Mohammed Hijab – Dr. Jordan Peterson asked Surprising Question

Your brothers and sisters in Islam net from Norway are establishing a masjid a Dawa Center. This center this masjid, this educational institution will act like a beacon of light, calling the Muslims in Norway back to the essence of the slam. So give generously and Allah azza wa jal give you even more that live as a Christian. And both of you this is the question to both of you. Is there an ultimate purpose of life?

Yeah, sure, what isn't? What we're doing here, which is hopefully trying to make peace. Is that enough? We'll see. Yeah. Because it's better than the alternative. What's the alternative? *?

Okay, which we're toying with. I don't mean us. Yeah, us too. That's for sure. You know, things are, things are shaky at the moment on many fronts, and we have this opportunity in front of us, all of us to have a very abundant world, right, where everyone has enough, and maybe more than enough, and we're, we're shaky about that. We're not sure that that's acceptable. And we're not sure everybody should have it. We're not sure everybody deserves it, and even ourselves, and,

and We're retreating into our corners in some real sense. And we're not addressing the elephants under the carpet and you can't do that. Like, the things we're discussing contentiously now, you know, they made for rough conversations, but they make for a lot rougher streets if you don't talk them out. And you have to do that a spirit of ignorance. You know, like, I was hoping to come here today. And well, and listen, I talk a lot. There's my flaw, you know, but I don't know how to feel the right way forward. I think part of it is bald, first of all, to find commonalities we believe in, in the fundamental necessity of a uniting book, across the Jewish Christian and Muslim faith.

That's not nothing. That's a strange thing to insist upon. And yet, we all seem to agree, we believe in a higher and purposeful unity, the necessity of that, and then also in the necessity of putting that, above all else. And we also agree that we're not very good at that. But that's the hardest one to get is that, even if you do claim, in some sense to worship, the highest

in this monotheistic sense, that doesn't mean you're very good at it. And that's a hard pill to swallow, especially when you're trying to also be a courageous knight of your faith. Let's say it's hard to be

properly humble in the face of the Divine. But that might be in some sense, the proper command. I mean, the fact that Islam means submission is a reflection of that, in some sense, right? Just remember, who's God here and who isn't. And so, and that's a very hard thing to keep in mind. So when I listened to you, you disagreeable character? I'm trying to separate out the wheat from the chaff, you know, yeah, because there's no doubt I have many things to learn, as I learned to some degree. I appreciate this part of like, you know, I learned from from your humility, honestly, the way you come across. And once again, I do appreciate both of you coming here, you know, and I

appreciate this group policy isn't like what you've said, there's good I deserve the accountability just like he does. I don't want to be a person who you know, who doesn't count dish it out? Who dishes Apple can't get get it himself? I deserve it. Well, I wanted to say is this to both of you? I want to do a thought experiment. Yeah. And so imagine you're going to sleep I don't know where you got to stay in our hotel. You got staying. You're watching my videos, you know, me with the masks and stuff like that before you go to sleep, subscribe on the channel, whatever you do. Yeah. And now you're

after you've, you know, put the dislike and done your negative comments, which I deleted already and put it in the trash.

Which is what you do is tweet says, you know, we can talk about that layer. But after that will happen, then you go on to sleep, you both go to sleep now. Right? You wake up and you find yourself on a ship.

On a ship. Yeah.

And people are eating food. People are drinking people are just things happening. Now, what would be the first questions that you would ask the people?

Would you ask things like, how did I get here? Where are we going? All these don't seem like the first good. Those are good questions to ask in general, where are we go? How did we get here? And this is where we go. That's what I want to actually get to because this is what Heidegger you know, Martin Heidegger, he's a controversial figure in his own right. Okay. But he described as the throne pneus of life. Yeah. Because we're chucked into life, we're thrown into life, right. So the fact now that we're in this world, these questions that we will be asking, if we were on a ship, and we're just chucked on the ship, are the same very questions like you said, you know, that we would be

asking you for one as well in this world. Where did we come from? Where are we going? I think if we can't get these two questions, right. Nihilism will persist. You're a nihilistic expert.

But you've spoken a lot about nihilism. I think if we can't get those counter nihilistic experts, that is not an island. If you want ask my what I think my purpose, the purpose is to be united with God. That would be beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. Okay, so from the Islamic perspective, that's, that's right. First of all, ask these three questions whether whether I come from, where am I going? What am I doing here? What is the purpose of life? What is it? And the answer is, we came from a creator, okay? So we can we can we can approach this in whatever argument you like, I'm doing a PhD in contingency I can, you can do anything you want. You can do, for example, through the fact that the

universe is regular and stable and uniform, and possesses life. What's the best explanation for that? Is it knowledge or not knowledge? So we say it's knowledge, right? Or it's we say, some creative capacity or some source, we came from this creative capacity. We came from this knowledge force, right? That's the first thing you say, We came from this force is higher power. Where are we going? We're going back to the higher power, right? And we're going back to the higher power with our deeds which we have to be responsible for, which is exactly it's a hallmark of what you stand for. And that's, I believe, genuinely, that's why you're asking why so many people listening to you.

Because we reject Original Sin. Would you respect Original Sin says that one man, yeah, gave us gave us a sin. The other man took it away. Basically, I mean, we're fallen creatures, and then Jesus, you got to believe in a solar free day, you believe in whatever, you know, I'm orthodox. So I don't believe that. Fair enough. Okay. I don't believe in original sin the way you described it. But fine. No, North Eastern Orthodox. Yeah, yeah. Okay, fine. But the the issue is that this, I didn't say I believed in it either. I just said that the the concept of Original Sin is an expression of this problem that we're describing, which is that we're all burdened with something approximating while

the throne, this and this ambivalent relationship we have with the atrocity of history. And but and that's worse, because if you study the atrocity of history, with any degree of seriousness, you have to take account of the fact that people like you did it. And you might think, Well, I wouldn't do it. It's like, yeah, I got you, I wouldn't be so sure about that. For sure. I mean, you know, you're talking about the kind of, you're talking about the suffering and what obviously one of the major sufferings is the Holocaust. I was reading the book, the meaningful life, Viktor Frankl, I'm sure you're aware of it, where he then produced logotherapy, and all these kind of things. And it goes

back to what Nietzsche said, you know, if you have a y almost any house is possible, you know, bearable. Yeah. If you have a y almost any house as possible. So it goes back to everything goes back to purpose. logotherapy Yeah, just if you have a purpose, then everything is possible. That's why I think that you can do the best as a human species. Yeah. In the human condition, if your purpose is transcendental, is higher than the physical the material. And for us the purposes mentioned chapter 51, verse 19, of the Quran, which is, well, Mahalo, actually genuine and reliable, do we have not created human beings? And Jen except for that they may worship Me. What is worship is

the epitome the higher point of submission is the epitome of love as well. Jonathan has an interesting take on that, too, that has to do with celebration, which I think is psychologically appropriate, do you want to, I don't want to put you on the spot but but it's, it's an it's something I've been struggling to understand more. I've attended some orthodox ceremonies with Jonathan and also on my own and, and he's, he's very perspicacious, when it comes to describing the role of both worship and ritual. And so there's an element. Anyways, I'll let you continue with that. No, I agree. I agree that worship is also the manner in which we bind together. Right? And so

without something we celebrate together, then we then we don't and so we have different levels of what we celebrate, you know, we can celebrate in our families, the things that bind us but ultimately, that has to reach the all the way up into something which is beyond I think that's actually very powerful, you know, and in fact, the first very first lines of the Quran is that hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen, which is all Praise and thanks belong to God, Lord of the Worlds all praise and all thanks. And this is a kind of celebration