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Coming up. It's the last show before Christmas and so I'm going to give you a little archaeological nugget about Christmas that I think you'll find interesting. I'm also going to talk about anti white discrimination and specifically the discrimination against white males. I'm happy to say the government is finally doing something about it and I'll continue my exploration of arguments for life after death. Hey, if you're watching on YouTube x or rumble listening on Apple or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel this is the Dinesh d' Souza Podcast.
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America needs this voice. The times are crazy. In a time of confusion, division and lies. We need a brave voice of reason, understanding and truth. This is the Dinesh d' Souza podcast.
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We are coming right up toward Christmas and in fact, this is the this is the last podcast of the week. We then go into a little break for the holiday season, for the Christmas season. I pick it up on Monday of next week and I thought I would begin by saying a couple of words about the archaeology of Christmas, the archaeology of the birth of Jesus. I don't have to say too much about the enormous significance, historical, theological, cultural of Jesus. He is quite obviously the most transformative figure in history. There's no easy second place, or the second place guy is pretty far behind. And Jesus produces a revolution, a moral revolution, a revolution in some ways in the understanding of human beings prior to Jesus and the apostles. If you think of great men and great figures in history, they're all the high and mighty. They are kings. Think of the great kings of the Bible, King David, King Solomon. They are prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah and so on. Or they are courtiers, aristocrats, conquerors, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, the Mongols, Genghis Khan, and so on. And suddenly with Jesus you find an ordinary fellow, a carpenter. His dad's a carpenter. The guys he hangs out with are fairly low level guys in society. They are fishermen and yet they are endowed with, they are given by the Gospel writers such a profound and sublime dignity that there is a great moral shift here. It's almost like the high and mighty of the world are brought down a notch. The ordinary man, the common citizen, is raised up. And so this transformation begins really with the Gospels and then has long lasting effects through, through history. Jesus was born, according to the Bible, in a manger. But what's a manger? Well, a manger actually is not, quote, a place per se. It is a setup for storing cattle. And particularly in the hot season and in the cold season, you couldn't just leave cattle outside. And so the idea is that the cattle need to be brought indoors, but where you can't bring them into the humble dwellings of the people. And so the cattle were generally stored in caves. These are sometimes called shepherd's caves. And Jesus was born in a cave, in a cave in Bethlehem. By the way, Bethlehem today is a Muslim, some would say Palestinian city. But in that city is the Church of the Nativity. And underneath the Church of the Nativity is a cave or caves. And that is the traditional location of where Jesus was born. It might seem unbelievable that one could identify a spot like that after 2,000 years. And I'm doing some work now, actually for Prageru, making a series of videos on biblical archaeology. And in it I will tell the story of how it is the case that we are able to know archaeologically what the significance of those caves is and why. There is a very good chance, in fact, an Israeli archaeologist named Gabriel Barkeh, not a Christian, by the way, goes, yes, he goes, that traditional location is the correct location for Jesus's birth. So I hope that that is just a word or two inspiration for the Christmas season and for the spirit of Christmas that we should recall and also resolve to carry us through through the new year. Now, let me talk about this post here by the chairman of the eeoc, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner, name is Andrea Lucas. Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? She goes on to say, you may have a claim to recover money. The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking and eliminating all race and sex discrimination, including against white male employees and applicants. And as I saw that post, I thought to myself, we have come a long way because I have, for virtually all my time in America, lived in a society which has systematically discriminated against white males. It has also vilified them through history, through the media, through the textbooks, through the academic system. There has been relentless battering ram of propaganda against white males. And that's bad enough, but then what makes it worse is when you have elaborate schemes of discrimination cutting in multiple directions. And so there's discrimination in favor of blacks and against whites and in favor of women and against men and in favor of. But the net effect of all this is that if you are the white male, you are the ultimate target of this discrimination. And it's been going on in college admissions, it's been going on in the workplace, it's been going on in federal contracts, it's been going on in state jobs and state contracts. It's been going on everywhere. And it's really deprived a whole generation of white men really of their birthright. And by birthright here, I mean nothing more than their ability to compete on equal terms with everyone else. And so now, finally this is being challenged. I won't say it's come to an end, because even though some people go, yeah, DEI is finished, DEI is not finished, it still remains the practice, even if somewhat covert. In a number of universities, for example, they're not really getting rid of their diversity operations. They're just renaming them. They're not really getting rid of. Of their entrenched bigotry against white men. They're simply calling it inclusion. And they've developed very sneaky devices that register the underrepresentation of every group except white males. And when you find that white males are underrepresented, for example, nothing is done. No action is taken. No action needs to be taken, according to the DEI crew. And so this discrimination is very much. It's going to take a lot of effort to root this out. But until now, there was not even an explicit acknowledgment of the problem and not an explicit acknowledgement. People would speak about colorblind rhetoric in a general sense, but we're not just talking about a colorblind rhetoric. We're talking here about identifying the fact that discrimination against a male is just as bad as discrimination against women. And think of all the humbug and all the hoopla that has been made over discrimination against women over the last five decades. Well, we actually need to have the same kind of passion about rooting out discrimination against men. And similarly, think of all the times you've heard about racism and white supremacy and institutionalized racism and proportional representation and. And dei and all of it. All of it, by the way, aimed at raising the representation of non whites in the workforce and in education to the detriment of white men. Now, very often, this project is not labeled as such people. I want to increase the representation of minorities, but let's remember that a lot of these jobs and college positions are a zero sum game. There are only so many openings for the freshmen, let's say at Brown University. And so if you're going to take more blacks and Hispanics, you're going to take fewer whites and Asians. You can't raise the floor without lowering the ceiling. It's kind of an algebraic impossibility. And so again, for the first time that I can see from a leading organ of government. And by the way, I'm happy to say that my friend from Dartmouth, Harmeet Dhillon, is all over this. The DOJ is all over it. Now we can see the EEOC is all over it. There needs to be a ruthless campaign to stamp out the discrimination against white males. And I like the fact that she even says here you may have a claim to recover money. Because what she's really saying is that discrimination should not be cost free. If companies of universities have been discriminating against you, and if you can show it, you can prove it, then you are entitled to compensation. Just like if blacks are victims of discrimination, they're able to go and claim damages as a result of that discrimination. They were obviously hurt by that discrimination. It cost them potential earnings, it prevented them from getting positions they otherwise would have gotten. That's the way you kind of measure the degree of harm that has been caused. And I like the fact that the EEOC is not merely giving lip service to the idea of colorblindness, but identifying the main victims of it, namely white males, and has a program and a determination to do something about it. You know, incorporating a wide variety of whole food ingredients into my daily routine is key for me. And I get that from Balance of Nature fruits and veggie supplements that make it simple and they give me the fruits and veggies that I need and I simply don't have the time or energy to eat. These harvested ingredients have freeze dried into a fine powder using an advanced vacuum cold process to better preserve nutritional value. I can say with total confidence I'm getting 31 ingredients from fruits and veggies. And hey, if you don't like to take pills, no problem. Consider opening the fruit and veggie supplements, mix the powder into a smoothie or sprinkle it over food and you're good to go. Join me in taking Balance of Nature every day. You can get 50% off the whole health system for life with this limited time offer. Go to balance of nature.com to claim the offer. New and existing customers can lock in the whole health system at 79, 99 per order for life. Hey, if you cancel in future you'll lose this price, but act now. Go to balanceofnature.com Imagine exploring Israel where thousands of years of history are on display and embarking on a journey that changes the way you see the world. This is Dinesh d' Souza inviting you to join me and New York Times best selling author Jonathan Cahn for the Dragon's prophecy Israel tour. 12-07-16, 2026 For 10 unforgettable days, you'll discover the best of Israel. You'll walk the stone streets of Jerusalem, pray at the Western Wall, sail the Sea of Galilee, stand on the Mount of Olives, visit ancient sites that confirm the biblical prophecies and the Jewish people's history. In this land, Jonathan Cahn and I will speak. We'll open the scriptures and the very places you've read about for years, connecting the archaeological record with biblical prophecy and what's happening in our world today. Come see for yourself what history, archaeology and prophecy reveal in Israel. Join us call 800-247-1899 or visit inspirationtravel.com Dinesh get information about the Dragon's Prophecy Israel tour. It's inspirationtravel.com Dinesh There's a powerful new film coming from Angel Studios on the Wonder Project. It's called Young Washington. It tells the untold story of how George Washington's character was forged long before independence, when he was just 20, facing failure, loss and near death. Directed by John Irwin who made Jesus Revolution American Underdog starring Andy Serkis, Ben Kingsley and Kelsey Grammer, it's a sweeping, high quality production that reminds us what true leadership, virtue and providence look like. This isn't revisionist history, it's the real story told with courage, truth and respect for the values that shaped America. Young Washington releases Independence Day 2026 on the 250th anniversary of our nation's become an early supporter by joining the Angel Guild Today. Premium members get two free opening day tickets and help bring this inspiring story to theaters across America. Go to angel.comdinesh Help make young Washington the number one movie this Independence Day. Again, it's angel.comdinesh. you know guys, over the past several years I've had a very good relationship with a publishing company that produces very high quality books in leather editions. This is sort of top of shelf publishing and these books are not just to read. They're essentially keepers. They're Books that you'll treasure having over many, many years. So the company is called Griffon Books and Griffon Editions are their publications. And I've actually met the guys who run this company, lovely people that come to our house more than once to have me sign a bunch of the books. And I've been delighted to do that and to get to know them. And I'm going to have on today as my guest their son, Daniel Stein. And he's the author of a new book that is called American Dystopia, the Handmaid's Tale and Puritan History. I didn't really quite know what to make of this book when I first got it, but it is quite fascinating and a real window into the world of the Puritans. By the way, Daniel Stein writes a substack Dnstein S t e I n.substack.com and Griffon Editions, it's gryphoneditions.com but you can find Danny's book, Daniel Stein's book at gryphoneditions.com Products American Dystopia Daniel, welcome. Thank you for joining me. You're a very young fellow and you have produced a, well, I call it a semi scholarly book. I hope you agree with that characterization of it. How did you undertake this enterprise of writing a book that connects your the Handmaid's Tale with the history of the Puritans?
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D
Yeah, well, I was assigned the Handmaid's Tale when I was a senior in high school. So like a lot of other people my age, that was my first encounter with the book. And I didn't know much about it beforehand. But I think reading the book I had some basic knowledge of the history and it just seemed like a lot of and you know, the books allegedly based on this historical time period of Puritan New England in the 1600s, and it's allegedly describing America's foundations and what that would look like if it came back today. And I had some basic knowledge of the history and it just seemed really wrong to me. And the more I read, the more aspects of the society she was, Margaret Atwood, the author of the Handmaid's Tale was describing, just seemed wrong. And then also coming from a traditional Jewish background, I also had some familiarity with the original biblical text that she was basing her institutions in the society on. And I was familiar with the original Hebrew text and it was at least how those passages were carried over, interpreted in Jewish tradition. So from that perspective too, it just seemed like a lot of what she was saying didn't make any sense. And I started looking into it, started doing some research, and I ended up writing, pointing out a lot of these inconsistencies or errors in just class assignments, and then ended up having enough to turn into a book. And the way I kind of see the Handmaid's Tale is that just like classic dystopias which traditionally have been taught in schools like 1984 British New World, they warn about things like communism or totalitarianism. The Handmaid sells a book that warns about Americanism and specifically claims that there's this strain of religious thought in American history, going back to the Puritans, that's responsible for a lot of bad things, or it's like a predominantly negative strain in our country's past.
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Would it be accurate to summarize Margaret Atwood's book by saying that it alleges that our country's history is rooted in a kind of extreme theocratic society in which you have a group of male patriarchs who impose a kind of authoritarian control not just over the society politically, but particularly over women. So domestically as well, women are essentially slaves. They have no rights. They function as handmaids. And let's explain. Let's start by explaining that term because people may not know. What do you mean by a handmaid? Who is. What's the handmaid reference in the title?
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D
Well, I think I would choice to use the word handmaid in the first place is a bit risky because handmaid's an English word, it's not a Hebrew word. Doesn't show up in the Bible. And the women that she refers to as handmaids in the Bible and are actually referred to by a bunch of different terms. So sometimes they're called wives, sometimes they're called concubines, sometimes they're called maidservants or slaves. So it's a little bit unclear from the Bible itself what a handmaid actually is. And so what you have to do is look at the ancient Mesopotamian context. So handmaids aren't a biblical institution. They're not a Jewish institution, not a Christian institution. There's something that existed before the Bible, and you can find it in texts like Hammurabi's Code, an ancient Mesopotamian legal document. And it in those documents, I think the irony is that whereas in the Handmaid's Tale, handmaids are kind of this instrument for the elite in society, elite men to produce children and increase the birth rate and solve this fertility crisis that she has in her book. In ancient Mesopotamian society, handmaids are Actually, a woman's rights. This is a society that had widespread polygamy, widespread slavery. And if a woman couldn't produce an heir for her husband, then her husband had the right to marry another woman, displacing the first wife, unless the first wife actually had the right to force her husband to have a kid with her handmaid. And that essentially preserved her status within the marriage. And then, in addition to that, handmaids were also associated with certain idolatrous practices. So, for example, there's certain priestesses that are mentioned in Hammurabi's code who weren't allowed to have children. And when they got married, the way they would produce children for their husband was they would give him a handmaid, give him one of their female slaves, and that's how they produce children. So certainly you wouldn't expect the Bible to be endorsing idolatrous practices. You wouldn't expect the patriarchs to be engaging in idolatrous practices. That's kind of a story of how those things were rejected. And that's exactly what you find. I think any, you know, ancient, ancient Jew, ancient Israelite reading the text who was maybe familiar with the context in which these. Which these practices existed would have realized that what the Bible's describing isn't the patriarchs using handmaids or engaging in this practice. It's how they rejected it. And so the Bible actually describes how they. They moved away from this institution for. So, for example, under Mesopotamian law, handmaids had certain rights. They couldn't be kicked out of the house, they couldn't be abused. Well, what happens in the, you know, in the Hebrew Bible, you know, first of all, God never gives any explicit endorsement of this practice. So it's a product of, you know, Rachel gets jealous of her sister, or, you know, Sarah's upset because she can't have children, and they decide to resort to this institution with which they were familiar because that was part of their background, that was part of the cultural context in which they lived. This is a time before Judaism, before the Bible, before Moses roses, before any of that stuff. So it's not necessarily presented as a, you know, having a positive origin. And then, you know what happens? Sarah gets upset. She demands that Abraham kicks the handmaid out of the house. In this case, the handmaid's name is Hagar. And Abraham's hesitant because that's not something you do if you're a Mesopotamian. And he asked God, and God's like, no, kick her out, kick her out, and kick her out in her and enter a child as well. And so it's kind of a rejection of this practice. And then by the time you get to Jacob, who's, you know, those. Those passages are kind of the basis that Atwood uses to base her story on. And that's actually like the epigraph at the beginning of the book is this quote from Genesis where Rachel begs Jacob to take a handmaid. You know, if you look there, the handmaids are actually referred to as wives. So it's a complete negation of the concept because they were treated as full wives. And that's how it was. You know, of course, this is how it was obvious to, you know, ancient Jews what the text was doing. It's like, you know, for example, you wouldn't consider mummification a Jewish practice just because Joseph was mummified, or you wouldn't consider child sacrifice a Jewish practice just because there's references to it. You know, Abraham almost sacrifices his son Isaac. So these practices are there for two reasons. One, to show that, you know, this is the history of the Jewish people. So it's showing that the ancestors of the Jews were actually in these places and actually were engaging with these practices. So there's also things like Hittite property law that show up in the Hebrew Bible which were never part of Jewish law afterwards. And second, they're there to show how the patriarchs began as Mesopotamians and gradually rejected different aspects of Mesopotamian culture. And that includes things like handmaids. And so under Jewish law, under later Jewish law, it's illegal to have a handmaid. You're not allowed to marry a female slave. That's not something that was permitted at all. And the fact that the patriarchs use them in commentaries is explained as, you know, one, either purely negative or two, as something that, you know, maybe this is a time before the Bible, before there was these, like, strict rules. And so maybe, you know, there's some kind of providence involved here, but certainly not a precedent, something that's banned very, very explicitly later on. And Christianity, obviously, coming out of a Jewish context, maintained the same attitude towards handmaids. So St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, all the church fathers saw this the same way. They saw it as adulterous. That's what they called it. And then by the time you get to the Puritans, not only do you have this traditional antipathy towards handmaids that had always been there, but they had their own theological reasons for rejecting handmaids. And so for the Puritans, the distinguishing thing about the Puritans was that they were Calvinists theologically, so they didn't believe that there was free will. They thought everything was predetermined by God, and that included things like childbirth. So when they read, you know, when they read about Rachel basically being upset that she couldn't have children and trying to work around it by giving Jacob her handmaid, that was something that for them, they called it. They were like, that's blasphemy. It's God that decides those things. You don't get to, you know, use these like, immoral devices to get around what's already been decreed. And so the Puritans repeatedly in their commentaries, talk about how they were disgusted with handmaids in the strongest terms. And they wrote tons of Bible commentaries, so you can find this. So it's ironic, you know, Atwood's, you know, handmaids haven't existed for 3,000 years. It's this ancient Mesopotamian institution. But yet we're supposed to believe that this is going to be the basis of a Christian theocracy that somehow emerges in America with Puritan roots having no relationship to the original context and certainly no relationship to the way those practices have been viewed within Judeo Christian tradition.
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B
Talk a little bit, Daniel, about the Puritans and the fact that. That it doesn't really make any sense to say that these were people who thought of women as being a kind of morally subordinate or inferior class and that Puritan government was an authoritarian theocracy and that, you know, forced conversions, forced cultural practices were the defining features of Puritan society. And one of the things that you sketch out in the book is that this is a kind of cartoon version of the Puritans. It doesn't describe Puritan society at all. So why don't you highlight the three or four aspects of Puritan society that really give the lie to the Atwood portrayal in the Handmaid's Tale.
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D
Yeah, yeah. It's not even a cartoon version. It's the complete opposite. So let's just take those one by one. So, for example, I think the most revealing thing when it comes to the Puritans relationship with women is that their own contemporaries ridiculed the Puritans for as a movement that was full of, like, these weak and effeminate men who are dominated by women and they criticize the Puritans for allowing women to preach and having these like, loud and obnoxious Puritan women who. Who like, controlled their husbands and had. Were doing all the things that were playing this insubordinate role that, you know, Atwood's claiming, you know, the Puritans specifically, as opposed to all other peoples assigned to women in their societies. So that's the most revealing thing and that has theological roots, you know, so for the Puritans, again, going back to this idea of predestination, the Puritans didn't divide humanity between genders. They didn't divide humanity between men and women or even between different races. Those categories didn't matter. What mattered to the Puritans was the division between the elect and the damned. And, and they believed that since the beginning of time, God had predestined a small minority of humanity to be saved. They were the elect, and that God had predestined the vast majority of humanity to be damned. And so, and it was, it was utterly arbitrary. It was up to God. There was no way you could predict who was one of the elector, who was one of the damned. Maybe there were some indications you could point to, but there was no way to know for sure. It could be, it could easily be a woman, it could be a man, it could be someone of a different race. It didn't, there was no relationship to any, any of these superficial features. So for a Puritan, well, if you believe that like this woman could be part of the elect, then, you know, why not let her preach? If she, if she is someone who's godly or is a vehicle through which God can speak, it's, you know, the same way he could through a man, then why not let them preach? Why not let them, you know, Puritan women wrote pamphlets, wrote religious tracts, you know, did all the things that, you know, you know, and the anime still, women can't read. They can't read the Bible. They can't, you know, they can't own property. I mean those, that's the complete opposite of how women were actually treated imperative in society. So it was the most gender equal society, society of their time. Again, going back to theological reasons and then getting to stuff like authoritarianism. Actually, I think before getting to that, let's talk about the Salem witch trials because I think a lot of outward stereotypes about Puritans and women come from the Salem witch trials. And I think the most important thing there is that, you know, in the Handmaid's Tale, women can't testify in court. That's one of the rights they don't have. Well, if Puritans really, then you couldn't have had the Salem witch trials because it was all based on women testifying in court. That was all the witnesses in the first place. So there's that to begin with. But second of all, when it comes to the witch trials, I think that's the origin of a lot of the stereotypes that would have appeals to when she writes this book. And I think the most important thing to note about the Salem witch trials isn't the fact that the Puritans had witch trials. That was something that was going on all over the world at the time. The beliefs they had about witches were universal. Protestant, Catholic, didn't matter. That's what people believed. So what was unique about the Salem witch trials wasn't that they happened. They followed a pretty typical pattern of other witch trials that happened in Europe, but it was the response that followed. And so the witch trials themselves lasted for about nine months, 1692 to 1693.
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B
And.
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D
And in the aftermath, there was this public outrage, and the jurors all signed a statement apologizing for what they had done. The judges all apologized for what they had done. Some of the witnesses apologized for what they had done. Reparations were given to the families of the victims. For decades afterwards, Puritan ministers and the Puritan government passed resolutions condemning what had happened. They realized that they had done something wrong and persecuted innocent people. And the reason they had this reputation as witch hunters, as opposed to, say, you know, the Catholic Church or the Catholic Inquisition, you know, burned about 50,000 women as witches in about, you know, a few, a few hundred years. And that continued long after the Salem witch trials. Whereas in Salem, there was, you know, 20 people put to death. And that was something that was very unusual for the Puritans. There weren't really witch persecutions very frequently in Puritan history. So it's this. You know, the fact that the Puritans have this reputation of being these unusually zealous witch hunters actually come from the fact that they were unusually public. They were unusual in publicizing their shortcomings for posterity and telling everyone that they had messed up and done the wrong thing. And they essentially ensured that there was never another witch trial in America. Never, never happened again in New England after that. That was the last time it happened, whereas it continued in other parts of the world also.
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B
Let's.
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D
When it comes to stuff like the Salem witch trials, again, it's like, that's one of the only. Sometimes in school, that's like, the only thing you learn about the Puritans.
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B
No, it's so true. And, you know, we. Let's also close out, Daniel, by talking about this issue of forced conversions, because the Puritans have a reputation of being Persecutors, you know, and sometimes people talk about the American idea of religious freedom as having developed against the Puritan ethos. But part I think, of what you show here is that, no, the core principle of religious freedom was in the Puritans themselves, and that the Puritans did not believe in essentially strong arming someone into becoming a Puritan. Can you talk about that? Right.
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D
The religious person in the Handmaid's Tale is unlike any persecution that took place in an actual Puritan society. So in Puritan society, no one was forcibly converted. Converted, because they didn't believe you could forcibly convert people. Again, it's God who chooses who's the elect and who's not. And only the elect can be members of the church. So if you're a Puritan, it would actually be counted. It would be something you wouldn't want to bring people by force who aren't members of the elect into your church. That was something they tried to avoid. So when Puritan persecution did take place, it always took the form of expelling people. So in New England, for example, when, you know, Quakers showed up, and again, the Quakers are, you know, Atwood's talking about the Quakers as if it's the Quakers today. Whereas the Quakers back then were actually a quite militant group who were very, you know, they'd walk into churches naked and screaming that everyone was damned or, like, shot down the minister. So a lot of this was just public order. It wasn't even a religious thing. And the same, you know, in England, Quakers are persecuted not by the Puritans, by the Stuarts, by the kings, who also persecuted the Puritans. So. And even Roger Williams, who famously is one of the religious exiles from Massachusetts and founded Rhode island as a safe haven from religious persecution, actually himself admitted that it might be a good idea to put some restrictions on the Quakers because he saw them as barbarians that undermined, you know, the peace. But again, this looks nothing like persecution. And by the time you get to later generations of Puritans, you get to people like Cod Mather, who, you know, for someone like Atwood, is the example of everything that's wrong with American Puritanism. Cod Mather condemned those early episodes of persecution of Quakers and he lamented them, said they were a horrible thing, talked about how he had spoken out against such persecution and apologized for what had happened. If you go to England, there was a brief period in England where Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector. He was a Puritan. And, you know, again, Atwood's kind of basing her Persecution off of what she thinks Puritans did to Quakers. But in England, Cromwell was actually, again, quite, quite tolerant of Quakers. And, you know, again, this again goes back to theology. It's like God's in control of everything. So this also relates to authoritarianism and, like, why you allow people freedom. So it's like personal freedom, religious freedom. But that's because, like, God's in control. So if you're state and you tried to force people to behave a certain way or believe certain things or fill a certain role in society, then you're really rebelling or you're fighting against what God's already decreed, right? The world's already working in accordance with what you know. God's micromanaging every little thing. If you're a Puritan, that's what you believe. And so it's not your place as a human being to step into that and believe that you can determine better than God could.
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B
Very interesting stuff. Go ahead.
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D
I'll just add one more thing because I think at what also makes the claim that Puritans united church and state, that's like the stereotypical claim, and that's completely false. So actually, under Puritan law, if you're a minister, you couldn't hold secular office, whereas if you were a secular magistrate, you couldn't be deposed from your position for a purely religious offense. So this is something that's just in the foundational Puritan law codes in Massachusetts. And the goal of that for the Puritans, again, is to protect the church. So to protect the church from interference by these secular magistrates. They had this experience in England where, you know, they thought that the, you know, the king and his, you know, henchmen had been interfering with God's institutions or they hadn't been, you know, pushed far enough in reforming the church in England. So the whole goal was to, you know, kind of separate these two spheres. And so while, while magistrates took advice from ministers, there was no ministers who governed Massachusetts. There was no ministers who governed any Puritan colony. It wasn't a theocracy in that sense. That's the dictionary definition of a theocracy. Instead, they actually recognize a very clear separation between those two things.
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B
I mean, Daniel, I want to commend you for this work because it seems to me that with people like Margaret Atwood who have an ideological axe to grind, and in her case, it seems pretty clear it's a certain type of militant feminism. And in keeping with sort of feminist irresponsibility, she takes a very sketchy view of history. And many of us can kind of see it and we realize that we're being fed some propaganda. But what you've done is you've done the intellectual excavation of showing chapter and verse. You've identified her errors and her mis portrayals and her distortions and you have not only done that, but on the positive side, I think you've brought out the unexpected aspects of Puritan society and also shown how those aspects aren't just incidental. Hey, the Puritans were very tolerant people who didn't want to force their views. You shown that that actually grows right out of Puritan theology itself. They are, you can almost say, theologically compelled not to do that. And all of this is in your book called American the Handmaid's Tale and Puritan History Guys, Follow Daniel stein on substack dnstein.substack.com the website gryphon additions.com products american-dystopia Daniel, thank you very much for joining me.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Michael will tell you this has been a hard year for MyPillow, but hey, it's because of you that they are making it through. They want to thank you for your continued support by passing on some Christmas specials to my viewers and listeners. So get the Children's Bible Story Pillow 5 pack for $29.98 My slippers with a free bottle of Leather Protectant Spray $39.98 Blankets, comforters, duvets as low as $25 on a blowout sale on the standard MyPillows for just $14.98. You can go to MyPillow.com or you can call 800-876-0227. Use promo code DINESH2. Take advantage of these wholesale prices including the standard size MyPillow originally $49.98, now only 1498 Queen size $18.99 Kings only a dollar more. You know that MyPillow products come with a 10 year warranty, but MyPillow has announced they're extending their 60 day money back guarantee. That's right. Orders placed between now and December 25th will have the 60 day money back guarantee extended through March 1st, 2026. Call 800-876-0227 or go to mypillow.com don't forget the promo code. It's D I N E S H.
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Dinesh, do you really want to have a Merry Christmas? You've been hearing about the opportunity to save babies this Christmas time by providing ultrasounds with preborn. Well I have very good news. Right now your gift is doubled and you can save twice as many babies. Join us saving babies this Christmas season. Call 833-850-Baby. That's 833-850-2229. $140 saves five babies. $280 can save $1028 a month. Can save a baby a month for less than a dollar a day. And if you provide an ultrasound machine with your year end gift of $15,000, even that is doubled. And remember, 100% of what you give goes directly to providing ultrasounds. We separately fundraise for administrative and overhead. Make this a merry Christmas. Call 833-850-Baby. That's 833-850-2229 or go to preborn.com dinesh.
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Is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians the revival of an ancient conflict conflict recorded in the Bible. The nation of Israel is a resurrected nation. What if there was going to be a resurrection of another people, an enemy people of Israel? The Dragon's prophecy. Watch it now or buy the DVD at thedragonsprophecyfilm.com.
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Picking up from yesterday, I'm going to develop an argument for life after death that is rooted in the mainstream of Western philosophy. And my guide is none other than the atheist. Yep, atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Now, Schopenhauer was the first great philosopher in the west to be an outspoken atheist. Others like Hobbes and Hume and Diderot, they rejected God, but they never explicitly admitted to being atheists. Schopenhauer begins a tradition of, I want to call it, public atheism in the 19th century. It continues with Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and others, of course, SARTRE in the 20th century, Schopenhauer was a very odd fellow. He was born in Germany, one of the richest families in Germany. He was a pessimist in his outlook, an elitist, a little bit of a misogynist, also a reactionary and but his philosophy begins, it takes off from the starting point of Immanuel Kant, but with important contrast with Kant. Kant was a kind of a dry, mechanical writer. Schopenhauer's prose is vibrant, has memorable turns of phrase, is always worth reading. And so for me, it was quite a discovery to come across the philosophy of Schopenhauer. He was a man of immense philosophical and moral seriousness. He had a huge impact on people, not just in philosophy, but also in the arts. People like Nietzsche, the composer Richard Wagner. Later in the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Schopenhauer's whole reputation rests on a single book which he published at a young age. It's called the World as Will and Idea. And in it, says Schopenhauer, not rather modestly or really immodestly, he says, I'm going to provide, quote, the real solution of the enigma of the world. I'm going to solve basically the human problem in this book. Now, even though Schopenhauer has had this huge influence, he's not that well known. Most people couldn't even say what he believed. He's not widely taught, certainly not as widely as people like Machiavelli or Locke or Rousseau or even, for that matter, Kant. Kant is not very well taught, either people refer to him. But it's very odd. You have the greatest philosopher in the Western world since Plato, by wide acknowledgment, and yet the ordinary educated person in the west, particularly in America, couldn't tell you the first thing about what Kant, or Schopenhauer, for that matter, believed. Now, the importance of Kant and Schopenhauer is that they take something that is a foundational belief in the west and they challenge it. And they challenge it so in such a startling way that even today we have a little trouble grasping what they are saying, because this inborn assumption, this kind of innate belief, is so strong in our minds that it's difficult to dislodge, even though reason says that this belief is quite insecure. Now, for at least a couple of centuries, the prevailing outlook, philosophical outlook, but also, I would say, commonsensical outlook in the west is sort of empirical realism. So what is empirical realism? Well, it's the idea that empirical, by the way, just refers to experience. And realism simply means there's a real world out there, and we come to know it objectively through our senses and through scientific testing and observation. So this is sometimes called the correspondence theory of truth. Why? Because there's a presumed. And let's dwell for a moment on the word presumed. Presumed means we are guessing. Presume means we assume. Presume means we're taking it for granted. And in philosophy, whenever you take something for granted, you always want to be very careful. What are you taking for granted? Can the thing that you're taking for granted really be taken for granted? So the presumed correspondence here is between the real world on the one hand, and our sensory and intellectual apprehension of it on the other. Now, smart people know that sometimes your senses will get it wrong. You know, you're in a desert and you see a mirage, sticks look bent in water. So Your senses can sometimes fool you. But making allowance for all that most people believe. Well, with those exceptions, yes, our senses are stenographers. They give us a reliable and accurate picture of reality. And modern science is based on that, too. Here's biologist Francis Crick. There is an outside world that is largely independent of our observing it. And we can find out about it, and science can find out about it. He says, quote, by using our senses and the operations of our brain. We get the same thing from physicist Steven Weinberg, biologist E.O. wilson. Wilson even says, if empiricism is disproved, the discovery would be quite simply the most consequential in human history. So now what we're going to do is take up that challenge, and we're going to question this idea of empirical realism. And we're going to show that it rests on a dubious, in fact, on an irrational foundation. So let me give you a couple of empirical observations. Here's one. Look, there's the Empire State Building. Here's another one. Hey, can you pass the butter? Here's another one. Just take in that ocean air. These are three experiential observations. Now, the question I'm going to ask you is a difficult one for you to think about. We don't think about these things because we do them instinctively. Try to ask yourself, where are these objects that you are experiencing located? You're tempted to answer, the butter is right there on the table. The ocean air is. Well, it's all around me. And as for the Empire State Building, I'm standing on 35th street in New York and Fifth Avenue, and there it is right in front of me. Now let's slow down that process of apprehending these things. The butter, the air, the Empire State Building, and ask a little bit more probing question. How do you actually experience the Empire State Building? Does the Empire State Building itself, like, jump out of the ground and go inside your head and that's how you experience it? No, it isn't. So since the Empire State Building is over there and you're over here, how do you in fact experience the Empire State Building? And the answer is, you experience it by creating in your mind a picture of the Empire State Building. And then you are arriving at the conclusion that that picture is, in fact, a true and accurate resemblance of the Empire State Building. To repeat, the Empire State Building doesn't enter your head, but the picture is in your head, or more accurately, the picture is in your mind. And so this is happening to us all the time. And it happens with all our senses, by the way. It doesn't just happen with our eyes. Although the example I'm using has to do with seeing. Seeing the Empire State Building. What I'm getting at is that people just kind of assume that if I, quote, see something out there, and I make a picture in my head of it, the picture is an accurate representation, or maybe transcript is a good word of the thing in itself. And this is a mighty big assumption. This is a huge. Remember I used earlier the word you presume. This is actually a huge presumption. And the first person to see this was, in fact, not Kant and not Schopenhauer. It was the English philosopher George Berkeley. And Berkeley is kind of famous in his own way. The University of California at Berkeley is named after him. The town of Berkeley is named after him. But most people don't really know what Berkeley believed. And in fact, if they knew what he believed, they would have trouble believing it. So here's what Berkeley has to say. What Berkeley has to say is that all our experience of the world comes through our perceptions, meaning through our senses. The sense of sight, of hearing, of touch and so on. And if we really think about it, and we ask ourselves, what do we have? What do we know? We know those perceptions. That's all that we know. We have pictures in our mind. We have impressions of what it is like to touch and feel something. We have an impression, again in our mind of what it's like to hear sounds. And all of this, says Berkeley, is going on in our mind. In fact, it's the only place where it could go on. And we always assume that there's like a freestanding reality outside of ourselves, separate from our mind. And we go that our mind is merely copying. It's replicating, it's duplicating this external reality. But, says Berkeley, if we really are honest with ourselves, we have to admit we cannot experience this external reality outside of our minds. We cannot experience it separate from our minds. It is experienced by our minds and in our minds. And if somebody were to really press us and say, hey, Dinesh, you have in your mind a picture of the Empire State Building. And perhaps you have other sensations about the Empire State Building. But even those sensations, even if you touch it, even if you smell it, all those sensations are in fact being registered in your mind. And now you're assuming that separate from your mind, there is an Empire State Building out there of which your mental impression is a sort of duplicate. And Berkeley's point is startling and simple. And Berkeley goes, you're assuming that your mind is making copies of some real world original. And yet, says Berkeley, you've never experienced the original in itself. You've only experienced the copy because that's what your mind gives rise to. Your mind gives rise to a picture of the Empire State Building. Now, in normal life, you could say, you know, if somebody draws a picture, you could say, well, I can. I can sort of see if the picture is a good picture. Let's say it's a picture of Dinesh. I'm going to put the picture alongside Dinesh. We have the picture. We have the real Dinesh. We can compare the two. But if you think about it, our sensory experience is not like that. We have a picture. We assume the picture is of some other freestanding reality. But, says Berkeley, we don't have the reality. We only have the picture. And therefore, says Berkeley, if you want to be empirically honest, if you want to just ask yourself, what is it experientially that you have? You have the perception, you have the impressions, but you don't have the reality, that quote corresponds to those impressions. In other words, says Berkeley, what we all take to be the real world, which is an external world separate from our senses. Berkeley goes, where is it? I see my impression of it. You have your impression of it. But that's all we have. We have our impressions. Our whole life is these, a collection of these impressions. And we can relate the impressions, the one to the other. But if somebody asks us to produce that duplicate reality that these impressions are supposed to be impressions of, we are hard pressed to do it. And so what you have with Berkeley, we'll pick this up the next time. Is a just a devastating empiricist attack on empiricism. It is a devastating attack on the idea of some hypothetical, presumed, made up, invented, non empirical, nonverifiable real world. And we again, are so used to taking it for granted that it never occurs to us to question the existence again. Berkeley is not questioning the existence of our impressions. He's not questioning whether we have the experience. What he's questioning is whether that experience is the experience of some kind of duplicate world of which our experience is merely making copies. He's saying we assume that our experience functions like a Xerox machine of sorts or a camera. It keeps taking snapshots of reality, reality, reality, reality. And Berkeley goes, wait a minute. At the end of the day, you have a bunch of snapshots. There is no reality to which you can compare them, because that reality, so called, is nothing more than more snapshots. So this is a difficult idea to grasp philosophically, but it's a very important, important idea. And we'll see next time how this idea is taken up by philosophers like Kant and Schopenhauer to point to a very interesting pathway to discovering a world behind the world. We'll take that up next time.
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