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Jordan Peterson is very ill: carnivore, pharmaceuticals
Joseph said...
"lil chick, that story about Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA, was a new one for me. I also learned that he left AA in 1956 in order to pursue LSD.. Your thoughts on the relative merits of quitting a substance in light of the probable years left has me thinking on my own recent abandonment of my vices. Oh beer, oh tobacco, how I miss them.
Benefits of being off them: Breathing, sleeping, money, time, health, energy (?). Negatives: That hollow feeling which food can't fill, which dissipation fills (temporarily) with the speed and efficiency of a concrete pump. The fact that tobacco is so maligned by the experts is a contrary indicator I have difficulty shaking. Perhaps it presents a tar barrier to aluminum, barium, strontium, etc. in the air, in the way those smokes in the film "Screamers" protected the people from radiation.. Perhaps there was something to the Native American idea that smoking tobacco was a way of communicating with the spirit world.."
Oh no! I didn't mean to tempt you back to alcohol and tobacco, Joseph!
Your prognosis is much better than Jordan Peterson's right now (although I have hope for him, there is always hope as long as we are on this side of the dirt)
One of the things about him is that I see him as prematurely aged, and I wouldn't be surprised if your "real age" is much younger.
@jiri, people actually do benefit sometimes from prayer, it seems. Prayer is one of those things that can improve our amount of feel-good hormones. I've even read they have done studies and realized that prayer by others can help you... Thinking of a grandmother I knew who would pray constantly for her grandchildren--
When it comes to a neat mystery... it's an interesting thing to look into is NDE's (near death experiences).
Religion is actually a separate thing to belief-that-we-might-be-part-of-something-bigger-and-eternal. (Eternal souls having a temporary experience.)
The bad thing about religion is that it attracts baddies who want to control others. (along with goodies who want to help others). If religion didn't exist the baddies would just find other ways to control others. Except we would be without the goodies (who have done good things through time, such as organize charity.). One of the things we need to teach our children and etc... is not to trust someone just because they are clergy.
Another thing about taking away religion is that you are taking away something that has knit communities together and uplifted people. Isolation and depression seem to be the goal here. Old churches or the current brutalist architecture?... Hymns or crap-music? Has anyone come out with anything like this, lately?
Quote from Joseph on November 10, 2025, 5:47 pm
Benefits of being off them: Breathing, sleeping, money, time, health, energy (?). Negatives: That hollow feeling which food can't fill, which dissipation fills (temporarily) with the speed and efficiency of a concrete pump. The fact that tobacco is so maligned by the experts is a contrary indicator I have difficulty shaking. Perhaps it presents a tar barrier to aluminum, barium, strontium, etc. in the air, in the way those smokes in the film "Screamers" protected the people from radiation.. Perhaps there was something to the Native American idea that smoking tobacco was a way of communicating with the spirit world..
Back to the topic at hand, I've never trusted any of these gurus because they are so front and center of our attention. They are obviously placed there. The most interesting part of this to me is his daughter's framing of this as a spiritual battle for her father.
Might pay to keep in mind, there is a reason ATF comes down so hard so fast on anyone growing their own tobacco. Probably as fast or faster than DEA does on pot. Guessing cultures who used tobacco in past had much more respect for it. They probably came no where near habitual use. They probably saved it for ritual and medical use. Feels like that hollow feeling fades so gradually as to never be noticed.
Quote from Hermes on November 10, 2025, 2:48 pmI gently disagree. Jesus teachings are profound: Loving your enemies? Not heard before. Surrendering your ego to God is both anxiety-riddling and liberating. Now, have there been wars in the name of Christianity? Absolutely. But they missed the message altogether. Christianity has been used and abused for ages. Not any different today.
If you are atheist, you're open to all sorts of deeply troubling ideas: Communism and fascism. People maybe more agnostic or even atheist these days, but they flock in great masses to causes that replace their longing for religious experiences: Feminism, climate activism, woke ideology, etc. And if they can't get the revolutions they want, they simply burn down whatever they can. These are all very destructive ideologies.
Biblical Christianity is so far off from wars. Whoever has read the New Testament knows this. Christianity is deeply rooted in realistic epistemology, meaning whatever is real is true. Woke ideology is the reverse: Whatever is in your head is true. That's why they can say things like, "My true essence is female," though I'm a male. That's what I call insanity. Christianity is reality promoting.
Amen! Jesus was so confronting that he lost most of his followers by the end because who wants to love and forgive their enemies? No one wants to, but by the Holy Spirit we have the mind of Christ and have compassion even for our enemies.
To bring this back around to Jordan Peterson, this is what the AI says he thinks of religion, and hopefully it will help him in his current battles:
- Living with belief: Peterson has articulated that he "live[s] his life as though God exists".
- "Belief" as commitment: He views belief as a deep, life-encompassing commitment, not merely a statement of faith. In this view, it is a difficult and demanding practice.
- The role of Christian narrative: He has a high regard for the Christian metanarrative, viewing it as foundational to our culture and the source of a framework for confronting chaos and finding meaning.
- Meaning and destiny: Peterson argues that to live a meaningful life, one needs a destiny or purpose to aim at. For him, religious tradition and the stories it offers provide this sense of purpose. "
@lil-chick "@jiri, people actually do benefit sometimes from prayer, it seems. Prayer is one of those things that can improve our amount of feel-good hormones. I've even read they have done studies and realized that prayer by others can help you..."
It's seems like you were not reading my comments at all heh. I didn't said using religion as cope can't help you. I said actually the opposite and I added my view on it...
You don't say what you think is interesting about this video, lets try to be sure not to JP-bash, as that was one of the parameters I laid out in the first post.
I guess when I watch it, I wish someone decided that it wasn't a bad idea for him to walk into that room.
He seems worn out. Someone who was just on the brink of death shouldn't be soldiering on with this kind of high-stress debate job. I suppose it pays well... but what is the cost? One's health is more important than any pay check. If he wants to still work, how about getting back to regular teaching? If he doesn't, go ahead and retire and enjoy the time he has left! Play with the grandkids.
The debate seemed a bit of a trap. I bet he signed up thinking he was going to debate atheism ... and instead it ended up 20 students proving to Jordan Peterson that much of the bible is horrible. And they did it well.
However, did these students become atheist because they think the Bible sucks?? No! I'm sure there was much more to their decision not to believe in God. In a parallel vein, do modern diests live every word of the Bible? No!
So in a way, the entire debate is deflection from the real topic.
I kept wishing he or the mod would ask them to come back to the really interesting debate between 20 Athiests and one Diest. Is there a God? Are souls eternal? Is THIS this ALL THERE IS? Are there personal or societal benefits to aligning with either side?
@lil-chick the breakdown of what was said by Alex was interesting and also I never saw JP basically abuse his authority when he didn't have good answers. Btw those young people were another interesting part. I was expecting brainwashed left wing nut jobs. But most of them seem to be really reasonable with good knowledge on the topic. . Btw I think it was filmed before his health crumbled again.. But I agree debates like this are bad idea for him with his chronic health issues.
I really recommend listening some of Alex O connor content on his channel. But I think most religious people would not like all that fact checking etc.. lol
Those crazy old readings go against the 10 commandments, and probably do need to be dropped. It's too bad he didn't think about conceding this. Perhaps if he was feeling better he would have had a better time of it. I'm the same age as Jordan and totally feel that I make many more mistakes than I did when younger. And we are grumpier. There is a reason people retire. And it's very smart to retire when you aren't yet housebound so that you can get some bucket list things done!
Anyways, there is such a thing as "ecumenical"... lots of churches are going ecumenical (it's keeping churches in business) which is kind of a modern-distillation or common-denominator version of church gatherings. We recently attended a marriage (in a beautiful old church) between a lapsed Catholic and a Hindu, a very "broad" service... but there was still a lot of interesting, poignant, uplifting readings and music that did involve God, eternity, and a feeling that there is more to life than primordial soup.