| Time | Text |
|---|---|
|
Ultimate Issues Unveiled
00:08:36
|
|
| Ultimate Issues Hour. | |
| It's every Tuesday, the third hour of the show. | |
| And it's more important than ever. | |
| Because isn't it clear to you that based on how one views life, everything else follows that? | |
| Think about it. | |
| Even if you haven't thought it through, you will have imbibed. | |
| Nobody... | |
| It's devoid of a view of life. | |
| You may not even be aware of it because you haven't thought about it. | |
| Most people don't think about ultimate issues. | |
| Very rarely. | |
| Unless some great crisis happens and then they think, well, gee, what is life about? | |
| What is the meaning? | |
| But it's the way of life that if you will still imbibe a view of life, Even if you don't think it through. | |
| For example, people will think life is supposed to be safe. | |
| That's a worldview. | |
| That's an ultimate issue. | |
| People think safe is the most important thing. | |
| That's an ultimate issue. | |
| I don't think safe is the most important thing. | |
| And so I have a different reaction to things that happen. | |
| Obviously, I'm thinking about what's happening right now than others. | |
| So, it's a very interesting question about the way in which people have reacted to the virus and to the quarantine. | |
| And it seems to be divided. | |
| Obviously, there are exceptions, but it's irrelevant that there are exceptions. | |
| If exceptions nullify generalities, then you don't understand anything about life. | |
| The inability to generalize is a big problem. | |
| So there seems to be a divide. | |
| A left-right divide and a religious-secular divide. | |
| So I have a guest on for the Ultimate Issues Hour, which is pretty rare. | |
| It's usually just you and I. And R.R. Reno is the editor of a terrific journal. | |
| I remember when it started. | |
| I used to be published in it regularly. | |
| It's a Christian magazine, actually run by Catholics. | |
| But it's a Christian magazine, and I was a Jew who was writing for it. | |
| They have people of all faiths right for it. | |
| The editor of First Things is R.R. Reno. | |
| And listen to what he wrote in the April 27th issue of First Things. | |
| The coronavirus pandemic is not and never was a threat to society. | |
| COVID-19 poses a danger to the elderly and the medically compromised. | |
| Otherwise, for most who present symptoms, it can be nasty and persistent, but not life-threatening. | |
| A majority of those infected do not notice that they have the disease. | |
| Coronavirus presents us with a medical challenge, not a crisis. | |
| The crisis has been of our own making. | |
| My own column today, my Tuesday column, is exactly on that, why I think it's probably the biggest mistake humanity has ever made, the lockdown. | |
| down. | |
| By the end of March, most of the United States had been locked down. | |
| And tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, more than six trillion. | |
| Anyway, you know the rest. | |
| Now, why does he hold this view as a religious man? | |
| Why do I hold it as a religious man? | |
| That's part of the question on the Ultimate Issues Hour. | |
| Our Reno, welcome back to my show. | |
| It's great to be with you, and it's a great question about this divide. | |
| It's quite extreme, isn't it? | |
| I have friends who share our view, and they say it's just impossible to talk to people about what's going on. | |
| I didn't know you lived in New York City. | |
| I am talking to you from my office. | |
| I'm media, so I'm essential services, so I can actually go to my office at 40th and 5th Avenue. | |
| You're at 40th and 5th. | |
| I'm curious. | |
| I know New York well. | |
| I grew up there. | |
| Are the streets deserted? | |
| The Midtown is very deserted, but the residential neighborhoods, not so much, because that's where the people are. | |
| Right, so where you are is Midtown. | |
| I just can't imagine the area deserted. | |
| This is unique in history. | |
| It's never happened. | |
| The last time it was deserted, Peter Stuyvesant was the mayor. | |
| Yes, indeed. | |
| I also, I bike around the city a lot, and I've been out to the outer boroughs and really explored a lot of the city. | |
| This is a, it is a once-in-a-lifetime, hopefully once-in-a-lifetime experience. | |
| You feel your heart goes out to all of these working people, small business owners, being shattered by the shutdown. | |
| Yes. | |
| So, okay. | |
| So I want to discuss with you, it is the Ultimate Issues Hour. | |
| By the way, I assume you're Catholic, correct? | |
| I am, yes. | |
| Right. | |
| And I want to tell people, I want you to know, I'm telling this to my audience. | |
| I have a paid subscription. | |
| I didn't even ask Rusty Reno for a free subscription. | |
| I have a paid subscription. | |
| I love you all the more for your paid subscription. | |
| May your number multiply. | |
| Well, if people don't support good endeavors, it's over. | |
| Indeed, yes. | |
| What does it cost to have a year subscription to First Things? | |
| $45 a year. | |
| $45 a year. | |
| Okay. | |
| Ten issues. | |
| Yes, it's a well-spent $45 for me. | |
| I love your name. | |
| Your listeners are ideal candidates because it's people who want to continue their education. | |
| Yeah. | |
| They're the ideal First Things reader. | |
| And of course, that's part of your mission is to... | |
| Help people develop intellectually as well as spiritually. | |
| So what is your theory? | |
| I'm a religious Jew. | |
| You're a religious Catholic. | |
| Why do we see eye to eye on something having nothing to do theoretically with religion, the lockdown? | |
| That's the issue. | |
| Right. | |
| Everybody sees eye to eye about the coronavirus, but we don't see eye to eye about the lockdown. | |
| Why do we agree? | |
| Well, I think there's a superficial answer and there's a deeper answer. | |
| I mean, the superficial one is that we've trained ourselves to ignore the propaganda machine. | |
| And I think that this is something that conservatives have an advantage over their liberal friends, which is that they have a learned distrust of whatever the elite consensus is. | |
| And that gives us some critical freedom to actually weigh the evidence and think about this more dispassionately. | |
| I think that's one answer. | |
| Wait, wait, wait. | |
| I love it. | |
| I love it. | |
| I don't want to go to the second yet. | |
| Just don't forget the second. | |
| This, you see, I agree with you. | |
| It's so interesting, your answer, and I agree with you. | |
| Let me tell you my language of putting it is we are trained not to worship false gods. | |
|
Religious Reflection on Happiness
00:00:54
|
|
| Is that what you're saying in your language? | |
| Yes. | |
| You know that there is... | |
| One of the things about religious belief is that it forces you to distinguish between what is ultimate and what is not ultimate. | |
| And this allowed this so that a religious person has to be more reflective about the messaging he's getting from society. | |
| If I get this car, I'll be happy. | |
| If I get this job, I'll be happy. | |
| If I make this salary, I'll be happy. | |
| Well, a religious person has to reckon with the fact that those are false promises. | |
| And so here we come. | |
| We've got this, you know, it's a nasty virus. | |
| You know, we should definitely be taking... | |