Dennis Prager Show - Where Does the Bible Get its Authority?
Aired: 2021-06-30
Duration: 02:34


=== Why Belief Matters (02:34) ===

[00:00:00]  You talk about the Western approach, and you call it Judeo-Christian.
[00:00:08]  However, what establishes the authority of the culture there?
[00:00:13]  There's other religions.
[00:00:16]  What makes you think that it arises from that source?
[00:00:20]  I mean, it may be perfectly true that the Bible, as you refer to it, is an authority in terms of wisdom, but how do you establish the authority that it does constitute?
[00:00:36]  Well, to the extent that I understand your question, I would answer that it has earned my belief in its authority.
[00:00:48]  Yeah, but that's your belief.
[00:00:52]  You use the term belief.
[00:00:54]  Yes, so then you asked me why I believe.
[00:00:57]  Well, you have to derive it from a natural setting to begin with.
[00:01:01]  No, it's not true.
[00:01:03]  Look, you ask me how I, Dennis, derive it.
[00:01:07]  I derive it from its track record.
[00:01:10]  Well, that's you.
[00:01:11]  Are you the authority?
[00:01:13]  No, I am simply the conveyor of logic.
[00:01:17]  If I am unpersuasive to you, if you believe that the non-Western world has produced as moral a universe as the Western, then my argument is pointless.
[00:01:33]  Well, you got Nazi Germany, that's considered to be a part of the Western world.
[00:01:38]  No, only geographically, not culturally.
[00:01:41]  Well, that's your decision.
[00:01:42]  No, no, okay, okay.
[00:01:43]  If you think that Nazi Germany is based on the Bible...
[00:01:46]  I can only wish you a good day.
[00:01:48]  I think that you're called up to argue and not to dialogue.
[00:01:54]  Dwight Eisenhower, excuse me, Franklin Roosevelt, a deep liberal, spoke regularly about protecting Christian civilization against the Nazis.
[00:02:07]  Nobody in the West thought that Nazism was the product of the West.
[00:02:13]  It loathed the West.
[00:02:15]  They said so.
[00:02:19]  Okay?
[00:02:20]  But if we're going to argue that Nazism is Western, then other than geography, then I guess Celebi?
[00:02:30]  All right.
[00:02:30]  I appreciate your calling.
[00:02:32]  And Aaron and Rancho.