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Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Dennis Prager - Radio Host & PragerU Founder | Why Traditional Values Are the Foundation of Success
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Clay I can't believe something if it doesn't make sense. Are more likely to believe in things that don't make sense than even religious people. My life work to a certain extent has been to bring the Torah to the world.
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What if a single voice voice could.
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Challenge the entire educational establishment? Dennis Prager a broadcaster, author and co founder of Prageru, has spent decades doing just that. If you don't have wisdom, you can't do good. If you rely on your heart or even your conscience, the chances of your doing good are very, very small. You need wisdom. The greatest miracle is that you and I are talking, that you and I exist, that the universe exists. If one doesn't see that as a miracle, then one doesn't understand Biblical faith. From his early days advocating for Soviet.
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Jews to becoming a nationally syndicated radio.
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Host, in 2009, he co founded Prageru, a digital platform delivering concise videos on topics ranging from history to economics, all through a conservative lens. Gratitude is the mother of the two biggest things in life, goodness and happiness. The secular think you don't need God, and many religious people think you don't need reason. And they're both wrong. If you want to learn and grow, doesn't matter how old you are. In this episode, we delve into Dennis Prager's journey from radio waves to digital platforms and explore how he's reshaping conversations around education, values and culture.
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Dennis, I'm excited to do this. This is going to be a lot of fun. So you have taken a very ambitious task of making ancient biblical wisdom accessible through rational analysis. I want to understand what sparked your first realization that this bridge between reason and faith is necessary.
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Oh, I that I can answer quite easily. That's the only way. That's the only way I have faith. If it doesn't make sense, I don't believe. Sounds radical. And by the way, among believers, it might be radical because many, many people in any of the biblical faiths or any faith do not allow something not making sense to impede their belief. And I'm not saying they should. I'm just saying that in answer to your question, I can't believe something if it doesn't make sense. But I want people to understand something this secular people are more likely to believe in things that don't make sense than even religious people. So I know any anyone who is not religious at all. The religious they believe in so many things that don't make sense. And by the way, to a certain extent that's true. But no religious person believes men give birth. Millions of secular people say men give birth. Now, to say the least, that doesn't make sense. In fact, it's a lie. So no secular person should be on any high horse. We are impervious to the irrational baloney. Reason is rare among believers and among non believers, maybe just for people who.
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Don'T know your work and sort of your background. Just very briefly give, give us like a brief background of the role that God played in your life or the inflection point because I think you grew up in a modern Orthodox Jewish family, so obviously God was always there to some degree. But what was a notable event or a notable moment that sort of reinforced the idea of God, religion, even the Bible, the Torah in your life?
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I, again, I'm an outlier, for better or for worse. But I know me and I know, I know a lot about the world. This, I march to the beat of a different drummer from a very early age. I. And I'm very open about my life. And the reason for my hesitation is because even though I've say this often, it's not easy for people to hear, especially religious people. I find the commandments to love God difficult. I have always found it difficult. I still find it. Belief in God is easy. Atheism doesn't make sense. A creator makes sense. So there's no question to my mind that there's a God. But loving God, which is a commandment in the Bible and for Christians that's the first great commandment. The second is love your neighbor. That's why I say, I know that for many religious people this is difficult to hear, but I'm very honest about all of my faith. I'm open, not forget honest. I'm open about it. Given all the suffering on earth, the unjust suffering, I find it hard to love God. I work on it. But I do love, there is something religious I love and that is the Torah. And while I love the Bible, I love the Torah more. That's the first five books of the Bible. They, they have a special role. They are the basis of the Old and New Testaments. It's everything is there. Creation, garden of Eden, 10 Commandments, love God, love your neighbor. It's all there. If the Torah wasn't there, there would be no Judaism, there would be no Christianity, there would be no Western civilization. The problem is that most people don't understand these five books. They have a vague notion of some of the stories and, and that's the end of it. So I, my life work in to a certain extent has been to bring the Torah to the world. And, and my final statement, since you asked about God in my life and so on, I always say I don't believe in, in the Torah because I believe in God. I believe in God because I believe in the Torah. It is so unlike anything else ever written. I can't believe it was man made.
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Why do you think. And I have ideas, but I need to understand yours. Obviously this is your interview, not mine. But I do believe that society is increasingly getting more secular and there's less God in society. And I think there's a whole host of problems that come with that for a variety of reasons. The most basic of being if there is no traditional version of God in people's minds and they replace that God with some other version of God. But why do you think or why did you think that it was very important to draw these rational analyses from Torah to show this bridge between a biblical text and how we sort of live our day to day.
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So in order to answer you, I have to first make the case for wisdom. Wisdom is, is infinitely more important than knowledge and infinitely more important than iq. Infinitely more important than good intentions. A good heart. Wisdom is everything. And without wisdom, no good can be done. You. You. We can't rely on good intentions. The number of people who supported the greatest mass murder movement, Communism with good intentions is very large. So intentions mean nothing. Why did, why did anybody in the west support Stalin? The one of the two greatest mass murders in history, the other one being MA Hitler's in third place, at least in terms of numbers. And the answer is they were fools. And a fool is the opposite of a wise person. That's the opposite. Wisdom, foolishness, they are the polarities. So if you have, if you don't have wisdom, you can't do good. You, if you rely on your heart or even your conscience, the chances of your doing good are, are very, very small. You need wisdom. And there's more wisdom in these five books than anywhere else in the history of, of the world, in my opinion. And my, my job is to, is to explain it because if you read it on your own, you will get obviously something out of it. But somebody, somebody needs to. It's like I have a trainer. I work out three days a week. If I didn't have a trainer, I would do some exercise. But it would be a joke. If it weren't for the trainer, I would do it wrong. I wouldn't do it as hard. I wouldn't do it as consistently. Like all trainers, she's somewhat of a sadistic and that's. I'm joking.
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I know exactly what you mean.
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Yeah. Because no pain, no gain. It's as simple as that. But I don't. I'm not good at inflicting pain on myself. I could, a trainer could do it and so on. So anyway, you need a trainer. If you read this stuff, and I'm your trainer, as it were, I make sense of it all. And on the rare occasion that something doesn't make sense, I say, I cannot explain this. This doesn't make sense. And by the way, one of the biggest, one of the few, I did come I didn't have an explanation in volume two, but I did have an explanation that I came across for volumes three and four. So I explain just about everything.
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Lingoda is a Partner of Success story Look, I'll be real with you. My French used to be solid. I learned it in school. I even had decent pronunciation. But when I booked trip to France last year, it was a total blank. I could barely order a croissant without sounding like a tourist. So I jumped into the Lingoda Sprint challenge and man, it changed everything. I'd take live classes late at night after podcasting. Only five students max. Real teachers, real conversations. And in just two months, I went from a bonjour to holding full conversations at a Paris cafe. Confidence unlocked. Now here's the play 30 or 60 classes in 60 days and if you finish them all, you get 50% cash back. That's basically €4 or $5 per class. That's insane value. Go to try.lingoda.com successsprint and then use my code Scott Sprint for an extra €20 off on top of their current deal. Registration closes May 5th. Classes start May 12th. Let's get fluent. Indeed is a success story Partner. Now say you just realized your business needed to hire someone fast. How can you find amazing candidates fast? It's easy. Just use Indeed when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job Post seen on other job sites. Indeed Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. And with Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Plus with Indeed sponsored Jobs, there's no monthly subscription, no long term contracts. You only pay for results. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@indoubtedly.com Clary just go to indeed.com Clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Clary terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. HubSpot is a success story. Partner. Now if you're an entrepreneur, listen up. Because HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. If you are building a business, you need to get HubSpot. Why? Here's the perfect example. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. A problem that every single business in the world has. But with a 900 page website, even the tiniest update took 30 minutes to publish. Now Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, help them write and optimize their content in a fraction of the time. And the results? 30% more page views and visitors now spend 27% more time on their site. If you are ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot.com it's interesting because I do believe that everything we're trying to figure out, all the wisdom in the world is already, the majority of it has already been sourced. Maybe less, you know, Elon trying to get to Mars. Maybe there's some, maybe there's some new things we have to discover there, but a lot of the wisdom that we, that, that would help us figure out our day to day, it's, it's there, it's in, it's in, it's in Bible, it's in Torah, it's in things.
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That's right. Yes. Yeah, exactly. That's the reason that wisdom is eternal. Whether it's from Homer or Aristotle or, or Genesis or, or what have you. Wisdom is wisdom. And that's why I say of, of course, look, that the musk, I believe does have wisdom. And the reason musk has wisdom is that the pursuit of truth is essentially the same thing as the pursuit of wisdom. And we don't have the pursuit of either truth or wisdom. If men give birth is an example of. We have contempt for truth. You can't become the other sex. You can gain my, you can gain all, I would say respect, but you can gain my acceptance of, of you. That's as a human being. You're a man. You say you're a woman, you dress like a woman. You, you, you, you, you don't have facial hair. In other words, you look like a woman. Dress like a woman. I'll address you as a woman. It's none of my business what, what you were born or what you are biologically. But I, I, if you ask me, can a man become a woman? You're asking me a stupid question. It's not possible because we're not just genitalia. Even if you, if, if you could change Genitalia. And you can't. You could change the cosmetics, you can't change the genitals. But even if we could, we can't change the chromosomes and we can't change the brain, the male brain. I have a funny line on this. I always say, I'll believe that a man can become a woman if a trans woman all of a sudden starts finding things. Because any married man knows that his wife finds things and he can't find them. Do you know, this is a really funny story. I was, I think it was in Pittsburgh, and I, and I couldn't find my tablet. And you know, the, the electronic thing that you, you. Right, okay, fine. So I couldn't find. I called my wife. That's right. I called my wife in la and I go, honey, I, you know, here I am in this Pittsburgh hotel room and I, I can't find the tablet. She said, oh, well, I, I'm almost sure it's under the sheet in the other bed. And that's where it was. So my wife finds things when she's thousands of miles away. Anyway, my only point is, you can't become a man, you can't become a woman. But it doesn't mean that I don't address you as whatever you appear. That's, that's, that's, that's fine. That's not an issue. So, but back to my point, the pursuit of truth and the pursuit of wisdom are almost synonymous.
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Now, when somebody reads your work, they're going to, they're gonna, they're gonna see a couple things about. Because you address both doubting God and arguing with God. So somebody's listening to this or saying, hey, wait a second, you just made the argument for there should be more God, there should be more religion. It's a net positive in society. That idea, without understanding, conflicts with the idea of doubting or arguing with God. So where does the doubting and arguing with God come into this narrative?
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Well, the name of the, of the, the people God chose to bring him into the world. Israel. What's the name of the Jewish people in the Bible? Has a definition. And it's, it's not my definition. It's not King James definition. It's the definition given in Genesis. When God changes Jacob's name to Israel, he. The name is explained. It's in Hebrew. Yisra' El is God, and Yisrael is to struggle with. So the name Israel means struggle with God. And therefore, by the way, the first Jew with the first monotheist is Abraham, and he Argues with God. It's an extensive argument over God's desire to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their evil. Arguing with God is actually a healthy thing. I don't like meeting robotic religious people. I don't like meeting robotic secular people. So you, you're not only. It's not only okay to struggle with God or argue with God, it's sort of baked into the formula of belief. And as regards faith and doubt, it is. I don't know how it's possible to live life and never doubt God. I don't know. Some people it may be, and I quote an orthodox rabbi, I quote a lot of Christians, but in this case it's a rabbi. He said God created doubt. I thought it was a very intelligent line. And he goes on why God would. If God wanted us to be absolutely certain about his existence, he could, he could. He could have made it that. He could have made that.
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When you think about faith and miracles, because you speak a lot about faith and miracles, where does this place, where does faith and miracle play into the concept of God and religion and the Bible? Because I think that if somebody, if somebody feels that they want to. If somebody feels that they want to start to believe or start to read into the wisdom of the Bible, they feel like there should be some miracle associated with God and their belief in God. They feel like there should be something that should happen in their life because they're putting their energy into, into God. For somebody who's secular, for example. So where does faith and miracle play into this whole. Into this story?
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Well, first, you're probably right, but it's not my premise. If God didn't do any of the biblical miracles, I would believe in him just as much as I do now. The greatest miracle is that you and I are talking, that you and I exist, that the universe exists. If one doesn't see that as a miracle, then one doesn't understand biblical faith. That's the miracle that anything exists. So the thought that I need another miracle like a split sea or 10 plagues, or, or for Christians, Jesus walking on water or, or the loaves and fish. I mean the. Or in wine. This is. Look, since you converted to Orthodox Judaism, you may have heard the phrase I, I know it in Hebrew, altismo. Do not. Do not rely on miracles. The. The ultimate miracle is our existence. And if one doesn't see that as a miracle, then I don't understand the nature of one's faith.
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B
Because it is. There is no kind in great on earth and there are no mean grateful people. Gratitude is the mother of the two biggest things in life. Goodness and happiness. You can't be good and you can't be happy if you're not grateful. And that's why God is so ticked off at the Jews in the Bible. Which is why one of the reasons I believe in the Torah that I and I believe it in the Torah not only as, as, as valid and true, but as God given is because the Jews would never have made up how awful they come out in their own holy book. It had to, it had to have been ultimately God as the author. There is no example in any religion on earth that its holy book depicts its group so negatively as the Jews are depicted in their holy books. So either the Jews were so morally superior to anybody else that they could do this or it was a divine authorship in some way. That's what I believe. Because the Jews don't come across all that great. And in the Torah non Jews are heroic. Noah is a heroic non Jew. The daughter of Pharaoh is a heroic non Jew. Jethro the Midianite priest is a heroic non Jewish. So the God as I, as I write in my, in my commentary, God is not ethnocentric. He's ethic centric.
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So this is why. So now I see another argument that you made and the argument that maybe somebody who's secular or somebody who does not believe in God, they'd say, well I don't, I don't need God and the Bible as a moral compass because I have a conscience. And you make the.
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The conscience is as reliable as silly Putty. You know what? Every Nazi had a conscience. Every communist had a conscience. Every murderer in prison has a conscience. You're the Vast majority of human consciences are worthless unless the conscience is designed by a sense of values or a sense of a transcendent moral source higher than the conscience. For a handful of people, the conscience is sufficient to make a good person, that is one who does good. For the vast majority of people, we shape our conscience to comport with what we're doing. Murderers do not lose sleep at night. I know this from people who have worked with murderers. It is the very rare person who does bad. The only people racked by a guilty conscience are good people. And there, there are not that many of them. So you have to be a well educated secular fool to believe that the conscience is sufficient.
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So then what's the rational interpretation from biblical wisdom that would be a better version of a conscience for like not a better version of a conscience conscience and just a better version of a guide through life for somebody.
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B
God. Well, for one thing, God knows your behavior. So I, I, I give, I give real down to earth examples. I actually did an hour on this subject on my radio show. So about a year ago I rented a car in, in Minneapolis. I travel almost every week of the year and almost every single place I rent a car. I like the freedom of a rental car. I don't want to be picked up by a local person. I don't want to, I don't want to take an Uber. I like to take my kid myself. So I, I rented a car in Minneapolis and the, the car they gave me was particularly big, a Suburban. I wasn't used to driving. Well, I do drive an SUV at home, but not the size of a Suburban. So I got stuck in, in between two cars in a parking lot and there was no way I could extricate the car. I scraped the side of one of the cars. You know, wasn't horrible, but it was damage. So I left a note. I damaged your car. Here is my phone number. So I, I, I'm very open about this. There is part of me, a serious part of me that, that said, God is watching you, Dennis. Will you leave your note or not? Will you leave a note or not? I could have gotten away with it like most people do. Most people don't leave notes. I mean, they've done surveys. Most people do not leave a note. If they, they're certain they could get away with it, they just drive on. So a, their conscience isn't bothering them. And so you're asking what is the substitute? The substitute is, is God watching me and judging me? That's why I, I'm not a big fan of God loves you. Compared to God judges you, I don't think you're going to get nearly as good a human being from God loves you as you would from God judges you. So yes, I I believed that God was aware of of what Dennis Prager was doing at that moment and that if I didn't leave a note, he would be annoyed with me, even perhaps punish me. And this sounds primitive to the fools who think conscience is enough. Except I would like to find out the question those who think God is watching and those who think conscience is enough. Which group will have more people leaving a note at the car they scratched.
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B
Well, go to Harvard and you'll know the future of Western civilization. Go to Berkeley, Go to almost any university. They're moral wastelands. Spectacularly unhappy people. Not having children, not getting married and ruining civilization with a broken moral compass. The more elite the university, the more support Hamas has. Hamas are the Nazis of our day. And that they, they are happy to acknowledge. Just like the Nazis wanted to annihilate Jews, so do they. That's, that's it. This is not a, an argument over politics. They wish to exterminate Jews. They, that's their charter. And they have support at the elite universities of the Western world. We will, we, we will continue to remove girls, breasts, healthy breasts, if they say they're boys. So there is no hope for a post biblical West. No hope. Freedom will be abolished because the freedom of speech is not a left wing value. It is a liberal value, but not a left wing value. And I have no hope for a post biblical society.
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A
So I mean, this is a rational interpretation of a Bible is really a drop in the bucket of what has to happen to stop society from going in a very dark direction. This is one piece of work in the world that's a net positive. But what else do you think really has to happen? Like if you could have your perfect version of how do we move in. How do we move in a correct direction and not a direction that basically destroys all the affluence and the freedoms that we have right now. What's the.
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B
Well, my long answer, My long answer are the five books that I'm writing. So the fourth is coming out now, the Rational Bible. You can't intuit the correct response. Wisdom is learned. You can't intuit physics, you can't intuit math. You can't intuit a foreign language. You have to learn it. You have to learn right and wrong. And it has to be God based. There's a law in the Torah that you cannot favor a poor man in a courtroom. Okay? Because the Torah is preoccupied with justice, not social justice. There is no Hebrew term for social justice. I lecture in Hebrew. I know Hebrew really well and I know biblical Hebrew really well. There is no term social justice. It's a made up term by the left. Like environmental justice, racial justice, gender justice. When, whenever you add an adjective. Why do they add adjectives? Why isn't the left just for justice? Because they're not for justice. If they were for justice, they wouldn't add adjectives. The moment you add an adjective to justice, it's not just if you don't favor. If you favor the poor man in, in the courtroom, there's a poor guy and there's Bill Gates. My can't stand, but doesn't matter. You rule by justice. You don't say, well, he's so poor, of course I will give him the judgment. That's social justice. Favoring the poor guy against the billionaire in a courtroom is social justice. It's not justice. So again, these are not things you intuit. You have to learn it. And that's the reason I've worked so hard on the rational Bible. This, this will give you. You asked me about ingratitude. The Israelites get out of Egypt and what is the first thing they do? They complain to Moses, take us back to Egypt, the food was better. You know what lesson there is to learn how relevant that is? People don't yearn to be free. That's a myth. It's like the conscience. It's baloney. It's wishful thinking. People do not yearn to be free. People yearn to be taken care of.
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A
A big difference.
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B
They preferred to be slaves with food they wanted than free with manna from heaven.
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A
There's a few things you bring up that I think are interesting perspective or interesting points because they would be things that would turn someone off from religion. So you mentioned two points. You mentioned why can only men be priests? Which could. If somebody's looking at this from the outside in, they're saying, well, that's an antiquated, outdated thought. Why is that? This is exactly why I don't subscribe to religion. And then the second idea is fanaticism. So these two ideas, obvious. I mean, these ideas turn people off from religion, amongst others. So why would those ideas, first of all, explain to me your, your perception on those ideas, sort of potentially from a secular perspective, an antiquated ideology as well as fanaticism. And how do they play into someone's interpretation of, of Bible, of biblical literature?
- [39:30]
B
So with regard to the priests, the, the Torah is adamant that there is a unique division in the human race between man and woman. It's the only division that really matters. The Torah doesn't care about color division. And it's not even noted we're all created in God's image, but God created human being male and female. That's the beginning of the Creator. That's the. I think it's 127, Genesis 127, I think. So the very Very beginning. We're. We're different. Male and female are different. Therefore, there will be, religiously speaking, different roles that. Now, secularly speaking, there don't have to be different roles. If the wife is making a lot of money as a CEO and the husband is not making a lot of money as a teacher, then clearly most couples will opt for relying on her income and then he'll take perhaps the care of the kids more. Okay, there's no Torah position on that issue. That's just common sense. But when there's a religious role, yes, there is a desire to, to preserve the male, female distinction. And, and we do, we do have. We have different roles. That's exactly right. And by the way, it has not helped Christianity or Judaism ordaining women.
- [41:03]
A
No. So that was my question, though. It was like reconciling. Reconciling like what people would be, would consider to be outdated beliefs. Because if somebody looks at one idea as outdated, then that person may be turned off from the entirety of the concept of religion.
- [41:19]
B
You're right. That's correct. So my task, and any serious religious person's task is to explain why it's not outdated. It's not in keeping with what you learn at secular universities and from secular media. That's true. So one of us is wrong. In the meantime, we have data. No religion that has ordained women has thrived. And that's just. You say, you may say, well, it's true, but they're not related facts. Okay, that's fair. You can say that.
- [41:53]
A
I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Hemp for supporting today's episode. Now, Cornbread Hemp CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit. I don't use them every day, just when I want to unwind after those extra busy weeks, but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance. Really just shut off from work. And what makes them special is how Cornbread Hemp crafts them. They only use the flour of USDA organic hemp plants. That's the best part. For the purest, most potent experience. No fillers, no artificial fluff, just clean, full spectrum goodness in delicious watermelon, berry and peach flavor. I keep them in my nightstand for those moments when I just need a little extra help relaxing. And I love how transparent they are too. Every batch is third party lab tested so you know exactly what you're getting. And they put together a special offer for all success story podcast listeners. All listeners can save 30% off their first order. Just head to cornbreadhemp.com success and use code success at checkout. That's cornbreadhemp.com success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing gummies. FreshBooks is supporting today's episode. And if you've ever wondered how successful entrepreneurs stay on top of their finances while growing their business, the answer is FreshBooks. The numbers don't lie. Over 30 million people have chosen FreshBooks, processing more than 60 billion in invoices and saving an incredible 192 hours every year on accounting tasks. Think about it. That's nearly eight full days you could get back to focus on what really matters, growing your business. FreshBooks is more than just accounting software. It's your all in one financial command center. Create professional estimates, track time automatically, bill clients and capture expenses on the go. Plus, it integrates seamlessly with over 100 business tools you already use, all backed by award winning customer service. If you're ready to stop drowning in receipts and you're ready to stop chasing down payments, here's what I want you to do. Head over to freshbooks.com to start your 30 day free trial. No credit card required. And for all you success story listeners out there, I've got something special. Get an exclusive 60% off for six months when you visit freshbooks.com pricing-offer Transform your business with FreshBooks today. That's freshbooks.com pricing offer for 60% off. So then when, when you put this workout into the world and somebody wants to go, go pick it up, go sort of explore some of the, I mean, if people don't know, I mean, outside of the work you've done at Prageru, you put out a lot of different content, you teach on a lot of different topics. But this one is probably, this one's probably the, the most important yet the most difficult to communicate its importance to a secular person. So if somebody is just going down the rabbit hole and they've never consumed your content, like what's outside of everything we spoke about today, what is the, and I do think there has to be an argument compelling enough that somebody will start to consume, start to pull out wisdom from the Bible, from the work that you're doing. So what is that argument? What is like the lesson you want to leave people with or the, or the wisdom or the ins sight so that they start to go down the rabbit hole, they start to look at the wisdom. How they can apply biblical wisdom to their own life and their own problems?
- [45:03]
B
Well, that is why I have, I have not devoted my life and I brought a lot of people to, to Bible based religion. I mean a lot. I, I claim and I'm. If I'm wrong, just tell me. Give me a name. I don't, I don't know if there's a Christian living today who has brought more people back to church than I have. And I'm a Jew saying this. I don't know who has brought more Jews to Judaism who is living today than, than I have. And this sounds like a boast. It is a boast. I, it's not an insult. I think it's a boast. But I'm not saying it to people to pat me on the back. I'm saying it because I want people to understand how, why I'm effective. I, I do not argue for God's existence. I argue for God's necessity. And that has, that persuades people far, far more. Because if you believe God exists, it doesn't change your behavior. It's okay, now I believe in God. Great. Okay, well, I will I act differently tomorrow? Probably not. The necessity question is everything, why is God necessary? That there is a judge watching and who judges you and who has given you a guideline in these five books on how to lead a wise and good life. That's big deal. That wisdom is, is. There's no secular institution with wisdom. Not one. The, the most, the most radically secular institutions are universities and they are the, the, the stupidest of all our institutions. There is more idiocy at the universe. And I've said this since I was at Columbia in the 1970s. This is not new. It's just worse today. I mean they, they, they said men and women were basically the same when I was at school in the 70s, but today it's gone beyond that. Now you not only are men and women not different, if you think you're a woman, you're a woman. They didn't say that in the 70s. This idiocy is relatively new. They were morally confused about the US and the Soviet Union. That was my field of study, Soviet affairs. I learned Russian. I went to communist countries regularly. And I was taught that it's not a moral battle. America and Soviet Union, it's not freedom versus tyranny. It's two superpowers fighting for hegemony on planet Earth. So when I, when I, when I make the argument for the necessity of God in the Bible, it resonates.
- [47:49]
A
When people start to consume this work, what would be your advice on how they can Start to incorporate some of these ideas into their own life if they are not religious.
- [47:58]
B
Yeah, well, they will. I mean, for example, you, you can't read my, my extended analysis of ingratitude and stay ungrateful. I mean, just, just as one example or my, my explanation of the Ten Commandments and how important honor your father and mother is. It's the only, the only of the, one of the ten Commandments that has a reward. And I, and as I point out, and this, this has affected, I don't know, maybe millions of people. There's no commandment to love your parents. There is a commandment to love God, to love your neighbor, to love the stranger, but not to love your parents. You don't have to love your parents. You just have to treat them with honor. You have to honor them. Now I know people say, well, what if my parents, you know, horribly abused me and molested me? Okay, fine, it's like saying people should obey speed limit laws. But what if somebody in your car got a heart attack? Should you still drive slowly? Exceptions don't prove anything. There are times that seat belts kill people. Yet it's true that seatbelts save lives. So why I think honor your father and mother is so important is that Nazism and communism and all tyrannies begin with the reduction of parental authority. And that's what we're seeing with the left in America. That's how I know that unchecked it will lead to tyranny because it undermines parental authority. In, in Minnesota and California there are laws that if your, your 8 year old daughter says she's a boy at school, you cannot inform the parents of this case. That is amazing. Kids in California are now fed lunch and breakfast at school. All that says to kids is the state feeds you, not your parents.
- [50:07]
A
If you wanted to, I mean, you've put out these books. Now if you want to leave the audience with one last piece of wisdom, what would that last piece of wisdom or insight be?
- [50:18]
B
Yeah, basically, if you want to be a good human being, if you want to be a happier human being, the there, the, these five books provide the answers.
- [50:34]
A
Where do you want to send people to consume more of your information? But I didn't want to interrupt your thoughts so we can get that after.
- [50:40]
B
Oh, no, no, that was, that was, that was sufficient that you asked me to summarize it and basically a couple of sentences. Look, people should go, they should read the reviews on the Rational Bible of the volumes that have come out Again, brand new volume four. Volume four is coming out now. And there are about 5,000 reviews. And many speak of it changed their life. I spoke at Brown University in, in Rhode Island a couple of weeks ago, and a young man came over to me, a student at Brown says, I'm, I'm, I'm from India. It was clear. And his, in his, both his look and his accent said, I just want you to know you, you've made me conservative. And I go, thank you. He said, but that's not all. You also brought me to God. And, and I said, wow, thank you for telling me. Oh, that's not all. And I converted to Christianity. He was a Hindu. So here's a Hindu telling a Jew, thanks to you, I converted to Christianity. And, and I, I, I don't see how a rational person reading these books will not be affected because it, it addresses reason. It, if you, if you really care about evil, which is my preoccupation, I want to reduce evil on earth, then I would ask people to read the rational Bible. And by the way, it doesn't matter which volume you start with. I, you should read all them. I don't say this to earn money, folks. Just for the record, nobody writes Bible commentaries to get rich, okay? Oh, wow, he's written a book on numbers. He's going to make a fortune. Okay, nobody ever heard of Numbers, which is the fourth of the five books, but I would actually ask people to get the newest one because then you'll realize it's not because of the famous stories of Garden of Eden or Ten Commandments. These five books are so awesome. It doesn't matter which one you start with, but might as well start with the latest. Got my latest insights sentence called the Rational Bible Numbers. But you know, the question is, if a person is convinced that they know what is good and they know what is true, then you know, and that they, they have reached some ethical pinnacle. They may not want to read it.
- [53:26]
A
Because, but you know what? The best people on this earth, they, There is never a point where they are, are finished learning. So I think this is.
- [53:34]
B
Oh yeah, that's right. That's the beauty. That's correct. My dad died at 96 and I remember watching him, he's around 95 and he's reading, he's avidly reading a book. And I remember thinking, wow, you know, he's at the stage where he doesn't buy green bananas and there he is devouring a book on, you know, with one one foot in the next world. But that if you want to learn and grow, it doesn't matter how old.
- [54:11]
A
You are and it doesn't matter, like you mentioned before, it doesn't matter what faith you are either. I mean this is something.
- [54:19]
B
Oh no, totally. When I write these books, my vision is will I persuade a peasant in China who never heard of the Bible? Never heard of it. That's, that's my target audience, the intelligent rural Chinese.
- [54:41]
A
That's very true. That's a great, that's a great avatar if you can find a way to communicate a compelling message to that person.
- [54:48]
B
That's right.
- [54:50]
A
Yeah, we'll put all that, we'll put all the links in the show notes. I mean what's the best website of people? Because you're going to keep writing. What's the best website?
- [54:58]
B
People should go, yeah, well, Dennis prager.com and you see all things.
- [55:02]
A
Dennis, I asked this question to everybody. Before we close it out, just one last thought. You've had a great career, many seasons to your life and your, and your work. If you could go back and you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would that be?
- [55:15]
B
So I'll disappoint you probably and many of, many of your viewers and listeners. I was given a gift at 20. I was given, I had a lot of wisdom at 20. I'm really living out what I understood then was important. And I'll give you one example. I knew at 20, I mean knew, I really knew that I will be old one day and I will die one day and I was a very happy young person and I'm a happy old person. But I, I knew that the key to life is to be able to look back at when at some age and think that I did. I led a full life, I led an important life. I did good. I made an impact on some other people. I didn't live for the moment. How much money am I making now? Was never a question for one day in my life. If I made, if I made good money, it's a blessing. But I didn't want to be poor but I, I had zero ambition to be wealthy. Zero. I knew what was important at 20. So there isn't much I would tell my 20 year old self.