The Intersection of Science and Religious Mythology

Christianity's cultural influence persists despite its lack of scientific validation.

### Exploring the Intersection of Faith, Science, and Cultural Christianity
* ✝ The speaker expresses a belief in Jesus's sacrifice for sins but acknowledges a lack of complete understanding of biblical texts, emphasizing that **deeper exploration often leads to more questions rather than definitive answers**.
* 🔬 Drawing a parallel to quantum physics, they note that while the complexities of quantum phenomena are **difficult to grasp**, the predictive power of these theories is **remarkably precise**, unlike the mysteries surrounding biblical narratives.
* 📖 The discussion shifts to the speaker's identification as a "**cultural Christian**," suggesting an affinity for cultural elements derived from Christianity rather than a belief in its **truth claims**.
* ⚖ They critique the ethical validity of different cultural traditions, contrasting mainstream Christianity with more oppressive systems, and acknowledge that any **improvement in ethics, however modest**, is noteworthy in the context of **historical barbarism**.
* 🧠 The conversation delves into the nature of truth, questioning whether the narratives in the Bible can be understood as **metaphorical or factual**, with the speaker admitting **uncertainty about specific claims** like the Virgin birth and the Resurrection.
* 📜 They assert that the significance of Christian stories lies in their **cultural impact and moral implications**, rather than their literal truth, while also recognizing the challenges in **bridging the gap between fact and value**.
* 🔍 The dialogue highlights the inherent assumptions within the scientific enterprise, suggesting that even scientific inquiry is influenced by **unscientific values and priorities**, which complicates the quest for **absolute truth**.
* 💬 Ultimately, the speaker and their interlocutor acknowledge differing perspectives on the importance of **myth versus scientific fact**, with a focus on the **profound implications of both** in understanding **human experience and morality**.

[Music] I believe that as a fact that Jesus died for our sins. There are elements of the texts that I don't claim to understand. What my experience has been is that the more deeply I look into these texts, the more I learn that

it doesn't mean that I can proclaim full knowledge of what the texts proclaim. But I don't think, and I'm not trying to play a trick here, you know, I watched an interview that you did recently where you were talking, I think it was with

Pierce Morgan, yeah, about the, about the um, complexities of trying to understand the strange realm of quantum phenomena, right? And we have a trouble with quantum phenomena because at the micro level, things don't act like things act at the macro level. So they escape our

intuitions. And one of the things you said was that although it's perhaps even impossible for creatures embodied like us to get a grip on quantum phenomena, the strange wave particle duality for example, we have ample evidence that it works and stellarlyte

[Music] but in so far as I've been able to understand the text, every time I make an improvement in understanding it reveals something to me that's just like shattering. Quantum physics is deeply mysterious and you're saying that biblical texts are deeply mysterious. The

difference is, quantum physics, the predictions you derive from quantum physics are fulfilled to the umth decimal place, theth deal place. I, I mean, I think it was Richard Feynman who says equivalent toed in the width of North America to the nearest hair's breadth. That's

impressive that that's doubt the the mystery there as it were gains its credentials by its predictions the mysteries of the Bible don't have any credentials at all as far as I can make out well I guess the credentials that I would put you made a statement a couple

of months ago that I found very interesting and I don't claim to understand it and I'm not trying to put you on the spot with it you said that you were a cultural Christian okay and so that raised a number of questions in my mind you know and the first question

was you all changing the subject to no I'm no I'm no I'm not no I don't think so I may be leaping outside of the topic a bit to get back cultural Christianity but I think because I I have a list of questions that you wanted to ask and

that is one of them but I think Professor do you referring to the predictive power and to the utility of the stories okay so that's actually what I was trying to on okay so that that was the point well it seemed to me that your proclamation that you are a cultural

Christian was a recognition um and a and a statement that you had found something in the culture that had been derived from Christianity that you had an affinity with and that there's some reason for that and one of the things I wanted to ask you is well what do you

think that Christianity got right that allows you to make a statement like that I mean I know I know that there's differences perhaps in what we both think about the ultimate veracity of the biblical stories maybe there isn't differences like it would take a lot of

conversation to figure this out but but what did you mean by that like what do you think that Christianity got right that would enable you to make a statement like that virtually nothing um I meant by that is no more than that I'm brought up in a Christian culture I

went to Christian Schools I therefore know my way around the Bible I know my my way around the book of common prayer I I know I know the hymns um that's all I I don't value Christianity as a truth system at all okay so let me let me ask

you about that because maybe that's true and perhaps it's not so the first question is like do you think that there are any marked differences between cultural Traditions that would enable you to rank order them in terms of their ethical validity okay so for example we

could contrast mainstream UK Christianity with Islamic fundamentalism Okay so so there's a hierarchy there is a hierarchy hierarchy that points to what uh well in the case of Islam uh I dislike any religion which punishes apostasy with death that throws gay

people off high buildings that practices clitoridectomy um that that seems to me to place Islam on a lower level than Christianity but that's not to say anything very positive about Christianity well it might it might be to say something positive about Christianity like I think that question

is open because you might ask yourself what did Christianity get right that led it away from those particular presumptions and towards something that you regard as more ethically appropriate like this isn't a trivial question it's a very modest claim uh it is not very

much I mean to to be better than a religion that throws gay people off high buildings is not really a very virtuous achievement I I don't know I don't know if that's true because if you look at the barbarism that characterizes the human past you might

think that any progression whatsoever towards something approximating mercy and tolerance is nothing short of a bloody miracle well people are pretty pretty ruthless and so are our chimpanzee cousins yes they are right so so we move forward into the light with great difficulty and the fact that we

can take that for granted now and that it seems self-evident and deserving of faint praise it's not so clear to me that that's that that's a reasonable proposition okay let's let's grant the the faint praise but that has nothing to

do with the truth value and what I care about is the truth value I see no no truth value in the claims of Christianity the Virgin birth the Resurrection the Miracles do you believe in any of those do you believe Jesus was born a virgin as I said before there are

elements of the text that I don't feel qualified to comment on my experience has been that the more like I know from a metaphorical perspective and from a mythic perspective what the story of the Virgin birth means and I accept that I know for example that any culture that

doesn't hold the image of the woman and infant sacred dies do you and I don't know how that needs to be expressed in a form true though do you mean that you don't know well let let me let me ask you about that because truth this is

something I talked with Sam Harris about too. Truth, as we know, is a tricky business. Do you think there are differences in the truth claims between different writers of fiction? Like, is Dostoevsky more profound than, well, I wouldn't call fiction truth claims anyway. I

mean, then on what grounds do we rank order the fiction in terms of quality? Like, Dostoevsky is a profound purveyor of fiction on the philosophical front, unbelievably deep and profound. There's something true about what he's writing about, it's it's nothing to do

with the truth that science is concerned with. The truth of science is the truth that gets us to the Moon. I mean, this has nothing to do with um whether one writer of fiction has a sort of insight into human nature that that goes without saying. I accept that, okay.

So how do we deal with the notion that on the on the purely factual side, how do we deal with the idea, let's take the no you you talked about clitoridectomy, let's talk about the oppression of women. Yes, we make a scientific case that

that's inappropriate, or is it a case that we're making on some other grounds? Like, I see in the Judeo-Christian tradition one of the earliest pronouncements is that both men and women carry the image of God, both, and that sets a certain tone to everything that

follows. And it is a remarkable proclamation given its radical age that both men and women are carry the carry the image of God and are to be treated as something with intrinsic value outside of the domain of power and politics. And it isn't obvious to me, it

It isn't obvious to me, having thought about this a lot, how we deal with that in the pure realm of fact because one of the facts is if I can oppress you, why the hell shouldn't I? Yeah, my job is to keep things on track here. I think there are a

number of questions which Professor Dawkins has asked quite directly that we still haven't really heard an answer for. Okay, okay. Professor Dawkins is asking about the Virgin birth. You started talking about metaphor. You started talking about myth. I think anybody listening to this conversation will

understand that maybe a society that doesn't believe in the Virgin birth won't work. Maybe that's the predictive power that you're talking about, but I, I think you must understand that when Professor Dawkins is asking you, do you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin,

he means something like a biological fact. And, and by the way, saying I don't know or saying, you know, I'm not qualified to comment is an answer to that question, but is that your answer, that you, that you don't know? I said earlier, and, and I

I would hold to this, is that there are elements of the text that I don't know how to, that I'm incapable of fully accounting for. I can't account for, for what the, what the fundamental reality and significance of the notion of the Resurrection is. My, my knowledge just

ends. Sure, but I, I know that whatever happened, whatever happened as a consequence of the origination and the promotion of the Christian story was powerful enough to bring Rome to its knees and demolish the Pagan Enterprise. So there's some power in that story.

that's remarkable,  stick to the Virgin birth and well the Virgin birth results from a mistranslation of Isaiah you know that I'm  it's like these sorts of questions it's what would you say they don't they don't strike me as they're not getting to the point, has

a purpose well and look I understand that there's there's perfectly good reasons to debate this I I know that and I know that your question is more than valid but it's beside the issue as far as I'm concerned and and it's it's partly

because well when we started this conversation I said for example that it it appears to be the case that a description of the structure through which we see the world is a story we see the world through a story and so that's a remarkable thing that's

a remarkable discovery and it's emerged probably in the last 16 years 60 years in multiple disciplines because we have to prioritize our facts and so we prioritize them according to a particular pattern and there are patterns that seem to work and to

propagate themselves properly and to orient cultures towards life abundance and there are other patterns the pattern of Cain for example that lead to absolute bloody devastation and I don't know exactly how to construe that sort of truth but we talked about the oppression of women for example it's

like how do you make a case on purely factual grounds that women should be treated as equals it's a moral question and I know that's exactly I was dealing with a virtual question which is did Jesus have a father and and you won't answer it J

father and a Heavenly Father, like almost all mythological heroes, so he wasn't born of a virgin. Then, so, so you're saying that Jesus was not born of a virgin? I, I said first of all that I don't, I don't know how to mediate the

fact-value dichotomy in that case. I said the same thing about the resurrection. It's not a value, it's, it's a simple fact. I mean, did, did, did a man have intercourse with Mary and produce Jesus? That's, that's a factual question. It's not a Val

question. You must understand what we're being asked here, that, that even if you think that, say, the author of the biblical texts intended much more significance than a simple scientific analysis of events, Professor Dawkins is interested in scientific truth. That's the kind of truth that he's interested

in. And even if you think it's irrelevant to the point of what the, the gospel authors were getting at, that first needs to be clarified before you can then begin actually uncovering what the stories are about. So I think Professor Dawkins is asking from a scientific

perspective. And maybe you think that scientific approach is wrong, but if you just take it for a moment, maybe this is how we find out that it is wrong. Let's take a scientific approach, ask the question, did this occur? I think that it's inappropriate to use a question

like that to attempt to under undermine the validity of the entire, what would you say, deep mythological enterprise. We're not doing, suppose we were asking out of interest, suppose that we were all here devout Christians, maybe even Yian Christians, and we thought this is

Interesting, over dinner, do you think it really happened, like scientifically? Would your answer just be "I don't know"? Yes, and you wouldn't consider it... I mean, it's not an inappropriate question to ask, just on a point of interest, right? Did this really occur? And I think so.

Often people are asking you that, and and especially given the context of this conversation, we've we've heard everything that you're you're saying about metaphor and myth, and but because the question is still then being asked, "Did it really happen?" You know, that that's what you're being asked, and the

way you just so easily said "yes," I wonder why you struggle to do that in so many other circumstances. I think because I don't look at the situation the same, the the way that Dr. Dawkins and I look at the situation are really quite different, and at many many

many levels, you know. So even on the meme question, for example, you know, like I know the literature on the history of religious ideas. I see how these ideas have battled across millennia in a manner that is very reminiscent to me of the same sort of claim that Dr. Dawkins

is putting forward with regards to memes. I know that literature. Dr. Dawkins doesn't know that literature, and it's very difficult for me to communicate from within the confines of that literature because it's extensive and deep, and and we're dealing with things that we don't understand, the

relationship between metaphoric truth and value-predicated truth and factual truth. We don't understand that. It's a big problem. We cannot, there's no evidence whatsoever from the scientific perspective that we can orient ourselves in the world merely in consequence of the

fact sure and that's a fact and it's a fact that's been detailed out in great detail in the last 60 years by people from a variety of different disciplines we have to prioritize the facts that's a value hierarchy there may be true and

false ways of prioritizing facts but you can't determine the truth or falsehood of the way that you prioritize facts by making reference to the facts that's a big problem okay let's let's let's talk about that as perhaps a a slight detour

here because I think we do need to come back to this Chris Resurrection thing but Professor Dawkins would you say that underlying the scientific enterprise is a fundamentally unscientific assumption you can you can make scientific investigations in the world but in order to do so you need to

choose what to prioritize you need to choose what to investigate you also need to um value the truth you need to have a value and a motivation for doing it in the first place those kinds of things cannot themselves be scientifically justified and so does the scientif

scientific enterprise have an unscientific assumption at the space I suppose it does I mean I I I think we I think that maybe just be Jordan and Richard but by the way um um I think that Jordan prioritizes myth and I prioritize fact

and um I think myth is kind of vaguely interesting but is not the be all and end all of my life I think it's it's somewhat secondary to scientific fact the sort of facts that that tell us how old the universe is how old the world is um the

history of life the um engineering achievements of landing a spacecraft on a comet these are the things that science can do and as I said the predictions of quantum theory to come back to that but predictions of quantum theory which are verified to a

sufficient number of decimal places that it's equivalent to dating the width of North America to one hair's breadth now that is however difficult quantum theory is to understand that is what you can get from quantum theory now the the mysteries of the Bible if they are

mysteries aren't in the same league I mean they they just don't cut it [Music]

'Do You Believe Jesus Died for Our Sins?’ Richard Dawkins Confronts Jordan Peterson

The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins

Initial discussion on faith and understanding of religious texts.

Speaker expresses belief in Jesus' death for sins, acknowledging limitations in understanding religious texts.

Reference to a previous interview about the complexities of quantum phenomena.

Comparison of the difficulty in understanding quantum phenomena and religious texts.

Contrast between the predictive power of quantum physics and the lack thereof in biblical texts.

Introduction of the concept of 'cultural Christianity'.

Discussion on the speaker's understanding of 'cultural Christianity'.

Speaker clarifies their understanding of cultural Christianity, emphasizing upbringing and familiarity with Christian culture.

Question about what Christianity got right that allows the speaker to identify as a cultural Christian.

Speaker explains their view of Christianity as lacking truth value.

Comparison of ethical validity between different cultural traditions, specifically UK Christianity and Islamic fundamentalism.

Debate on the truth value of Christian beliefs.

Discussion on the speaker's belief in the Virgin birth, Resurrection, and miracles.

Speaker discusses the metaphorical and mythic significance of the Virgin birth.

Comparison of truth claims in fiction and the ranking of fiction based on quality.

Discussion on the oppression of women and the Judeo-Christian tradition's view on the equal image of God in men and women.

Further discussion on the Virgin birth and the speaker's perspective.

Clarification of the question regarding the Virgin birth from a scientific perspective.

Speaker reiterates their inability to fully account for elements of the text.

Discussion on the mistranslation of Isaiah and the relevance of the question about the Virgin birth.

Speaker explains their view that the question is beside the issue.

Discussion on the nature of truth and the prioritization of facts.

Discussion on how we see the world through stories and the prioritization of facts.

Discussion on the difficulty of making a case on purely factual grounds that women should be treated as equals.

Further discussion on the fact-value dichotomy and the question of Jesus' father.

Clarification of the scientific perspective on the question of Jesus' birth.

Concluding remarks on differing perspectives and understanding of truth.

Discussion on the reasons for the speaker's reluctance to answer the question about the Virgin birth directly.

Explanation of the differing perspectives of the speakers involved in the conversation.

Speaker highlights their knowledge of the literature on the history of religious ideas, which the other speaker lacks.

Discussion on the lack of scientific evidence for orienting ourselves in the world solely based on facts.

Discussion on the unscientific assumptions underlying the scientific enterprise.

Discussion on the unscientific assumptions underlying the scientific enterprise, such as the need to prioritize what to investigate and value the truth.

Comparison of the prioritization of myth versus fact by the speakers.

Speaker emphasizes the importance of scientific facts and the achievements of science.

Reiteration of the predictive power of quantum theory and its contrast with the mysteries of the Bible.