“When one gives up Christian belief [for example] one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. Christianity is a system, a consistently thought out and complete view of things. If one breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the belief in god, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces: one has nothing of any consequence left in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know what is good for him and what evil: he believes in god, who alone knows. Christian morality is a command: its origin is transcendental; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticize; it possesses truth only if god is truth—it stands or falls with the belief in god. If [modern Westerners) really do believe they know, of their own accord, "intuitively," what is good and evil; if they consequently think they no longer have need of Christianity as a guarantee of morality, that is merely the consequence of the ascendancy of Christian evaluation and an expression of the strength and depth of this ascendancy: so that the origin of [modern] morality has been forgotten, so that the highly conditional nature of its right to exist is no longer felt?”

“If the presuppositions of a theory have been invalidated, argues Nietzsche, then the theory has been invalidated. But in this case the "theory" survives. The fundamental tenets of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition continue to govern every aspect of the actual individual behavior and basic values of the typical Westerner—even if he is atheistic and well-educated, even if his abstract notions and utterances appear iconoclastic. He neither kills nor steals (or if he does, he hides his actions, even from his own awareness), and he tends, in theory, to treat his neighbor as himself. The principles that govern his society (and, increasingly, all others) remain predicated on mythic notions of individual value—intrinsic right and responsibility—despite scientific evidence of causality and determinism in human motivation. Finally, in his mind—even when sporadically criminal—the victim of a crime still cries out to heaven for ‘justice’, and the conscious lawbreaker still deserves punishment for his or her actions.”

“The universe that people like Dawkins and Harris inhabit is so intensely preconditions by mythological presuppositions that they take for granted the ethic that emerges out of that as if it’s just a given, a rational given—and this is precisely Nietzsche’s observation as well as Dostoyevsky’s. The ethic that you think is normative is a consequence of its nesting inside this tremendously lengthy history, much of which was expressed in mythological formulation. If you wipe that out, you don’t get to keep all the presuppositions and assume that they’re rationally axiomatic. To make a rational argument, you have to start with an initial proposition. The proposition that underlies western culture is that there is a ‘transcendent morality’. Now you can say that that’s a transcendent morality substantiated in the finger of god, that’s fine, you could even call that a personification of the morality, if you don’t want to move into a metaphysical space. I’m not arguing for the existence of god, I’m arguing that the ethic that drives our culture is predicated on the idea of god, and you can’t just take that idea away and expect the thing to remain intact, midair, without any foundational support.”

“You can be a non-believer in your surface rationality, but you can’t be a non-believer in your actions, you see, because Harris’ metaphysics is fundamentally Christian. So he acts out a Christian metaphysics, while at the same time saying ‘I don’t believe it’. Yes, you do, because you’re acting it out. You just say you don’t believe it, but he’s acting it out, e.g. he doesn’t rob banks, he doesn’t kill people, he doesn’t rape. This addressed in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.”

See main: God character equivalences

“In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. I mean, look at the conversation we're having right now. You're certainly willing to risk offending me in the pursuit of truth. Why should you have the right to do that?”

— Jorden Peterson (2018), “Channel 4 Interview” (Ѻ), response to Cathy Newman’s query: “why should your freedom of speech, trump a trans-person’s right not to be offended”, Jan 17; cited as viral in later interview on the Bill Maher show

“The god Horus – often regarded as the precursor to Christ, historically and conceptually speaking, experienced the same thing, when he confronted his evil uncle Set, which is the etymological precursor to Satan, usurper of the throne of Osiris, Horus’ father.”

— Jordan Peterson (2018), 12 Rules for Life: an Antidote for Chaos (pg. 181)