Posted on 04/06/2018 6:22:13 AM PDT by Voption
Part 1: The Nature of Experience (from my first book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief.)
(Excerpt) Read more at youtu.be ...
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Peterson’s analysis of Scripture is through the lens of Jungian Gnostic atheist theology. In “Is Dr. Jordan Peterson Just a Gateway Drug to Christianity or a Highbrow Joel Osteen,” Peter Burfiend unpacks Peterson’s atheist theology:
“Petersons lectures build on Jung. He acknowledges human evolution and confronts the Darwinian conundrum: the impulse toward nihilism it necessitates. If were just a random assemblage of atoms who hit lifes lottery and attained self-consciousness, what could possibly guide us on a moral level, and what possible meaning to life could there ever be?
Peterson gives a brilliant answer, speaking of God and the inspiration of scripture like a televangelist on fire for the Lord. His key is Jungs psychology peppered with a good dose of neurological data. If God emerged in human consciousness over millions of years, and if the scriptures are the result of geniusesprophets and poetstapping into archetypical truths of the human psyche, wed better take such things seriously.
In other words, God and the archetypal truths of scripture are part of the survival gear of the human species, writ into the very neurological apparatus of our beings. Monkeys dont wrestle with meaning and morality. But we do, because we gained consciousness some time in the relatively recent past. Peterson connects this foundational moment in human evolution with the creation story and the eating of the forbidden fruit, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
However, this neglects the truly supernatural, so it is a decapitated way of thinking. The scriptures, which are our only way of knowing WHO God is (aside from merely knowing via creation THAT He is), predicted the first coming of the Son of God, to a "T". They predicted the return and sustenance of Israel, as we can presently witness daily They predicted Chernobyl. I named only 3 of the predictions which the human collective genius could never have made, much less fulfilled.
The neglect of the supernatural is a fatal flaw to any system of analysis of reality and being.
“Tell the Truth...or At Least Don’t Lie.”
(Jordan Peterson featuring Akira the Don and JBPWave)
https://youtu.be/iA8n9JTTM38
(4:38)
Timeless is the supernatural realm (third heaven) of the eternally existing, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Holy God of Revelation.
There are three heavens. The first is the immediate sky, or earth's atmosphere. (Genesis 2:19; 7:3, 23; Psalms 8:8; Deuteronomy 11:17) The second is the starry heavens or outer space. (Deuteronomy 17:3; Jeremiah 8:2; Matthew 24:29). The third heaven is outside of time and space, meaning the first and second heavens, thus outside the reach of man's science. The timeless heaven is where God and the holy angels and spirits of righteous men in possession of eternal life dwell and to which Paul was taken. (Deuteronomy 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Psalms 115:16; 148:4; 2 Cor.12:2)
Furthermore, all people who have had out-of-body experiences by way of near-death or drugs, astral plane travels, or through shamanism for example, can testify to the existence of their own souls as well as of the timeless abode of demons and fallen angels, the "spirits of wickedness under the heavens" (Eph. 6:12) and their chief, "the prince of the powers of the air." (Eph. 2:2) According to the Apostle Paul, fallen angels thrown down from the third heaven are dispersed in a multitude throughout the first heaven. It is with this timeless abode of fallen angels and demons that shamans interact and to which astral plane travelers from the time of Nimrod to our own have been visiting. According to Francis Huxley and Jeremy Narby:
"Western observers began participating in shamanistic sessions involving hallucinogenic plants, (and) found, to their astonishment, that they could have experiences similar to those described by shamans." 'Life' magazine popularized shamanism in a 1957 story, "In Mexico, American banker Gordon Wasson ate psilocybin mushrooms in a session conducted by (a) shaman." Wasson described to 'Life's' readers his experience of "flying out of his body." Narby and Huxley report that "hundreds of thousands of people read Wasson's account, and many followed his example." (Modern Shamanism: Spirit Contact & Spiritual Progress, James Herrick, p. 17, from "On Global Wizardry, edited by Peter Jones)
Very astute; and thanks for your extensive response.
Add to your final comments re: the spirit world and age-old visits to principalities and powers by shamanistic practitioners — some of the frightening observations by an off-rails anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda, among the Yaquis in Mexico, and Johanna Michaelson, who was brought out of occultic practices by Francis Schaefer himself.
Some of the observations and methodologies of Peterson remind me, remotely, of those of Paul Tillich — except that Tillich, for all his existentialist psychobabble, actually acknowledged the realm that is outside this mortal coil.
"Paulus lived in fear. His nervous body was tense; his desires -- many. His fingers would fiddle with a pebble from the beach, a silver coin, or a paper clip. He breathed unevenly and sighed heavily, an ever guilt-ridden Christian in distress. His was the Temptation of Saint Antony in Grunewald's altar, attacked by demons. His solution was to suffer the demons, take them into his being and describe them in words. He was the martyr of the mind." (The Paganization of Biblical Studies, Dr. Peter Jones)
I hadn’t known that about Tillich; how pitiful!
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