[meekmind]

To that end, Jordan Peterson's lectures on the Bible did me personally a great service in bridging the gap between these seemingly opposed worldviews. JP is considered by many to be a Christian apologist and has done a incredible work in describing a completely rational and sympathetic view of Christianity. I can't recommend highly enough his lectures freely available on Youtube. Having listened to most of them, he completely dispelled from me a variety of common athiest notions and revealed them to be the thoughtless propaganda that they are..

For example, it is commonly understood that religion and science are always opposed. However, it's rarely ever mentioned that Christian theologians for centuries consistently modified their belief structure to reflect reality as their understanding of reality improved. In other words, quite often if there was a seeming contradiction between doctrine and observable fact, the doctrine was changed, as opposed to ignoring the observable fact.

Obviously there are exceptions to this, like the Inquisition, or other dark periods through history. Religion is not without it's faults, but that is true of any principle around which people organize. The important part, for the materialist, objectivist, or athiest; is recognizing the organizing principles as being somehow useful to people prior to the refinement of the scientific method. I assume that those people gained real material value, and to dispose of what those people believed without extracting and maintaining that value is simply destructive.

[stavros]

But why not just let religious people be religious? I don't understand why I have to watch some lectures just so I can let people believe in whatever they want.

[meekmind]

Like it or not Western civilization is permeated with Christian mores. As practiced in the West, large chunks of law, philosophy, and science all have historical roots in Christian culture. You can choose whether or not to understand how the cultural, socio-economic and political environment affects you and your beliefs and the beliefs of those around you. You can "let" people be whatever they want, but you cannot occur in a vacuum and would presumably stand to gain from learning how much of what you may consider crazy and irrational was in-fact based in psychological and physiological reality that is just as relevant today as it ever was.

[deanCommie]

I'm sorry but your interpretation of Jordan Peterson is completely untrue. Jordan Peterson does an incredible work sanitizing his fundamentalist beliefs through a veneer of rationality. But once you start unpacking the layers of what at first seem to be logical conclusions flowing from one to the other to understand the foundations that lead to the rest of his belief system (rather than the abstract questions he asks), you find the typical moralistic, regressive point of view you find in most Christians.

I understand and respect the value JP provides to lost lonely young men who are struggling to find purpose in a hostile online world. Raging with hormones, and finding it difficult to sympathise with women and minorities, and a world who tells them that they have privilege and they need to acknowledge and help others more. JP is as valuable to them as Religion is to a starving subsistence farmer in the middle ages who is abused by his feudal lord, and has no hope of a better life for himself or his family. Hope is important.

But for the life of me I don't understand JP's appeal to the male HN crowd - wealthy, well-educated tech-savvy yuppies who have upward mobility, critical reasoning, and lots of leisure time.

Jordan Peterson:

* opposes same-sex marriage because it is "backed by cultural marxists" and represents "an assault on traditional modes of being" [1]

* opposes same-sex adoption because "the nuclear family is the smallest vialbe human unit: mother, father, child, and if you fragment it below that you end up paying" [2]

* does not believe that men and women can work together in the same workplace, and directly blames women for sexual harassment they endure if they utilize makeup and high heels because they're sexually provocative [3]

* believes that it is impossible to produce Art without God [4]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jef2C4T1_A

[2] https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1331507566388637698

[3] He doesn't say this that men and women shouldn't work together: He says "he doesn't know", and "we'll see" (if they can). But the second part he confirms directly to his interviewer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqn6YoMFiI0

[4] this and much more video links in this twitter thread https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1331505661817937921

[deanCommie]

Putting this in a separate comment from my JP one:

> Christian theologians for centuries consistently modified their belief structure to reflect reality as their understanding of reality improved.

That is also laundering the history of religious persecution. Christian theologians embrace scientific consensus hundreds of years after the scientific community does, persecuting, ostracizing, torturing (mentally and physically) thousands of people until then.

> Religion is not without it's faults, but that is true of any principle around which people organize.

That depends on the principle doesn't it.

For example if you take "humanism", then the principle is that human beings are the most important thing that matters, every human being has value, and maximizing humanity's long term happiness and liberty is the key to a successful society.

On the other hand if you take theology, then generally, the religions that the vast majority of the world follows are based around 2 key concepts:

1) An omniscient deity whose wishes and directives must be obeyed implicitly

2) An after life that is offered as a reward to the righteous followers.

#1 introduces an inherent power structure. Once you accept that some entities are "greater" than the other, it inherently follows to apply the same to the "kingdom of men". Every power imbalance throughout history from Lords to Kings to Slave Masters was justified based on a delegation of hierarchical authority deemed justifiable from religion.

This continues to this day amongst Conservatives whose original purpose was to maintain aristocratic power structures after the dissolution of monarchies, and now perpetuate historical inequalities under the guise of individualistic authority (i.e. no imposition on generational wealth and power imbalances through taxes or any other socialist policies)

#2 incentivizes obedience and behaviour. It also creates INFINITELY permanent stakes (a 50-100 year lifetime vs an infinity of reward or an infinity of punishment) which incentivizes the desire to convert others to the cause. After all if you believed that your beliefs would bring you SALVATION would you not need to/want to spread this message to others? Logically, yes. But what happens if those do not believe the message or worse force you to question YOUR OWN conviction and faith?

Well it turns out the problem with a faith-based belief system is it doesn't hold up well to logical scrutiny and humans aren't great at being flexible in these situation. You can either collapse and give up or lash out at the person who is making a mockery of your beliefs. Hence, the Inquisition, and every "dark" part of Religion throughout history, that is not actually a part of it, but the complete whole. It's not an aberration, it's the default status quo. It's not a bug, it's a feature.