WLC Reacts! to Jordan Peterson on People Driven to Atheism by Church Hurt

Dr. William Lane Craig responds to Jordan Peter's analysis of how many atheists seem to be reacting emotionally to the pain they've experienced from the Church.

DR. PETERSON: I've read a lot of comments from atheists in my YouTube comment sections on my biblical lectures. I probably read at least hundreds of them, and maybe thousands of them. But at least hundreds. And one of the things that has struck me continually is that many of the people who become atheists are reactionary. I don't mean that in a denigrating sense. A huge proportion of people who are stridently atheistic were hurt very badly by people who purported to be religious when they were young. I think that also applies to Dawkins, by the way. I've seen some evidence for that in his public utterances. So you have people who've been terribly betrayed by the agents of what was supposed to be the best, and so they carry that utter bitterness with them – that ultimate betrayal. Because I think there isn't anything worse in some sense than being betrayed by people who claim to be acting, let's say, in Christ's name. I mean, how could anything be worse than that? And so then they're driven to this atheism, and they're so afraid then again to re-establish a new faith because they've been hurt so badly that they're willing to suffer this purgatorial drought of vision rather than to put themselves up on the chopping block one more time.

DR. CRAIG: Man, having this come from a professional psychologist is so impressive because it really does confirm, I think, the impression of all of us of these Internet atheists. Their bitterness, the anger, the emotional tirades that come from them show that this is not a matter of a dispassionate intellectual quest even though they love to pose in that way. This is an emotionally driven reaction, and many of them – I think Peterson's quite right – have had negative experiences in the church as children or teenagers and are now in severe rebellion to it. It's really tragic. But, of course, you see, here's the thing. If you say to people, “The reason I reject Christianity is emotional – because I've been hurt, I've been wounded,” that doesn't make you look good. But if you have intellectual objections to Christianity – if you can pose as the dispassionate academic careful inquirer who's so rational (you know, rationality rules) then you earn self-respect and credibility in the eyes of your audience. I think there's an awful lot of posturing going on that is betrayed by the emotional undertone that Jordan Peterson so accurately depicts.