Yes, of course. Peterson, if I understand correctly, is just saying that those forces that you mention are what have historically been called "God".

Yep , just like JC said.

So sorry.

I would argue that most of the relabeling has occurred only in the last couple hundred years. God is the word that is grandfathered in. There is a hazard, as you point out, in using poetic language, but one of the benefits is that it makes the material accessible to more people (metaphor operates in an older evolutionary layer of the brain. Reason is the newcomer). And there is no such thing as preventing humans from getting things wrong. No choice of words will prevent that.

It's just art. A world of nothing but precise prose would be uninhabitable for humans. It's not that one language is better than the other; we need both. I don't really think we can have one in the world without the other. I won't allow the erroneous perceptions of literalists to determine what I do. I will defend art in my world. (and reason too!)

@skado Yes this is just me caring about being precise. I'm under no illusion that any choice of words is foolproof or free from fooling or impervious to fools, etc. However words, and how we frame discussions, matter. And if there's a better way to describe things, I try to find it.

As you suggest, symbolism and metaphor matter too. The unconscious deals in symbols and you can reach it with them. One of those symbols is "the divine" as a principle or ethos apart from any presuppositionalist notions of agency. Here again ... the label is, for many, evocative of way more than it was arguably intended to evoke.

I'm pretty much resigned to god-talk hanging around for a very long time no matter what I think about it ...

@mordant I agree completely, and you said it much better. My thought is that god-talk actually needs to be reclaimed by the sane, and I suspect that is what Peterson is trying to do. It should never have been ceded to the literalists to begin with IMO.

It might be pie.

@skado pecan I'm hoping.

@hankster Now yer talkin'!

It might as well be pie. If the word god is just a metaphore for everythig we can't explain, why not pie....or bacon?
As long as god is understood to be a symbol and not a fact it's all hunky dory. As soon as pie becomes a fact you get the inevitable my pie is better than your pie followed by fighting.

@Razorjelly but my pie is better than your pie.

@Razorjelly besides if God is understood as a symbol and not a fact there is no god to symbolize.

@hankster you are correct in that there is no god. God is the word we use to symbolize all that is beyond our understanding. The other side, if you will, of time and space, the abyss as
Nietzsche put it, where we find our true being. Where we become one with all things and separateness ceases. We become the totality. The creator and destroyer. The one true will in all things. Maybe....who knows?

@Razorjelly I'm just going to go with pie.

@hankster - It's a helluva lot easier to order.

@Razorjelly yeah I order enough that Nietzsche is a mouthful.... and they have plastic forks here so you know...

@Razorjelly do you know about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? A wonderful idea and website (though not as tasty).

Pastafarians are a little too starchy for my palate.

@Razorjelly Frisbeetarianism flies in the face of fony faiths.

Bad apples don't make apples a bad thing.

Let that kid out!

@skado my mission in life...i call it "sparkling"!

Peterson’s.

Very well said

"...being present with compassion, curiousity, creativity..."
is about as good as it gets I think. Thanks for putting those words together so beautifully.