WEBVTT - Timeless Wisdom: Ultimate Issues Hour - Why Faith Matters 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:24.200 Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of 0:00:24.240 --> 0:00:27.880 hours of Dennis's lectures courses in classic radio programs had 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.560 to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. Go to Dennis Prager 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:43.959 dot com. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.599 To be or not to be? 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:49.000 That is the question? 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:50.920 Why was God? 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.320 Isn't God supposed to be good, supposed to love us? 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.680 Does God want us to suffer ten years? You're not 0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:58.600 Dennis yet? 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:03.200 Why did you come here? 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:04.800 Who are you? 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.280 Bruce? I'm God bingo yazi? 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:13.000 Is that your final answer? 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.760 Our service has God bing ding ding ding ding ding 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:17.200 ding ding. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:19.000 Well, it was nice to meet you guys. 0:01:19.479 --> 0:01:21.600 Thank you for the Grand Canyon and good luck with 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.120 the apocalypse, and welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. The 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.920 Ultimate Issues our every week at this time I devote 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.840 the hour to some great ultimate issue. I am very lucky. First, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:36.679 I'm lucky to have the guests that we have. But 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.600 what I was thinking of originally is I'm very lucky 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.319 that at a very early age I realize that the 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.960 most important question in life is there a God. Everything 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.760 flows from that. You talk about ultimate issues. There is 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.120 ultimate issues, and then there's the ultimate issue. It's the 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.600 ultimate including atheists who are honest acknowledge this. They have 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:03.279 concluded there is no God. But that's the ultimate question. 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.520 If there is no God, then this is all a happenstance. 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.400 We are as irrelevant to the universe as the pebbles 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.880 in a canyon, and that's it. And yet if there 0:02:15.920 --> 0:02:19.000 is a God, then everything matters, and then there's pressure 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:20.680 to human life, etc. 0:02:20.959 --> 0:02:21.400 Et cetera. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.719 So this is the ultimate issue. And I can't think 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.359 of anybody better. There might be people tied with him, 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.080 but I can't think of anybody better to talk to 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.440 about this than one of the most prominent rabbis in 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:35.919 the United States. In fact, he was named number one 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:40.880 pulpit Rabbi in America in Newsweek and he is David Walpy, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.120 the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, teaches Modern 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.880 Jewish religious thought at UCLA, and he is quite well 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.440 known to those who follow religious thought. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:51.799 Today. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.600 He has a new book out, Why Faith Matters, and 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.280 you know it passes the Praeger test on many grounds, 0:02:57.800 --> 0:02:58.600 the first one. 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.040 Being it's under two hundred pages. 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.400 My theory, Rabbi Walpy, is if you can't say it 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.560 an under two hundred pages. I mean, look at the 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.079 creation story, will you there? 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.560 You go, yes, I agree with you exactly. We're not 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.880 allowed to recommend long books. It's not fair to people. 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.640 It isn't fair, that's right, unless they need a door stopper, right, exactly. 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.400 You know it's true. These new biographies, I mean, they 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.000 tell you what the man had for lunch, you know, 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.520 on April seventh, eighteen fifty six. I don't care. 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.720 I agree so or you will not find in that 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.760 book what God had for lunch on April seventh. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.079 I just want to put. 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.760 That out there. Excellent. The book, again, is why faith matters. 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.800 Why did you title it that? Why not why I 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:40.480 believe in God or something. 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.080 Like that, because I wanted to make both the case 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.120 for God and along with science and so on. But 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.880 a lot of it is why faith mattered to me 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.400 personally through various things that I've gone through, and also 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.400 why faith matters to society, and not just why I 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.640 believe in God, but what difference that makes to the 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.360 world if people do believe in God and if people 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.400 believe in religion, because I'm not only pro faith, but 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:09.080 pro religion. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.160 If you had been asked to write this book twenty 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:13.640 years ago. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.000 Would it have been different. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:17.839 Twenty years ago? So I have to do the math 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:22.359 in my head. It wouldn't. Yes, well, thirty I would 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:23.800 have said there's no God. That's why I. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.559 Said, that's tchnlo. Twenty years ago it would have been similar. 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:28.479 Thirty years ago would have. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:29.640 Been completely diferr. 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.960 Okay, what really I. 0:04:33.039 --> 0:04:34.760 Was when I was in high school. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.320 What happened was when I was twelve years old, I 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.200 saw a movie called Knight and Fog about the Holocaust, 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.680 and I tell this story in the book, and that 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.520 was it for me. It drained the world of all color. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.479 I was convinced that God didn't exist. And then I 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.040 spent my teenage years reading Bertrand Russell, who was a 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.320 British philosopher and for my money still the best best 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.640 atheist writing. I mean, Hitchens and Harris and Dawkins and 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.640 then at they're good, but Russell, I believe, outdoes them all, 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.000 both in prose style and in argument. And so for 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.880 at least a decade I was convinced there was no God. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.960 So I would have written a very different. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:16.080 Book What happened. 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:18.040 I wish I could tell you a. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.360 Single thing happened but I actually think what happened primarily 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.960 was I got old enough to distrust my own omniscience. 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.720 I mean, I assumed, like a lot of teenagers, I 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.839 think that everybody who didn't believe what I did was 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.479 weak or thoughtless or irrational. Russell told me that you know, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.560 if you believed in this stuff, it's because there wasn't 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.200 enough reason in your mind or in the world. And 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.120 I started to see that even the strongest people were 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.120 sometimes weak, and the smartest were sometimes not so bright. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.240 And I even read something of Russell's life, because the 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.839 truth is, he wrote as though his life was perfectly 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.440 rational and reasonable, but his life was a mess. He 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:05.040 married numerous women, had endless numbers of affairs, was estranged 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.640 from his children. And I was actually. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.479 Looking advocated that an Adam Bombie dropped on Moscow. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.560 On Moscow right, exactly, I was actually looking, And yet 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:15.960 was a pacifist. 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:17.880 And became afterwards, for he went from one stream to 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:18.640 the others and. 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.440 Looking for wisdom in life. I was looking for a guide. 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.880 I was looking for and exactly what you asked at 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.760 the very beginning, which is why does faith matter? Because 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.560 faith is more than an abstract proposition it's how to 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.120 live your life. And I was looking for a guide 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.600 on how to live and Russell sounded like he was 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:39.359 a guide, but he wasn't. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.120 So it was an evolution. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:44.720 It was an evolution. It was great. 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.360 You have, like just about everybody, been tested by life. Yes, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.320 you want to speak about any of those, sure, I. 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.799 Just talk about my immediate family. Right after my daughter 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.040 was born, my wife had cancer, which leaves us with 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.400 one child. She was unable to have more children, although 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.880 she's considered cured. A few years after that, I had 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.600 a brain tumor and neurosurgery, and a couple of years 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.400 ago I came down with lymphoma and had chemotherapy and 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.280 the lymphoma I mean remission, but I'm not cured, can't 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:21.760 cure it at this stage of medical knowledge. What I 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.800 tell my congregation is that I'm we're all in remission. 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:25.480 Only I know it. 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.120 So good line, good life. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:29.800 Through all of that. 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:37.000 You know, you ask yourself all the normal questions, and 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.360 as you know, some people come out with their faith deepened. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.000 Some people come out with their faith broken or shattered. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:48.000 But I really do think that the people by and 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.760 large who come out of difficult circumstances with their faith. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:54.920 Broken are sort of victims. 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:55.520 Of bad theology. 0:07:56.040 --> 0:08:00.720 They went in with a faith that wasn't the kind 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:06.559 of faith I believe we're taught at at religion's best. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.120 They went in with a sort of magical faith, like 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.400 if you just pray hard enough or do this right, 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.320 everything will be fine. And I don't believe God's set 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.800 up the world that way, and don't believe that faithful 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.000 people should assume that the world is that way. 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:25.560 So that's directly involved with the question of God's intervention 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.960 in individuals' lives. Well, that's a tough one. 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:30.880 It is a tough one. 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.400 Well, first of all, I want to say something first, 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:35.520 which is, you know, as a rabbi, I have people 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:37.559 come into my office all the time and say why me. 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.400 Something bad happens and they say why me. And what 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.320 I've noticed about that question is it's very rare for 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.240 someone to come into my office and say, you know, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:48.560 I was born in the richest country in the world 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:49.560 and I've never gone hungry. 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.559 Why me? Or I have loving parents? Why me? 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.800 So part of it was that I felt, it's not 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.320 like I've gotten a rough deal in the world for 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.319 all the challenges that we've had, we've also had great blessings. 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.520 And if you're going to give God discredit, so to speak, 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.200 for the bad stuff, then first you have to give 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.360 God enormous thanks and gratitude and benefit for all the 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:14.960 other stuff. 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:17.160 But the second part is. 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.000 That I don't think there's any one on one correspondence. 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.400 I heard you asking Dines Desuza yesterday. I think it 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.520 was about prayer and whether God intervenes and does he 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.040 pray for specific intervention. And I was thinking at the 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:36.480 time of something that a seventeenth century rabbi said that 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:38.520 if you saw a man pulling his boat to shore, 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.480 you might think, if you were mistaken about mechanics and motion, 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:44.480 that he was really pulling the shore to his boat. 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:47.560 And that's what it's like in prayer. 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.000 That you think you're pulling God to you, but if 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.559 you pray, well, what you're doing is pulling yourself to God. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.920 And I have to say for myself, as I was 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.719 getting chemo, I didn't assume that if I prayed hard enough, 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.800 God would cure me. But I did believe I could 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.760 pray for intimacy and for closeness, and that that prayer 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:11.840 is granted, and it was. Yes, I didn't feel alone, 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.720 and that's I thought. As much as I could really 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.719 ask of God, I wanted more. But really what I 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:23.640 want to be sure of was that whatever happened, it 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:24.360 would be okay. 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:30.040 When you prayed, was it the formal prayers of the 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.160 Jewish faith or was it spontaneous statements of your own? 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:34.760 It was both. 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.480 It was both my own prayer and also formulated prayer. 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.360 What happens in such circumstances is you find that the 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.640 formulated prayers are deeper than you ever imagined. There's one 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.680 paragraph for your Jewish listeners in the Ami Dah, which 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.920 is the central prayer of Judaism, called the modem prayer, 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.280 the thanks prayer, and I found that one enormously and 0:10:55.400 --> 0:11:00.320 enduringly powerful. But I also just prayed that the people 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.800 in my life whom I love would have the strength 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:04.439 to see this through whatever happened. 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:06.760 So, you know, and. 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.040 That's just Are you more at peace now than when 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:11.920 you were in high school? 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:13.840 Yes? Oh? Yeah. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.160 The book is Why Faith Matter, is a truly significant 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.040 and easily read book. Will be back in a moment. 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:21.080 I'm Dennis Prager. 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.600 This episode of Timeless Wisdom we'll continue right after this. 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:48.400 Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom. 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.360 Brager it is and it's the Ultimate Issues Hour. I'm 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.360 the Dennis Prager Show. Every week at this time some 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.240 great issue. There's no greater issue than this, obviously, God's 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:00.920 existence faith. One of the greatest thinkers and writers on 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.960 this is one of the most prominent rabbis in the US, 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:10.800 David Wolby, and his book is Why Faith Matters under 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.959 two hundred pages, and it's for people of every faith, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.680 which leads to a question, a sensitive question. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.439 I like to post to you what is posed to me. 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.520 By listeners constantly because they know that I am a 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:30.000 practicing Jew, and they wonder, and I give course give 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.080 them my answer, but I want, obviously your answer here. 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.240 Why are so many Jews so non religious? 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:40.720 Well? 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:46.160 I think that there are at least two very powerful 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:51.120 reasons why that is so. One is that I really 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.360 do think the shocks of history took their toll. 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.520 I think that the Holocaust. 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.920 Dealt the body blow to Jewish religiosity, both demographically, that is, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:05.040 it wiped out the most religious portion of Jews, who 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.160 were the ones who stayed in Eastern Europe. So, first 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.440 of all, it did it demographically and second theologically, it 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.320 was very hard for many Jews to come to grips 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.440 with such I mean, the world Jewish population still has 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.920 not recovered, it's still not at pre Holocaust levels. A 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.240 third of all Jews were killed, and that's very difficult. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.520 And then the second part of it was that, for 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.319 lots of reasons that we don't have to go into, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:38.320 Jews raced towards modernity and the modern world to some extent, 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.079 jettisoned religion, and the more modern you were, the less 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.800 religious you were. And this was a common ground where 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.200 everybody could meet. You know, it was hard if you 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.520 felt like an outsider. As long as you stay Jewish, 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:52.160 you were still an outsider. But if you said, well 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.160 everybody should just forget their religion and meet in the 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.079 common ground of liberty, humanity, so on and so forth, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.400 then there's no distinctions between us anymore. I think that 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.439 it was, as I'm sure you do, a historical mistake. 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.880 And I also think that the coalition of people who 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.240 are tolerantly but. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.200 Deeply religious is the coalition. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:19.720 I don't want to overstate this, but that's the coalition 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.080 that will save the world. I think that it's the 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.239 most desperately needed position in the world, which. 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:26.920 Is why I'm so glad. 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:28.640 You know that I have Rick Warren's name on the 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:30.760 cover of the book and that he wrote a preface 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:32.560 to it, because I do think that. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.680 Faith should cross denominations. If I can tell you a 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:37.440 quick story. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:39.600 And in one of my debates with Christopher Hitchins, and 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.880 I know that you've debated him as well, he said 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.880 to me, Okay, a child is born today in Saudi Arabia, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:45.520 do you. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.920 Want him to be a Muslim or an atheist? 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.480 And he was sure that I would say an atheist, 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:52.800 But I said, I wanted to be a Muslim, but 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.520 I want him to be a tolerant, pluralistic Muslim so 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.440 that he could influence other Muslims in that country to 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:02.640 enact the best of what faith is. 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.040 And that's where hope lies. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:06.960 That is where hope lies. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:13.120 But his question was a powerful one, yes, because the 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.680 odds are that in Saudi Arabia he's not going to 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:17.560 grow up to be a tolerant person. 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:23.960 Right, But I got to choose, well, I know, all right. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.400 Like for me to defend Hitchard's on religious. 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.120 Matters is a rare moment. 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.280 But I understand what you're saying. I mean, that's that's also. 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.440 Do you feel do you feel that Christianity has been 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:42.280 given a bad rap? Given how antagonistic the intellectual class 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.400 is and and its history. Maybe it's in other words, 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:47.640 one could say no, it wasn't given a bad rap, 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.840 but it's terrific today. I saw I'm not moving you 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:51.760 toward any answer. 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.920 Well, I have a chapter on religion and violence, and 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.000 I'm going to abbreviate it very much to say, and 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.120 it's basically a defense of Christianity's historical record. And I say, 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.880 if you want to know whether whether religion causes violence, 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.240 you have to look before the monotheistic faiths and after 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:15.960 and before I mean Rome, Babylon, Assyria, Greece. The historical 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.960 record is abominable. It's much more savage than even the 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.360 Middle Ages and after, as you know from the Enlightenment, 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:24.920 on the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, World War One, World 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:29.080 War Two, Nazism, communism. I'm sure for your listeners, I 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.720 don't have to retail all the horrors that happened when 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.920 you drain sanctity. 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.920 From the world. It doesn't make the world better. 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:44.240 And so I actually think that Christianity there are many sins, 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.640 and this is coming obviously from a Jew. There are 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.000 many sins in the Christian record, But has Christianity made 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.120 the world better? I think it is unquestionable that it 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.479 has made the world better. 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:55.920 And. 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.200 That today continues to do so. 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:00.280 And I. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.760 Think that it's a shame that that isn't better understood, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.000 not only among non Christians, but even among Christians. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.400 Well, for that alone, I know many people will want 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:18.360 to read this book because no Jew can challenge your 0:17:18.360 --> 0:17:22.279 bona fide as a committed Jew. And of course I 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.840 agree with you, and it is it is a very 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:31.280 worrisome to me, very worrisome the the de religionization of America. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:33.640 Does that worry you. 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:35.080 Yeah, it worries me. 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.639 For for one one reason is the reason that of 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.119 course you speak about, which is the moral component, but 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:50.400 also because I actually see to some extent the lack 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:55.040 of religion as a cutting off from the past. And 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.600 you know, Cicero said, one who doesn't know the past 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.240 remains forever a child. And the truth is this is 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.520 our past, this is our collective past. And not only 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.080 is there a lack of belief. There's a lack of 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.400 knowledge and a lack of interest and the great religious 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.520 heritage that's our that's our reservoir of culture. And it 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.680 seems to me a shame not only from a moral 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:18.280 point of view, but just from the point of view 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.440 of the richness of life to lose everything that brought 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.359 us to this moment, to sort of kick the latter 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.880 out from under us in the assumption that we can 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:28.240 still move higher. 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.000 You and I both live in Los Angeles County, and 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:36.879 I led an ultimately and ultimately failed at the battle 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.600 to keep the little little Cross in the county seal 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.840 of Los Angeles County. And my argument to the Board 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:50.400 of Supervisors, the five person board was not religious. It 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:55.000 was exactly yours. It was historical. It's Los Angeles, the 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.000 city or the County of Angels It's not Los Zecularistas. 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.600 If it was founded by Wickens, I'd expect the broom. Yes, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.120 you are erasing our history by erasing that cross. 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.040 And you know, it's not as though we don't have 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.680 some sense of what a secular society would be without 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:19.600 serious religious commitment. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:26.199 We see it in America. If you call Hollywood, there. 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:30.119 Are enclaves of our society that feel as though classical 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.320 religion is is anethema, that they dislike it and they 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.359 reject it. And I don't see that it's creating any 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.919 you know, soaring culture or deep moral imperatives. It's just 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.119 it's very hard to take a tradition of thousands of 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:47.960 years and replace it overnight. 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.440 Name by Newsweek the number one pulpit rabbi in America 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.480 his book, Why Faith Matters, Rabbi David walp wo LPE. 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.760 It's up at Pragerradio dot com. We'll take your calls 0:19:58.760 --> 0:19:59.080 and I. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:06.280 Configure this episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:31.920 Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom. 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.600 The name of the book is Why Faith Matters. 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.159 And it's a wonderful thing when it's a Jew who 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.680 writes such a book, because so often we think it's 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.160 Christians writing on faith, and so many Jews have been secularized. 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.600 And I thought the rabbi came up with about as 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:54.680 concise and excellent an explanation for that phenomenon as one 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:56.720 could have. It's something I think I'll devote an hour 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.480 two once. It's trying to actually we had a series 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.240 of shows explaining Jews, but in any event, it's one 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.280 worth returning to. The book is Why Faith Matters? David Walpy, 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:11.720 one of the most prominent rabbis in America. Wolp except 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.879 but Praegeradio dot com at the blog area and of 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.600 course available anywhere you get your books, but it's convenient 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:23.200 for you through Prager Radio at the blog area of it. 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.280 Let me take some of your calls one eighth Prager 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.280 seven seven six, which is eight seven seven two four 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:34.919 three triple seven six and Jared in New Orleans, Louisiana. Jared, 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.840 Dennis Prager and Rabbi David Wilbe Hi, this. 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.440 Is a question that's bothered me for a few months now. 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.080 Would you say it's more important that God does exist? 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.760 Or is it more important that people believe that God exists? 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:50.439 If God exists but people are atheists, that would have 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.800 a more destructive effect. And if God didn't exist but 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:53.960 people believe that he did. 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.760 You're you're a real thinker, Jared. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.160 All right, So I don't know how Dennis would answer 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.479 this question, but I'll tell you what I think. I 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.960 think in this world, given that it's already here, it's 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:08.200 more important. 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:09.400 That people believe God exists. 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:12.840 If there's a world after this one, it's more important 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.400 that God exists, or that world wouldn't be That would 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.960 be my offhand thought. But I think it's a great question, Jared, 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:21.080 and I have to give it more thought. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.800 Okay, all right, wonderful, Thank you. It's an excellent answer 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.800 actually talking about that. What is your take on the afterlife? 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:30.840 I'm all for it. 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.480 I well, you know this was I think that the 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:40.480 afterlife is a sort of assumption that you make if 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.639