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So, then the question came to me:
Do I believe in God?
And I don't like that question
And people have complained at me a lot
And I'm sure they have their reasons:
Because they don't like my answers
And I have two answers
They've kind of become stock,
Which is not a good thing
But they're the best aproxi-
I can't figure out why I don't like the question exactly
I've got three, I had three sort of
Burgeoning hypotheses, one was:
It's none of your damn business, that's the first one
So it's like a privacy issue
Like, it seemed to me to be a question
That was too private to be answered properly
And so, you could consider that a cop-out
And maybe it is
And then another one was:
Well, what do you mean by 'believe'?
Like, do you mean the words?
Do you mean to say the words 'I believe in God'?
Does that indicate that you believe in God?
Like, I don't know what you mean by 'believe' exactly
And that's gotten me in trouble, too
Because people think that attempting to clearify the meaning of words
Is an attempt to escape from the question
When it's actually an attempt to specify the question
I mean, is what you believe what you say or what you act out?
Now I would say to some degree it's both
But if push comes to shove, as far as I'm concerned
What you believe is what you act out, not what you say
And then you know and if you're an integrated person
Then what you act out and what you say are the same thing
And then you're a person who's word can be trusted, right?
Because what you say and what you do are isomorphic
They're the same thing
But belief is instantiated in action so I have also suggested that
I act as if I believed in God, or to the best of my ability
And people aren't very happy with that either
And then the third is that I'm afraid that he might exist
Which I think is the most comical of the three answers
And perhaps the most accurate one
But then I was thinking about what I might talk to you guys about
And I thought: Well, let's go into this a little bit more
Let's say you do believe in God
Say 'I believe in God'
It's like: Okay that's hypothetically pretty impressive. I would say
It's like: You believe that there's a divine power that oversees everything
That's fundamentally ethical, that's watching everything you do
And you believe that, and so what effect does that have on your behavior?
If you believe it, does that mean that you're...
Well, are you full... are you all in on your beliefs?
Are you sacrificing everything to this transcendent entity
That you proclaim belief in?
Have you cleansed yourself of all your sin, let's say?
Are you making all the sacrifices that you need to make?
Have you taken the mote out of your eye? No?
Or are you in the same situation that the Catholic Church seems to be in right now?
Just out of curiosity...
It's a good time to bring that up
Since the Pope seems to be concerned with what's been happening
With the Catholic Church
Given the endless pedophilic scandals
Which seem rather serious in my estimation
And might have been something that was cleaned up
Perhaps a hundred or a thousand years ago
And it's being taken seriously perhaps now and perhaps not
Because it's not so easy to determine exactly what it would mean
To take that seriously
And you might say 'Are all the people who are committing these heinous actions
And then covering them up, if you ask them: Do you believe in God?
What are they gonna say?
You'd think the answer would be 'yes'
Given that they are, like, PRIESTS, and yet?
And yet? What's the evidence?
Well, the evidence isn't exactly so clear that the mere statement let's say
Or the mere acting out of the ritual let's say-
And I'm not trying to denigrate the statement or the ritual
I'm pointing out that that's no indication of your right to say that you believe!
And I think this is why it's bothered me to answer this question, it's like:
What right do I have to say that?
To make that claim, I believe in God, well, what's the claim?
Is that the claim that I'm a good person somehow?
Because you'd think that if you believed in God
Like, actually, seriously, you'd be a good person, like, right now
Well, for obvious reasons I would think and so if that hasn't happened
In some sort of miraculous sense
So that you're the best person you could possibly imagine being
On an ongoing basis and then terrified of deviating from that path
In a serious manner, then
I don't see why you have the right to say
That you believe in God
credits
released April 2, 2020
📖 Spoken Word by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
🎶 Mix, Mastering, Visuals & add. Instruments by Neochron
✂ Production, Cut, Arrangement & Instrumentation by 2mørVs
Alan Watts has a deeply calming way of talking lightly about the most fundamental sekrets (sic!) of our universe, and we wove his talks about the web of life into this web of music. 2mørVs
The first time I took part in the making of a JBP record and also the first time he recorded lyrics especially for one of the songs, I feel very blessed for being a part of this! 2mørVs
