Dennis Prager Show - Christianity Is Declining...What Is Replacing It?
Aired: 2024-04-02
Duration: 08:48


=== Religious Values Replaced? (07:22) ===

[00:00:00]  So I have a real question, given the sanctity of this weekend in the Christian world.
[00:00:07]  What has replaced Christianity, the Bible, Judeo-Christian values, and been morally better?
[00:00:17]  Simple.
[00:00:21]  You know, it's so interesting.
[00:00:23]  I've spoken about this, as my dear friend and producer knows, all of my life.
[00:00:29]  When you met me, that's what I was talking about.
[00:00:32]  But I never asked it that way.
[00:00:34]  It's a really good question.
[00:00:37]  I mean, think about anything that you would do in life.
[00:00:43]  If you get rid of X, you would assume that Y is better.
[00:00:51]  Otherwise, why get rid of X? So what has worked out better?
[00:00:58]  Not only in terms of morality, but in terms of personal happiness.
[00:01:08]  Here's a piece that just came out this week.
[00:01:11]  Are religious people happier?
[00:01:13]  The science is pretty clear.
[00:01:15]  This is from, it's all over the internet.
[00:01:17]  I'm taking it from Deseret News.
[00:01:20]  Didn't Deseret News knock PragerU?
[00:01:25]  If I didn't use sources that attacked me or PragerU, I wouldn't use any sources.
[00:01:33]  Well, it just goes to show you how unseriously I take their critiques.
[00:01:41]  PragerU is such a noble enterprise.
[00:01:43]  It's so wholesome and decent.
[00:01:46]  And I just consider those who attack it fools.
[00:01:50]  So it doesn't bother me.
[00:01:52]  Are religious people happier?
[00:01:54]  The science is pretty clear.
[00:01:57]  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.
[00:02:12]  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.
[00:02:22]  Now you say, well, okay, the guy's religious, so it's biased.
[00:02:26]  But you know what is fascinating?
[00:02:29]  The point I'm about to make may actually affect you deeply if you're open to reason.
[00:02:37]  So if a religious person...
[00:02:39]  Which I assume he is because he teaches at the Catholic University of America.
[00:02:43]  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.
[00:02:55]  But in any event, let's say he's religious.
[00:02:58]  So why do the findings of religious people about religion disqualify them?
[00:03:06]  But the findings about religion by secular people don't disqualify them.
[00:03:13]  Good one, no?
[00:03:16]  You'd never hear that, right?
[00:03:18]  Oh, well, of course this professor says that.
[00:03:20]  that he's secular.
[00:03:21]  The absence of serious thought in society is really frightening. .
[00:03:37]  Everybody's biased except the secular left.
[00:03:41]  They're the non-biased.
[00:03:45]  So I'm posing this question.
[00:03:48]  Where since...
[00:03:50]  When did the onslaught against religion in the West begin?
[00:03:54]  I guess with the French Revolution.
[00:03:57]  1789. And tell me where or what...
[00:04:05]  Where...
[00:04:07]  First of all, has the Bible and Christianity been destroyed, or at least weakened tremendously, and something better has taken place?
[00:04:22]  You look at the, look, and believe me, I know the mixed bag that Christianity's record is.
[00:04:29]  It's definitely mixed, there's no question.
[00:04:32]  And I'll tell you why it's mixed.
[00:04:34]  Because it's composed of human beings.
[00:04:35]  And human nature stinks.
[00:04:38]  That's why.
[00:04:40]  It's also good.
[00:04:42]  It's got both.
[00:04:43]  To be perfectly fair.
[00:04:47]  It's got both.
[00:04:49]  As I learned in first grade in yeshiva.
[00:04:53]  Religious Jewish school.
[00:04:55]  We have a Yetzir Tov and Yetzirah.
[00:04:59]  The will to do good and a will to do bad.
[00:05:02]  And they're in battle.
[00:05:04]  Watch my video, which is how I met Alan Estrin, my producer.
[00:05:10]  We met writing the script.
[00:05:15]  Well, he wrote the original and then we worked on it for a tremendously good movie about goodness.
[00:05:23]  And it's a video and it's on...
[00:05:26]  The internet, it's free.
[00:05:27]  Where is it up?
[00:05:28]  Just people go to For Goodness Sake.
[00:05:30]  That's it.
[00:05:30]  Simple.
[00:05:30]  Do a search.
[00:05:31]  You will thank me.
[00:05:33]  It's funny.
[00:05:35]  And it makes the case for goodness very powerful.
[00:05:39]  For Goodness Sake is the name of the video.
[00:05:45]  You know how the world has changed since the 1990s?
[00:05:48]  We had some of the biggest names in Hollywood volunteer to act in that movie.
[00:05:52]  I mean, really big.
[00:05:54]  Household names.
[00:05:56]  Jason Alexander was an example.
[00:05:59]  He was in Seinfeld, right?
[00:06:01]  I mean, everybody knew him.
[00:06:02]  And he had a prominent role in, for goodness sake.
[00:06:07]  And other people who have passed on who were household names.
[00:06:11]  Steve Allen.
[00:06:13]  Just, you know, names that come to my mind.
[00:06:19]  I couldn't make a movie with these people today.
[00:06:22]  Oh, Dennis Prager?
[00:06:23]  Oh, Dennis Prager.
[00:06:26]  The movie I made with Adam Carolla, Netflix refused to stream because Dennis Prager was in it.
[00:06:38]  That's the way of the world.
[00:06:43]  That question, I'd like you to pose this to your college-age nephew and, for that matter, your college-age niece.
[00:06:55]  Who is a nun?
[00:06:57]  Not nun.
[00:06:58]  Nun.
[00:06:59]  N-O-N-E. That's the category of people who have no religious identity.
[00:07:06]  Ask them, where has religion in the West been replaced with something better?

=== The Real Deal Bloodbath (01:41) ===

[00:07:15]  Did the French Revolution replace it with something better?
[00:07:18]  It was a bloodbath.
[00:07:20]  A real bloodbath.
[00:07:22]  Not the metaphoric bloodbath of today's game.
[00:07:28]  It's going to be a bloodbath between these two teams.
[00:07:32]  No, that was the real deal bloodbath.
[00:07:35]  If you read about the French Revolution, I mean, the torturous way priests were murdered, probably a thousand.
[00:07:44]  I mean, that's just in France.
[00:07:49]  They were put in slave ships and left to rot.
[00:07:56]  The French Revolution was despicable.
[00:08:00]  Got rid of religion.
[00:08:02]  Oh, and of course the Russian Revolution, the number of Russian Orthodox priests slaughtered was similar to the French Revolution.
[00:08:09]  And of course, that was really better.
[00:08:12]  And listen, I'm no fan of pre-1917 Russia.
[00:08:19]  Certainly not as a Jew.
[00:08:21]  The pogroms against Jews, the just spontaneous eruptions of murder and rape.
[00:08:30]  Nevertheless, Russia was moving bit by bit in a better direction.
[00:08:39]  It produced a Dostoevsky.
[00:08:41]  What did communism produce?
[00:08:45]  Where's the communist Dostoevsky?