June 14, 2017 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
03:03
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unidentified
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(dramatic music) | |
| Let's talk about religion this week. | ||
| Whether you're a believer or a non-believer, religion has and probably always will play some role in society. | ||
| This is why religion has been at least a part of so many of the discussions I've had on this show, from interviews with an atheist like Sam Harris, to a Catholic like Bishop Barron, to a Christian like Dinesh D'Souza, to an Orthodox Jew like Ben Shapiro, to ex-Muslim Yasmin Mohamed. | ||
| To Atheist Muslim Ali Rizvi, to Jew turned Atheist turned Christian Andrew Clavin, and so on. | ||
| All of these religious descriptors exist for each of these individual people, no matter how confusing they may be to anyone from the outside looking in. | ||
| I for one have consistently enjoyed talking to people from all walks of life and seeing what they believe and how they took, or did not take, the leap of faith to get where they are in their spiritual journey. | ||
| As I've said many times before, I myself am not a believer, but I don't really care what anyone else believes as long as their religious beliefs don't take the form of legislating my life. | ||
| In the privacy of your own home, you can believe in Yahweh or Jesus or Mohammed or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and that's none of my business. | ||
| If your religious beliefs give you some sense of purpose or inner peace, then great. | ||
| It's when your beliefs bleed into who I can marry or wanting to throw me off a roof that I have a problem with you and your beliefs. | ||
| As for that leap of faith, I usually explain my feelings about belief with a simple basketball analogy. | ||
| If you told me that you saw LeBron James dunk from half court last night, well I couldn't just take that on faith alone. | ||
| I'd need some sort of evidence, like at the very least seeing the videotape with my own two eyes as proof of your outrageous claim. | ||
| So it seems only logical to me to treat the biggest questions of the universe with the same intellectual rigor as my imaginary basketball analogy. | ||
| Belief aside, there are many attachments people have to religion which often are cultural and based in tradition. | ||
| For me, being Jewish is a connection to the history, and often very painful history, of the Jewish people, but also being aware of the traditions, rich cultural heritage, and historical ties that I have to the people who came before me. | ||
| While I'm not religious myself, it's the educational emphasis of Judaism which lets atheists like Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan stay connected to their cultural identity without giving up their commitment to logic and reason. | ||
| Without comparing myself intellectually anywhere near those two legends, it's this type of understanding of Judaism that I believe in, but I have no desire to push this on you or anyone else. | ||
| Joining me to discuss belief, religion, and why Jews are so funny is Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple here in Los Angeles. | ||
| Rabbi Wolpe was named America's Most Influential Rabbi by Newsweek Magazine and one of the 50 most influential Jews by the Jerusalem Post. | ||
| Where Larry David and Jesus and half of Lenny Kravitz fell on that list? |
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