“I think that Catholicism … that’s as sane as people can get” world-famous psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson has said in an interview widely circulated on You Tube.
His comments came in an interview recorded by PragerU, a think tank which specialises in promoting conversations on social, political, ethical and economic issues via media.
Interviewer Dennis Prager told Peterson that his main reason for believing in God is watching what happens when people have no belief in a divine creator.
Peterson first commented on Catholic doctrine, calling it “eerie and complex and surreal and the biblical writings are the same”, before stating that Catholicism “was as sane as people can get”.
He explained that he believed we needed a “narrative metaphysic to hold us together”, one that is “predicated on something that’s transcendent and absolute” and that if you lose that, “you’ll fall for something else, or nothing which is no better”.
“That is the problem with the rationalist Sam Harris, and Atheist Dawkins…they believe that if we dispense with our superstitions we’d all become Harris and Dawkins, rational beings departed towards the good”
Peterson believes they conceptualise this for rational reasons, which is why he thinks they’re wrong. Instead, he believes that humans aren’t fundamentally rational. On the contrary, “I think we’re deeply irrational.”
He said that the “issue of God … is that there has to be something that you consider of fundamental worth.”
The capacity of humans to have regard for other people, “for the consciousness of other people, for one conscious being of other people” is in that realm of fundamental worth.
By having a relationship with ourselves, through loving someone else and taking care of our families and communities, humans must attribute to other human beings a value that might as well be divine, he said.
“If you watch how people act when they’re acting properly the hypothesis that there is divinity within us that reflects divinity itself is the only conclusion that makes sense that works” Peterson said.
Peterson later stated it seems clear to him that “if there is a great darkness there has to be a great light.”
He believes the first part of that is true beyond any hope of refutation, citing many horrible incidents throughout history, so “the second seems to be a logical necessity in light of the first.”
The full interview can be viewed at www.youtube.com
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