Are Prof. Jordan Peterson videos suitable for Non-believers?

[camper]

First of all, I apologize for any grammar mistakes, as English is not my native language. You may ask me what I meant if something sounds weird.

Me and my agnostic exgirlfriend recently broke up, mostly because I intend to return being fully catholic, which lets down our old secular ways.

As I remember our old talks, she kinda wanted to believe in God, but as everyone else, she did not believe what she could not see, and specially the church for some reasons:

• She is leftist (but not some crazy university communist). She doesn’t like the mostly male hierarchy in Church, as she feels women don’t have enough importance there.
• She has that feeling the Church is way richer than it should be, that the buildings didn’t have to be that big and detailed.
• She definitely doesn’t like the way the Church expresses its “rules” as condemnations of sin, that life shouldn’t be this restricted.

She did try to join a bible studies group to understand religion in a “human” and historical way, but she didn’t stay because people were obviously trying to teach doctrine.

I was wondering if the Prof. Jordan Peterson series on the Bible could be acceptable as a way of kinda getting her to know the importance of Christianity and the Church. Or maybe, as he isn’t exactly christian, would this bring her to some distorted view?

I like the way he respects the meaning of the Church, but he doesn’t exactly talk in religious manner, but in human manner. And recently he tweeted an joke image of Jesus that I judge disrespectful, I don’t know why.

 

[stupidisasstupiddoes]

Hi Camper,

I think you are really on to something here. I think that some Christians won’t like Peterson’s videos but we should all embrace them. In my opinion they are precisely what we need right now. I feel like religion has conceded the public debate around important issues and we, as a community, have allowed atheists to frame us as stupid and superstitious. Jordan Peterson is the perfect antidote to this problem, his intellect and reasoning wipe the floor with popular atheists like Richard Dawkins and he stands toe to toe with even the more respectable ones like Sam Harris.

I can’t encourage Catholics enough to watch his video’s, yes they are long but they are worth it. If i may say so, I am not an intellectual slouch but we cannot help but find our thinking constrained by our language, this was one of George Orwell’s big ideas in 1984. There were arguments i heard from atheists that i knew were untrue, but i lacked the right words and examples to rebuke them. Having found the ‘right’ answers from Peterson i realised that our own language was holding back my thinking. For example, he explains brilliantly the difference between truth and scientific fact, his explanations of archetypes are mind blowing and he’s not afraid to point of how popular translations of bible text are often poor translations.

Well done for sharing this!