Jordan Peterson

For my birthday back in February Kathleen bought us tickets to hear Jordan Peterson lecture at the San Jose Civic Auditorium last night.

It was very interesting. He was promoting his new book (I didn't know he had a new book.) and lectured based on a chapter in the book which, I think, says something like if you want the best possible life you must abandon ideologies but the only way to do that is if you correctly think of and relate to God.

He started out by talking about different kinds of truth; scientific, historical, psycholoical, maybe more. But he concentrated on psychologicial and showed the psycological truth of several stories from the Bible:

Creation - Yes, God is He who is above all and behind all and calls order out of chaos, and if you do not acknowledge that you have no principles by which to understand the world or by wich order your life. And there is a cost to this: you ave to admit you aren't in charge.

The sacrifices of Cain and Able - Yes, the pursuit of God, He being who is above and beyond all things is worth sacrifices. And sacrifice, by definition is costly, but you have to do it or you don't attain what is better.

The Tower of Babel - Don't try to make anything as high as God because if you do horrible things happen. Here he mentioned Communism as the most deadly ideology ever.

The call of Abraham - Yes - leave your father's tent and get out and live your own life, even if you are 80 years old, its not to late to embrace adventure, and if you don't you will never develop into a whole strong person. And there is a cost to this. You might have someone try to take your wife. You might never have a place to live. You might spend your whole life as a wanderer but that is better than living your whole life in your father's tent.

Finally, after a few more stories, Peterson ended with the story of God sending the plague of snakes after the Israeiltes but then telling them to erect the brazen serpent and that lead to the Crucifixion of Jesus.

It really was a very good presentation. Actually, calling it a presentation might be wrong. It was more like he was trying to figure out what all these stories mean and how he should regard them and how he should live but unlike most people he was doing it in public. But Peterson is still not a Christian. He talks about our God. He talks about our book. He says it is true. But he is not baptized. I know he has been talking with a few Orthoox Christians, among them Jonathan Pageau, the iconographer and youtuber. I think Pageu is very patient. I am sure I would have tried to close the deal by now, whereas Pageu is just a caring friend to Peterson. I have a lot of admiration for him.