Danny.

00:57:48.800 But there are some interesting parts in that.

00:57:50.300 And I do encourage you to go back and to watch that part of the debate.

00:57:55.260 Okay, here's the last claim.

00:57:57.660 Atheists accept Christian morality, Jordan Peterson claims, but deny their religious foundations, which I agree with. 0.99

00:58:05.880 Okay, here is what Ian has to say.

00:58:08.660 Ian might be, I think, more irritating than Danny.

00:58:13.200 And that's a lot.

00:58:14.480 Here's thought six.

00:58:15.780 So God says that you can own people as property.

00:58:17.940 He says that you can beat them with a rod, too.

00:58:20.140 He commands genocide and Deuteronomy and Numbers and in Samuel.

00:58:26.140 I mean, they have a baby barbecue in Numbers.

00:58:29.140 Like, is all of this in line with Christian ethics?

00:58:35.040 No.

00:58:36.300 So then God doesn't fit within Christian ethics.

00:58:39.340 Well, the biblical library is a continuing story, and everything written in it has to be contextualized by the entire text.

00:58:48.040 There's 65,000 hyperlinks in the biblical text.

00:58:51.380 And you can take pieces of it out, out of context, and criticize them, and that's what you're doing.

00:58:55.800 But that's a mistake, I think.

00:58:58.760 It's an analytic mistake because you're putting the cart before the horse.

00:59:03.740 Okay, first of all, God does not say that you can own people as property.

00:59:07.260 As we've already explained about slavery, those people are still made in the image of God.

00:59:11.380 That was a relief from their destitution and from their severe poverty last resort.

00:59:17.800 So that part is not true.

00:59:19.420 And so he's proof texting it.

00:59:21.400 He is putting his idea into Scripture.

00:59:23.300 And Jordan Peterson is right that you do have to read Scripture in light of Scripture.

00:59:29.680 And I will give this guy credit.

00:59:31.140 At least he was able to articulate the entire thrust of his argument, unlike our friend Danny.

00:59:39.060 So Peterson says more about that, and he is absolutely right that decontextualizing Scripture to make a point is an analytical mistake.

00:59:48.720 To read Scripture in context, and as you would read any other historical account, or even a literary account, if you don't think that this is real history,

00:59:57.960 is to know that not everything is prescriptive, as we've already noted.

01:00:02.980 Solomon had lots of wives.

01:00:04.340 That is descriptive, not prescriptive, and not everything that God prescribed to Israel at that time is a prescription for us today.

01:00:16.180 So looking at the whole biblical narrative, we see that Israel was God's chosen people.

01:00:21.820 He created all people, but not all people were his.

01:00:25.720 We see throughout the Old Testament that God will stop at nothing to glorify himself and to protect his chosen people, to preserve them, to fight on their behalf.

01:00:37.620 Even when they sinned, even when they rebelled, because of his mercy, he preserved them.

01:00:43.340 And in the New Testament, we see that God again stops at nothing to save his own people,

01:00:47.880 a new people made up of both Jews and Gentiles through Christ, for which he sacrifices his own son.

01:00:55.720 So the bloody brutality endured by God's enemies to save Israel points to the bloody brutality endured by God's son to save his enemies.

01:01:04.820 That's us.

01:01:06.180 So I'll repeat what I said a couple weeks ago about Passover that explains this.

01:01:12.180 And I was telling the story about when my daughter asked why people would celebrate Passover if children in Egypt died.

01:01:19.880 And this is not the explanation I gave to her, who is five.

01:01:23.160 This is the explanation that I'm giving you adults.

01:01:26.000 But Passover is celebrated not because of the death that occurred, but because God was making a way for his people to be saved.

01:01:34.800 And it took this action, this killing, to convince Pharaoh to let God's people go and free them from slavery.

01:01:41.560 The lamb's blood over the door frames of the houses of Israel that signaled God's spirit to pass over them was a signifier of what was to come. 0.79

01:01:49.920 The blood of the final spotless lamb, Jesus, which cleanses us from sin and saves us from eternal death.

01:01:55.700 Also, in Exodus 4.22, God calls Israel his firstborn son.

01:02:00.080 He says, you, Egypt and Pharaoh, you're killing and oppressing my firstborn.

01:02:03.720 I will now kill your firstborn. 0.98

01:02:06.200 So here he kills his enemy's firstborn son to save his own firstborn son, Israel.

01:02:11.960 But in the New Testament, what does God do?

01:02:14.460 He kills his own son to save his enemies who become his sons and daughters.

01:02:19.980 So in the Old Testament, he kills his enemy to save his children.

01:02:24.320 In the New Testament, he kills his child to save his enemies.

01:02:29.040 I think of Romans 5.15, for if many die through one man's trespass, that's Adam, much more have the grace of God and the free gift of the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

01:02:43.420 We also see that God hates oppression.

01:02:46.040 He hates sin.

01:02:47.080 He hates injustice.

01:02:48.260 He flooded the earth because of the evil happening in the world.

01:02:51.560 And he commanded Israel to wipe out the Amalekites because of their sin and oppression. 1.00

01:02:57.660 That's what this guy was talking about here, the defeat of the Amalekites and how God instructed Israel to kill all of them, including their children and their infants. 0.93

01:03:11.220 But again, context, the Amalekites were known as nomadic plunders. 1.00

01:03:16.600 For centuries, they traveled around terrorizing people groups and praying upon the weakest among them, women and children. 0.98

01:03:23.040 They did this to Israel.

01:03:24.460 We see this in Deuteronomy and Exodus and 1 Samuel.

01:03:28.060 Several references to the wickedness of the Amalekites throughout the Old Testament show the just kind of darkness that they were up against.

01:03:35.560 So God wanted to ensure that no descendants of the Amalekites would be able to inflict this kind of terror again. 1.00

01:03:42.340 So in 1 Samuel 15, he tells King Saul, not everyone everywhere at all times.

01:03:47.440 He tells King Saul, you need to totally destroy the Amalekites, including their children. 1.00

01:03:52.920 And Saul disobeyed, by the way, and he didn't destroy everyone.

01:03:56.080 And the Amalekites continued to terrorize Israel and other people groups for centuries, killing other women and children. 1.00

01:04:02.100 So I think we have no clue the wickedness committed by some of these pagan societies. 1.00

01:04:08.280 We do know that child sacrifice was rampant.

01:04:11.100 All kinds of depravity and violence were the norm.

01:04:14.140 I saw the other day someone posted this archaeological finding.

01:04:18.460 It was a picture of this mask that had been dug up that was believed to be worn in ancient societies.

01:04:24.240 It was written about, worn in ancient societies to mock the victims of child sacrifice as they were screaming being fed to the fire to please their gods.

01:04:36.400 When you read things like that, the kind of malice and deep depravity that existed, it's like it's no wonder that God ordered for the destruction of some of these groups.

01:04:47.240 And actually, the children were probably spared torture and torment by God carrying this out.

01:04:53.980 No one likes the idea of babies dying.

01:04:56.460 Well, I don't like the idea of babies dying.

01:04:58.620 I would actually say it's a little ironic because pro-abortionists have no problem with this, which is, of course, the irony here that this guy more than likely celebrates abortion, which is widespread infanticide, and thinks that he's morally superior to Christians who have been on the front lines against infanticide and child sex trafficking and slavery.

01:05:15.400 And the mistreatment of orphans and widows and the poor for millennia.

01:05:20.320 The hard truth is, there are things about the Bible and history and God that we do not understand.

01:05:25.120 If there are things that we understand that kids can't understand just in general, and we're two finite beings, then how much bigger is the gap of understanding between us and God?

01:05:36.260 Finite beings and an infinite one.

01:05:37.980 We don't explain everything to our toddlers that they don't understand because we know that telling them too many details would probably make them more anxious.

01:05:45.920 And so don't you think it's possible that God doesn't explain everything to us because we don't have the capacity to fully understand it?

01:05:53.600 And by the way, the inclusion of stories like that in Scripture actually lend to Scripture's credibility.

01:05:58.680 Like, if the Bible were just compiled by men who wanted to assert their religion and way of life onto society, they would have excluded all the difficult-to-understand stuff. 0.88

01:06:08.040 They wouldn't have included the passages about God destroying or ordering the destruction of societies.

01:06:15.620 They would have just made a PR pamphlet for him.

01:06:18.320 Instead, they included the hard stuff.

01:06:20.300 They included the stuff that shows how difficult God's people have it.

01:06:23.620 So that's—I probably wouldn't have time to answer that thoroughly in that kind of setting, but that's what I would say.

01:06:32.160 It's a good question.

01:06:33.280 It's a difficult question, but it is an answerable question.

01:06:36.900 Now, whether or not that answer is satisfactory to the atheists there, I don't know.

01:06:42.860 All in all, I actually think that Jordan Peterson did a lot better than some critics on social media are saying.

01:06:49.780 I think it was a missed opportunity, however.

01:06:53.560 There should have been a Christian. 1.00

01:06:55.880 There should have been a Christian representing the Christian position.

01:07:00.040 And I'm not even sure that Peterson really believes in God.

01:07:06.420 It sounds to me like he believes in idea of God that could be the conscience, that could perhaps be other things.

01:07:12.300 I'm not even sure that fits the definition of theism.

01:07:15.000 So it's a really big missed opportunity here.

01:07:17.380 It was more of an opportunity for atheists to dunk on someone who is opposing them.

01:07:22.980 I really hope Jubilee does this again with a Christian apologist that can answer some of these questions.

01:07:30.260 But kudos to everyone who volunteered for that because that's very intense and very tough.

01:07:35.300 And I enjoyed watching it, and it made me think myself.

01:07:38.140 And I always welcome the opportunity to think more deeply about my faith and why I believe what I believe.

01:07:43.120 All right.

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01:08:28.500 All right.

01:08:28.900 That's all we've got time for today.

01:08:30.260 We'll be back here tomorrow.

01:08:31.200 We'll be back here tomorrow.

01:09:01.200 We'll be back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 28, 2025

Ep 1196 ｜ Where the Jordan Peterson vs. Atheists 'Jubilee' Debate Went Wrong

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