Last week I responded to an exchange between
Jordan Peterson and a Lafayette College student,
and this week I’m going to continue where
I left off, because the same student that
got Jordan to assert that everyone is religious
(“Religious is what you act out”) also
got him to assert the likes of Harris and
Dawkins haven’t addressed the religious
fundamental thinkers (“He doesn’t address
the fundamental thinkers”).
This is Atheists Haven’t Addressed the Heavy
Hitters – Debunked.
“As one final thing – so when you and
say, Sam Harris, argue about religion you’re
arguing about fundamentally different things,
it sounds like.
His conception of what is religious is very
different from yours.”
“Yeah well he tends to think of religious
thought the same way as a smart thirteen year
old atheist thinks about a fundamentalist
Christian.
It’s like yeah, okay, that just… you’re
just not getting to the heart of the matter.
You know, and I just finished reading all
of Sam’s books in the last couple of weeks,
and as far as I’m concerned he doesn’t
ever get to the bottom of the issue.
He doesn’t address the fundamental thinkers.
There’re some profound thinkers - Dostoevsky’s
one.
Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Jung, it’s like they’re
completely absent, and it’s the same with
Dawkins.
It’s completely absent.
All of that conceptualisation is completely
absent from their corpus of works.
They don’t even have an understanding for
the psychological utility of religion – and
it’s a big problem.”
“You know, you don’t get to be an atheist
when the people you attack are fundament--
like, naive fundamentalists.”
Actually, you do… if you’re not convinced
that a god exists then you’re an atheist,
and this is true whether you’ve addressed
all of the heavy hitters or none whatsoever…
that is, unless Jordan’s redefining the
word “atheist”: “What in your view would
a genuine atheist look like?”
He would be like Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment)
[…] Raskolnikov built himself up to murder
in part by laying down a rational case but
also by saying well there's no god, there's
no metaphysical reason that's stopping me from
committing this act”.
And just like that I have another video to
make…
So before I address Jordan’s assertion,
here’s how he put it (in greater detail)
to Matt Dillahunty: “Well, it’s a complicated
problem, and I don’t think we take it with
due seriousness.
I specifically don’t think that the celebrity
atheists types (who I actually have a fair
bit of respect for by the way) take it with
due seriousness.
So I don’t think that they take it with
due seriousness from a biological perspective,
or a phenomenological perspective, or a literary
perspective, or a metaphoric perspective…
that’ll do for starters […] Okay, so,
so, one of the issues that I have, and you
can respond to this, is that the… the…
let’s say the celebrity atheist types (cause
I actually like that phrase), um, they don’t
seem to me to be contending with the real
issues.
They seem--” “What are the real issues?”
“Dostoevsky – he’s a real issue; Tolstoy
– he’s a real issue; Carl Jung – twenty
books and maybe fifteen seminars, he’s a
real issue; Mircea Eliade… like there are
some serious heavy hitters in the religious
phenomenology domain and my sense so far (I
just finished reading all of Harris’ books
for example) he doesn’t content with them
at all!
And it’s like for me that’s like being
an evolutionary biologist and not being aware
of Darwin.
It’s actually a big problem!
It’s not something you can hand-wave away.”
So there's the claim – as far as Jordan's
concerned, the “celebrity atheists” (such
as Harris and Dawkins) haven’t contended
with any of the fundamental religious thinkers
(such as Jung and Nietzsche), and therefore,
their perspective of religion (and specifically
Christianity) is that of a thirteen year old:
“The Christianity that Dawkins criticises
is the Christianity that a smart thirteen
year old boy objects to.”
So I’ve considered several different ways
to approach this, and I’ve settled on two;
one in which I explain precisely why the prominent
critics of religion (or celebrity atheists)
haven’t contended with Jordan’s heavy-hitters,
and one in which I succinctly explain why
Jordan’s assertion is potentially fallacious.
So, to begin, have you ever heard (from anyone
other than Jordan) of Saint Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment Argument for God?
No?
What about Reverend Jung’s Archetypal Proof
of the Existence of God?
Of course, the religious titles are irrelevant
(and I’ve only included them for the purpose
of rhetoric), but my point is that throughout
history (and indeed still today) the most
prominent “heavy-hitters” and arguments
favoured by theists have been (and still are)
the likes of Aristotle (and his Unmoved Mover),
Thomas Aquinas (and his Five Ways), Anselm
of Canterbury (and his Ontological Argument),
Al-Ghazali (and his Kalam Cosmological Argument),
William Paley (and his Watchmaker Analogy),
Blaise Pascal (and his Wager), and Immanuel
Kant (and his Transcendental Argument), and
that is why the critics of religion haven’t
contended with Jordan’s “fundamental thinkers”
– it’s because they’re not the fundamental
thinkers.
If theists heralded Archbishop Nietzsche’s
God is Dead Argument as proof that their god
exists (and used it to claim jurisdiction
over the experience others) then Jordan would
have a point – but they don’t, and so
he doesn’t.
The vast majority (and I really do mean the
vast majority) of Christians (let alone theists)
do not believe in Jordan’s god, and thus
do not share his religious views, nor, most
relevantly, do they venerate the same thinkers.
However, with this said, if by “fundamental
thinkers” Jordan means those who’ve thought
considerably about the psychological evolution
of religion, then his heavy-hitters are arguably
among them, but criticising Harris and Dawkins
for not addressing them is as far-removed
as criticising the critics of bloodletting
for not addressing the psychological evolution
of humorism.
Most critics of religion don’t care about
its psychological origin (just as most critics
of bloodletting don’t care about its psychological
origin), what they care about is zealots claiming
jurisdiction over their experience: I hope
I've made it clear that I'm perfectly happy
for people to have their toys, and to play
with them at home, and to hug them to themselves,
and so on, and share them with other people
who come round and play with the toys – that’s
absolutely fine.
They're not to make me play with these toys.
Okay?
I will not play with the toys […] enough
with clerical and religious bullying and intimidation!
Is that finally clear?
Have I got that across?
Thank you!
So to reiterate, critics of religion have
confronted (and utterly destroyed) the religious
heavy-hitters, but they haven’t sufficiently
confronted the psychological evolution of
religion because the religious are not oppressing
homosexuals, repressing women, or flying planes
into buildings because of their conviction
in Jung and Dostoevsky, they're doing these
things because of their conviction in Anselm
and Al-Ghazali.
Though, with this said, due precisely to Jordan
bringing his interpretation of these thinkers
into the spotlight, many critics of religion
have (and are right now) contending with them.
Sam Harris, for example, has personally told
Jordan what issues he has with Jordan’s
interpretation of Jungian archetypes: “I
will grant you that there are means that would
amount to a kind of internal costume party
[…] but again, the crucial bit is that in
doing that, I'm not making claims to knowledge
about the ethereal existence of archetypes
- there's no, you know, Akashic record or
collective unconscious...
I’m not making claims of that kind at all
in order to find this way of thinking useful.”
Anyhow, moving on, the fallacy that Jordan’s
committing is the No True Scotsman (which
is otherwise known as the Appeal to Purity
fallacy).
In a nutshell, he’s hand-waving away thousands
of years of damning criticism against Christianity
by redefining it in such a way as to only
apply to his personal (and woefully undersubscribed)
interpretation.
Or to put it another way, he’s asserting
“Atheists haven’t addressed the theological
fundamental thinkers” and when someone says
“That’s not true.
From Aristotle to Anselm, atheists have addressed
the fundamental thinkers” he’s retorting
“Yes, but they're not the real fundamental
thinkers.”
They’re not true Scotsman!
Either this, or, again, he’s doing the equivalent
of criticising critics of bloodletting for
not addressing the psychological evolution
of humorism.
Anyhow, before wrapping up, I want to ask
you all a favour – I have several more critiques
of Jordan’s assertions in the pipeline,
but if any of you have an instance of him
making a fallacious assertion then please
send it to me via email, Facebook or Twitter.
I appreciate that my channel has of late become
quite Jordan-heavy, but since he’s arguably
the current most influential apologist, and
since not nearly enough of my comrades are
exposing his flawed reasoning, I feel all
the more inclined to do so.
As always, thank you kindly for the view,
and an extra special thank you to my wonderful
patron and those of you who’ve donated via
PayPal.
You are the bow from which the arrow of me
is launched – hahaha.
But seriously, I couldn’t do this without
you – thank you.
Until next time my fellow apes, until next
time!
