Jordan Peterson's INCREDIBLE Journey To GOD | Heartbreaking Moments on His FAITH

So people often ask me if you believe in God, which you don't. I don't like that question. I don't like that question. I don't like that question. Yes, I don't like the question people have asked me. No, I believe in God and have answered in various ways, no, but I'm afraid he probably exists. Those are the traditions that unite the community. Now I say that and I don't go to church, you know, and the reason why I don't. I don't go to church because, well, it drives me crazy to speak frankly. I haven't been able to sit in a situation like that since I was well, really, that's really the truth. um, I'm not convinced that's the case. a good thing because i think and i have had good conversations about this with jonathan pagio.

I believe that the communal return to the source of community ethics is actually something necessary and perhaps I am atoning for my past sins by doing this. Bible conferences right now, which is a communal thing and then because there is also something about going to where a group of other people are to reaffirm their commitment to the good that they all aspire to, that has some power and I don't think that that It's something we should give up, I think it's dangerous, I mean, look, even if you're cynical about the church, and I guess I'd put myself in that category, it's certainly the case that the communal church that was started in the The 1950s, he says, provided the average person with at least one hour a week where he contemplated, no matter how poor, the purpose of ethics in life and the idea of ​​a higher purpose and higher meaning in life and You have to think that spending an hour a week thinking about That is better than never doing it.

I don't know how you can revive that tradition in any meaningful way, but I think I really think it's a catastrophe that we've lost it because we don't have a center. an ethical center that holds our community together and the consequence of that is that we are becoming quite fragmented, but what you see there is that if you see someone with love, then it is up to you to treat them as if they were valuable and So, the more you treat other people as if they were valuable, the better person you are, who just accompanies you in some sense, so none of that seems questionable to me, that seems solid and then maybe the more I love you.

See other people with higher moral demands placed on you and then I would say too well, so that's another reason why it's so important to be sincere and, in a sense, to be good, because it's not obvious to me that you can do it. . to bear that moral burden if you're compromised by too much sin, it's too much and then that's another thing: we're not very good at teaching young people about that, you know, we shouldn't do that, you know, it's like there's a sanctimonious authority. that goes along with that, that's the wrong tone, it's more like you know, I don't know how you present it correctly, but you tell people that you love how to avoid the road to hell and you don't do it because you're shaking the finger at them or because you are a moral authority you do it because you don't want them to burn and I think there is still too much moral authority in the church and not enough to know the love that helps people avoid the fire tammy my wife has always taken the idea of ​​truth Her recent brush with death has deepened her religious sense and propelled her toward a life that focuses more consciously on service to others, her family in particular, but not just her family. beyond family and I also think that's a function, to some extent, of our stage of life.

She is now a grandmother and her children have grown up and can take care of themselves, so she can direct her attention to other people, perhaps more distant than immediately. family, I am watching what she does, listening to her and watching the practical application of her

faith

and that affects me just as everything she does affects me because I watch what she does and I take it seriously. Her recent actions have indicated that she has received help. a substantial number of people with the group that she has been communicating with and all of that is very interesting to me, what she is showing me.

I mean, I've taken the idea of ​​God seriously for a long time and I've said on multiple occasions that I try to act like God exists and that's essentially my definition of belief when people say, Do you believe in God? Belief is a multidimensional word and one question is, what do you mean by belief? And for me, the test of belief is being found in action and I decided that I would act as if god existed a long time ago and of course I'm imperfect in that inevitably now she's doing it more explicitly too, no I don't was doing quite right to begin with, she does it more explicitly and also more within the limits of traditional religious conceptions, although she does not attend church, she associates with several people who are formally religious and all of this influences the way in what he behaves;

It is watching her do it that has also been highlighted by me the praxis that is missing in Western Christianity if you want to be a Christian let's say that if you think it is necessary it is not exactly obvious what you should do you should go to church but that is not enough I don't think I find it useful to continually contemplate the highest good I am trying to stay oriented in that direction it is a fundamentally religious orientation it is an overwhelming orientation but there is no way to escape the questions about the ultimate meaning of life I am no longer an atheist because I do not Look at the world that way I'm no longer a materialist I don't believe the world is made of matter I think it's made of what matters It's made of meaning that we unconsciously orient ourselves toward, which means that what captures our attention is meaning and It captures our attention before we know what it is.

The brain acts as if the world is made of information or meaning. Who would have the audacity to claim that they believe in God if they examined the way they live? who would dare? to say that to believe you think you believe in a Christian sense in reality that is why Nietzsche said that there was only one Christian and that he was Christ having the audacity to affirm that means that you live it fully and that is an unbearable task in some sense to be able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering that accompanies it and the disappointment and the betrayal and yet act correctly right aim at the good with all your heart right to do without malevolence and your desire for destruction and revenge and all that and face things boldly and tell the truth tell the truth and act it that's what it means to believe that's what it means doesn't mean doesn't mean saying means acting it and unless you act it you have to be very careful in claiming it so never i have felt comfortable saying nothing more than trying to act as if god existed because only god knows what you would be if you really believed, i mean if you think about it in any sense, that is the central idea in christianity is that if you were able to believe, it would be a transfiguring event, a truly transfiguring event and I know that people experience that to one degree or another, but we have no idea what the limit of that is and we have no idea what the possibility is within each person if lived a life that was maximally brave and maximally truthful, you know, because maybe you're running at sixty percent, seventy percent, twenty percent. and at cross purposes with yourself, only God knows what you would be if you believed and, as I act, I try to act as I believe, but I would never say that I achieve it so well that you can think of Christ from a psychological perspective and the critic the critic my critic this particular critic I've been reading said well that doesn't differentiate Christ much from a whole sequence of dying and resurrected mythological gods and of course people have made that claim in comparative religion, joseph campbell did that and jung to a lesser degree, I would say, but Campbell did that, but the difference and C.S Lewis pointed this out as well, the difference between those mythological gods and Christ was that there is a representation of there is a historical representation of his of his existence now you can also debate whether that's genuine or not, you can debate whether he actually lived or not and whether there's credible objective evidence for that, but it doesn't matter in a sense because that's the way it is, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter because there's still a historical story and so What you have in the figure of Christ is a real person who really lived more of a myth and in a certain sense Christ is the union of those two things.

The problem is whether I probably believe that, but I don't know. I am not surprised by my own belief and I do not understand it because at times I have seen the objective world and the narrative world touch each other. You know, that's union synchronicity and me. I've seen it many times in my own life and in a sense I think it's undeniable, you know, we have a narrative sense of the world to me, that's been the world of morality, that's the world that tells us how to act, It's real like us. treat it as if it were real, it's not the objective world but the narrative and the objective world touch and the ultimate example of that in principle is supposed to be christ, but I don't know what and that seems strangely plausible to me, but I still don't know what to make of this, it's too headlong partly because it's too scary a reality to fully believe.

I don't even know what would happen to you if you completely believed it, but are you a prophet? To say yes or no? think about how I think I have to think about how I could conceptualize myself how what I'm doing could be conceptualized no, I think I see myself as a psychologist and fundamentally I am a psychologist I am a behavioral psychologist and I am I became very interested in psychoanalytic thinking, especially in the union variants, and I'm a professor and I'm doing that, you know, on a much broader stage, let's say, but that's really what I'm doing and so it's a combination of those two things and there's a, I mean, I talk about issues religious but I don't see myself as a religious leader, I don't want that god to have left me with the intolerable burden of my ignorance, arrogance, willful blindness, bitterness and resentment while I pray. for others to overcome the same flaws and temptations I watched fox news post a message this week there are terrible things going on beneath the surface of our society and the perpetrators are coming for you and us and then I watched the democrats respond with panic and anger saying that There are terrible things going on under the surface of our society and the perpetrators are coming for you, they are coming for us, there are terrible things going on bubbling under the surface, something is coming for you and for us, ask yourself how true is that for you and your In your own life, have you addressed everything that concerns you with the dust in the eyes of your enemies instead of addressing the filth that obscures your own vision?

Do we want accusation suspicion discord mockery and hatred or the peace and prosperity and happiness that calls to us right now? At this time like never before, who is the enemy here? Is it the basket of deplorables? We are the artists and visionaries whose expressions of unbridled creativity entertain and rejuvenate us and who continually offer us an endless panoply of technological miracles. We are the institutions that guide and protect us that so many lived and died to erect and establish which for all their faults have us. served so well we want revenge or justice we want contempt or mercy we want war or peace and what do they aim for in the depths of their hearts I see even the best of men degenerating into the exchange of blows i I see even the best of men identifying the enemy in our neighbors and friends.

I see even the best of men falling prey to cowardice and self-righteous anger. We have to stop. I have to stop. You have to stop before it's too late. Who is the enemy? here the serpent in your heart the lies on your tongue the arrogance of your intellect the cowardice of our refusal to see the enemy is what divides to sow discord the enemy is pride and fear that prevents us from lending a hand through the division the enemy is the great and eternal adversary of humanity and if we demonize our brothers, our comrades in arms, are we not invoking precisely that fearsome spirit?

Haven't we learned to have courage yet? Trust the truth. Love even your enemy, which is yourself. God, forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who offend us, may the highest guide our vision, may the highest open our ears, may the highest guide our tongues, and may we pray in fear of the hell we could so easily and carelessly create, deliver us from evil. light in the corners of our dark hearts because yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever, amen