pETERSON IS GIVING A VERYNICE ADRESS TO THE GRADUATING CALSS AT hILLSDALE COLLEGE AND IT IS VERY GOOD i THINK, FOCUSING THE STUDENTS ON HOW TO THINK ABOUT WHERE THEY GO FROM HERE AND CRITERIA FOR DECIDING HOW THEY WANT TO CONDUCT THEIR LIVES AND SO ON. aND IN THE PROCESS HE REFERS TO SOME OF HIS PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE bIEL WHICH OF COURSE MAKE ME CRINGE ALOTHOUGH THE POINT HE'S MAKING IS NEVERTHLEELESSS A GOOD ONE S FAR AS MOTIVATING THE GRADUATES GOES.
tHE fLOOD CAN'T BE REAL TO HIM OF COURSE BUT HIS WAY OF PSYCHOLOGIZING IT KEEPS ESCAPING ME TO SUCH AN EXTENT i CAN'T EVEN KEEP IT IN MIND. wHAT? wHAT? i CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER IT NOW BUT IF i COULD i WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANT. i GUESS THAT'S BECAUSE THE fLOOD IS REAL TO ME, A REAL PHYSICAL CATACLYSM THAT HAPPENED TO THE WHOLE PLANET SOME FORTY FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO OR SO. i JUST CAN'T PSYCHOLOGIZIE IT. i LOOK AROUND AT THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND THINK i SEE THE PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF THAT fLOOD IN ITS TUMBLEDOWN WRECKED APPEARAND WHEREVER THE BARE GEOLOGIY OF IT IS APPARENT, WHERE THERE ISN'T A LOT OF BEAUTIFUL GREEN FOLIAGE TO CAMOUFLAGE IT. aND OF COURSE THE STRATA, THE LAYERS OF SEDIMENTARY ROCK CALLED THE gEOLOGICAL cOLUMN, THAT IS SO PATENTLY not WHAT SCIENCE CALLS IT, IF YOU GIVE IT SOME THOUGHT YOU'LL HAVE TO SEE THAT, REALLY GIVE IT SOME THOUGHT, AND SO MUCH MORE PLAUSIBLY THE RESULT OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD i CAN'T PULL IT DOWN TO THE CONEXT OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY.
tHEN, AND THIS IS KIND OF A SIDE NOTE HERE THAT'S NOT CENTRAL TO THE POINT, HE QUOTES THE PHRASE THAT SAYS nOAH WAS PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS AND GOES ON TO GIVE THAT A PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION ABOUT WHICH HE SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN. i CAN'T IMAGINE WHERE THAT CERTAINTY COMES FROM. pERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS ISN'T EXACTLY A COMMON WAY OF DESCRIBING ANYTHING THAT i KNOW OF. i PUZZLED OVER IT FOR A LONG TIME, AND i DON'T KNOW HOW pETERSON THINKS HE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS AND RATTLES IT OFF IN SUCH A GLIB WAY. i FINALLY DECIDED ITHAT IT MUST REFER TO THE EVENT EARLIER IN cHAPTER sIX WHEN THE "sONS OF gOD WHO ARE THE FALLEN ANGLES, TAKE THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN TO BE WIVES AND EGET GIANTS WHICH WE KNOW S KNOW AS THE nEPHILIM. tHOSE WERE LITERAL GENERATIONS THAT WERE DANGEROUS BECAUSE ANGELS CAN'T BE REDEEMED SO THE HYBRID OFFSPLRING CAN'T BE REDEEMED AND IF THE MIXING OF THE TWO CONTINUED EVENTUALLY THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE WOULD BE CONTAMINATED AND COULDN'T BE REDEEMED. sO ALTHOUGH THIS could BE WRONG i THINK IT'S PROBABLY RIGHT, THAT nOAH'S BEING PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS MEANS THAT HIS GENETIC LINE WAS NOT CONTAMINATED BY THE GENETIC INHERITANCE FROM THE FALLEN ANGELS AND REMAINED HUMAN AND THEREFORE REDEEMABLE. sINCE THE GIANTS SHOW UP AFTER THE fLOOD SOME HAVE SUGGESTED THAT ONE OF THE WIVES OF ONE OF nOAH'S SONS DID CARRY THAT CONTAMINATED SEED, WHICH MAY BE TRUTH.. TRUE. bUT nOAH'S BEING PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS PROBABLY MEANS THAT HE HIMSEOLF AND HIS OTHER FAMILY WERE NOT CONTAMINATED AND COULD BECOME THE PROGENITORS OF A TRUE HUMAN RACE. THAT COULD BE SAVED BY THE mESSIAH WHO WAS EVEN WAY BACK THEN BELIEVED TO BE COMING.
iT'S HARD FOR A HUMAN BEING BORN INTO THIS FALLEN WORLD TO BELIEVE IN gOD. aS SCRIPTURE SAYS THE FLESH IS ENMITY WITH gOD, THAT'S WHY WE MUST BE BORN AGAIN SO GIVE US THE PSIRT THAT CAN KNOW AND LOVE gOD. THE FLESH MUST HATE IM AND REJECT hIM BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY FOR FLESH TO APPREHEND hIM AND THE FLESH IS ATTRACTED TO SIN WHICH IS AT ODDS WITH gOD TO BEGIN WITH. sO ALTHOUGH pETERSON IS ATTRACTED TO THE BIBLE HE'S ATTRACTED TO ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS OR PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS TO HUMANITY AS HE'S ABLE TO MANAGE TO MISINTERPRET IT TO BE SAYING, BECAUSE HE CAN'T DETECT gOD SO gOD CAN'T EXIST AN THAT IS THAT. aND CERTAINLY THE fLOOD Can't have happened in reality, nor the miracles and so on and so forth. They must all be reinterpreted and psychologized. And it says something that the world word pscyhne means or is translated soul in the Bible, not spirit, although there are some teachers who try to make the spirit the funciton of the soul and they are able to make some sense using that idea although I think it's wrong so I'd just say I think that thoelogy best comes from the recognizition that we are tripartitgite, body sould and spirit in three separate components.
I do think there are plenty of clues that the Bible is referring to a real God and real Flood and real miracles and all that but it is nevertheless true in the end that you can't reallyget it unless you are born again. I also think all it should take even if you are merely a fallen creature to realize that the science of the fossil record is laubhable is just actually think about what it's based on. Just look tat the layers of rock stacked unup in the Grand Canoy where you can see them to quite a depth and think about the claim that each represents millionso f years of time and pursue the physical properties of those tstrata until you graps that it's simply imposisble and then you'd have to see that a wrold wide Flood is really a reasonable way to explain them and time period s are NOT a reasonanlr way to explain them.
I do like Peterson's message, and I think in my own way I'm trying to live something like what he is recomiending out in the way I write my posts. I 'd like my posts to help him recognize the truth and give up his certainty that there is no God in the sense that the bibvle says there is. That god must be some kind of psychological construct. Give it up. It's false.
