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I turn the tables on the atheist and on the agnostic.
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I say, wait a minute.
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You ask me if when I look at human suffering, I ever doubt God's existence.
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Fair question, answer, yes.
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But I ask you, you the agnostic or you the atheist, you the irreligious, do you ever see human beauty?
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Do you ever see the birth of a child and doubt your atheism?
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Doubt your irreligiosity?
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It's a very interesting thing in our world today.
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The only people who are supposed to question themselves are religious people.
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Irreligious people are never asked to challenge themselves.
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Isn't that interesting?
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You never hear that, do you?
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You ever challenge your secularism?
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Never! Never!
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It's a non-issue.
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If you believe in God, you're supposed to challenge yourself all the time.
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Religious people, gee, they're brainwashed.
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As if secular people aren't brainwashed.
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I assure you that I had more openness to secularism in my yeshiva-closed world than there was openness to religion at your child's university.
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The secular world is far more closed in America today and in much of the Western world today than is the religious world.
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At least there are arguments given in both directions at most religious institutions.
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Because they have to grapple with the secular challenge.
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You never hear the secular challenge grappled with at Harvard or at Stanford or, for that matter, at UNLV.
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It's just not an issue.
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It's so taken for granted that God is a non-issue, religion is a non-issue, that people don't even bother making up intellectual arguments for it.
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I think the intellectual arguments, the rational case for God, is stronger.
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