Dennis Prager Show - What is the Purpose of Religion?
Aired: 2021-06-29
Duration: 09:38


=== The Third Hour Question (05:21) ===

[00:00:00]  The third hour of my show is dedicated to some huge issue of life.
[00:00:04]  Where else do you get this?
[00:00:06]  You didn't get it at college.
[00:00:08]  You didn't get it in high school or elementary school.
[00:00:11]  When did they discuss the big issues?
[00:00:14]  Right?
[00:00:16]  And by the way, another term for big issues is wisdom.
[00:00:22]  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.
[00:00:33]  Other than that, I really don't know when else the term would be used, and yet it is more important than anything else.
[00:00:42]  You cannot do good on earth if you are not wise.
[00:00:46]  You can have the kindest heart in the world, but without wisdom, you're doomed, and therefore so is the world.
[00:00:57]  So, the Ultimate Issues Hour, I have a challenge for you.
[00:01:00]  Today is challenging.
[00:01:04]  A lot of you will not agree with me, which is not here or there, but is healthy.
[00:01:16]  And the subject is simple.
[00:01:20]  The answer may not be, but I will give you my answer.
[00:01:23]  Sometimes I pose a question, wait for you to react, and then give you my opinion.
[00:01:28]  This time, you get my opinion immediately.
[00:01:31]  What is the purpose of religion?
[00:01:36]  That's the question of the hour.
[00:01:39]  Even that isn't often asked, because it's assumed.
[00:01:45]  I think most people in this society would answer To have a relationship with God.
[00:01:56]  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.
[00:02:13]  And that is not my answer.
[00:02:17]  My answer is to learn what God wants me to do.
[00:02:24]  I have two fundamental answers to the question, what is the purpose of religion?
[00:02:32]  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.
[00:02:43]  How do you make good people?
[00:02:45]  Since we don't start out good.
[00:02:49]  By the way, that we don't start out good, Is wisdom.
[00:02:54]  And since wisdom is not inculcated in our schooling, vast numbers of people in the West think people are basically good.
[00:03:03]  A notion of such colossal foolishness as to border on the destructive.
[00:03:12]  1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 is the number.
[00:03:20]  What is the purpose of religion?
[00:03:23]  I gave you mine.
[00:03:25]  Do you agree?
[00:03:27]  Do you maintain a relationship with God?
[00:03:30]  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.
[00:03:45]  My relationship to God is Let me know what you want me to do.
[00:03:52]  That's my relationship.
[00:03:54]  I find it very fulfilling.
[00:03:59]  Others have a much more intimate relationship.
[00:04:01]  My father had a much more intimate relationship with God, with whom he spoke lovingly every night.
[00:04:07]  He told me.
[00:04:08]  He told me and my brother often.
[00:04:13]  And I can't say I do that.
[00:04:18]  Maybe I would be a person with even a richer life if I could say that I had this relationship with God.
[00:04:28]  Nevertheless, whether you do or not, that's really between you and God.
[00:04:33]  What is between you and society is the part that I care.
[00:04:39]  Namely, I want to know what God wants me to do.
[00:04:45]  I often, before a lecture, Not always.
[00:04:49]  I sometimes forget to.
[00:04:51]  But I often, before a lecture, will make a very tiny prayer.
[00:04:56]  God, please make sure that I say what you want me to say.
[00:05:02]  And it's a very good little prayer.

=== Why Live Without An Instruction Manual? (04:31) ===

[00:05:06]  Because I'm not giving lectures or broadcasting to you now for my sake.
[00:05:13]  I have a higher calling than that.
[00:05:16]  And that's how I conduct my life, or try to conduct my life.
[00:05:23]  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
[00:05:52]  That's pretty good.
[00:05:54]  Because I don't think I could figure it out on my own.
[00:05:59]  Why would I? Everything comes with an instruction manual except how to live.
[00:06:06]  Right?
[00:06:07]  You get a camera.
[00:06:09]  The instruction manual is 400 pages.
[00:06:12]  Where's your instruction manual for life?
[00:06:15]  I have one.
[00:06:16]  It's the Bible.
[00:06:17]  And my religion.
[00:06:18]  Because for no religion is the Bible the only part of their religion, even for the Protestant who believes in Sola Scriptura.
[00:06:29]  Right?
[00:06:30]  You don't need an instruction manual?
[00:06:36]  There is nothing you buy that doesn't...
[00:06:38]  I buy lighters for my cigars.
[00:06:41]  The lighter comes with an instruction manual.
[00:06:44]  Now let me tell you folks, it doesn't really need one.
[00:06:49]  You press the obvious lever and fire comes out.
[00:06:54]  There's a hole on the bottom in which you put butane.
[00:06:59]  You now know how to use a lighter, but it comes with an instruction manual.
[00:07:07]  And life isn't.
[00:07:09]  So what is the purpose of religion?
[00:07:11]  To give me an instruction manual.
[00:07:14]  And it's a good challenge to the secular person.
[00:07:17]  What's your instruction manual?
[00:07:21]  To which they will say, presumably, I don't need one.
[00:07:27]  I know, I know, basically, you know, good from evil or whatever.
[00:07:32]  Really, you don't need one.
[00:07:36]  Life is that simple that you don't need an instruction manual.
[00:07:40]  Well, now you see the results, my dear friends, of not having an instruction manual.
[00:07:46]  Well-educated secular people say men give birth.
[00:07:50]  These are gigantic fools.
[00:07:54]  Gigantic.
[00:07:55]  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.
[00:08:06]  You have to be secular to say something so stupid.
[00:08:10]  Not all secular people are stupid, but you have to be secular.
[00:08:14]  Because you have no instruction manual.
[00:08:17]  You don't believe that God made male and female.
[00:08:20]  You believe in non-binary.
[00:08:22]  It's a spectrum.
[00:08:24]  By the way, there's no spectrum in the rest of the animal kingdom.
[00:08:27]  How come there's a spectrum in the human kingdom?
[00:08:30]  I thought we're animals.
[00:08:33]  Why doesn't the male-female distinction, which applies to dogs, right?
[00:08:39]  How do you know a dog's sex?
[00:08:42]  Whoa!
[00:08:43]  How do you know?
[00:08:45]  Why are you imposing gender identity on your dog?
[00:08:49]  That is not a stupid question.
[00:08:51]  It's based on the stupid premise that we impose gender identity.
[00:09:00]  Anyway...
[00:09:02]  What's the purpose of religion?
[00:09:04]  To give me an instruction manual.
[00:09:07]  So I will learn wisdom and learn how to lead a better life.
[00:09:13]  Because I don't have that much confidence in me without it.
[00:09:18]  And I'm pretty bright.
[00:09:19]  And I have a good heart.
[00:09:20]  And it still ain't enough.
[00:09:26]  So, that's my belief of its purpose.
[00:09:34]  Relationship with God is a bonus, but not a purpose.