Transcription
What if one of the most brilliant defenders of faith isn't even explicitly Christian? Jordan Peterson recently debated a group of atheists, and honestly, he mopped the floor with them. But here's what's wild: Everything he intuits modern prophets declare. In this video, I'll show you what Peterson gets profoundly right and how living prophets go even further. Let's get into it.
Someone's goal, right, can be something that doesn't encompass being in congruence with God or being with God. The thing they want to be in congruence with is fundamentally equivalent to their goal.
So you've said that worship is when you prioritize and sacrifice for something.
Yeah.
There's a hierarchy in there.
Sure. So I prioritize and sacrifice for my wife more than I would prioritize and sacrifice for a random person on the street.
Right. Do I worship? I don't know. I've seen some pretty bad, pretty bad marriages.
Assuming a good marriage, are you saying I worship my wife?
I do. The higher it is in the hierarchy, the more what you're doing is akin to worship. But even in your trivial acts of attention, you're prioritizing and partaking in worship, even if you don't know it. There's a hierarchy of attentional priority. And as you move up it or down it, depending on whether you think about it as a pinnacle or a foundation, you move more towards worship. Worship isn't just about singing hymns or going to church. It's about what we orient our entire lives around. Jordan nails it here. You're worshiping something whether you know it or not. And if it's not the highest possible thing, you will become less than you could be. As you think celestial, you will find yourself avoiding anything that robs you of your agency. Any addiction, be it gaming, gambling, debt, drugs, alcohol, anger, pornography, sex, or even food, offends God. Why? Because your obsession becomes your God. You look to it rather than to him for solace. The world says, "Follow your heart." The prophets say, "Worship the highest, because whatever you worship, it will shape you or destroy you."
You've claimed I worship something, and I want to—if you want to have a deep and meaningful life, then you have to go all the way to the bottom or the top, in so far as you're capable of doing that, because otherwise you'll be fragmented and miserable and anxiety-ridden and hopeless.
So I have to worship something to have a meaningful life, and if I worship—there's no difference between those two things.
Okay, they're the same thing.
So if I don't worship anything, my life will not be meaningful.
Correct. Well, that's the definition of nihilism. They're incoherent in their worship. If you're incoherent and fragmented and aimless, which is what happens if your objects of worship are unstructured and chaotic, then you're going to be anxiety-ridden and without hope. Without worship, there's no meaning. That's not religion talking. That's psychology. You need a purpose to strive toward and to aim at something to orient your entire life towards. You have to worship something to have a meaningful life.
So what would make it most meaningful? As we seek to purify our lives and look unto Christ in every thought, everything else begins to align. Life no longer feels—no longer feels like a long list of separate efforts held in tenuous balance. Over time, it all becomes one work, one joy, one holy purpose. It is the work of loving and serving God, loving and serving God's children. When we look at our lives and see a hundred things to do, we feel overwhelmed. When we see one thing—loving and serving God and his children in a hundred different ways—then we can work on those things with joy. This is how we offer our whole souls. If you're searching for meaning, start with the worship of the highest. Start with God. That's why Nin re warned that when God died, as he announced in 1850, that people would be flooded with pointless, anxiety-ridden, hopeless nihilism. And that was what would attract them to the false gods of totalitarianism, which is exactly what happened. Because everybody worships something, even atheists who think they don't.
I'm not religious, or I don't worship anything.
No, you do. Everyone does. Even atheists have something they worship. Therefore, what we insistently desire over time is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity. Worship isn't optional. It is what you emulate. It is what you center your life on, what you point your life towards. The object of that focus is your God. So, what are you becoming? What do your habits say you actually worship? If we want to become the best we can become, then we should aim at the highest possible target. The target is the harmony of all that is good. And X marks the spot. The cross is also an X. The cross is the target. And Jesus is the aim.
What makes someone a Christian? Probably the deepest answer to that is willingness to shoulder your cross voluntarily and trudge uphill regardless of circumstances. There's a statement that Christ makes in the Gospels. He says, "Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord,'" will enter the kingdom of heaven. Christ himself points out that there's a difference between people who say they believe and people who act it out. And the fundamental issue is the action rather than the stated belief. You give up voluntarily and with courage all the things you need to situate yourself properly in relationship to the future and other people.
What does it mean to accept Christian values precisely or Christian morality? It means to aim up as hard as you can no matter what happens to you.
Okay. So I think—I think that that's a very broad definition of what Christian—but it'll come in handy at some point in your life. I could say that you—you would have to believe that Christ is God and he died for your sins. But that's in a very difficult way to understand. That's the same claim. Being Christian isn't about labels or liking Jesus quotes. It's about shouldering your cross. To be Christian is to shoulder your cross voluntarily. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Following Jesus is to leave behind everything in our lives that doesn't serve him. All the hate, the cowardice, envy, laziness, lust, spite, addictions, and distractions. Real Christianity is gritty, it's daily, it's costly, and it's worth it.
Do you think is sin a part of Christian morality? It's derived from an archery term, and it means to miss the target. It presumes that there's such a thing as a central target and that you can miss it in many ways. And the consequence of that will be your life will be ridden with anxiety, your life will be pointless, people will turn against you.
Don't believe in sin at all. Well, do you believe in error?
I do.
Have you made any mistakes?
Do you believe that you can change?
I do.
Do you believe you can change for the better?
I do.
Do you believe that when you change for the better, you abandon the things you've done in the past that weren't good?
Believe I think that you can.
Okay. Then that's very much in keeping with Christian doctrine.
Can you explain to me how that's in keeping with Christian doctrine? You would go to hell for those things. Believe you can. You believe you can improve.
Yeah.
Right. And you believe that if you improved, you would let go of things that were impeding you. That's a sacrifice. You believe that improvement would be upward. And you believe that you have agency in that.
Yeah, those are all Christian presuppositions. Repentance isn't about guilt trips. It's not self-shame. It's transformation. Repentance is turning around. It's transformative, not just regret. Too many people consider repentance as punishment, something to be avoided, except in the most serious circumstances. But this feeling of being penalized is engendered by Satan. He tries to block us from looking to Jesus Christ who stands with open arms hoping and willing to heal, forgive, cleanse, strengthen, purify, and sanctify us. When Jesus asks you and me to repent, he is inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit, even the way we breathe. He's asking us to change the way we love, think, serve, spend our time, treat our wives, teach our children, and even care for our bodies. Nothing is more liberating, more enabling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular daily focus on repentance. Repentance is not an event. It's a process. It is the key to happiness and peace of mind. When coupled with faith, repentance opens our access to the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Peterson describes repentance psychologically. Prophets invite you to experience it eternally. It is an upward spiral that increasingly moves your life closer to heaven and farther from hell. Jordan Peterson sees through the fog of modern atheism, but prophets bring the light. If you're ready to move from intuition to revelation, listen to the living prophets. Hit subscribe if you want more videos where reason meets revelation. And if you're ready to worship God with your whole soul, you're not alone.