On the 14th of April, 2018, Pangburn Philosophy hosted a debate between Jordan Peterson and
Matt Dillahunty, and in my opinion it was extremely fruitful, because unlike most who
converse with Jordan, Matt didn't let him get away with the usual ambiguity and sophistry.
Instead, he made him clarify his beliefs, and in doing so revealed many of them for
what they are – fallacious and vacuous.
Anyhow, during the Q&A segment the fantastic Ozymandias asked Jordan the following: "What
in your view would a genuine atheist be like?”
“He’d be like Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment […] See, Raskolnikov built himself up to
the murder in part by laying out the rational case but also by saying 'Well there's no god...
there's no metaphysical reason that's stopping me from committing this act’.”
This is "Atheists Are Murderers - Debunked".
“My question is for you Dr. Peterson.
You alluded to an important distinction between someone who would actually be an atheist and
someone who merely professes to be an atheist (you implied that Matt and others are not
genuinely atheists.”
“I can tell you that I actually don’t believe in a god, and--” “But you act
like you do!”
“Huh?”
“But you act like you do.”
“They would be afraid of what we would lose if we lost religion, and I basically said
demonstrate to me any benefit--” “Oh, you’d lose art and poetry and drama and
narrative--” “Why?
Are there no godless artists and poets?”
“There are artists and poets that think they’re godless.”
“I’m curious why you think that… is it just because we have sacred values?
That everyone has sacred values?
What would in your view a genuine atheist be like?”
“He’d be like Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment.
And I can’t really come up with a better answer than that because it’s such a complicated
question that that’s the right answer!”
…No, it’s not “such a complicated question”… Jordan just needs it to be, because “Mystery
is a convenient excuse for absurdity”.
A “theist” is “Someone who is convinced that at least one god exists”, and an “a-theist”
(with the prefix “a” meaning “not”) is “Someone who is not convinced that a
god exists”.
That’s it… or, as Matt put it: “An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe there’s
a god (I am not convinced there’s a god).
That doesn’t necessarily mean there are no gods, although that is a subset of ‘Hey,
I don’t believe there’s a god’ and then there’s a subset ‘I believe there are
no gods’.
This is, as I’ve talked about, independent of whether I can be a moral being or do good
things.
It’s independent of if there’s awe and wonder and purpose and meaning in my life.
Anyhow, here’s the explanation that Jordan gave: It’s so interesting because Dostoevsky…
the last thing Dostoevsky ever did was make a strawman out of his opponents, let’s say.
What Dostoevsky did in all of his great novels was make his enemy, let’s say… or make
each of the positions that he was trying to contend with as powerful and admirable as
he possibly could.
And since he was an absolutely spectacularly genius he could really do that.
And so Raskolnikov plots to murder this horrible woman, who’s horrible according to everyone
who knows her (who has also enslaved her rather mentally feeble niece), and who does nothing
but make people miserable consciously all of the time.
And he does that in order to save his sister from a rather sophisticated form of prostitution,
to save himself from starvation so that he can become a great lawyer and help people.
Right, so Dostoevsky sets up the stage… here’s the perfect situation for a murder,
and all of the rational choices point in that direction.
And Raskolnikov, who’s sort of torturing himself (or sort of tortured) because he’s
kind of hungry and not very well (not thinking very clearly), he… he undertakes the murder!
And he gets away with it.
And before he does it he berates himself, in what I would call the negative atheistic
style.
And he basically says ‘Look, there is every rational reason to split this woman’s skull
with an axe.
Look at all the good I would do.
Look at all the wellbeing I would enhance!
And so he does it.
And then all hell breaks loose.
And what Dostoevsky was… see, Raskolnikov built himself up to the murder in part by
laying out the 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 there’s all these reasons
that appear perfectly rational pushing me in that direction, perhaps I’m nothing but
a moral coward for failing to undertake it.
So he does, but what he finds out is that he broke an inviolable moral law (something
that spoke to his own soul so to speak, and the rest of the book basically involves his
sequential post-traumatic unravelling.”
Now there’s a fair amount to address here, and so I’m going to do so one step at a
time.
First off, in response to the statement “The last thing Dostoevsky ever did was make a
strawman out of his opponents”, while I won't go so far as to say that Dostoevsky
strawmanned atheism (as the act of strawmanning requires deliberate misrepresentation), I
will say that because he was insufficiently vicarious he nevertheless achieved as much…
that is, because of his ignorance, he misrepresented atheism (and more specifically, the many mindsets
and worldviews of those who aren't convinced that a god exists).
You see, the religious (be them Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans,
or whatever), almost always attribute their sense of right and wrong (that is, their morality)
to their religious edicts, and thus when trying to understand the mindset of those who don’t
subscribe to their religion they tend to assume that such considerations are absent… and
that’s precisely what Dostoevsky did – and, indeed, what Jordan does too.
In fact, it’s evidently precisely because of this that Jordan asserts that Western Civilisation
is Based on Judeo-Christian values, and that the likes of Sam Harris are actually Christian.
“Harris’s metaphysics is fundamentally Christian.”
“I can tell you that I actually don’t believe in a god, and--” “But you act
like you do!”
“There are artists and poets that think they’re godless.”
Now in most cases this flawed way of thinking is understandable (all be it insulting), as
most religious people don’t sufficiently understand the process of evolution by natural
selection (let alone the specific evolution of social species and social norms)… but
the same can’t be said of Jordan – he knows better!
In fact, his primary claim about the validity of religion is nested in Jungian archetypes,
and the primary premise of Jungian archetypes is that we are not born with a blank slate,
but rather, just as we inherit physical characteristics (such as eye colour and bone density), so
too we inherit psychological characteristics (such as the fear of snakes, and, here’s
the kicker, a repulsion to the idea of murdering another human).
Or to put this another way, just as it was the case that those who had a genetic predisposition
to fear snakes reproduced more successfully than those who didn’t, so too it was the
case that those that had a genetic predisposition to feel disgusted at the idea of murder reproduced
more successfully than those who didn’t, and thus, just as we are born with a propensity
to fear snakes, so too we’re born with a propensity not to murder.
Jordan can’t accept psychological inheritance when it fits his narrative, but deny it when
it doesn’t – that’s not how it works.
And so, when Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky, or Jordan says “Look, there is every rational reason
to split this woman’s skull with an axe”, they’re wrong!
Sure, we could say that there's every external reason, but not every internal.
Dostoevsky failed to consider the biggest reason of all for Raskolnikov not to bury
an axe in Alyona’s head; that being the fact that he is a member of a social species
that has evolved an innate, deeply rooted repulsion of murder – and that because of
this, such an act wouldn’t just hurt Alyona, but would necessarily hurt him too.
Now, to cover all angles, in the past, Jordan has said that someone’s psychological inheritance
(or implicit axioms) is their religion “Everything you act out is predicated on your implicit
axioms, and the system of implicit axioms that you hold as primary is your religious
belief system”, and so perhaps, because he’s defining an atheist as someone who
is devoid of psychological inheritance (or implicit axioms), he’s conflating his definition
of “religion” with his definition of “theist”… but considering Matt’s profile, character
and clarity, and the context of the conversation, if Jordan was doing this then I hereby accuse
him of being deliberately obtuse and obfuscating.
In any case, ask yourself, if Ray Comfort or William Lane Craig asserted that “All
atheists are murders”, how would you react?
Would you allow them to redefine every relevant word to make such a sentence coherent?
I don’t think so, and so just in case you’re inclined to allow Jordan such a luxury, please,
consider not.
Anyhow, before wrapping up, I couldn’t do so without showing Matt’s wonderful response,
and so here it is: “There were atheist fans that wrote me like ‘Ah, man, I can’t wait
for you to do this conversation with Jordan’, and I was like ‘cool’, and still, I hope
that we have many more conversations as well, cos just saying one thing I find irritating
is never going to be enough to get rid of me.
But I asked them ‘Great, I’m not that familiar with him – what is it about him
that you like and what are the concerns?’ and they came back with a bunch of things
, um, none of them said anything about agreeing views on religion (they seemed very confused
on those things), and so the good news for them is while he think atheists would be murders,
he doesn’t actually think you’re an atheist – and that is his way of getting around
acknowledging things that conflict with his worldview.
I don’t get to decide who is or isn’t a true Christian (I didn’t even get to decide
that when I was a believer).
I definitely don’t get to do it now, and so when somebody tells me they’re a Christian
I’m going to have to accept that.
I have a model in my head of what that means, I have a model in my head of what it means
to be a muslim, but I’m willing for them to explain to me what their model is.
I know…
I know people who identify as Christian atheists (they really love this stuff this Jesus said,
but they don’t actually believe there’s a god, you know, Thomas Jefferson famously
cut out the Jefferson bible and removed every reference to the supernatural and miracles
and things like that because he really admired the teachings of it – and sure, I think
you can be a cultural Christian if you wanted to).
It’s strange to me that I’m not sitting here with somebody like Ray Comfort when I’m
told ‘You’re not really an atheist because you’re too good to be an atheist’, and
this is what atheists hear all the time when come out… they’ve been sidelined because
of religious privilege around the world for years, and then atheists come out to their
family members and friends, or people known for years and then they’re like ‘You’re
an atheist?
How can that be?
You’re such a good person!
I’ve known you all this time!’ – it’s because the mindset of what people have about
what an atheist is has been poisoned religious proclamations.
We have been denigrated from the pulpit, and it has seeped into every aspect of culture,
right up to the height of intellectual pursuits, and it’s time for that to end!
As always, thank you kindly for the view, and an extra special thank you to my wonderful
patrons and those of you who’ve donated via PayPal.
This month’s patron of the month is Jeremy Frandsen, and you’ve won Lying by Sam Harris.
Congratulations, and thank you for your support.
Until next time my fellow apes, until next time!