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April 2, 2024 - Dennis Prager Show
08:48
Christianity Is Declining...What Is Replacing It?
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So I have a real question, given the sanctity of this weekend in the Christian world.
What has replaced Christianity, the Bible, Judeo-Christian values, and been morally better?
Simple.
You know, it's so interesting.
I've spoken about this, as my dear friend and producer knows, all of my life.
When you met me, that's what I was talking about.
But I never asked it that way.
It's a really good question.
I mean, think about anything that you would do in life.
If you get rid of X, you would assume that Y is better.
Otherwise, why get rid of X? So what has worked out better?
Not only in terms of morality, but in terms of personal happiness.
Here's a piece that just came out this week.
Are religious people happier?
The science is pretty clear.
This is from, it's all over the internet.
I'm taking it from Deseret News.
Didn't Deseret News knock PragerU?
If I didn't use sources that attacked me or PragerU, I wouldn't use any sources.
Well, it just goes to show you how unseriously I take their critiques.
PragerU is such a noble enterprise.
It's so wholesome and decent.
And I just consider those who attack it fools.
So it doesn't bother me.
Are religious people happier?
The science is pretty clear.
According to many studies over the years and confirmed in any new data analysis, religious people are statistically speaking measurably more likely to be happy.
This is written by a non-resident fellow at Baylor University's Institute for the Studies of Religion and teaches at the Catholic University of America.
Now you say, well, okay, the guy's religious, so it's biased.
But you know what is fascinating?
The point I'm about to make may actually affect you deeply if you're open to reason.
So if a religious person...
Which I assume he is because he teaches at the Catholic University of America.
But I don't even know how Catholic the Catholic University of America is because there are a lot of Jewish places that are not particularly committed to Judaism and a lot of Christian places not particularly committed to Christianity.
But in any event, let's say he's religious.
So why do the findings of religious people about religion disqualify them?
But the findings about religion by secular people don't disqualify them.
Good one, no?
You'd never hear that, right?
Oh, well, of course this professor says that.
that he's secular.
The absence of serious thought in society is really frightening. .
Everybody's biased except the secular left.
They're the non-biased.
So I'm posing this question.
Where since...
When did the onslaught against religion in the West begin?
I guess with the French Revolution.
1789. And tell me where or what...
Where...
First of all, has the Bible and Christianity been destroyed, or at least weakened tremendously, and something better has taken place?
You look at the, look, and believe me, I know the mixed bag that Christianity's record is.
It's definitely mixed, there's no question.
And I'll tell you why it's mixed.
Because it's composed of human beings.
And human nature stinks.
That's why.
It's also good.
It's got both.
To be perfectly fair.
It's got both.
As I learned in first grade in yeshiva.
Religious Jewish school.
We have a Yetzir Tov and Yetzirah.
The will to do good and a will to do bad.
And they're in battle.
Watch my video, which is how I met Alan Estrin, my producer.
We met writing the script.
Well, he wrote the original and then we worked on it for a tremendously good movie about goodness.
And it's a video and it's on...
The internet, it's free.
Where is it up?
Just people go to For Goodness Sake.
That's it.
Simple.
Do a search.
You will thank me.
It's funny.
And it makes the case for goodness very powerful.
For Goodness Sake is the name of the video.
You know how the world has changed since the 1990s?
We had some of the biggest names in Hollywood volunteer to act in that movie.
I mean, really big.
Household names.
Jason Alexander was an example.
He was in Seinfeld, right?
I mean, everybody knew him.
And he had a prominent role in, for goodness sake.
And other people who have passed on who were household names.
Steve Allen.
Just, you know, names that come to my mind.
I couldn't make a movie with these people today.
Oh, Dennis Prager?
Oh, Dennis Prager.
The movie I made with Adam Carolla, Netflix refused to stream because Dennis Prager was in it.
That's the way of the world.
That question, I'd like you to pose this to your college-age nephew and, for that matter, your college-age niece.
Who is a nun?
Not nun.
Nun.
N-O-N-E. That's the category of people who have no religious identity.
Ask them, where has religion in the West been replaced with something better?
Did the French Revolution replace it with something better?
It was a bloodbath.
A real bloodbath.
Not the metaphoric bloodbath of today's game.
It's going to be a bloodbath between these two teams.
No, that was the real deal bloodbath.
If you read about the French Revolution, I mean, the torturous way priests were murdered, probably a thousand.
I mean, that's just in France.
They were put in slave ships and left to rot.
The French Revolution was despicable.
Got rid of religion.
Oh, and of course the Russian Revolution, the number of Russian Orthodox priests slaughtered was similar to the French Revolution.
And of course, that was really better.
And listen, I'm no fan of pre-1917 Russia.
Certainly not as a Jew.
The pogroms against Jews, the just spontaneous eruptions of murder and rape.
Nevertheless, Russia was moving bit by bit in a better direction.
It produced a Dostoevsky.
What did communism produce?
Where's the communist Dostoevsky?
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