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The Third Hour Question
00:05:21
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| The third hour of my show is dedicated to some huge issue of life. | |
| Where else do you get this? | |
| You didn't get it at college. | |
| You didn't get it in high school or elementary school. | |
| When did they discuss the big issues? | |
| Right? | |
| And by the way, another term for big issues is wisdom. | |
| Other than being able to spell it, I think the only time the average young American has used the word wisdom If they've had a wisdom tooth extracted. | |
| Other than that, I really don't know when else the term would be used, and yet it is more important than anything else. | |
| You cannot do good on earth if you are not wise. | |
| You can have the kindest heart in the world, but without wisdom, you're doomed, and therefore so is the world. | |
| So, the Ultimate Issues Hour, I have a challenge for you. | |
| Today is challenging. | |
| A lot of you will not agree with me, which is not here or there, but is healthy. | |
| And the subject is simple. | |
| The answer may not be, but I will give you my answer. | |
| Sometimes I pose a question, wait for you to react, and then give you my opinion. | |
| This time, you get my opinion immediately. | |
| What is the purpose of religion? | |
| That's the question of the hour. | |
| Even that isn't often asked, because it's assumed. | |
| I think most people in this society would answer To have a relationship with God. | |
| Christians might say a relationship with Christ or Jesus, but basically, given the position of Jesus in the Christian Trinity, we can say a relationship with God for whomever. | |
| And that is not my answer. | |
| My answer is to learn what God wants me to do. | |
| I have two fundamental answers to the question, what is the purpose of religion? | |
| To learn what God wants me to do, and to learn how to make good people, because that is the most important question any society can ask. | |
| How do you make good people? | |
| Since we don't start out good. | |
| By the way, that we don't start out good, Is wisdom. | |
| And since wisdom is not inculcated in our schooling, vast numbers of people in the West think people are basically good. | |
| A notion of such colossal foolishness as to border on the destructive. | |
| 1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 is the number. | |
| What is the purpose of religion? | |
| I gave you mine. | |
| Do you agree? | |
| Do you maintain a relationship with God? | |
| Which, by the way, I admit, and I'm not saying this with any pride or boasting or anything like that, I don't fully understand the notion. | |
| My relationship to God is Let me know what you want me to do. | |
| That's my relationship. | |
| I find it very fulfilling. | |
| Others have a much more intimate relationship. | |
| My father had a much more intimate relationship with God, with whom he spoke lovingly every night. | |
| He told me. | |
| He told me and my brother often. | |
| And I can't say I do that. | |
| Maybe I would be a person with even a richer life if I could say that I had this relationship with God. | |
| Nevertheless, whether you do or not, that's really between you and God. | |
| What is between you and society is the part that I care. | |
| Namely, I want to know what God wants me to do. | |
| I often, before a lecture, Not always. | |
| I sometimes forget to. | |
| But I often, before a lecture, will make a very tiny prayer. | |
| God, please make sure that I say what you want me to say. | |
| And it's a very good little prayer. | |
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Why Live Without An Instruction Manual?
00:04:31
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| Because I'm not giving lectures or broadcasting to you now for my sake. | |
| I have a higher calling than that. | |
| And that's how I conduct my life, or try to conduct my life. | |
| But I think that when you tell a non-believer the purpose of religion is to have a relationship with God, I don't know if it is quite as persuasive for them to I don't know if it is quite as persuasive for them to take religion seriously or even to contemplate taking it seriously as I want to know how to lead a | |
| That's pretty good. | |
| Because I don't think I could figure it out on my own. | |
| Why would I? Everything comes with an instruction manual except how to live. | |
| Right? | |
| You get a camera. | |
| The instruction manual is 400 pages. | |
| Where's your instruction manual for life? | |
| I have one. | |
| It's the Bible. | |
| And my religion. | |
| Because for no religion is the Bible the only part of their religion, even for the Protestant who believes in Sola Scriptura. | |
| Right? | |
| You don't need an instruction manual? | |
| There is nothing you buy that doesn't... | |
| I buy lighters for my cigars. | |
| The lighter comes with an instruction manual. | |
| Now let me tell you folks, it doesn't really need one. | |
| You press the obvious lever and fire comes out. | |
| There's a hole on the bottom in which you put butane. | |
| You now know how to use a lighter, but it comes with an instruction manual. | |
| And life isn't. | |
| So what is the purpose of religion? | |
| To give me an instruction manual. | |
| And it's a good challenge to the secular person. | |
| What's your instruction manual? | |
| To which they will say, presumably, I don't need one. | |
| I know, I know, basically, you know, good from evil or whatever. | |
| Really, you don't need one. | |
| Life is that simple that you don't need an instruction manual. | |
| Well, now you see the results, my dear friends, of not having an instruction manual. | |
| Well-educated secular people say men give birth. | |
| These are gigantic fools. | |
| Gigantic. | |
| It's a foolishness, the likes of which we have not had in the history of the Western world, outside of perhaps belief in witchcraft. | |
| You have to be secular to say something so stupid. | |
| Not all secular people are stupid, but you have to be secular. | |
| Because you have no instruction manual. | |
| You don't believe that God made male and female. | |
| You believe in non-binary. | |
| It's a spectrum. | |
| By the way, there's no spectrum in the rest of the animal kingdom. | |
| How come there's a spectrum in the human kingdom? | |
| I thought we're animals. | |
| Why doesn't the male-female distinction, which applies to dogs, right? | |
| How do you know a dog's sex? | |
| Whoa! | |
| How do you know? | |
| Why are you imposing gender identity on your dog? | |
| That is not a stupid question. | |
| It's based on the stupid premise that we impose gender identity. | |
| Anyway... | |
| What's the purpose of religion? | |
| To give me an instruction manual. | |
| So I will learn wisdom and learn how to lead a better life. | |
| Because I don't have that much confidence in me without it. | |
| And I'm pretty bright. | |
| And I have a good heart. | |
| And it still ain't enough. | |
| So, that's my belief of its purpose. | |
| Relationship with God is a bonus, but not a purpose. | |