All Episodes
Previous Next
June 2, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
07:46
Jordan Peterson on His Definition of God
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I'm just pointing out to you how God is defined in the Old Testament.
All right.
So, to respond to that, I do think there are lots of interesting ways to define God.
And that goes back to my kind of opening statement.
And how do we specify what we're arguing about?
We use context clues or we, again, it goes back.
And again, this is, you know, these are not philosophers or someone, they're thinkers, for sure.
And maybe some of the young guys are studying.
Philosophy, but it just drives me crazy that you end up in this soup.
And I watched, I think, about 40 minutes of this, and I was just like, okay, nobody's defining anything.
They're just going back and forth particular terms, right?
So the fact that Elijah and Cardinal Newman defined God as the voice of the conscience within, yeah, okay.
I mean, that is not an argument.
That's an argument from authority or whatever it is, right?
You can have a conscience without believing in God.
You can believe in God and not have a conscience.
And so, it's kind of a cutesy, seemingly interesting and important statement.
But I think this is worth watching.
Again, how far you get is, of course, up to you.
But let me just go back here.
I do think that it's worth watching, at least some of it.
And let me go back here.
If I go solo, yeah, that's back to me.
So, it's interesting, but essentially very frustrating.
It's very frustrating because, I mean, this is why I did the whole 19-part introduction to philosophy series many years ago.
It was all the way from metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics.
And you have to blank slate and start.
As if there's nothing, not Elijah said this, and there's a Polynesian God that, and so on, right?
And in order to reject anything, you have to be omniscient, because Jordan Peterson rejects students who fail.
He's not omniscient about everything that they think and know.
Jordan Peterson tells people that they're wrong, despite not being omniscient.
So Jordan Peterson rejects certain perspectives as wrong, even though he's not omniscient.
So then he says, well, in order to reject a Polynesian God, I'd have to be omniscient.
None of it really hangs together.
None of it really makes sense.
Any particular sense?
And it is, for me, it's like watching people punch themselves.
It really is.
It should just start with, okay, Jordan Peterson, what is your definition of God?
Okay, and if he says, well, there are many definitions of God, it's like, no, what is your definition of God?
Like, yours, not other people's, blah, blah, blah, right?
What to you?
Yeah, fdrurl.com slash intro.
So what is your definition of God?
Because you can't argue.
With a thesaurus, and you can't argue with an encyclopedia, right?
So, what is the definition of God that you accept to be true?
Well, there's a variety.
Somebody defines it as this, somebody defines it as that.
It's like, nope, I can't debate with somebody who doesn't have any particular beliefs.
You have to have particular beliefs in order to debate, right?
And also, you know, say to Jordan Peterson, how do you know what certainty is?
Well, it's complicated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, oh.
It can't be that complicated, because if it's that complicated, babies and toddlers shouldn't be able to understand it, and they do.
And also, if it's that complicated, we can't have any rules in society that punish people for their bad deeds, right?
If epistemology and ethics are so crazy complicated, how can we throw people in jail for the wrongs that they do?
Well, we need some social rules, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, it can't be that complicated.
And, you know, one of the things that I've done from the very beginning is try to uncomplicate things, to make things comprehensible and understandable, and it has to pass the toddler test.
It has to pass the toddler test.
Toddlers know what things are real and what are not.
Toddlers know what is true and what is not.
If you say to the toddler, we're going to the park, and then you take the toddler to the dentist, the toddler will be upset, and they will say, you lied to me.
You said we were going to the park, and we're going to the...
Oh, you said we were going to the park, but not going to the park.
A two-year-old will know that.
So how can a two-year-old know something?
And adults can't define it.
How can we apply moral rules to two- and three- and four-year-olds?
Don't hit, don't grab, don't steal, don't whatever, right?
How can we apply moral rules to toddlers that we can't define in simple and clear ways?
And the fact that we do all of this stuff, we impose rules on people with an IQ of 80. We hold them accountable, we hold them responsible, we throw them in jail.
So if you can't explain your moral system, To somebody who's a toddler, to somebody who's a very young person, to somebody who's not particularly smart, if you can't explain your moral system to them, then you have no right to impose it.
I mean, Jordan Peterson doubtless failed a large number of people over the course of being a professor.
How did he know they were ignorant?
I mean, he's not omniscient.
He doesn't know their secret hearts and thoughts.
And maybe they were a manifestation of the possibility But he has to make his decisions based upon the facts and the evidence and so on, right?
So, if you're going to fail people for not getting 70% or 60% or whatever it is, then you've got objective knowledge, you've got objective failure, you've got objective numbers, you've got objective evaluations, you've got objective judgments.
Because you're not saying, I'm failing you because I don't like the haircut.
You're not saying, I'm failing you because I'm in a bad mood.
You're saying, I'm failing you because I'm recognizing that you don't know the material.
So you have to have a standard of truth and falsehood of knowledge, of a lack of knowledge in order to be a professor and fail people.
So how was he doing that?
And if he failed someone who never showed up to class and never took the test You don't have my secret heart.
Maybe my knowledge is ineffable, and maybe I'm like the Polynesian god Lolo or whatever.
He would just say, well, no, that's not valid.
So we've got to build from the common sense stuff.
common, this is all Anglo-Saxon common sense stuff that kicks in my brain, is that if we're going to apply a rule to toddlers, It can't just be ridiculously overcomplicated.
And you can't say, if somebody says, what's your definition of God?
You can't say, well, there are many.
But what's yours, right?
You're debating, so you can't debate, that's hearsay, right?
You can't debate in proxy.
You can't say, well, so-and-so says this, and so-and-so says that, and therefore you have to argue that point.
Because you can't debate with Elijah or Cardinal Newman because they're not in the room.
You have to debate with the person whose beliefs are held in the room so that they can defend their position.
And so, anyway, I think it's interesting and I hope that you find it interesting.
At some point, I'll gird my loins and do the Sam Harris-Jordan Peterson debate where I think they spend an hour trying to figure out what the word is means.
But we'll get to that at some point.
But yeah, this overcomplicated stuff, it just doesn't work and it's not how people live.
It's not how people live.
At all.
So, anyway, I hope you find it helpful, freedomain.com slash donate.
To help out the show, I would really appreciate your support.
Don't forget all the free books, freedomain.com slash books, the free documentaries, freedomain.com slash documentaries, and you can put your call-in request at freedomain.com slash call.
Thank you, everyone, so much.
Have yourself a glorious, lovely, wonderful day.
I appreciate you dropping by.
I appreciate your support, and I will talk to you soon.
▲
Export Selection