Is There a Devil?

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.

You know, I so love this opening theme that I wonder how many people tune into Dennis and Julie just to hear the music.

Credit to Richard Friedman.

Correct.

And his wife Leslie.

Correct. We love— I really do. And it puts me in a mood, doesn't it? But it's an interesting question. This is so typical of us. I can't believe it. I know, I got completely off everything I was going to think about. Can, can any of our sensory perceptions trigger the emotions that sound does, specifically music, but sound in general.

This is so typical you, and by the way, I love it. It's what makes you unique. Smell, perhaps.

So I've thought of smell, but it's rare.

When I smell a certain— my mom uses Jo Malone perfume, and when I smell that, I think of my mom. Yes, it's powerful. And I feel very comforted.

It's very powerful. In fact, when I smell it, I think of your mom too.

By the way, this is Dennis and Julie. Welcome.

Oh yeah, Dennis and Julie.

Shalom.

So let me just go through this. So the power of sound is unrivaled in most ways, not in every way, but I'll give you an example. I'm laughing because I'm sort of laughing at me. I mean, I don't know how many people have ever made this experiment. Conducted this experiment, to speak better English, watch a horror movie without sound and it is not one-fifth as scary.

That's interesting. Well, you say that the ear is more powerful than the eye. I'd like you to explain why, because I know this Dennis Prager argument, but I forget the reasons.

But I'll So I developed this from the credo of Judaism, which is in the Torah, the first 5 books. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord alone, or the Lord is one. There are many ways of translating it. The Lord is our God. So that's the credo. Many Jews walked into the gas chambers reciting this phrase.

Isn't that the Shema?

The Shema, yeah. What does Shema mean? It means hear or listen.

So why do they say, hear, O Israel? They want—

it doesn't say, it doesn't say, look, O Israel. That's my point. It says, hear, O Israel. In that regard, I believe that audio only is in many ways more powerful than audio and video.

Why?

Because the ear— the eye is emotional, and the ear is more— is both emotional, like the sounds of a horror movie, and intellectual. The eye is not intellectual. The eye is seduced by beauty. In a nanosecond, and then it is, it just reacts emotionally.

Well, Roger Ailes, the former president of Fox News, is he, he's dead, right? He died? I think he died. Anyway, that doesn't matter at all to the point. He was the former head of Fox News. He was entangled in this sexual harassment scandal, but he had this, he did have a knack for identifying talent, and one of his criteria or tests when he was evaluating if he wanted someone to be on the air was to turn the sound off and just watch them without hearing anything. But that makes sense because it's Fox News, it's cable TV. You know, you only have, what, 5 minutes?

So he wanted to make sure that you were visually riveting?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Well, that's TV.

That's TV.

Exactly.

It makes sense for TV, but yeah, it sort of supports your point that the eye is not intellectual.

I'll give it a— Example, yes, it's the intellectual is clear, but even emotionally, like the sound of a horror movie, it's not a horror movie without the sound. By the way, you know when I learned that in real life? This was before you were born. The Northridge earthquake, which hit my house. I don't live in the Valley, even let alone Northridge, but it was so severe for those around the world or around America listening or watching us. This— what year was the Northridge earthquake, Sean? Want to look that up?

I think it was the day after I was born.

What was it? One second.

October 15th, 1999. Is that right?

No, '94, they're saying.

Oh yeah, there was some big earthquake the day after I was born.

Well, that was incomparably less than the Northridge. My house It was 4:30 in the morning. My house was really shaken. And what scared me was not the shake. Scared me was the noise.

Oh, really? Well, what was the noise?

Oh, things crashing.

Oh, yeah.

My whole aquarium. It was my—

You had an aquarium?

Yes, it was a saltwater aquarium. I was very diligent about keeping it up. Gorgeous fish, because saltwater fish are generally nicer looking. And, uh, that ended it because I didn't— I just didn't reconstitute it. But I mean, things smashing—

the fish like come out of the tank.

Yeah, it's very sad. Of course they all died, obviously.

Oh my gosh, that must have been awful.

Yeah.

So I'm sorry, I know I'm kind of seizing on this, but why did you get a fish tank in your house? Was it your idea?

Yeah, I, I find animals fascinating. Why not?

It's not said with any judgment.

Yeah, no, I know it's not. I'm not answering with any defense. I'm just saying why not? But anyway, that was another example of sound. I'll give you a third example. Every year on my dad's birthday, I had him on my radio show, July 18th every year. And since his death, I have often on July 18th played his— one of my interviews. I devoted an hour to a repeat because they're priceless and they're timeless, to cite you. And I gotta tell you, my father is much, much more alive in my brain when I hear him than when I watch movies of him or see pictures of him.

That makes sense.

Well, it does, but it proves again the power of the ear. Both emotionally and intellectually. How did we get onto that?

The music.

Well, oh yes, how— well, that's why music— nothing makes me cry as spontaneously as classical music, a great piece of classical music.

Sometimes I will hear a song and I will remember exactly where I was in life when I enjoyed that song. What it made me feel, what I was— I mean, literally going back to elementary school. I remember this one song I played a lot when I was graduating from 6th grade and moving on to another school. And I— every time I hear that, it's like I'm 12 again and back in that part of my life. No, no other.

Fascinating.

Nothing else, right?

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, well, I guess old, you know, family videos. Can take you back.

But when I watch old family videos, it doesn't take me back. I just look at it as— I mean, takes back a drop, but, but for her, all he's saying, old-fashioned old family videos have sound, whereas mine don't. That's valid, obviously, because they were no— we didn't— they didn't have sound Only the motion picture studios did. We didn't have sound cameras till I would say the 1990s.

Pause. That is unbelievable.

Yeah. Think about it. It's all— you watch any movies from '50s, '60s, home, homemade movies, they're all silent. And people would go waving into the camera. It's a crackup. They're all silent.

Wow.

Yeah. I should show you some of the old movies like my bar mitzvah.

You have that?

Yes.

Dennis, why don't you post this stuff? Oh my gosh, you should hand it over to PragerU and have them—

Yeah, that's true. People would love it.

You are sitting on a treasure trove.

I know, I agree with you. It was sent to me, my brother got it.

You have video?

Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, so we've digitized it.

Why don't we play it exclusively on Dennis and Julie? I love PragerU, but let's—

Yeah, no, no.

You said it here, we'll keep it here.

That would be fun.

Oh, I would love that.

I mean, I don't know if people would have fun, but yeah, people—

Do you get really sad? I can't—

when I see all the people who died?

Yes.

Is that what you're—

well, and just a time of life that you're no longer in. I can't watch family videos from when I was young, and I had a very happy, um, childhood because it's all gone. It's all gone.

Let me think about it.

Can't watch it, or if I do watch it, I'll start sobbing and have to turn it off.

I'm, I'm really, uh, analyzing my own reactions.

When was the last time you watched?

I did watch within the last year because my brother sent me the digitized home movies from my parents. Yeah, there's a sadness. Of course there's a sadness.

Yeah, nothing makes me cry more than watching old videos.

Well, we may be crying over different things partially because of, of the age difference, because You're not seeing a scene where 90% of the people in the seat are dead.

Right.

That's sobering. Oh, there's my aunt, she's dead. My uncle, he's dead. My grandfather, he's dead. All my parents' friends, they're dead. It's just— do you do that with old photos? Like if you see a picture like of New York City in 1912, And you realize everybody, all the kids in that, they're all dead.

All the kids, or they're in the old home.

Yeah.

Well, that's true.

In 1912. Yeah, they're all, they're all dead.

Yes. It's weird.

I have totally thought, including the, including the kids.

Well, I was watching an '80s video, like of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, just, just people in there carrying babies. And I look at those babies and I'm like, that was taken in 1980. They're in their 40s right now.

That's right. That's correct.

And the people holding them are probably dead.

If the people who— in the 1980s? No, not necessarily.

True. Unless it was a grandparent. If it was a grandparent, they're probably dead. But parent— you're right. No, it's eerie sometimes. I mean, I hope this makes sense. It probably won't. It's not that I doubt whether those people existed. I know that they did. But they see it— that looking at like even the '80s in Los Angeles or especially when you see the way that people dressed in the early 20th century in New York or anywhere in the country. I know intellectually that this happened and that these people existed, but it seems so foreign to me that it almost seems made up.

That's interesting. I'm very mind-based. So if my mind decides A, then that's the reality. So I look at them and I know they existed as real as I do. And that's all I need to know that they were real.

And you know, another thing, you know, we, whenever it's New Year's and it's January 1st, 2023, or January 1st, 2024, and we're, we, we go, wow, it's a new year. People thought that about 1950.

Yeah. Well, they thought about it about 1530.

Of course. Yeah. They like, they had the same, I go, gosh, I can't believe that we're already up to this year. They thought that. To your point, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Well, that people should know that and then get a little humble about the centrality of their time to history.

Yes, that. Okay, so you often bring things up that I have been thinking about privately or outside of this show, by the way. It's really— sometimes I feel like I'm— people, audience, when I go, I was just thinking about that, they don't believe me. But I literally was that We, we focus on history, but we don't realize that we are making history, that the time that we're in, people are going to look at and judge a certain way.

And everybody who lived before us lived in their present. They didn't know the end of the story. We know the end of the story.

Yes.

Yes. So that's all. That's really difficult. For us to put ourselves in the shoes of people who lived in the past who did not know how it would end.

Well, that's your whole commentary right here in the book I have next to me, Genesis of Noah. It's probably my, one of my favorite stories.

Yes, that you judge people, you judge people in their generations.

By the way, I think, I think I told you this, but I want to tell the audience, I'm not Jewish. Obviously, but if I were, my Torah portion would have been the Noah story, which I find to be eerie because I think that's one of my favorite stories.

Well, I know partially why you think it's eerie, because I told you— oh, that's actually Dr. Marmor's theory— that your bar mitzvah parsha— let me explain to everybody. We are— there's a Hebrew calendar, not just— there's an English calendar What do we call it? The Gregorian calendar? Is that what we use? I think so. Anyway, we use in the Western world— the whole world uses a certain calendar, and then Islam has its calendar in addition, and Jews have their Hebrew calendar. So the portion of the Torah that will be read on the Sabbath following your birth is how it's determine what your bar mitzvah is, what your quote-unquote parsha, your portion, uh, is of the Torah. So you looked it up by—

you actually looked at it—

I looked it up by your Hebrew birthday of the year you were born. And Noah, that's a big deal. So why do you think it's eerie?

It's eerie because that is one of my favorite stories out of— because when I started reading your book, I, I— the Genesis commentary, that is— there were a lot of things that I thought, wow, that's really I think that's especially relevant for today. But when I got to that specific story of Noah, the fact that he was saved from the flood because he was righteous, and the fact that he was judged in his time, in his generations, those two takeaways for me really made me realize how relevant the Torah is and how morally revolutionary it is that God singled out someone because he's righteous. God doesn't practice affirmative action in any other way besides identifying and elevating decent people. And then judging people in the context of their time, that was what alerted me to how great this book is, because we live in a time where people are— people in the past are judged relentlessly unfairly for the context in which they live.

By the way, all our— and I, I think we have a lot, because whenever I go— for example, I was in Denver this week It's a very interesting thing. There's never an occasion where somebody does not come over and say how much they love Dennis and Julie.

Really?

Oh, that's so nice. It does not occur. Wow. So that's an interesting development. Thank you. So anyway, I want to say to all the non-Jews, which is the great majority of people watching or listening—

and in the world—

you might, yes, you might be interested in finding out what your bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah parsha would be. And this is how you do it. You go on the internet, look up Hebrew calendar. So let's say you were born January 15th, 1990. So you, you go to Hebrew calendar, look up 1990, January 15th, and let's say it's, let's say it's a Thursday. So that means that January 17th was a Saturday, right? So look up on the Hebrew calendar of that year of your birth what the portion of the Torah that was read that week. Then you know your, your bar mitzvah parsha.

And to clarify, every week of the year the same Torah portion is read, is that right?

No, no, every week of the year a portion of the Torah, and then the next year the same is read. 52 portions are read because there are 52 weeks.

And it starts—

it must start in the fall because in the fall we begin with Genesis again. That's why you have Noah. So you're the second portion of the Book of Genesis.

I, I find that to be so eerie.

So by the way, Dr. Marmor's theory is that— and he's a big rationalist, yet this is a mystical sort of point— that our portion fits us. What is his portion? I get the chills because it is touching. It is Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream. What does a psychiatrist do?

Boy, is that chilling.

It is. I, I have the—

what's your Torah portion?

So my Torah portion is, is fighting idolatry. And, and he— and, and Stephen Morrow goes, Is that not perfect? What does Dennis do his whole life?

So what? So why, why does Noah fit me?

I asked you that. You're the one who said you were moved.

Well, I said it's here because it's one of my favorite stories.

You are righteous in your generation. I'm, I'm saying that I gave him the ball.

He hit it out.

That's correct.

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Hopefully, seriously, hopefully you, uh, Boy, this is going to be heavy. So you are blessed and cursed, and I've never quite said these things to you. Uh, it's my theory, then I'll come back to you. There's a statement in the Torah: I have put before you blessings and curses choose blessings. Okay, but the— my— one of my interpretations of it, it's in Deuteronomy, is all blessings come with curses. I, I always give the simple example of women's beauty. It's a blessing, but for many women it's a curse, especially if they rely on it and they're used a lot Or, well, yes, they could.

They could. There's a possibility that they would be used a lot for it.

It is definitely a mixed market.

Like men are used for money.

That is entirely right. That is all of that is correct. So you— I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I'm trying to be accurate. I have no worry about being diplomatic.

Diplomacy's out the window, Dennis and Julie.

We're never diplomatic. To a pretty large extent, you will always have allies, but you will be fighting somewhat alone. And that is the fate of everyone who thinks independently. And now, really to make you think, you love truth. You are crazy about truth, and that means you, you will be to a certain extent alone. It, it is, it is inevitable. People don't want to be alone. They don't want to stick out. And the greatest price paid is truth. That, that is the price paid if you, if you don't want to stick out. You will, uh, now I'm speaking, to be honest, somewhat autobiographically as well. I am blessed because I have so many people that in my corner. I have an equal number of people who hate my guts, which always strikes people who love me or just like me or respect me as odd. And it is odd, by the way. I often sometimes reflect, I go, all I've done in my life is preach goodness. Why am I so hated? And there's an answer to that. There are a lot of people are not interested in goodness. They're interested in, in a whole host of other things. The beauty of the Torah is that— and this is all based on your comment— God chose Noah because he was good, not handsome, as chosen in other flood stories. Every civilization had a flood story, and the gods choose who they choose to save, but never because they're good. Yes, this is a Torah innovation.

And Moses had a stutter. Moses, the man who revealed the word of God in the Ten Commandments, orally revealed it, had a stutter. That is God saying, I don't care. I don't care if you're ugly, pretty, if you have a stutter, don't have a stutter. I singled out this person because he is righteous, and because he is righteous, that makes him the appropriate vessel for my moral instruction.

Luther Who did?

Oh, I'm obsessed with Martin Luther.

Okay.

After reading the biography.

Yeah. Well, Luther is a true mixed bag.

Yeah, he is.

And he did, I mean, something great. Protestants did a lot of good, as did Catholics, by the way. But, but Protestants did. And yet he, I mean, he, for example, said it is irrelevant how he said this. It is irrelevant how you behave. If you believe in Christ, you're saved. You, you can murder, you can fornicate all day. I mean, that was his example among others. Oh yeah, it's a— it's, it's cited in, in, in one of my—

I remember him saying that from Metaxas's book. I think I chose to forget. So you see, detail—

what I— okay, we're really— which is typical of of our podcast. I have said all of my life, and I think 10% of the people who hear it know what I mean, and I'm not trying to hide anything, but I, I know it sounds indecipherable to many people. I've said the most heretical thing I say is that God wants us to be good is the whole message. And, uh, that does not go over well. Secular people think it's nonsense because there is no God. You can be good without God, which is true, some people can, but their goodness came from a God-based system. But that's a separate issue. But religious Jews and Christians, many, not all by any means, are not comfortable with that. For many religious Jews, central was ritual observance, and for many Christians, central is faith. For most religious people, goodness is not central. This is not a knock on them. There are a lot of— that's my biggest allies are religious people, Jews and Christians. But Uh, when I write in there what God wants most from us is to be good, it, it's not commonly said by many religious people. What for many, what God most wants is for you to be saved. That is a Christian message. Now Christians will add But works without faith, faith without works is dead. From also from the New Testament. That is why religion is what people make of it. I'm not happy about that. I wish it was so clear. I think it is clear. So I wrote my Torah commentary. But for most people, I mean, I'm reading a book, I'm reading Frederick Douglass's autobiography.

Oh, good for you.

It is riveting. Riveting. And he describes without even— without terrible hostility or anger. And he— I think he was ultimately a religious Christian, but he describes how men— how men would go to church on Sunday, be devout and pray, and then whip a slave bloody. Now, this is— what I'm saying has no hostility to Christians, 'cause the abolitionists were all Christians. So here is a fascinating question: if the abolitionists were Christians and the whippers were Christian, what is Christianity? Say, you could ask that about any religion. I'm just picking on the dominant religion of the Western world. I've always wondered, I truly have always wondered How you go to church and then whip a slave, or even own one, but especially whip one. And I don't have a good answer.

What do you think the answer is?

Well, I'll make it even harder. How do you justify as a Christian or a Jew, but Jews were so small, they're irrelevant to this question. How do you, how did a Christian justify kidnapping blacks and transporting them as slaves when the, first of all, the Bible forbids that very act. You cannot kidnap people and sell them. It's actually, it's a capital offense in the Torah. So, and the Torah is part of the Christian Bible. I mean, it's the first 5 books. Do not steal. The Eighth Commandment of the Ten Commandments, always in religious life from the ancient world was understood you cannot steal people. It is also you cannot steal property, but it is first and foremost you cannot steal people. How did any Christian justify stealing blacks? What is my answer? How did the guys on the way to the Crusades massacre tens of thousands of Jews? I mean, including babies. If the only antidote is, I believe, emphasizing every single day by every single pastor and rabbi and priest. God most wants you to be good. As soon as you veer from that path, a lot of bad can happen.

Yes. And I don't go to church very often. I want to, and I should. But when I do go to church, I notice that the words salvation and damnation are rarely, if at all, said. In modern churches. And I don't go to some hippie-dippy, you know, pride flag, BLM flag churches. It would make more sense if I went to those kinds, but I go to what I consider to be conservative Catholic, sometimes Protestant churches. I was raised at least nominally as a Catholic, so that's why I tend to go to Catholic churches. But you rarely hear those words, salvation and damnation. There's another example which you may find to be unrelated, but I'll explain why it is. I recently on Timeless did a show on funerals, funerals, different religious practices with burying. And then I made it a general conversation of what is proper funeral etiquette. I did a show on weddings too. That's what started this because people really enjoyed my show on weddings and how no longer is a wedding a sacred transformation of a relationship. Now it's a party. And I talked about why are some brides opting to not wear white dresses? Why are some bridesmaids wearing different dresses? Why does this, you know, why are religious ceremonies going down anyway? So I did this show on funerals, and one of the things that I found out was in talking about how funeral services have changed is that people tend not to refer to them as funerals anymore. They're now called celebrations of life. There was one other term I'm forgetting, but it was something, it was something positive as opposed to a funeral. And I think there's a, there's a, correlation here. You know, you don't hear salvation and damnation in churches. In funerals, there's the spin. And it's that we're running away from the harsh reality that evil exists and that death exists and that things that are uncomfortable exist. And to your point, we need to make the entire discussion about good and evil. And I find that modern society is so— we're so afraid of confronting things that are uncomfortable That's why I think in churches they don't want to say the word damnation because they consider that to be too aggressive. No, the job of a church is to talk about salvation or damnation. That is what Christianity is fundamentally about, those two things. We can't whitewash that.

Right, but that's not the same. You're right, but it's not the same as good and evil.

You're right, it's not, but I think this is a kind of a posture—

But you're right, they're avoiding tough talk.

They're avoiding tough talk, and I think it goes down to they're avoiding the existence of evil. They're avoiding talking about damnation. If you don't behave well, if you are evil, you will be punished. They're avoiding—

that's why I want— I— yes, I love your example with the funeral celebration of life. No, they died.

They died.

Like, we can celebrate their life anytime we want. Yes, but this is a funeral.

It's running away from reality.

I know in Judaism, we— every funeral I've attended I am one of those, as everybody else is, where we actually lift a shovel and pour dirt on the coffin.

I have to tell you, I said in my episode, thanks to Dennis Prager, I have rabbis on speed dial. And I called one of your— now one of my rabbi friends, and he wrote his rabbinic thesis on Jewish burial practices. It is incredibly moving. Really moving. The shoveling.

You really confront it.

And yes, and another thing that Jews do in burial practices is that from the time that the coffin leaves the synagogue or wherever the service is being held and then going to the site at which it's going to be buried at the cemetery, you stop 7 times and you say a prayer. And Rabbi Woznika told me it's because you want to indicate that you're not rushing to bury the dead. And when you shovel the dirt, you turn over the shovel the first time you do it to signify reluctance. That's understanding the gravity of the situation and honoring the deceased. What I learned about modern funerals, you call them celebrations of life. It's customary now for a large portion of funerals to not have attendants wear all black. A lot of funerals are now very casual.

Really?

Yes. I think I read something like 33% of funerals now in the United States, you don't wear black.

The non-confrontation with tough stuff.

It kind of seems weird.

It is a big part of modern life. I'll give you an example from translations of the Bible. It says, uh, it constantly— fear God. Overwhelmingly, the translators, modern translators, say revere God. Oh, and the biggest example is the, the law in Exodus: a man shall fear his mother and father. And nobody, almost nobody translates it that way. They do revere. Rever, it means fear. There are two beings we're supposed to fear: God and our parents.

I love that. And I love, I love that being a God-fearing person is a moral term.

It was. That's correct. Yes, exactly. The, the non-confrontation with the, the difficult is— look, the ultimate— I mean, if this is what I call the feminization of society So you can't win a baseball game in, in with young kids by more than a certain number of runs because it humiliates the kids who lost by too many runs.

Well, nonsense is that at the Thomas Jefferson—

if I lose 15-nothing, I lose, or 25-nothing in a baseball game, then I have to deal with it.

When I played water polo, we played against this high school which had a First of all, it was 3 or 4 times the size of my high school, so bigger pool of players. That might be good. And they had a program longer than ours. Anyway, they kicked our butts. We lost 36 to nothing. And I remember being in the pool and they were ruthless. Like, once you got to 20, maybe you could hit them. And they just did it to stick a finger in our eye. And you know what? There were players after who were really upset and parents after who were really upset. And I remember being in high school thinking, I I'm really glad this happened to me. I'm glad I felt that humiliation.

Of course.

This is making me a stronger person.

Anyway.

This is life. Life is not gonna stop at 20 goals scored on you. Sometimes life's gonna keep going. Yes. 25, 30, 35.

That's right.

Life is relentless.

Yeah, hello life.

I viewed it as an allegory for life.

Totally.

So, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, no, go ahead.

One of the subjects that I wanted to discuss today.

Oh, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait. Sure. I just want to say this theme is really important. The non-confrontation with difficult— I'll give you another translation, by the way. It says, do not follow— in Deuteronomy again— do not follow— I got to translate from the Hebrew, sorry— do not follow your eyes or your hearts. And the translations are, after which you go astray. You know what the Hebrew says?

What?

Do not follow your eyes or your hearts, after which you whore yourself, prostitute yourself.

There are so many people who prostitute themselves.

Of course, literally. But nobody translated correctly, like, don't fear about fearing your parents. There, there's just a non-confrontation. The whole denial of male-female differences was, I don't want to confront the unpleasant reality that men are different from me.

I was reading your Torah commentary this morning, A, for fun, and B, in anticipation of this episode. Your command of Hebrew is one of the things that makes this commentary so good, because when the consequences— some say the punishment, you say the consequences— were levied to Adam and Eve after they ate from the tree, God, um, the word for naked, like their knowledge that they were naked, you say is different from the earlier word of naked, and that in that it reflects this erotic aspect of sexual nature, the new Hebrew word that was used in that instance of naked. And I bet, you know, that's translated— I bet— I mean, I know it is translated into English and doesn't account for that erotic meaning because people want to run away from that. People— that's too off limits. You have really made me see, and I can't thank you enough for it, You have made me see that the central issue of our time and of any time is that people don't want to confront or understand the existence of evil. That is what animates everything. It's what animates interpersonal issues, political issues, everything.

Well, that's why you're so special to me, among many other reasons I might add. But that You get it. You truly get it. Most people don't get it. It's not a condemnation of them. It's just a fact. And this is the issue.

It is the issue.

There are only two races, and that's why decent and the indecent.

And that's why we're conservative. People think that we, oh, we just like lower taxes. And there, by the way, there are some conservatives who only vote Republican because of fiscal policy or because— and I don't, I actually don't like those conservatives even though they vote the way that I want them to vote. I think they give a bad name to conservatism. The reason why you and I are conservative is because fundamentally we believe that conservative principles are more in accordance with bringing about good and combating evil. For us, it's about good and evil, not about policy. Mike Lindell has a passion to help you get the best sleep of your life. He didn't stop at the pillow. He also created the Giza Dream bedsheets. These sheets look and feel great, which means an even better night's sleep, which is crucial for our overall health. Mike found the world's best cotton called Giza. It's ultra soft and breathable but extremely durable. Mike's latest deal is the sale of the year. For a limited time, you will receive 50% off of the Giza Dream Sheets. Marking prices down as low as $29.98 depending on the size. Just go to mypillow.com and click on the radio podcast square and use the promo code Hartman. There you will find not only this amazing offer but also deep discounts on all MyPillow products, including the MyPillow 2.0, the mattress topper, MyPillow kitchen towel sets, and a lot more. Call 1-800-566-6745 or go to mypillow.com and use the promo code Hartman. But oh gosh, what was I gonna say? Bingo.

Well, let me, let me defend, let me defend the people who only vote Republican or conservative because of lower taxes.

I mean, I get it.

No, no, no, no, not just get it. I'll tell you why it's morally good. Because lower taxes means smaller government, and smaller government means less evil, period. End of issue.

Totally. But that's not the reason why.

It doesn't matter.

You're right.

Since I only judge behavior and not intentions, I don't give a damn.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Well, we've— we had that whole discussion on this show.

It is so big.

No, I mean, of course I love people that vote Republican. I don't care why.

No, no, no. But they're doing good.

Yeah. Yeah.

Smaller government means less genocide, less corruption, less ability to arrest people because of political reasons like we're doing in America for the first time in our history.

You know, I would say, and some may believe this is an outrageous comment, but I don't think so. I would say that there's a large contingent of people in my age group who would even deny that evil exists. They may say, well, they may say that, oh, they have accidents, transphobia, right? But I think it would more— I'm not explaining myself very well, but I think they would more talk about it like from a societal oppressive standpoint, like circumstances are not good and lead people to do bad. In other words, they won't acknowledge that outside of any external difficulties.

Right. But it is ironic. They do believe that their opponents are evil.

Well, yes, absolutely. That's right.

Yes. They don't believe that murderers are evil because murderers are most of the time because of poverty or racism. But if you believe that the police should be strong or you believe— oh, better— you believe in the nuclear family as the ideal, a man and a woman married and then having children. If that's your ideal, you're a hater.

Once you see life from this perspective of good and evil, it's like a light switch has been turned on in a dark room and everything makes sense now. And so the other day there was I think it was this, this shooting by this white guy shot 3 black people.

Correct.

And I had a relative, right? Or no, sorry, it wasn't that shooting. It was, um, it was a school shooting because my relative blamed that one on white supremacy. But anyway, it was a school shooting and my relative wrote me a text saying, F the Second Amendment. And now that I see the world through this good and evil perspective, I realize that blaming gun violence on the Second Amendment And I wanna put a little asterisk and say, I think there are legitimate, I don't know if I necessarily believe with them, but I totally recognize that there are legitimate arguments saying people ought not to have certain, you know, high caliber weapons. I get that. But when you see gun violence and your instinct is to say, F the Second Amendment, you are not confronting the real evil. It's not the gun, it's the person who pulled the trigger. You are, you are, wittingly or not, giving a pass to that. We should— our focus needs to be on that crazy, deranged, evil individual, not on the weapon that they happen to use, which, by the way, even if the Second Amendment didn't exist, we live in this time now where you can 3D print a weapon, or you can go in and stab people or taser, you know, it's like, why are we focusing on the— that is a running away from the existence of evil.

I have said all of my life, you may not know of this book, but it was a, it was a major, major book, I guess. Was it written in the '60s? Uh, The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker.

Yeah, I need to buy that book.

So, well, I'm not sure. I, I, I'm almost done. I've been— it's for— it, it doesn't matter. All I'm— what matters is The thesis is accurate. People live their lives most of the time denying that they'll die. That's just part of human nature. That's, that's fine. But I've said the greater denial is the denial of evil. That's, that's, that's a book we need. You should write that.

No, you should. You've already— well, I have basically written it.

Yes, well, because that's the denial of evil and Well, that's the confrontation with evil. That's why one of my favorite lines, one that very few people know, but it's repeated over and over in the Torah: you shall burn evil out of your midst. If the Torah is obsessed with getting rid of evil and doing good, that's why I love it. It's my faith. By the way, even— it's so interesting— it has even bothered many Jews and Christians. The preoccupation with fighting evil that pervades the Old Testament generally, and especially the Torah. You know, my favorite verse in the Bible is from the Psalms: "Those of you who love God must hate evil." It's a command. We don't have command form in English verbs, but in Hebrew verbs we have a command form. It's a command. In other words, if you don't hate evil, you don't love God.

So it's a binary.

It is. Well, we believe in binary.

That's right, we do, right? In more ways than one. So what I wanted to discuss with you today actually is this very subject, but whether or not there's a devil. And you have said both on this program and on your radio show that although Judaism does not hold that there is Satan— of course, Judaism holds that there is evil, but not in the form of a devil— you have come to entertain the possibility that one might exist. Before we get to that, because I have developed a pretty strong opinion on that that I want to bounce off of you, on this subject of how much God wants us to fight evil, here, reading from the from the Adam and Eve story, wisdom, at least from my reading, is defined as knowledge of good and evil. Because earlier in the— when God, I think it's God is saying, oh, the serpent says you will be like divine beings who will know good and bad. That's before they eat from the apple or from the tree, excuse me. And then after they eat from the tree, God repeats actually verbatim what the serpent said and said, and this is in chapter 3, verse 22, "And the Lord God said, 'Now that man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad.'" So, that's the definition of what can be gleaned when you eat from the tree of knowledge, that you know good and bad. And then, right as Eve is about to eat from it, there's this line that says, "When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating," and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was a desirable source of wisdom, she took from it and ate. So those two first things are sensory. It was good, good for eating. It looked appetizing. It was a delight to the eyes. It was pretty. But then here it says that the tree was a desirable source of wisdom. That means that wisdom must mean knowledge of good and evil, because that is the thing outside of the sensory that is what can be gained if the person eats from the Tree of Knowledge. I've always wanted to ask you what your definition of wisdom is because you talk about it a lot. And I think it's that— I think it is knowledge of good and evil and an ability to judge it and act accordingly. Would you agree?

There is. It's funny you should ask because only recently that I realize a statement that I had known since first grade in the Hebrew, because it's so famous. It's a famous phrase. It's from the Talmud, the second holiest work of Judaism, from about 200 to 600 AD or CE, depending on what letters you use. Anyway, the verse is Who is the wise man? Because there's a whole series. Who is the strong man? Who is the rich man? And who is the wise man? And the answer is he who sees what will be born. Now I understand it now better than I understood it as a kid, and I didn't understand it as a kid. What does it mean, you know, the future? But nobody knows the future. What it really means, and I'm not reading into it, who is the wise man? The one who understands the consequences. That's what it is. That which will be borne are consequences.

Right.

So you're for— take a trivial— not trivial, but not cosmic significant thing. You're for raising the minimum wage. Okay. It's a wise move if you know that the consequences are more closed restaurants, fewer people hired, higher costs. Well, therefore fewer restaurants and so on. So if you, if you teach women that you have the same sexual nature as men and convince them of it, are the consequences happier women or less happy women? The answer—

we see the answer.

I think we do. Yeah, that's correct. So there's no wisdom on the left. This is the most important thing It's as important as knowing that wherever the left takes over, it suppresses free speech. There's no exception to that in history. It's not true for liberals. I don't consider liberals and left identical. Liberals vote for left, that's another issue. So that's a defining element. There is no wisdom on the left. That's why universities are particularly stupid places, because they're run by the left and there's no wisdom on the left.

And you're defining wisdom as the ability to foresee consequences.

Yes, it's Tom Sowell's— what is his famous term?

Oh, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

No, no, no. That's a great line, but it's not. No, it's stage one thinking.

Oh, right.

That's stage one thinking is the opposite of wisdom. When you don't say what is stage two going to lead to? That's lack of wisdom.

And there's the good and evil component into that too, because part— seeing the consequences means seeing the consequences for good or for evil.

Yeah.

Not just knowing that if you work out, you'll lose— you know the consequences of that.

Right. That's correct. Yes.

There's a good and evil, and that's why I— that's in accordance with what I brought up with the Adam and Eve story. Wisdom is seeing.

So why, why did you raise the devil issue?

Because I originally didn't believe that there was a devil. Of course I know that evil exists, but I didn't— I had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that there was this essentially rock force that was a rival to God that was trying to to suffuse our lives and our decisions with evil. I thought that that dethroned God. And I more so took the approach that the existence of evil is a necessary downside of free will, that you can either do good or do bad. But I have both in my own life come to believe in the existence of a devil, and I think it's rooted in the Adam and Eve story. I'll get to that in a moment. I think that there is a force. Doesn't mean that it is an all-powerful force. God is the only all-powerful force. But I do believe that there is one that is trying to goad us and entice us in that direction. In addition to our own instincts, which, as you often argue, are not good. So it's both. It's that we— it's not that we have evil instincts, but we have instincts that are not good. And it is tempted by this supplemental force of the devil, Satan, evil that's trying to goad us along. And if you look at the Adam and Eve story, I think that my perspective is in accordance with the Bible because we have Adam and Eve who have the proclivity to disobey God. That is their human nature, which is not good. And then we have something else, the serpent, that is trying to goad them to eat from the tree in addition to their impulse to do it.

Yeah, go on. So therefore, and the bottom line is—

the bottom line is that I think that that shows that there is a Satan. It's not just that evil is an instinct that you could act on. It's a separate a force that's trying to force you or trying to entice you to follow the bad instincts.

Is that— so satanic is a force trying to entice us to be bad?

Yes.

And that's it? It's not doing bad on its own, it is using us to do the bad?

Yes.

So when I have said that in, in the recent, very recent, last couple of years, I I have started to entertain the possibility. It is that there is so much evil among decent people that it's hard for me to explain as in purely human terms. I still haven't wrapped my head around the idea of an independent supernatural force independent of God. But it doesn't matter. What matters is the very fact that I entertain it. I can't— it is hard to explain that vast numbers of Americans believe that it is a good thing to have 5-year-olds go to a drag queen story hour. Right. It is so sick in what it does to children to prematurely sexualize them. It doesn't, it doesn't come from normal human instinct. See, if bank robbery, rape, murder, horrible thing, they come from what I can identify in human nature. I can't identify in human nature the desire to take a 5-year-old to see men dance in dresses.

Yes.

There was something so, so sick that it transcends the norm. It doesn't come from anything in the human that I can identify.

Yes. Even, I mean, if you—

Or cut girls' breasts off because you believe she's a boy.

And we, we've discussed this before, you know, murdering someone, to your point, may be in accordance with that. Bad impulse that's in every human nature. Of course, there's more of it in other people because some people act on it, some people don't. But the extent of sadism that exists in the world makes me believe that there's a supplemental evil force that's trying to entice you to do it right.

Yeah. Where does that come from?

That's, that's what perplexes me. Because if you read books, I mean, and I know you've done this a million times about the Nazis, Okay, murdering someone, certainly not condoning it, but I understand, I can understand how a human being would do that. Throwing babies in the air as Nazis did and using them as targets to shoot, that is a satanic, sick, beyond human level of depravity.

I agree with that.

I can't, I can't wrap my head around besides the fact that there's this other force.

I agree with you. I read to my synagogue where I teach every Saturday. People could watch it on Zoom. But the— I read to them what happened in the Russian Civil War. After the Russian Revolution was a civil war for about 4 years. And both sides engaged in such horrific torture. And that's what I think. Where does that come from? I understand all these other things. I don't understand joy at excruciating suffering, at horrific beyond description infliction of suffering. I literally— I sent you, actually, I sent it to you, this book on evil. I sent you an email, and I just come across it. One of the few Jews— very few Jews survived the death camps, and even fewer survived Sonderkommandos. These were Jews assigned the task of taking the bodies out of the gas chambers. I mean, you can only imagine. They were just with this person, and now they're taking their body out. And they were then killed by the Nazis after being used, because the Nazis didn't want any living witnesses to what they had done. One guy, one of the few, survived, and they've just now translated the notes he kept in little steel containers found at the concentration camps. They translated into a book.

Oh God, so bad.

So the, the Nazis had— I didn't even know this. I mean, I don't want to get into a lot of detail, but they— because people can't handle it, and I, and I'm not going to comment.

We talked about that last time. Is it wrong to shy away from hearing the details?

But anyway, So people don't realize that a big part of what the Nazis did to Jews was to degrade and humiliate them. Most Jews were murdered naked. Most people don't know that. They went into the gas chamber naked, men and women, and were killed at the— many millions were also killed not gas chambers, But at mass graves that they dug and the Nazis shot them to death, some were buried alive, not all died upon the first shot. They were naked too. And they had Jews crawl in the snow for a mile naked and laugh at them. Where does that come from?

And then they would go home to this. Yes, would not far, like a mile from Auschwitz, were these beautiful homes that Nazis lived in. And they would go do that and then come and sit at the dinner table and have their roast turkey with their son.

That's right.

And play the piano at night and then go back to work the next day.

So it is very tempting to believe in Satan.

Well, one of the things that you write here as part of the commentary is that, um, the serpent represents— I can't, I can't find it, but, but take my word for it, you wrote it— that the serpent represents the impulse in all of us to do, to succumb to, or to do something by God, to defy God. That's right. But I, I think the serpent actually doesn't represent that. I think the serpent represents the existence of a force of evil that is trying to get us to act on Satan in the serpent.

Because I do believe—

I know they do. Yeah, because if you think about it, and this is, this is something that has always perplexed me because it's made me wonder, did God want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree? Because he gave them the instinct or the temptation to disobey his orders?

Well, my read is that, that it's largely allegorical. I don't care if people believe literally, it's fine with me. I never argue that. It doesn't matter. The lessons of the story matter to me. Human beings prefer suffering and freedom to no suffering in the Garden of Eden.

Yes.

That's really what it says. You want to know why you live in the world you live is because you don't want to live in the Garden of Eden. That's really a big lesson of the story to me, which, by the way, presents— I don't deal with this in my commentary, but it presents an interesting issue. So what will heaven be like if we're not made to live in a Garden of Eden? Is there suffering in heaven? I doubt it, right? That's why, by the way, I never reflect on what heaven is like, because it is completely unknowable to us. It's like the angels are, are guarding the place, just like in, in the Bible they're guarding the entrance of the Garden of Eden. You can't go back. Yes, but I'll end with this.

And the show?

Yeah.

Are you kidding? I thought that we were like 20 minutes.

I know. Well, that's good.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I know.

I thought we were just getting started.

Well, that's a good sign, as I always say on my radio show, and I think time flew. Oh, so we have a few minutes. Okay, it's a little over an hour, so The thought that the people— that God would have made a world, a compassionate and good and just God, would have made a world where I could have such bonds with people and then they're severed for eternity when I die— I don't know how you reconcile that with a good God. That's one of my arguments for the afterlife. If God is good, there's an afterlife.

Yes.

And, and I want you in my life in the afterlife.

Ditto.

Good.

I'll— excuse me— I'll say before we end that the one thing that I dislike about the idea of Satan— and by the way, if it's true, it doesn't matter if I dislike it. If it's the truth, I've got to come to terms with it. But the thing that, that gives me pause is what I said earlier. It kind of dethrones God. So there's this other force.

So this is why Isaiah 45:7, I think, arose. It was ostensibly an answer to Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism believes in a good god and a bad god, which is in effect God and Satan to a certain extent. Satan's not a god, but Satan's a fallen angel. Okay, whatever it might be. It's a transcendent supernatural figure which rivals God. And I think Isaiah came to say there is no rival to God, there is no independent force of evil. God is the creator of everything, including evil. Not that he is the creator of the Holocaust or the creator of your child's cancer, but he created a world where good and evil exist.

But here's the thing that I don't understand. He created in human beings the impulse to do bad. Why was— why do you also need an independent evil force that's goading people to do bad?

Well, the only answer is what you said. There is a level of evil that is so that is so incomprehensible to us, it seems to transcend normal human evil.

That is clear. But my question is, why does God— why doesn't God destroy Satan and then allow human beings to have free will and maybe do bad things?

I don't know. Well, that's part of the reason that I ultimately— I, I don't literally believe in one. But I am not averse to using the language that is satanic or demonic.

I think I literally believe in one. Okay, I do.

You know, I, I don't have an agenda to dissuade you.

The thing about evil, as a final, final note— we always do this, one more thing, one more thing, one more thing, and then 10 more minutes— if you look at bank robbers or art heists There's a theme with really good con men. They convince that the other people that they're working with are in on the deal, but they're really being used. It's not uncommon with organized crime when 4 people go to rob a bank, they all act like they're friends, but then one of the guys or 2 of the guys is going to end up taking all the art or all the money, and they've just used the other 2 to help them get it. I think that's similar with evil. When you are doing evil, you think you're kind of— you're the creator of it, you're in on it, you're the one doing it, inflicting it on others, or using it to your own ends. But evil is using you. Evil is acting on you, and you become worse off for it. You're like the two con men that got used by the head honcho. You're— you— I really do believe this because that evil has used you. Evil is using you up as you think you are using it. And the evidence—

well, it is an interesting question. How many evil people come to a good end? I don't know the answer.

Hitler didn't.

Yeah, no, exactly. I know.

But as I'm reading Bill O'Reilly's book, which, by the way, a Dennis and Julie listener recommended to me, it's called Killing the SS. Talk about evil. Talk about chilling and riveting. My gosh, a lot of Nazis escaped.

That's a good point. So yeah, led good lives in South America.

But here's my only consolation. And in addition to being a consolation, I believe it to be true. I think evil still is using them up, even if their life doesn't end in the conventional way that we would want someone who's evil to be punished. How could someone like that actually have a good life? How could a Nazi who has done such evil and then moves to Argentina and is looking around every corner afraid that Mossad is going to come assassinate them? How can they actually have a good life? How could someone evil have real friendships and real love and no real kindness? I don't think they can. And that's evil acting on them.

Maybe they don't miss it.

Maybe they don't. It's a mystery.

I wonder, though, did— didn't most— I think most SS just ended up staying in Germany.

Most, yeah.

Only the head ones ended up in South America like Eichmann.

The book is unbelievable. And by the way, I got to tell you, his Mengele, the—

his series of books are very good.

You know what I've noticed? This is a little off topic about every prominent conservative host, and this is not true for for prominent left-wing or liberal hosts. You all write books on subjects that don't have to do with your—

Excellent point.

You do the Bible commentary. Bill O'Reilly has done Killing Jesus, Killing the SS. Andrew Klavan does these like crime novels. Oh, God. What's another example? I was just thinking of this and I made a list of these people. Who? Oh, Eric Metaxas. I mean, I guess Martin Luther, his biography of Martin Luther is it, but he talks about Christianity.

Bonhoeffer is his best known book.

Yes, Bonhoeffer. You all do that. That is not true for people on the left. And that's, it's an amazing thing. It shows that all of you are incredibly multi-talented and very intellectual.

Well, it shows our lives don't revolve around politics. Whereas for the left it does.

Yes.

You know why? There's a reason. By the way, people should know the reason they are interested in having power over others. We're not.

And it shows that what really you care about is this good and evil divide, because Bill O'Reilly's books are about the persecution of Jesus. The same part. Yours is about, you know, happiness and about biblical values. It's cool.

It is cool. All right. Tell everybody your parting words.

You can reach me at—

you certainly can reach her—

julie@julie-hartman.com. And you can follow me at Julie R. Hartman. And you can follow Dennis on Instagram.

You can.

I actually— I really can't. No, no, no, no, I think you're acting. No, you're acting at this point. No, every time.

I know, I don't remember the, the words, but No, but I'm not even sure.

But, you know, there's an Instagram, right?

Yeah, but I don't know what I do on Instagram. What do I do on Instagram? You can follow me at my website. That, that tells you a lot.

I am— my face is not anger. My face is genuine disbelief because we have this conversation.

Never answer every—

I do answer.

What do I do on Instagram?

You put— well, not you, but someone is posting clips from your radio show.

Oh, then this is what happens.

This is what happens every week.

It doesn't happen.

I go, follow Instagram. And he goes, what? And then I go, are you kidding? I'm not kidding.

She is practicing to be a wife.

I practice every day. Clearly it's working out great.

That's hilarious.

I'm 23. In 4 years from now, I'll start worrying.

But good. Don't worry now.

Shalom, everyone.

See you.

It's great to be with you.

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