By modeling good conversations about faith between people on both sides of the debate, we can hopefully improve the discourse globally.
Ed: So what exactly is The Big Conversation?
Justin: The Big Conversation is a 6-episode video debate series in which I sit down with some of the biggest intellectual thinkers from the atheist and Christian world to debate some of life’s biggest questions.
It began with the Canadian psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson in conversation with atheist psychologist Susan Blackmore. Peterson has risen to enormous prominence in recent months and is attracting many young men with his approach to finding meaning in life. They had a very lively debate on the question “Do we need God to make sense of life?”
Blackmore said ‘no’ and Peterson said ‘yes’.
Ed: Is Jordan Peterson a Christian then?
Justin: Good question! I actually spent the first and last part of the program asking that question of him.
He has consistently refused to be pinned down on his personal religious convictions. When I pressed him on it, he described himself as a “religious man” who was “conditioned in every cell as a consequence of the Judeo-Christian worldview.” The closest I could get to whether he really believed in God was that he lives his life “as though God exists,” saying, “The fundamental hallmark of belief is how you act, not what you say about what you think.”
However, he stands strongly against the new atheists who claim that religion is a force for evil. In fact, he came out strongly defending Christianity as the worldview that has shaped the values and freedoms we hold dear in Western civilization. When Susan Blackmore pressed him that certain secular Scandinavian countries are doing fine without religion, he reminded her that such post-Christian nations in the West ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/M5m-o10aRao/big-conversation-qa-with-justin-brierley-on-new-series-that.html
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