Dennis & Julie: Are People Innately Good

Your dog and a stranger are drowning. You can only save one. Who do you choose? Dennis Prager says your answer reveals everything about how you define right and wrong. In his new book, If There Is No God, Prager exposes the danger of emotion-based morality and why without objective truth, society descends into chaos. This isn't a religious book. It's a rational case for moral clarity in a confused age. If There Is No God from Dennis Prager. Order now at PragerStore.com.

Hey everybody, Dennis Prager here with Julie Hartman, and it's the Dennis and Julie Podcast. So I gotta tell you folks, and I I hope people realize how sincere I am because it sounds sort of hackneyed or clichéd. I really look forward to this.

Dennis, you stole my line. I was just about to say, on the days when we don't do the podcast, I miss doing it. Do you have the same thing?

Totally, yes. And it's not like I don't have a chance to talk a lot.

I know, we talk almost every day on the phone, which is—

No, no, I don't mean that we don't have a chance.

That's right.

That I don't have a chance to talk to the public a lot. I do a show every day. I do you know, the PragerU podcast and speeches. But this is unique. Well, we have something very special, and I won't get into that, but it is true. So, hi everybody. I was thinking about the theory that I now have. I've, you know, I always have theories. By the way, just Side note, I always have side notes. You're going to get a big kick out of this. So I've always thought about life from the earliest memories that I have, and in my 20s, so many realizations about life just hit me. And I even wrote my first book then, and it's still in print. It's the most widely read English introduction to Judaism. So I've been thinking a long time, and I remember thinking when I hit my 30th birthday, I don't think these, uh, realizations about life are going to come quite as, you know, hard and fast as they have been in my 20s.

Boy, were you wrong.

Boy, was I wrong. Exactly. So here's one of my latest. The most important question in life is, is there a God? Because if there isn't, then this is all somewhat of a bad joke. It's over eternity and oblivion, etc. Second most important is, are humans innately good? Because everything changes if you believe that they are. On the personal level, on the philosophic level, on the moral level, I think on every level. So you attended, you were in the audience for my debate just this past week, which we're gonna— by the way, we are going to put this up on the internet. Just want you folks to know, as soon as they, they get ready technically with the, with the video. And it was about an hour and a half, was pretty intense. And I know what I think, but it's not important. Well, might be important, but I'm curious what you thought sitting in the audience. So the debate was with a rabbi, and to my surprise, an Orthodox rabbi, who said people are innately good. I don't think we're innately evil, but we're certainly not innately good. So how did it look to you in the audience?

Well, first of all, I want to tell our listeners that it was so fun. I brought a few friends to the debate, some friends my age and then some older family friends, and Dennis was so kind. We went backstage after the debate and sat in that fun room for about an hour, I would say, and you visited with them. And I I just so appreciate that you do that. Throughout my time working with you, you've always been so welcoming to my friends. And the, you know, growing up in LA, I've been exposed to a lot of people who are in the public eye and who are famous, and I've never met someone quite like you in the sense that you always want to talk to your fans and to people. You never view it as a burden. And I think that's really special about you. I wasn't answering your question. I'll go on to answer your question.

But I want to say that. Yes, please do.

Please comment on it now and then I'll answer.

So this is going to actually take a few moments between us, not just me. It's a very important observation you made and one I take very seriously. So I'll give you one example of something I decided very early on. I began lecturing at your age. It's one of the many things we have in common. I was 21 when I began speaking because I had just come back from the Soviet Union and I was sent around the country to speak. About the Soviet Union, about dissidents, about Jews in the Soviet Union, and so on. After my first few speeches— so it almost always was a speech, questions and answers, and then you go home. The speaker goes home, the people go home. But from the very first speech, people would line up after the speech and Q&A were done with. And I remember thinking, I have zero obligation to stay. I don't think even people expect me to. I just worked my tail off for 2 hours, took every question that the sponsors wanted me to take. But then I thought, from the beginning, who the hell am I to say no to people who want to talk to me? I'm no big deal. I should just be honored that people want to talk to me. I'm a 21-year-old zilch. So when I was 31 and 41 and 51 and so on, and I thought, well, I'm not a zilch, but who the hell am I? I've had the same outlook. I'm honored that people want to talk to me. So, right, it's a very big factor. And by the way, that I got rewarded, as I think you know.

Yes, I love this.

It's a great— it's really a great story. So I would traditionally— and that meant literally almost always another hour And I had just been standing for 2 hours. It's not— oh, and more than that, there's almost always a VIP reception beforehand. So I've just been on for 3 to 4 hours. And yet I still stayed. And then I was rewarded. Let's see, how many— so 18 years ago. 18 years ago, I gave a speech in San Diego. And the last person in the line to ask me a question was the woman I married.

And boy, did you get rewarded. You know, I love your wife just as much as I love you. She is so smart. Seriously, I, I want to tell you all, whenever I have a question about a policy or even just a question about life, I email Sue and she will respond with like 50 articles, 50 books that I can read with footnotes. And she's so precise. I mean, She's really your secret weapon. The two of you are a force.

Well, that's right. So here's the fascinating thing, which I, I think, I think you know. So I was certain that love at first sight is nonsense. It's only in movies. Not that people don't— might not feel it, but it's not real. It's not enduring. And obviously I meet women at every speech, just like I met my wife, and I never had the reaction I did. Within maybe 3 minutes I said, this is— I've met the woman that I should be with. And She didn't know that, but I did. And anyway, my only point is God rewarded me for all those years of waiting till the last person in line had something to say to me.

Well, that motivates me. One day, hopefully I'll be speaking.

Yeah, you should do the same thing.

I'll look out for that last guy in line.

Yes, don't leave after your speech.

Well, I know that we have gone far away from the original question and I want to get back to it, but I do want to tell our listeners a really funny story about Sue. That we talk about a lot because it's the name I call her and you call her, the bombshell. I just think this is hilarious. So last year when I worked for Dennis, I was on his show once a week, and otherwise I would just help you with your life. And one of the things that I would do was read Dennis's email. And that is— boy, do you get a lot of emails. And just as an aside, thank God you saw my original email a year and a half ago.

That's another amazing thing.

It's amazing. It really is, because You are just flooded with them. Anyway, you know, occasionally Dennis will get a mean email from someone. And I thought one of them was so funny because it was just this paragraph saying, Dennis Prager, you bigot, you white supremacist, you this, you that. And then at the end of it, the guy wrote, the only thing you have going for you is that blonde bombshell Sue.

Oh, is that where you got bombshell?

That's where I got it from.

Oh, that is hilarious.

That's where it's funny because the guy was just, Right. You know, crucifying you.

But there is something positive about me.

And there was something positive at the end. So now we jokingly, whenever I'm around Sue, I go, "Hello, bombshell. Hello, bombshell." That's correct.

Yes. Which, that's the last thing she thinks she is, which is—

I know.

Drives me crazy.

Well, she's beautiful and she's so smart.

Well, you know my line, right? They come for Dennis and they stay for Sue.

They come for you and they stay for Sue. That's what someone told you.

Yeah, that's right.

So I just say you.

That's right. Yes. Well, all right.

So back to the debate.

Yes. So, oh, yes, you were mentioned. The reason we got onto it, because you mentioned how I reacted to you, to the people you brought.

Yes.

So, yeah, that, that has not changed. That's— and, you know, also one other thing. So people should know this. So there's virtually no day, at least if I'm out of the house at a restaurant or at an airport that's— so people come over and say, can I get a selfie with you? Or just come over and then I offer, would you like a selfie? And they're— they always think they're bothering me, and I don't think they're bothering me. I just, just want to say that.

You're truly honored by it.

I am. That's right.

It is an honor.

Well, of course it is. I also remember it's they're asking it because of me, not because I'm a famous actor, right? There's a very big difference. Yes, they're not asking it because I'm famous, although that's a factor I acknowledge, but that— if that's not the primary—

that's a good point.

It's because I'm Dennis Prager, right? When you meet an actor, you don't know them from Adam. You, you know the roles they played. And that they're famous.

Well, it speaks to your humility that you're so welcoming. And also what I notice with you is you really ask questions of the people who come up to you. Again, growing up when I would see famous people, it was very transactional. You get a selfie and, and sometimes the, the famous person would be polite and thank the person. But you, because of course you're in the business of learning these things, I even noticed with my friends, you're asking them about their college experiences and their dating life, and you really care about the person and you want to understand their life.

There's a selfish component. I just want you to know the selfish component is I really don't want to be speaking. I want to be listening. Yes, boy, I am more interested in them than in me at that time.

I wonder, and I promise people we will get back to this debate, we go off topic a lot, but I think that's what makes it fun. I think about you a lot, Dennis. How do you preserve your voice? Because you do a 3-hour radio show and then you do videos and speeches. Is that a problem for you?

Yes, no, it isn't, but I consciously, I don't remember when, but a long time ago, I decided to speak at the pitch, I guess that's the word, that I was most comfortable with. So I don't speak with any strain, and I think a lot of radio people do because they have a different voice on the radio than in real life. Hey everybody, and you know what, if I spoke like that, I would have lost my voice, right? Yeah, it's an interest. It's a good question. Okay, so how'd you react? So you were at the debate, um, are people innately good?

I loved it. And you know, I want Sean to put up a picture of this. I was taking notes in the audience. And just the other night we were at Shabbat dinner, and I was taking notes at Shabbat dinner because you have these one-liners that are so powerful. And one of the things that you said that I wrote that really stuck with me is, "There's no project in life if people are innately good." Because again, if people are innately good, there's no need to improve people.

Right. Yeah.

That was— you just have these one-liners and I really took note of that because they're concise and you get right to it. And, you know, one of your arguments was, just look at people who are young. You have to tell a kid to say thank you. There are in these small ways we see—

Thousands of times.

Right. If it were an instinct, then we wouldn't need to tell people.

That's why it drives me crazy, Julie. How could people live on Earth and think people are innately good?

I know. Well, I will answer that question, but one of the things I also noticed, because, you know, A, I want to learn from you, of course, when I watch your debates, but B, selfishly, I'm going into this business and I want to see the way you argue and why it sticks with people. And a big strength of yours is that you don't rely on studies and research. I noticed that your opponent, the rabbi, in bringing up that people are innately good, he said, "Yale University did a study that babies," there's something like, "babies take well to people who are kind to others more than those who aren't." And it was funny because the rabbi said, "Dennis is going to crap on Yale because he'll say it's a left-wing institution," and you got up and you said, "Damn right I'm going to crap on Yale. Yale comes out with all these studies saying that, you know, X, Y, and Z, but you don't rely on re— because I was even thinking the other day, there's a study for everything. There's so many damn studies out there. If I wanted to find, you know, a reason why elephants are actually human, there's a study out there that can confirm that. And your arguments rest upon common sense, and that's what makes you a strong debater and a strong thinker.

Yes, and it is also why So many people reject what I have to say. They— so as usual, I'm telling you, you're unique.

Thank you.

No, I wasn't a compliment. It was a statement of fact. It's like telling, say, apples fall from trees because of gravity. But anyway, you're welcome. So you are taught— one is taught at an American school I was too. You are taught from a very early age to reject your own thinking, to reject common sense. It's never venerated at school. No teacher goes, "Well, what does common sense suggest?" Instead, experts. So experts say is to the modern secular individual what thus saith the Lord has been to religious people. There is no difference. You show me the study—

that's a great line. That is so true.

It is true. It's expert is the— is capital E. It is the new god.

You know, now when I debate with people, I know I, I didn't used to do this, but now I will militantly never reference studies or research because you can just win over people with your daily observations and your common sense. And that's what you did.

And there's a study on every side.

Exactly.

As you pointed out, study will show anything. Studies— we're told now that studies show that we're not born male or female, right? I mean, and that's, that's called science.

You know, another thing I noticed— so your opponent referenced a lot of studies. The other thing that I observed was that he pointed to all of this evidence in people's daily lives of how people do acts of kindness. They smile at a stranger on the street. You know, there was a plane crash a few years ago and someone jumped in the water to help save the passengers. And your response to that was, just because people do daily acts of kindness, that doesn't mean that somehow that they are innately good. And Dennis, the arguments, and I mean this with no disrespect to the rabbi, as you said at the beginning of the speech, I thought it was a very classy thing to do, and I know that you meant it. He does deserve respect. But these arguments seemed very childish to me, and just this anecdotal evidence of how people do good. I remember another thing he said, because you brought up murderers, and he said, he responded to you and he said, "Well, you know, Dennis, not everyone is a murderer." And you responded to him by saying, "Well, that doesn't mean that they're innately good. It just means that they're not a murderer." There's a, you know, there's always a reason.

Well, no, it doesn't mean that they're good. Not that, not in the— forget the innately. I said it doesn't mean— if you're not a murderer, that doesn't make you a good person.

Right.

Means you're not a murderer.

Exactly.

That's right. That was a very important point. Listen, I know we're not saying the rabbi's name, so there's no chance. I mean, there's a chance people could look it up, but they're not going to. So it has nothing to do with the man himself, but the arguments which are made by many are childish. They're a desire to be childlike. You want to believe people are innately good, although I must say, I don't even understand that yearning. As I pointed out, and I know audiences, And I am sure that for most people, even those who agreed with me, this was a new revelatory point. You are a happier person if you don't believe people are innately good, because then you're always pleasantly surprised by the good people you meet instead of constantly disappointed by the bad people you meet. That's big.

It is big. And I also remember you opened the debate I think it was your first line or your second line, you said it is moral chaos if we believe that people are innately good. And I think that relates to the point that you just made, because it is moral chaos if you just assume that people are good. Why would we need police then?

Why do we need laws? As I've often said, why don't they just put signs on the highway, speed limit, Whatever you feel is right.

Well, you asked a few minutes ago, why, why in the world would someone want to believe that people are innately good, or why do they believe it? And I was thinking, well, as I was listening to the rabbi, this occurred to me. And of course, I've always had this thought, but it really was, was very clear when I was listening to him.

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Dennis, you asked me a few minutes ago why someone would ever think that people are innately good. And the answer I have for you is that leftism requires very little of you. It doesn't ask you to look inside yourself and recognize unpleasant things. So someone like that rabbi, and I get it, would rather live in a world where he believes that people are innately good because that's just easier for him. Look at defund the police, for example. That is a fantasy predicated on a utopian idea that somehow we can just walk around and we don't need any kind of law enforcement. So it's intellectually and morally shallow to think that people are innately good because in a way, you're just trying to save yourself from a kind of pain in processing that people are innately not good. And that's hard.

That's, that's correct. We, we discussed this, I believe, last time, but, uh, it's, it's sort of preoccupying me right lately. So I'm doing a PragerU video on this as well, right? The notion that if I have good intentions, that's all that matters. It's back to being— it's back to the basically good. If I'm basically good and I have good intentions, then I must be right. That is the reason that people on the left are convinced that every conservative is evil, because if they're good and they have good intentions, then clearly we don't have good intentions, right? And whether we're innately good or not, we don't have good intentions. So I don't have that view. I think a lot of people on the left have good intentions and do horrible things. Good intentions guarantees nothing good, nothing. Who doesn't have good intentions? I mean, did we go over this? Because I don't want to repeat this. Did we do this last time?

I think we mentioned it last— oh, just mentioned it? Yeah, but well, because you did a column on it last week.

Yeah, that's right. Yes, but Who doesn't have good intentions? Who wakes up and goes, you know, I really want to harm people today? Stalin killed 40 to 60 million people and put Mao in power, who killed another 80 million people. 60 to 80. So it's hard to get as evil as Stalin. In human history. And yet, uh, about a dozen people in England and the U.S. gave him the secrets to the atom bomb. They gave the biggest mass murderer in the world at the time, and in history of the world at the time— Mao may have surpassed him— uh, the secrets to the atom bomb, right? They didn't do it so as to murder 80 million people, 60, 40 million people. They did it because they believed that he was ushering in a new beautiful way of life with communism. Right.

Well, I'm brought back to, you did mention this on the podcast last week. You said that you had a listener call in and say to you, Dennis, I no longer listen to you. Well, of course he was listening to you if he called in. Yeah, right. But he said that he took a break from listening to you. Right. Because it was just too hard for him. And I loved your response to him. You said, that's cowardly. We would all love to just pretend that these problems in the world don't exist, but we have to face them. And that's exactly the point that we're making. You can just think that Stalin had good intentions, or anyone who has good intentions, it's fine. You can think that people are innately good and it's fine. It's hard to process these things. And wouldn't we all love to live in a world where we can just believe this?

And is it much easier to blame America than yourself?

Right. Well, that's the whole point, that the left externalizes everything. And that is— that became very clear to me, believe it or not, when I saw a bumper sticker in Harvard Square a few months ago. And the bumper sticker said, "Fight racism." And that's when it occurred to me, this— the left will just externalize everything. You know what the conservative equivalent of that bumper sticker is?

Fight yourself. Fight you. That's right. That's exactly right. That's one of the reasons I'm religious, because Judeo-Christian religions have all taught you are your biggest problem. Yes, that's right. It's exactly— so I'm curious So you just graduated Harvard, as some, some of many, most of the people listening probably know, just a couple of weeks ago. So if I had gone to Harvard, and that's one of my sad things that I never, because of the, the lockdowns, it was just not really feasible.

I know.

But I would have loved to have gone and spoken while you were there, but it is what it is. And so I'm curious, think for a moment What subject could I have spoken on which would have annoyed the audience the most? Religion. Absolutely.

Religion. Fascinating. There's such a— and I know I've said that is fascinating.

I was thinking of you're your problem, not America. But, but you're right.

You know, I was actually first going to answer Trump. Because, I mean, they have a Pavlovian response to Trump. Anyone who says anything good about Trump, you're immediately Nazi. But I think it's religion. And I have found this just among my own peers. They're so hostile to religion. It's not just that they think it's a simpleton mentality, although of course they do. And by the way, Dennis, I readily admit I used to think that a lot of religious people were simpletons back when I was a liberal, because you grow up in these secular environments and that's what you're told. But it goes beyond that. There's a hostility and an anger towards religion and religious people, and I can't quite figure it out. I want to ask why you think that anger exists, but I think it's going back to what we, what we just discussed, which is religion does require you to look inward and no one is used to doing that. They want to find someone else to blame, and religion gives you no one else to blame but yourself. So in a way, our answers were the same. Your answer was you, you're the biggest problem, not America. I said religion, but for the same reason. So why? That's why.

I do this podcast with Julie. That's so valid. Really, religion says to them, something knows better than you. Your good intentions are not as important as the values of the Bible. Yes, the Bible knows better than me. That— so this goes back— look, you know, when you start me on religion, it's very hard to get off the subject, but it is everything. It really is the kernel of the whole civil war that we're engaged in. So the Garden of Eden story, whether you take it literally or not, is of no concern to me. But this story has shaped Western civilization. So the serpent says to Eve, eat from the tree of knowledge. Yes, I, you know, I, I know that the God said you shouldn't and so on, but hey, if you eat from it— what was his promise? You will be like God, determining good and evil. And that insight is everything.

It is.

They want to be the determiners of right and wrong. That's right.

And I say to my peers, I go, how arrogant that you just throw religion. I mean, there's, there's so much arrogance on the left. I know better than you. I don't need— I say to my friends all the time, I go, okay, well, where does free will come from if not religion? Can you come up with— let's look at all of the things that are established just in the first few pages of Genesis. How would you establish that if you were creating society from scratch? What's your theory? And many of them go, oh, we just have free will because we have free will. And I want to go, but the secular don't believe we have free will.

When you really, really push them, all right, they, they don't believe—

that's an excellent insight.

Yes. Oh, oh, they're the— it's, it's, it— we're fooling ourselves. It's all neurological charges that we, we can't fully understand them right now, but science will. So that's one of the reasons they don't blame criminals for their behavior. Right? They're not really responsible for what they did. Only if there's free will can we hold people morally responsible. That's an excellent point. I haven't thought of it. Oh, it's so huge. That's really huge. Yeah, that's another reason they hate religion. Yes, they don't want people to be held— ironically, great column, Dennis.

That's a really good column. Why the, the pathologies that leftists have that go hand in hand with why they hate religion.

So let me tell you what I have said on my radio show for— it will be 40 years in 6 weeks. I, I have said there's one constant theme in everything that I have said, this— the consequences of secularism.

You told me that, I think, one of the first days I started working with you, and it changed the way that I view the world, literally everything. I, I'm not kidding. Any observation that I have nowadays, it goes back to the secular world, the lack of religiosity. But back to my point about arrogance, you know, it's so funny to me that people on the left, they claim to be so compassionate and they claim to be helping other people and they're so humble. But I remember one of my friends was saying that they were going to the administration at Harvard to try to get rid of a class. By the way, I don't have much faith in the administrations at any of these universities, but that's an aside. What my, my instinct was, what gives you the idea that as a 21-year-old, you know more than these 50 or 60-year-old professors whose job has been to teach at these universities? It's, it's so arrogant. And doesn't it occur to people my age that when they're tearing these things down, first of all, they're the beneficiaries of these systems, but second of all, you've only been on the earth for two decades. How do you think you know better?

So you see, this is why being with you is reliving my life. It is. It's eerie. When I was at Columbia and students were taking over buildings and all this, and they, they demanded that they make a new curriculum and there be no required courses. This is not all new, this stuff, right? And I remember saying, wait a minute. When, so, well, I said the wait a minute after the professors and deans reacted, fine, you're right. You should set the curriculum. And I remember saying, wait a minute, these 50-year-olds who've been in this for 30 years, they don't know better what I should study than I do? Then why are they in that job? Right. By the way, no, this is another feature of the left. Nobody knows better than I, and nobody is better than I who ever lived. I— it's an interesting thing to ask a typical progressive student, okay? Name someone— let's say you're American— name someone in American history who was a finer human than you.

That is my next question that I'm asking my peers. I imagine the answer would be Obama. They would probably say—

All right, non-living. Non-living. Yeah. They would probably say Martin Luther King. Okay. Right. Well, there, I don't want to get there because that's going to be— I happen to be a great admirer of his. I think he saved this country in many ways, but— And now the left is turning against him. Yeah, well, exactly. And there will be there are serious personal flaws, which I don't think dismisses his greatness. But anyway, my point is, I believe Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams were greater than me. Yes, they were giants. And they don't believe there were giants who predate them.

No, they don't. And the thing also I can't understand is I love talking with people who know more than I do. I don't view it, you know, people on the left are so threatened by that idea that someone may know something more than they do or be a finer person than they. I love encountering those people because then I can improve myself. Even when I read the Bible, I was actually telling my dad last night at dinner because thanks to you and your Torah commentaries, I've really really felt this desire to understand religion more. And whenever I read the Bible, I know it sounds corny, I just have this internal glow. And I just feel, I feel like I understand the world better. And I feel like I'm improving myself and I'm inching closer to something great. And that's such, the left has used the word empowered so much and I have sort of come to hate the word because it's overused. But It is a truly empowering feeling to feel like you are, you are inching closer and you're not quite there yet, but you can maybe get there because you're learning from people who, who do know more than you. Why, why are they so threatened by that? Isn't that a beautiful thing that you want to strive to have?

The, the convoluted world in which we live is very, is, can be depressing. I have to say. So it's funny you should say that. What you just said about I want, I want, I want people to be smarter than me. I want people to be better than me. I've often thought the last thing I want for the world is that I be the best person in it. The world is really not in good shape if I'm the best that the world has produced.

Dennis, the world is in pretty good shape if you're the best that the world has produced.

Okay, that's very sweet of you. But I look, I think I'm a good person. I strive to be. I've strived my whole life. Nevertheless, there are better people than me, and I'm dying for there to be better people than me. Right. It's— and I have met people, and I thought, that person has really fought his nature even better than I have. Right. And I love that. It's empowering, if you will. It is empowering.

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Now back to the Bible, since you raised it, and my, and my Torah commentary, the first 5 books of the Bible, of the Torah. Everything in the rest of the Old and New Testaments is predicated on the 5 books. Love your neighbor as yourself, the Ten Commandments, the creation of the world, Adam and Eve— everything is in the first 5 books. The rest of the Bible is, is built on that. So that's why I'm doing my commentary on that. And I believe that the first 5 books are, are ultimately from God. I believe that God speaks in the other books, but those 5 books are from God. That's my belief. And, uh, I have a saying— I think you've heard me say this, but I'm— I don't know when— and I'm jumping on your statement about being empowered when you read it. Yes. So I don't believe in, in the Torah, the first 5 books, because I believe in God, right? I believe in God because I believe in the Torah.

I haven't heard you say that.

Oh, then you have heard one of my most important lines just now. That I don't offer that when I make— when I ever— I debate an atheist, you know, what are your arguments for God's existence? I don't offer that. But for me, that is as powerful an argument for God. The Torah is as powerful an argument for God's existence. Yes. As, uh, how did this all come about, which is, right, I think the ultimate argument.

That's very powerful because, with all due respect to Christianity and to Christians, one of the things growing up— I, I grew up in a fairly secular home, but I did go to CCD, and I remember the—

tell people what CCD is. I actually—

Dennis, this is embarrassing— I don't know what it stands for. Catholic something, but it's— yes, it's Catholic, um, religious education. Forgive me, Catholic listeners. I— the first thing I'm going to do when this podcast is over is Google what does CCD stand for. Um, but I remember one of the teachers telling us, you know, you just— God, God exists, and you've got to believe in God. And you, you know, you sort of raise your hand and you go, why? And then— and no one could really— no one could really provide a lot of answers besides just the fact, like, you have to believe in him because it's accepted knowledge that he exists. And what I love about your statement is, even though you write in your Torah commentary, which I've read many times, as you know, that we don't have proof for God's existence, we have evidence, you're starting with the evidence, and then from there you're saying, okay, this is why I believe in God. That's so much more powerful than just teaching people God exists and believe it.

You will love this. So on He went to CCD.

It stands for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine.

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Thank you, Sean. The word Catholic's not in it. He went to it too. So surrounded by two Irish Catholics. Irish Catholics who have somewhat strayed. Don't say that. Somewhat. I said somewhat. Yes, exactly. So I, I do a podcast for PragerU every week, the Pryor Side Chat. Yes, one of my favorites. Thank you. It's quite popular, which means a lot to me. So I always open up with some thoughts and I take a question, a video question, almost always a young person, and then I take other questions. So the video question in the latest video chat is, a young man who I assume is Christian, uh, said, Dennis, you have said— and I'm paraphrasing— that it is more important to you to explain to people why it is— why God is important than why God exists. Yes. He said, my Christian friends and I don't, don't understand that. The most important is obviously why God exists. And I said, that's not true. The, uh, the number of people who believe in God is gigantic, and, and for a large percentage of them, it's completely irrelevant. It means nothing, right? And, and every, every religious person listening or watching this podcast has to admit, if someone says, 'I believe in God,' you know nothing about them. You know nothing about their values. You know nothing about their theology, right? It means nothing. Yes, it does mean nothing, right? So of course what matters to me is You have to know why God is important. Yes. And, and religious Jews, religious Catholics, religious Protestants failed in explaining that.

I think the best part of your Torah commentary is your introduction or your preface. And I know I've said this before, that is what hooked me because of the way that you pitched it. You said, I'm not trying to make you a Jew, I'm not trying to make you a Christian, I'm just trying to show you that a world with the values of the Bible and of God is a better world than one without it. And I thought that was so compelling. And I remember I was— I feel like I'm always saying I was debating with my friends, but it's true. That's what I do all day at school.

And they're still your friends. And they're still my friends, miraculously.

And I made the argument that— I was sort of making the argument that a world with Bible-based values is, just as you said, better than a world without it. And one of my friends responded, "But isn't that a sort of brutally practical way of arguing for the existence of God? And doesn't that sort of take away from how you should be viewing God if you're just arguing from a practical standpoint?" And— Why? Well, exactly, why? Well, essentially what they're saying is you should believe in God because God is good, or you should just have faith. And if you're arguing from just a practical standpoint, i.e., we need God because then there's moral chaos without God, then you're somehow taking away from his glory or from the reverence he's supposed to have on his own. And so my response to her was— I hope I'm saying this as eloquently as possible, it's a hard concept— but The fact that a world with Bible-based values is better than a world without it is the proof for God, and that is why we should love God. I don't just view it— thank you— I don't just— that doesn't take away from his glory, that substantiates his glory. If the world with God is a practical, good world where people behave and the trains run on time, etc., that's all the— you know, that's why I love God. And so I don't understand why those two ideas are incompatible.

All that has done is hurt religion. Yes. Because it puts religious people outside of the realm of reality.

When you say all that has done, you mean just loving God for the sake of loving God?

No, no, no, just saying, oh no, no, no, forget the practical implications. Okay. Just the glory of God. Yes. And all of that is lovely, but, but it— if the world can do well without God, it's irrelevant if God exists. Exactly, exactly.

Boy, you know, sometimes I think to myself, Dennis, these ideas seem so obvious to us, and when you tell them to people my age— or forget people my age— any age, they, they can't process it.

No, because it would mean that they'd have to they'd have to say they were wrong their whole life. Right.

And the problem that we see now, I think our biggest problem is that we're not producing morally strong people anymore. And that's why their heads are so screwed up. And I see really, you know, good people in my own life, and they just cannot think straight. To say something like that girl who I have in mind just said to me, well, you're just arguing from a practical standpoint and not a glory of God standpoint. The fact that she can't understand that the practical is evidence for the glory of God Again, I'm sincerely not saying it in a mean way. No, of course not. I'm not trying to call this person stupid. No. But these things seem so logical to us, and it's really hard for me to understand that a lot of people just don't seem to get that. And the reason is we coddle people too much. We're not producing morally strong people. If people are learning in schools that there are 38 genders and gender is fluid and your sex doesn't matter, We are not— we cannot teach people that, not only because it's wrong, but also because it jumbles their brain. And people think that it's just confined to the realm of the intellectual, but it bleeds into the moral. When your brain is jumbled in that way, morally you become jumbled too.

And that's what we're seeing. That's exactly right. So, uh, I'm just going to bounce off what you just said about sex I don't mean the act of sex, but sexes and gender.

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Did you, did you know any, or did you know of any transgender students at Harvard?

Absolutely, yes.

Really? How many? That I know? Not personally, even of, or no? 5. There were 5 when you were there just now? There were 5 transgender students at least? Obviously, because you didn't know everyone.

At least. So that's a low—

that's a low number, right? So was it mostly, uh, transgender men? In other words, women who, who became men? Or— that's fascinating.

Yes, yes, it was mostly women who became men.

Right, I suspected so. That's why I asked. Why do you suspect so? Oh, because Abigail Shrier's book convinced me that the crisis is, is far more common of teenage girls saying they're boys than teenage boys saying they're girls. Right. So did you know any of them personally?

Yes, I did. I went to high school with one of them, and then was—

was individual went to Harvard too. So this was a transgender male, obviously? Yes. Yeah. So, uh, if I met this person, what would I think this person is, male or female? Male. Okay. Yeah, he looks—

he looks like a man.

So if he didn't say to me, I'm transgender, there would be no reason for me to assume—

No, you might hear it. You might hear it in his voice. Sometimes I find with transgender— Well, voice is a toughie. Yes, voice sometimes indicates.

But otherwise, so he had facial hair?

Yes. Well, that's fascinating.

So I don't know any personally, but I know of one publicly that I've talked about a lot— Leah Thomas. Yes, the the male who transgendered to female and now— Who transgendered?

You said— is that a verb? It's a new verb that we're making up.

Yeah, well, transitioned. Is that the term? Transitioned to female. Yes. And now swims against other females or against females and keeps winning the races and setting records. University of Pennsylvania. Swim team. And I, I wrote and broadcast many times that this is— this person is the quintessence of narcissism. You have to think really highly of yourself to defeat biological women when you're a biological man and think you're okay in doing so. There's something screwy with your moral character.

You know, I would agree with you now. I wouldn't have agreed with you a few years ago. I remember the first time in my memory that the transgender issue came onto the scene was, I believe, is in 2015 or 2016 when Bruce Jenner transitioned. And I remember he did a Diane Sawyer interview, and I had never in my life heard of what a transgender person was. And I remember that interview made such an impression on me, and I felt, I felt a lot of sympathy for him. And I thought to myself, my God, how hard it must be to grow up living in a body that you don't feel comfortable in. And I remember thinking, okay, this is clearly— this is very rare, and boy, when it happens, it is a tragedy. Now, the reason why I say I agree with your statement is because it has become so common. I also learned that thanks to Abigail Shrier's book, where there is an epidemic— it's really a social fad now of people transitioning, and not just numbers in the transgender realm, of course, a lot of people are coming out as bisexual or as gay. These numbers have gone way, way up. And so yes, Dennis, now people have seen that they get rewarded for this. They're on the COVID of newspapers or they can win sports matches. And it's really unfortunate because even just 5 or 6 years ago, again, I wouldn't have agreed with that statement. I had enormous sympathy for the transgender community. And now unfortunately, and no one is willing to acknowledge this because they're so afraid of being called bigots But now people are using it as a tool. And by the way, I view this in the same way that I view the charge of racism. Whenever people at Harvard would say that a microaggression was racist, I would go, you know, you are actually cheapening actual racism by saying that something benign and silly and not racist is racist. And now there's sort of a parallel with this transgender movement. The people who are coming out because, you know, they want to gain an advantage in college admissions, the college admissions process, or they want to win a sports match. It really is unfortunate to the very, very, very small amount of people who genuinely do not feel comfortable in their own body.

I couldn't agree more. The racism is the classic cheapening of an evil I was raised to believe it's one of the worst. Look, I was raised to believe it was one of the great evils, among other reasons, because of the Holocaust. Right. Hitler had said that the, the great battle in history is between Aryans and Jews, two different races, as he called them. So I, all I thought of, and I thought of slavery, and then I thought of Jim Crow. And, and now you're accused of racism, of white supremacy, if just, just for being a Republican. You don't have to actually do anything or say anything.

It's so sick. And I think about the harm, you know, the left, all they talk about is wanting to help minorities. It is so sick to me the way that they try to foment racial divides because that harms minorities. When you are teaching young Black children that they are victims and that the entire world is against them and that they'll never be able to get past the color of their skin because every white person hates them, you are setting back Black children more than you can believe. And it really makes me upset. On this note, this is a— we're veering off topic a little bit, but it's something I've been thinking about in the past few days and I want to ask you. I've been having a hard time increasingly in the past few weeks as I've come home from college and I've been reading and reading and just learning more about the destruction of the left, I found it to be increasingly difficult to converse with my liberal friends. And, you know, Dennis, we've— a theme of the past few podcasts has been that it's a feather in my cap that I do have liberal friends, and I do count it as a feather in my cap. But sometimes I'm sitting and I'm debating with them And I just think to myself, you're a coward. I'm sorry to say it, but you are a coward. If you can in good faith think that the left is a good force, you are ignoring all of the evidence to the contrary. And, well, first of all, I want to ask you, do you have liberal friends? I've met many of your friends. I know that many of them are conservative. I want to ask if you have liberal friends. And second of all, how do you deal with that? I don't want to just kick them out of my life because in this country we need to talk with people with whom we disagree. And I don't think that they're entirely bad people, but I am finding it to be very difficult to overlook the cowardice if they are condoning these ideas that have taken hold.

So, uh, it would make me sound better but I, I literally can't lie. I don't have leftist friends.

That's what I thought. Well, leftist is different from liberal.

I don't have liberal friends, right? Uh, not that I, I, I'm opposed to it, but it's not like liberals are seeking me out for friendships, let's be honest. That's true, but The, the reason goes to the core of my beliefs about friends. The, the beauty of friendship— and I have a big chapter on this in my happiness book— I don't know how you're happy without friends. Friends have always— from my— from 6th grade on, I've always had incredibly close male friends. Well, one of the defining elements of friendship is the comfort level you have with them, right? I'm not as comfortable with people whose values I reject or who reject my values as with people with whom I'm in sync value-wise. It's not even a judgment of them. I would assume this is true for, for, for them too. I mean, I battle. I always look at it this way. I battle for a living on the internet, in my radio show. I'm always fighting for what I believe in. Friends are the respite from the fight. If I— it's like marriage. I mean, if I feel terrible for both the liberal and the conservative who are married to one another. Either they're not going to talk about some of the most important issues of life, which is a problem for a marriage, or they will and they'll fight about it. So my heart goes out to both of them. Because when they married, I talk to these people on my radio show all the time, when they married, they weren't they either were in sync or it didn't matter to them, right? Just, oh, she's wonderful, he's wonderful, we're attracted, we have great times together, we love traveling, we, we love tennis, you know, all of that stuff. But now the left has made these issues defining. Yes. Also I'm angry at people who don't appreciate America. I don't like ingrates, right? And anyone who says this country is systemically racist is an ingrate, not to mention lying. So I don't know, I don't know how to be, how to be friends, to be honest.

Maybe this is just a deeply Christian way of thinking, but sometimes I just think to myself, I have to forgive them for their faults. Faults, because not long ago, I had those same faults. Although I should cut myself some more slack. I really wasn't in the political realm back when I was in high school, the idea that America is systemically racist. So I never said that. But I don't think back in that day, even then, I don't think I would have endorsed that view. But I did once upon a time think that conservatives were bigoted is a strong word, but I'll use it here for the sake of the argument, that we're bigoted for defending the Second Amendment. I used to think that conservatives were bigoted for their opposition to gay marriage. So I used to have those same faults. And now I do think our times have changed where I sit here and I look at the news. I look at all of these crazy ideas being peddled. We just talked about gender. I look at the defund the police movement, the rioting and looting that occurred last summer. I do think I think now I am harder on people who remain on the left because it has just become undeniable that the left is destructive. But I do think to myself, should I just try to forgive them because I see where their faults come from? It's hard for me, Dennis, but I'm also like you, very angry at them too. So I'm trying to balance this idea of forgiving and understanding, but also holding them accountable for their cowardice. And it is cowardice.

So we should talk about forgiveness on another one of our podcasts. My position, putting the left-right issue completely aside, is you only forgive when people atone. God doesn't forgive if you don't atone, right? Why should we? So clearly, if somebody said, you know, I can't believe that this country, which was so good to me and my family, my friends, and I have spent my life ripping it apart and smearing its, its good name, and I really regret that. So I embrace you, but if you're proud of it— so yeah, it is tough for me, but you are right in posing the question to me because I Nearly my entire extended family is liberal. Same with mine. Very few are leftist, but same with yours. Yes. So I very do, I do very much try to maintain warm, loving relations with these people.

Again, as I'm reading, I was just, by the way, I know we have to end soon, but I want to give a plug for this book that I just read, Rigged by Molly Hemingway. Boy, Dennis, that is a crazy book. I would venture to say that it is probably One of the most important books of the century, where she outlines all of the measures that were taken in anticipation of the— and during the 2020 election to rig the results against Trump. I mean, this is stuff that we know because we study it all day, but she goes so deep and finds the amount of voter dead voters that were on the voter rolls, how Democrats in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania blocked Republicans from watching the voter count, the way that the media would, would lie about polling. There was one poll, I believe it was published by The Washington Post, that said that Biden was going to win Wisconsin by 17 points. And I believe he only won it by 3 points. And that is results, because when someone sees a poll that says that their state is going to go heavily blue, they're not as encouraged to go out and vote. There's just so much stuff that she uncovers. And I have brought a lot of this information that I have learned in that book to many of my peers, and they refuse to accept it as truth. They just go, oh, that's garbage. You know, that can't be true. You've got to do more research on that because it doesn't feel right to them. They've been told for months and months and months that, for years, that anything associated with Trump that may indicate that Trump has some kind of strength is evil. And that, and that is the thing that gets me, because when you present hard facts to people, to people in my case, in my life, who are liberals, and they still refuse to accept it— well, the most dramatic—

can't condone. That's right. The most dramatic, I think, is we put up at PragerU a video. It's got a lot like 8 million views, maybe 10, maybe 20. I don't, I don't know.

Probably 20.

You guys get a lot. Yeah, you're right. Thank God is right. Of, uh, laying out an ironclad argument that Trump never said Nazis were fine people at the Charlottesville— about the Charlottesville demonstrations. And I, I knew it at the time. He, he didn't say— he was not referring to Nazis. He A man with Jewish grandchildren and Jewish children isn't going to say Nazis are fine people. I mean, a man who loves America and knows how many Americans were killed by the Nazis isn't going to say they were fine. It was inconceivable, and it was inconceivable. He didn't say it about them. He was talking about the statues issue, that they were fine. He wanted to defuse the tension. That's the irony. He's actually aiming to do something good. But, uh, truth is not a left-wing value, so I, I can't see you're making headway. I mean, I learned it during COVID you know, the, the dismissal of, uh, ivermectin as a horse dewormer. That's all, that's all it was.

That's another thing Molly Hemingway talks about, by the way. That's crazy. I remember you're talking about it on air, and even back in the summer, I remember thinking, gosh, just can't believe Dennis is talking about this. Does he know enough about ivermectin to really be making these arguments? And then you read Molly Hemingway's book and you see that it was widely accepted among many doctors as an effective treatment for COVID, and the left completely suppressed it. So good for you for being on top of that.

I was on top of it. And of course, got the usual mockery, which doesn't mean anything to me. It actually It actually gives me strength, means I'm hitting the target.

That's what you said to me once about people who boo you in the audience. I remember I said to you, how do you deal with that when you're standing up there and you're trying to make these arguments and you're nervous because you're public speaking and people boo you? And you said to me, Julie, it's a health benefit to me when people boo me because it means I got to them. I love that. I've adopted that. When people didn't clap after my senior speech at Harvard when I was railing against the left and essentially calling the people in the audience cowards when they're— when it was deafening silence after that speech. I thought of that line you gave me. It's a health benefit.

May you be healthy for many, many years. Thank you.

Well, I'm healthy when I talk to you, and this makes me healthy, and I hope it makes you guys healthy at home. Please tell me if it does. He wants you to tell us. I know. I was gonna say, please tell me if it does at julie-hartman.com. And Dennis I actually am saying dash again because I had a listener write into me and say, you know, dash is actually accurate. Apparently dash and hyphen are synonymous in the dictionary. So that's why I want you to know this controversy has really moved Sean, and it's moved a lot of listeners, let me tell you. Oh my God, I have a lot of people writing in on that.

Either way, folks, it's a little line between Julie and Hartman. Yes, and I respond. See you next week. And everybody wants the same.

Everybody wants the same thing. Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning. You can only save one. Who do you save? Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits three ways. One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third aren't sure. Why? Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong. But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions. And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all? In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundation nations of the free world.

If you claim that certain things are good, certain things are evil, independent of how you feel about it, you are in effect affirming God.

If There Is No God by Dennis Prager, available now at pragerstore.com. That's pragerstore.com.