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Jan. 11, 2024 - Dennis Prager Show
06:05
Dennis Prager Doesn't Use 'Sincere' As A Compliment
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If you said to the Oscar people, those getting the awards and making presentations, just want you to know that every time you make a political comment that ensures that next year we have fewer viewers, they will say, we don't care.
And they really don't care.
See, I don't doubt the sincerity of bad people.
That's why I've never...
I don't believe in my life I have used the term sincere as a compliment because it is irrelevant if you're sincere.
Completely irrelevant.
That's such a Dennis Prager line that you don't use sincere as a compliment.
By the way, I don't use it as an insult.
It is a useless term.
Hitler was sincere.
Stalin was sincere.
What does it mean?
And good people are sincere.
It means, it's like you breathe.
You've really influenced me on this subject.
I now, I used to talk about people's intentions.
I really don't so much anymore because you're right, it doesn't matter in the end as much as your actions do.
The great battle, I've had two major battles ideologically in my life.
One is to teach people That the end of Judeo-Christian values is the end of civilization.
Some people have bought it.
Many have not.
I think it is now more obvious than ever when you have campuses erupting on behalf of the Nazis of our time, Hamas.
There is no difference between them.
There is one difference.
Hamas announces it wishes to exterminate the Jews, whereas the Nazis hid it.
The Nazis hid the Holocaust to the best of their ability.
These video it.
They're proud of butchering Jews.
And the other is that behavior is all that matters.
And this one is a harder one.
Ironically, because whereas in the first case, I obviously have religious Jews and Christians on my side.
On behavior is all that matters, I don't have a lot of Christians on my side.
And these are people I adore.
This is not a knock on them at all.
I'm just explaining.
I had a phenomenal talk with Eric Metaxas.
On his show at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, the Christian Broadcasters, earlier this past year, and it was to his credit, and I just had an evening with him in New York City just this past week, to his great credit, he listens.
He so pursues truth that as hard as it was for him as a committed, believing Christian, To hear.
Because Christianity, and I totally understand why, based on the New Testament, is very much how you think is an issue, is a moral, religious issue.
And when I get up and say, no, it isn't, how you act is the moral, religious issue.
It is hard for a lot of Christians to hear that, and I respect that fact.
And I say it with love and respect, but ironically, maybe ironically is not the word, but it might be, the left hates that much more even than Christians hear it, and they may not agree, but they don't hate it.
But the left hates it because the left is entirely...
It is not at all about what did you do.
Why don't they hate communism?
Because they meant well.
Oh, the fact that they slaughtered more people than the Nazis by a factor of 10?
Yeah, about a factor of 10. Doesn't mean anything.
It means nothing.
And they don't care that you're the godfather of a gay couple's son or that you have gay friends.
That's a perfect example.
No, that's correct.
Your public position on gay marriage matters far more to them than your actions.
That's right.
Right.
Yes.
Well, you know, it's hard because, as I just said, you've influenced me a great deal on this subject, caring more about actions than thoughts.
But I do think one of the strengths of Christianity is how they advise you to direct your thoughts.
For instance, something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is this concept of turning the other cheek and praying for your enemies and essentially Wishing the people who hate you all the best.
I'm sure you've had to grapple with this a lot.
Being in the public eye, and you are many times over more in the public eye than I am, but I'm even seeing this.
You get people writing to you just with vicious, vicious things, calling you names, and then seeing the things that they're advocating for.
Sometimes I look at these individuals, especially online, and I feel contempt for them.
Not that I would ever wish something horrible on them, but I do feel contempt and hatred.
And so I've been trying to kind of go a Christian route and go, I'm going to pray for them.
I'm going to wish them well.
I'm going to turn the other cheek and not let this fill me with evil and hatred.
I think that's a lovely thing.
Okay.
Finish.
But that's important.
I think Christianity at times goes too far.
And I'm the living, walking embodiment of this.
I'm very culturally Christian with the amount that I self-flagellate for my bad thoughts.
So I know this better than anyone.
Sometimes it goes too far.
And it should focus more on behavior than on thoughts.
But I'm not going to say that the focus on thoughts doesn't matter.
Because...
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