Dec. 26, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
08:21
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| Time | Text |
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| But I'd like to talk to you today on this final day prior to Christmas about the decline in religious activity in the United States of America. | |
| Fewer Americans attend church weekly than at any time in American history. | |
| I've pointed out to my fellow Jews that when Americans went to church, Jews were more secure. | |
| The Judeo-Christian America that we've had, if you want to call it Christian America, it was in values Judeo-Christian, and it's part of the reason America's Christianity was so much more pro-Jewish than Europe's Christianity historically, because that was... | |
| Not nearly as Judeo-based as the American Christianity. | |
| You just read the Founding Fathers on quote-unquote the Hebrews or the Israelites. | |
| Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, neither of whom were Trinitarian Christians, designed a great seal of the United States of America. | |
| You can see it on the Internet. | |
| And the seal depicts the Israelites, Hebrews, Jews, whatever term you wish to use, leaving Egypt, being guided at night by a pillar of fire. | |
| And to think that two of the least doctrinally Christian founders were so steeped in the Hebrew Bible This was a Judeo-Christian country. | |
| And there is not a single positive aspect to the decline in religious activity and faith in the United States. | |
| Notice I put activity before faith because I am more action-oriented. | |
| Whatever people's doubts with regard to faith, going to church each week was more important in my view. | |
| Not in everybody's, than how much they believed. | |
| I judge people by their behavior rather than by their theology or level of faith. | |
| So I want to talk to you today about that decline. | |
| I'll bet virtually every one of you who is religious either has in your immediate family or knows a family Where at least one of the children has left religion. | |
| So this is what I have done all of my life to persuade people to take the Bible seriously. | |
| My agenda has not been specifically to make anyone a member of any given faith. | |
| How people express their Their biblical-based beliefs is, from my perspective, their business. | |
| My business is to get them to take biblical beliefs and values seriously. | |
| For me, the Bible is the bigger issue even than God. | |
| There are vast numbers of people around the world who believe in God, and it has nothing to do with the God of the Bible. | |
| It's usually some deity in heaven whom they... | |
| Invoke for protection. | |
| And that's not what the purpose of belief is. | |
| So I want to talk to you about what has happened and what we can do about it. | |
| I have been successful with very, very many people, but not nearly, nearly, nearly, nearly enough. | |
| I don't walk around thinking how many people I've influenced. | |
| I think much more about how many people I have not. | |
| But I know how to influence some people, at least. | |
| And let me give you my methodology. | |
| And you are free, indeed welcome, to react and to give your own testimony to some alienated child that you might have. | |
| So my approach, first of all, has been entirely toward the intellect. | |
| I don't know any other approach because it is my mind that has given me faith. | |
| I approach God through the mind much more than through the heart. | |
| Now, I'm well aware that my approach will not work with everybody. | |
| But it certainly works with many bodies. | |
| An appeal to the mind. | |
| Because many people in the modern age use their mind to reject God, the Bible, etc. | |
| So if the mind, if they think that it is their mind that cannot accept God, God-based morality, etc., then I have to appeal to their mind. | |
| If the mind is the source of the rejection, then the mind has to be approached, right? | |
| So, the number one in my approach to having people take religion, specifically the Bible, seriously, is through the intellect. | |
| That's why I title my biblical commentary, Three out of five volumes are out. | |
| The fourth volume is coming out next year. | |
| The first five books are the basis of everything else. | |
| Everything, everything and everything. | |
| It's called the Torah and I call it the Rational Bible because I use reason to make the case for why it is The greatest work ever written. | |
| And it's transformative if you take its values seriously. | |
| From the beginning, from the very first sentence. | |
| In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. | |
| The amount that is stated in that sentence is astonishing. | |
| It didn't all come about on its own. | |
| It is amazing that people who reject God as irrational, not provable, That's their famous statement. | |
| Can you prove to me God exists? | |
| Of course not. | |
| But I can't prove to you beauty exists. | |
| I can't prove to you a whole host of positive things. | |
| I can't prove to you that good and evil exist. | |
| Where's the proof? | |
| Show me the measuring stick. | |
| Show me the chemical basis. | |
| What is the chemical? | |
| Constituents. | |
| What are the chemical constituents of good or evil? | |
| There is very little that matters that can be proven. | |
| But there are arguments that are persuasive. | |
| And I try to make those. | |
| But that sentence alone says so much. | |
| It means that God created nature. | |
| God is above nature. | |
| An amazing thing, because in every ancient world, In every ancient society, God was a natural deity, God of rain, God of wind, the sun god, the moon god, etc. | |
| So the first thing I have done, and many people have not done, in trying to make the case, and I don't blame them at all, they don't know how. | |
| You can't do what you don't know how to do. |
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