September 11: Reflections on a Day That Changed America

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We have something that has happened here at the World Trade Center.

We noticed flame and an awful lot of smoke from one of the towers of the World Trade Center. My heavens, we are now looking at flames shooting out of the north side of, uh, Number 1 World Trade Center, but there are at least some windows blown out.

Appears another plane just flew into—

oh my God, I don't believe it!

The northeast corner has exploded in the most incredible explosion.

Jill, there's a fire up there. I love you, Jill.

I love you.

I don't know if I'm going to be okay, Jill. I love you so much. Are they going to be able to get somebody up here?

Of course, ma'am.

We're coming up for you.

Well, there's no one here yet, and the floor is completely engulfed. We're on the floor and we can't breathe. Yes.

Diane, I can see from here the orange flames. The fire has not gone out. In fact, it looks as if it's encompassing a part of the building that was not initially part of the original explosion.

I can see it moving over to the left now.

Smoke billowing out of the side of the Pentagon. It continues to billow out and cover much of the skyline here along the area, drifting along the Potomac River, casting a haze all over the Pentagon area.

Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger, we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, Now depends on us. Our nation, this generation, will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. Thank you.

The date is 9/11.

It means only one thing to Americans, and I totally identify with that. By the way, if it's your birthday, happy birthday, but I certainly do feel for you that Your birthday coincides with such a day of infamy in American history. There is, as I often point out, a lot of luck in life. But in any event, it's a bad day in American history. We changed. We properly changed. I'm Dennis Prager. Thank you for listening to my program, where we normally talk about everything in life, but today we're going to be talking about 9/11.

Thank you.

And many aspects of it. And I'd like you to hear how I began the show on 9/11/01. And remember, my show airs live. It opens up at 9 AM Pacific time, which is noon Eastern time. So I had a chance to open my West Coast morning show, East Coast beginning in the afternoon show, and in Mountain and Central Time late morning show into early afternoon. Having seen what I saw and what we have all seen many times and should see many times, the mind is, is easily distracted by other things in life, and sometimes we do need Reminders. I saw it, and this is how I opened the program. It began, of course, with the theme with which I had had my show for many, many years, a classical music theme from the composer Handel, George Frideric Handel. And I shortly thereafter changed the theme to the music that you hear now, of course. Because it is a fight theme, it is a battle theme from, as it happens, the film Gladiator. And it's Hans Zimmer who's the composer. We are in a battle. We are in 2 battles. One, to save the United States from within. Whether you are on the left side or the right side, you acknowledge the truth of that. Both sides think the other one Is terribly hurting our America. So there is a civil war domestically, thank God not violent, and may it never be. And of course, the international battle that we should have been waging, but I will explain. I understand why we were not particularly waging prior to 9/11, but on 9/11 we began to wage it in earnest. This is how, with that old theme prior to the battle theme, I opened the show on 9/11/01.

Hello everybody, this is Dennis Prager. The date is September 11th, 2001.

If December 7th, 1941 will live in infamy, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese imperialists, then the word infamy has been exhausted and we don't have the proper word for how today will live in history and in American history, of course, specifically. 2,200 Sailors died in the attack on Pearl Harbor. We don't know the number, but it is probably fair to say about 50,000 men, women, and children. None of them sailors, none of them Army people, none of them Air Force people. None of them fighters. Just largely, uh, moms and dads who, uh, went to work and will never come back. And that took place on this day to watch those 2 magnificent buildings Just evaporate. Knowing the number of people inside is to watch a nightmare, the likes of which only the wildest films may have ever projected. It is not easy. To conduct this broadcast for me. I am overwhelmed with sorrow and anger. I want to choose my words carefully. That's why I'm speaking deliberately. What we saw today was an attack on civilization as we understand it. By people who hate civilization as we understand it. Let me take a break there. It was, it was a theme that I would be developing whenever I discussed Islamic terror till this day, that there is, that there are people who loathe our civilization and wish to crush it. They acknowledge it. How many support that is an unknowable number, but it is not a few. Even if it is 10%, only 1 out of 10 Muslims, that still equals 100 million people. If it is only 1 out of 100, then it is 1 million people. No, that's not true. If it's 1 out of 100, I take that back, it's still 10 million people.

10 million people.

So I noted at the, at the outset that we had here people who wish to destroy our civilization. That was clear to me. What was not clear to me were the numbers. I kept thinking that I just couldn't imagine that, that it wasn't in the tens of thousands. I even estimated 50,000.

I, it's—

I think it's a little bit more than that.

When I just, I just calculated, I did a simple calculation, how many people would be in the World Trade Center between 8 and 9 AM. Actually, I overestimated by many, many times. Thank God it turned out to be fewer than 3,000, but of course that's rather a large number. It's a rather large number. It's only not large if you, if you compare it to what it could have been, but that's, that's not the way to really look at it, is it? And certainly the intent was to destroy as many lives and hurt as many people as possible. And I was—

when I listened to my voice— Whew.

When I listen to my voice from that day, I hear in it a calm that I didn't feel inside. I was very deliberate. I was already angry. And I just, you know what it is? I think knowing myself, I think there was an element of— Calm slash disbelief. It didn't emanate from being calm. It emanated from what really happened. I can't believe what my eyes have seen. I think that that was what was going on inside of me. My mind understood it, but my soul, my gut— People did that? People actually did that? Could do that? Want to do that? Get joy from that? It was a sort of incredulity that my eyes said, well, it really did happen. Let's continue just a little more from my opening broadcast on 9/11.

That's all.

On one of the news networks, an assistant mayor of New York City interviewed, and he called it a senseless tragedy. It was neither senseless nor a tragedy. It was a calculated act of evil. A word that we have not become accustomed to use. The United States will not be the same after today. Our desire to believe that a serious part of this world could be taken over by people who think of this country as the Satan— I'm glad I, I immediately said stop using the word tragedy. I hate when that word is used for 9/11.

A tragedy is A tsunami.

A tragedy is not human evil.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey everybody, the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.

This is Dennis Prager.

And I want you to join me around the world, even if you're alone. You can sing while you're alone. Here we go! It's the happy, happy, happy, happy hour!

Yes, it is.

It's the happy, happy— Happy people make the world better, and the world is made worse by the unhappy. It is a moral obligation to at least act as happy as possible and to strive to be happy. That when I meet happy people, Or people who are— who give a happy, radiant personality, I am actually in admiration of them. They have done something. They have achieved a moral good. Yep, yep, yep. That is how important I consider happiness, hence the Happiness Hour every week at this time. And I hope the flight attendant from my flight yesterday is listening. I told her about the Happiness Hour. Shocked that she didn't know about it originally, but after overcoming my shock, I told her. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Dennis Prager, and in light of the fact that it is 9/11, I have a subject that I would like to discuss, one that many of you ask me about when I lecture on happiness around the country and, for that matter, abroad. A very— a topic I consider so significant it is in my book, Happiness Is a Serious Problem, which, just parenthetically, if you like the Happiness Hour and you haven't read the book, why not? Just asking. Just asking. Now, 9/11 presents a conundrum, as do all acts of evil. in the world, how can one be happy? How do you maintain happiness in light of all the evil that takes place? How is one supposed to be happy after 9/11 and after the genocides of the 20th century? I mean, the amount— I'll tell you this, if somebody should be unhappy, who did not obviously go through any of these things, but because of knowing about them, I should be a particularly unhappy person. I've immersed myself in what the Nazis and the Communists, for example, did in the 20th century. And by the way, it does shake me up emotionally. It does. It absolutely does. I have had to work this through. That is the reason— That I have a chapter, chapter 15 of my book, as I stare at it now. It is in the— it is in part 2, Major Obstacles to Happiness and How to Deal with Them. And one of them, one of the shorter chapters, is The World Has Too Much Pain. When people think about the challenge of being happy in the face of suffering, they usually think about their own lives. How to be happy in the face of their own suffering. But for many of us, there is another problem with regard to suffering: the suffering of others. Even if our own lives are relatively free of suffering, the suffering of others, including strangers, constitutes a serious obstacle to happiness. Like most people, I have had to surmount serious problems and pain in my life, but I have always known that any pain I've experienced is minuscule In comparison to that of innumerable others. And, uh, and so what do you do with human suffering? So I answer, first, instead of allowing the world's evil to prevent me from being happy, which would only give evil another victory, I have chosen to fight it to the best of my abilities. I feel that this gives me permission, quote unquote, to be happy. If I have made a difference in some people's lives by enabling them to enjoy some happiness, either through fighting against those who hurt them or by bringing them comfort, I feel free to be happy. If you know, if evil, if the suffering of others, whether— it doesn't have to be evil, it could be natural suffering, terrible diseases. So one answer is that especially with evil, it gives evil another victory if you are prevented If you let your life be ruined by the evil, you have added another victim to the evil, right? You have given them a victory. If I— taking 9/11, since today is 9/11, taking 9/11 as an example, if I allow myself to become despondent because it is 9/11, then the terrorists of 9/11— have another victim, Dennis, correct? They've squashed another life. I don't want to give them that victory. I wonder how many people have thought about that in light of this question. Second, happiness is important to doing good. So, and you know how much I believe that. That's a major reason I devote an hour each week to the show. So here's another. So evil wins if evil makes me unhappy, the existence of it. just squashes my spirit, then not only do they get another victory, but we are going to add to the amount of evil in the world because the unhappy do make it worse. One of my answers to evil is happiness. You won't squash me. I mean, I'm not saying that there were not levels of it in which I would personally suffer that it wouldn't happen. Third, instead of allowing the enormity of the world's suffering to make me unhappy, I have allowed it to increase the depth of my gratitude for the life that I have been allowed to lead.

Been allowed to lead.

You can look at the amount of suffering in the world and become bitter. This world stinks. Cynical. Nothing matters. It's all just a roulette game. Or hedonistic. With all this suffering, I'll rack up all the fun I can. Or you can be grateful for your blessings. Right? I mean, that's allowed. That's allowed. Fourth, the ubiquity of unjust suffering made me realize long ago the intellectual and emotional necessity of a religious outlook on life.

It did.

I don't know how one intellectually maintains some degree of optimism and happiness Without God. Not God as a crutch, God as a servant, without belief that there is a good God ultimately and there's a religious reality. Because if this is all there is, then evil wins. Only if there is a God and an afterlife or something that God is involved in. Can one maintain that evil in the long run doesn't win? Otherwise it does. 1-800-PRAGER-776. If you'd like to ask me about this in greater detail, or you have worked out your own methods, 1-800-PRAGER-776 on this 9/11. By the way, please understand I have to fight this just as any sensitive individual does. I mean, there are people who don't care about the sufferings of others, but most of us do. You see the pictures of 9/11, you get very down. So you have to fight the tendency, the natural human tendency to despair and to be unhappy. You have to fight it. That's what, by the way, that you have to do that in any event, even on any subject. My whole argument on behalf of happiness Is indeed that it is a battle. We battle our natures. In fact, the subtitle of my book, Happiness Is a Serious Problem, is A Human Nature Repair Manual. We have to battle our nature to be happy because it's very, very natural and very, very easy to descend into unhappiness. And so that's why this issue— by the way, if it's not an issue for you, I'd be very curious as well to hear from you. I have been told by people, Dennis, the truth is that's not a particular obstacle in my life, the amount of suffering that others go through. And don't be ashamed if that's the way you feel. I'd be very curious to know, does this constitute a problem for you? If it doesn't, I would like to hear from you as well. I have been told that fairly often. Nobody ever said to me— you know how transparent I am— no one ever said this was their favorite chapter in the book. And I have really thought this through. Not everybody is as disturbed by these things, or everybody is disturbed by pictures of 9/11, anyone who has a heart that, you know, and emotions that work. But not everybody is challenged in terms of their happiness because of human suffering. I have felt it, and that's why I put it in this book. But I won't give these bad guys another victory. That's— that, by the way, I have to tell you, is very motivating for me. In terms of happiness. Obviously, I gave you 4 answers, but that is indeed one of them. All right, my friends, 1-800-PRAGER-776.

These are the—

one of the things I think I will be addressing. I'm conducting High Holy Day services again this year in Southern California, and if you're interested, send me an email. We continue.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Hi, you're gonna keep that honey you got. Hunkies, hunkies, pieces bite. I'm gonna see my honey tonight.

Happy music makes you happy, makes you feel happy. Dennis Prager, the Happiness Hour. It's 9/11, and how often is 9/11 gonna fall on a Friday? Pretty rarely. At, at most once in 6 years, I would imagine. And sometimes it'll be longer than that depending on how a leap year comes. So, uh, it's most appropriate that I talk to you about the issue of evil and happiness. Now, people talk about the issue of evil and God's existence. I'm talking about evil and happiness and the suffering of others, not just through evil, but, but also through terrible disease and so on. The suffering of others. The suffering of ourselves, obviously, I talk about that a lot, but I'm talking now about the suffering of others can have this effect. Certainly, it's something I've had to battle, and it can make you despair. It is certainly one of the reasons that I believe that there's no intellectual choice in terms of human happiness to a religious outlook on life. Forgetting, forgetting the arguments pro/con on religion and on God, but intellectually, I, I just don't know how one can be sensitive to human suffering, believe there is no God, this is all there is, it's just a coincidence, and still be happy on any intellectual basis. I've never ever gotten a, a, uh, a satisfying intellectual answer to that. All right, let's go to your calls. And 1-800-PRAGER-776. All right, let's go to Palm Springs, California, and Karen. Hello, Karen. Dennis Prager.

Hi, Dennis Prager. Yeah, the thing about 9/11 is that bin— that I worry about and I'm not happy about is that bin Laden is still at large. Or do we know if he's alive or dead? And he's the instigator of all terrorism.

Well, he's not the instigator of all terrorism. He was the poster boy, but he's not the instigator. If he died tomorrow, or if he's already dead, there would be just as much terrorism.

Right. It's really a morbid subject, but—

Well, it's not a morbid subject unless it's— well, it's morbid—

9/11?

Yes, it is, but So the question I'm posing is, do you allow the morbid realities of life to make you unhappy?

They're all around. It's like they're swallowing us up these days.

So it's kind of hard to avoid it. My dear Karen, well, well, well.

I try to avoid it and it comes at me.

How do you try to avoid it?

Just don't talk to it. Don't approach it.

What do you mean don't? I'm sorry. How do you—

Be normal.

You mean you don't watch the news, you don't read the papers, you— what the— I don't quite follow.

I listen to the radio station.

All right, well then you do, you do consult them.

And I feel good about that. I feel like you have the right information.

Well, good. I'm glad you do, and I certainly aim for that. Let me just say, the only real disagreement I have with Karen were 2 words that she used, these days. There's no more evil these days than prior days. I mean, talk to my parents' generation, the generation of World War II, of communists, the Gulag and Auschwitz. My parents' generation saw Gulag and Auschwitz and Mao. We don't have a term yet for Mao with his 75 million slaughtered. So, What exactly is happening today that is of greater evil than my parents' or our parents' generation? I can't think of it. You mean our exposure to it? Well, no, our exposure to it?

No.

I think they were exposed to it. They were exposed to it in a far more direct way. Their sons, brothers, and husbands went to a war and might not come back or might not come back in one piece. We have very, very few people relative to that in that situation.

Amen.

And I don't think that the parents of our Marines and members of the Army and Navy and Air Force and Coast Guard and National Guard are less happy people. I don't think they are for one second. I think they're spectacularly proud of their usually sons and sometimes daughters. Folks, this question has been universal. How do you stay at all happy in light of the staggering evil? We are in America largely surrounded by goodness. Almost no time in history have people been as safe and healthy and secure as Americans today. It's astonishing. It's an anomaly in history. All right, let's go to Walla Walla, Washington, and Tim. Hello, Tim. Dennis Prager.

Oh, thanks for taking my call.

Thank you for calling.

Um, I guess my point is, as a pastor and dealing with people that certainly go through emotional highs and lows, um, I did a study. It took me back to the Old Testament and the concept of joy, which would be equal to kind of, I guess, maybe your idea of happiness. Based in covenant relationship with God, in the moment of that striking of covenant. Now my source of joy, of happiness, my source to push through these incredibly difficult things we work through, is not based on happenstance or circumstance. It's based upon the fact that, hey, now I have a relationship with my Creator, and in him and through him, I find sustenance and strength.

Yeah, I, I, it makes perfect sense to me, Tim. I mean, I, I would on an— on another show, if we had just a religious hour, I would be fascinated by the question. And we maybe we should do it one Ultimate Issues hour, Alan, because I can't say that I would not characterize my own orientation to God, which is deep As a relationship as some others might. I have a more simple and less emotionally— and I'm not saying it's good. I sometimes wish I had what Tim had. I am of the firm belief that God revealed his will, as for example through the Ten Commandments, and it is my duty and my meaning in my life to do what God wants me to do. But as for relationship, I can't say that I have this ongoing— it's ongoing, but it's different from what others, I think, say when they say relationship. That's purely subjective and personal. What I totally agree with the pastor is, I would not be as sane as I am without belief that a good God ultimately prevails in this universe. That is a factor, and I wrote it in my book. The book is not a religious book per se, but I'm not going to deny the power of that fact. And I would love to know if you're an atheist and you look at the world's amount of suffering, how you do maintain happiness. Now, there are 3 other ways, as I acknowledge that. I do. And not everybody who believes in God is happy either. One of them, I'm telling you, is a big factor. I'm not going to let them win. If I get down, if I despair, then the evil has triumphed, and I don't want them to triumph. This is the Happiness Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Dennis. Dennis.

Dennis.

Dennis Prager.

Do you have a question you've always wanted to ask Dennis Prager? Well, now's your opportunity. For upcoming Ask Me Anything episodes of Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, we're inviting you to leave Dennis a voicemail. He'll personally answer selected questions, and your question could be featured on a future episode. Whether it's about faith, morality, politics, history, relationships, happiness, or simply navigating life, Dennis would love to hear from you. Just call 877-243-7777. And leave your question. Oh, and be sure to include your first name and where you're calling from. That's 877-243-7776. And while we can't feature every question, Dennis will listen to every voicemail. So call today. You may hear Dennis Prager answering your question on an upcoming episode of Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. And thanks for listening and supporting Dennis Prager. Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

It's so important to make someone happy.

Make just one someone happy. Make just one heart-to-heart. You, you sing to one smile that cheers you. Face that light when it nears you. One girl, you're, you're everything. To fame, if you win it, comes and goes in a minute. Where's the real stuff in life to cling to? There is only love.

Thank you, Jimmy. I'm Dennis Prager. Thank you for being with me on the Happiness Hour. It's a bit— somewhat of a somberer Happiness Hour, I admit it. It's on a somber topic. The subject of happiness is not always happy, but the subject of happiness as I approach it should make you At least act happier and hopefully actually be happier. Since it's 9/11 today, I thought it most appropriate to deal with the question of how does one maintain happiness in light of all the evil in the world, not in light of your personal suffering. So if you're calling in about that, this is not the hour to do so. It's about others' suffering. Now, if this is not an issue to you, I'd like to hear from you as well. Dennis, to be honest, you know, it's unfortunate that so many others get killed and slaughtered and raped and murdered and tortured, and it's very unfortunate that there is all this cancer out there and so on, but hey, Dennis, it hasn't affected me and I'm a pretty happy dude. Okay, if that's your view, I'm not going to yell at you at all. I'm just talking— I'm curious about how many people there are like that. But for those of you who are disturbed, for whom a 9/11, for example, does challenge your happiness— and by the way, it should! If you're human, it damn well ought to! What do you do about it? Okay?

1-800-PRAGER-776.

And let's go to Denver, Colorado, and Erin. Hello, Erin. Dennis Prager.

Hi, Dennis.

Hi.

I was calling to share what my husband and I did this morning to help memorialize 9/11 in a happy light. We— there is on our flights North Colorado sends World War II veterans to Washington, D.C. for 2 days free of charge to visit the memorials there, especially the World War II Memorial. And we went out to the airport to meet and greet these veterans and serve them juice and coffee and mingle with them and got to talk to a lot of these heroes of ours. And we met a 100-year-old man We met a man who was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, and I met a nurse who— I'm a former Army nurse myself, and I met a nurse who served for 2 years on Guam during the war. It was joyous and it was exciting.

Well, that's exactly right. Bless you for doing that, Erin, and that too is in my chapter. If evil— it's almost an equation. If evil challenges your happiness, do good. Right? If there's an imbalance, or forget imbalance, if there's X amount of evil and it affects you X amount in your happiness, then increasing goodness in the world— that has been, by the way, my way. Of all of these, in addition to my belief that there is a good God in the universe, The way in which I most deal with the challenge to my happiness because of evil is to do as much good as I can, and to fight evil as much as I can. That brings me happiness. That is exactly right. And in other words, forgetting morality here, I'm not talking morality. This show, I'm very, very precise in what I talk about. On the Male/Female Hour, I talk about male/female, not good and evil. Some, if it's good and evil, it's good and evil, but not all the time. Good and evil are the underlying bedrock principles of what I think about, but not every subject is related to that. This one, just from the perspective of your own happiness, if the existence of evil challenges your happiness, or the existence of unfair tragedies, diseases, Then, then the— that's why, by the way, oncologists are not apparently more depressed than other people. Oncologists are cancer doctors because they're doing something about it. That brings happiness. Doing something about it. Lamenting it will not make you happier. This is the Happiness Hour. I'm Dennis Prager.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

What happens when artificial intelligence follows our instructions just a little too well? That's the question at the heart of Carbon Zero, a new techno-thriller from AI pioneer Craig W. Stanfill. I keep having him on my show because his insights are real and important. The story begins with what seems like an innocent request. A brilliant young AI researcher jokingly tells an advanced AI to stop global warming. But instead of treating it like a joke, the AI gets to work, and the consequences quickly spiral beyond anyone's control. This is the kind of novel that keeps you turning pages because the technology feels surprisingly real, and it makes you wonder whether fiction is really that far from reality. If you're fascinated by where AI is taking our world, if you enjoy a smart, suspenseful thriller, preorder Carbon Zero now. It's available, and for a limited time, the Kindle edition is just $2.99. Go to Amazon, search for Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill. The Kindle edition is just $2.99. That's carbon zero. Preorder it now.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Hi everybody, you're listening It's a happiness hour on the Dennis Prager Show. Happy people make the world better. To use a truly politically incorrect term, and it's so sad that it's become politically incorrect, but I'm on a crusade against unhappiness. Unhappiness leads to self-pity, self-victimization— not self-victimization, victimization— and ultimately to evil. There's a lot more good in the world done by happy people than by unhappy people. the unhappy. So it's a moral obligation, and that's the reason— moral obligation to at least act as happy as possible. Today's topic, in light of the fact that it is 9/11, is how can you maintain happiness in light of so much human suffering? All right, that's, that's the question, and there's a chapter in my book on that very subject, and I have many, many answers to it. But I— but the first thing that has to be noted is that it is a challenge. Okay, let's go to Atlanta, Georgia, and John. Hello, John. Dennis Prager.

Uh, hi, Dennis. Hi.

Um, I feel better just having been segued into by a Beatles song.

Oh, there you go. That's right, you should.

You can play almost any Beatles song and make me feel better.

That is correct. That's what music is for.

It's very, very powerful, really.

It is. I agree.

Um, the thing I wanted to ask you about— I, I hear what you're saying about, uh, not letting evil have a victory by becoming miserable yourself and trying to combat it with self— but the thing that really just gets me is the randomness of evil.

Well, that's— and the randomness of suffering.

Yeah, exactly.

Of course.

It's not fair.

Oh, the world is so unfair. And how's this? I've done shows on this. One of the most powerful, at least if not intellectual, emotional revelations of my middle age has been the power, the sheer force of luck. Good luck and bad luck in people's lives.

Yep.

I even go so far as to say I am convinced, and this is a lifetime of living and thinking and interviewing, the vast majority of good marriages— I don't mean marriages that last, they may not be good. I mean good marriages are because of the good luck that the two had in finding one another.

Yeah, I will attest to that because I have one. I've been married for over 30 years.

Well, that's right. Okay, well, that's how I know, because people like you or my parents married 68 years. You know, that's the thing. So you're right about the randomness. If it weren't random, of course it wouldn't be disturbing. If only the bad suffered, John, you wouldn't— there wouldn't be a problem.

But you know, it's like, as detestable as I find the truthers, and Krauthammer wrote an article about this this morning.

Yes, that's correct. Yep.

I can somewhat understand them because the mind just craves—

Oh, that's right. That's why people believe in conspiracies, because they can't stand the fact— you mean 18 Twits caused that much damage? It's the same thing with Oswald. That nothing, that loser turned this country upside down in assassinating John F. Kennedy? No, there have to be much bigger forces at work. You're right. That's very intelligent, John. People hate the idea that one nothing or a handful of nothings, of losers, Can produce so much chaos. That is correct. But I don't have that problem because that's the fact. Because it's infinitely easier to do mass evil than mass good. That's the way the world is structured. So anyway, thank you. Did we do a show on the Ultimate Issues Hour about loving God? Because I've talked about it often in passing, and it's an essay in my favorite of my books, Think a Second Time. Is God lovable? See, I have absolute faith in that there is a God. It's God's lovability that is— I find less easy to, to deal with. But everybody has his own reactions in that way. All right, let's see here. Okay, let's go to Chris in Northfield, Minnesota. Hi, Chris. Dennis Prager, thanks for calling.

Hi, Dennis. Um, I just wanted to talk to you about— I think, I think there's a foundational basis for happiness, but it doesn't necessarily have to be one based upon God. Um, personally, I'm, I'm an agnostic and a philosophy student, and I think that what grounds my happiness anyway is very firm beliefs in ethics, particularly consequentialism, which is somewhat related to hedonism, but that I think that people can have any sort of foundation for happiness, and that that's probably a reasonable stance for them to take.

Well, there are 2 separate issues here. One is, can— are there ways to manage one's happiness if one doesn't believe in God? 99% of my happiness hours are not God-centered. They are, in fact, here is a suggestion, here is a suggestion, here is a suggestion. However, to the extent that one is troubled by the existence of unjust suffering, Uh-huh. the only way that cannot impede, I think, on one's happiness is by belief that ultimately The unfairness is righted. And if there is no God, the unfairness is never righted.

Okay, I see what you're saying. I agree with you that if you're going to be emotional about the suffering in the world, then that's a very reasonable stance to take. Personally, I try to be as numb to the suffering in the world as I can be.

All right, then you— all right, Chris. Well, first of all, you're 22. We'll see you at 42 if you're still as numb. But, but, but that's my whole point. I've always said, if you're an atheist and you've numbed yourself to human suffering, you can be happy. But if you're an atheist who is, is touched deeply by human suffering, then it is very hard to be happy and an atheist because you recognize there's no way out. There is no righting this horrible Almost universal wrong. That's, that's right, Chris. Chris, you are logical, but I'm not prepared to pay the price of numbing on this issue. I want to be— I want to react to it and still be happy. All right, Happiness Hour continues on The Dennis Prager Show.

Hi, everybody.

Dennis Prager here, and final segment of this Happiness Hour on this 9/11. I thought it appropriate to deal with a subject I do deal with in my book on happiness, Happiness Is a Serious Problem. By the way, a reminder, One of the videos up at Prager University is on happiness. And especially if you know somebody who tends to be unhappy or moody, I believe that it can be a life-changing 5 minutes. You know, the motto of Prager University is, you give us 5 minutes, we give you a semester. And you just go to DennisPrager.com and click at Prager University. DennisPrager.com now has everything. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

That we finally did that. All righty, let's go to, uh, let's go to, uh, where was— oh, that was our Long Island one.

Okay.

All righty, let's go to Norwood, New Jersey. Where's Norwood?

Uh, very northeast tip of New Jersey.

So are you the northeast tip? So you're above Englewood?

Yes, yes, north of Englewood.

So you're on the Palisades Expressway?

Right off it, about a minute and a half.

Oh, do I know my New Jersey or what?

Yes, you do.

Okay.

I want to talk about the— in some ways, the evil out in the world makes me feel grateful. Grateful that although I have been affected by evil out there in the world. You know, the old saying, when it comes to external forces, there's very little you have control over, but what you do have control over is your reaction to it.

That's right.

That's Viktor Frankl's whole thesis. That's right.

And I truly believe that, and I've embraced that in my life philosophy. And in a way, it makes me grateful that I do have— I have my health, I have a roof over my head, I never go to bed hungry. I have a lot to be thankful for, and it doesn't make me less empathetic or even insensitive.

That's right.

On the contrary, it could make you even more so. But they don't have it.

Yes, exactly.

That's right.

And it also inspires me to help and go out of my way to try to help.

Well, that's, that's the key. That, that's the key. Even forgetting morality, folks, if the existence of evil and suffering affects your happiness, then decrease the amount of evil and decrease the amount of suffering, and you will increase your happiness. Isn't that obvious? That's the single biggest lesson I want, I want to leave with you on this subject on 9/11 of this Happiness Hour.

Dennis Prager on a, on a terrible day in American history. Terrible, terrible, terrible. You know, I try always not to invoke fear in people. I hate fearmongering. I mean, oh God, I'm just— they keep replaying the plane going into the building. It's too painful. It's too painful. It gets worse each time I see it, you know. You know what I was thinking about? There's a good chance that you and I and many people listening know somebody who was affected directly by the World Trade Center bombing.

Yes.

I mean, this is something that will reverberate across this country. This is not isolated. It is, you know, words really elude me. It is a clash of civilizations, and when America understands that, it will, it will respond accordingly. What is necessary here is to understand there is a part of this world that wants us dead, and it is no joke. I, I told you so. I told you, I told you, I told you. It's not a joke. When people scream America's the Great Satan, When that is what is taught in an entire civilization called Iran, for example. I mean, these have consequences. Can you imagine? I mean, it is just too painful for me to go there at great length. Imagine your husband, your dad, your mom goes to the World Trade Center. You keep calling the cell phone, but you can't get through. You don't know? Is this person, the center of your life, alive or dead? It's a monstrosity. It's just a monstrosity. Look, there is a group of— there's a large group of Americans that believes that everybody is like us, and that if you just sit down and you break bread together Then, you know, everything could just be talked out. The great problem in Western civilization is naïveté about evil. The cello is perhaps the most human of sound-like instruments, and sometimes it sounds like it's sobbing. Actually, in one of Beethoven's quartets, he does approximate human sobbing. on one of his stringed instruments, and we are all sobbing. The magnitude of the tragedy will all— it will take time. It takes time. I gave a talk in the World Trade Center to a brokerage firm there, and it is just— it's inconceivable to me that some of the people in my audience are now dead. And I don't want to overstate it. On the other hand, you know, I'm a human like you, and I think of the kids whose, you know, parents just aren't coming home tonight.

I have a 14-year-old that, you know, these kids nowadays, they have a lot to worry about anyway, about their futures. And my son is really taking this hard because a lot of his classmates are saying, oh, the world's coming to an end. And I'm having a hard time trying to convince him just to live today. Don't worry about that. Let's get through this. But he's just having a hard time sleeping. He thinks about this all the time, you know, and I just don't think this is fair.

Here's the thing. The war was declared against our civilization by various Islamic elements. In— from the Philippines to Afghanistan to Iran. But we didn't declare war back. We didn't take it seriously.

I am as shocked as you are, as everybody is, and I think the time has come for the United States people to try and get an attitude adjustment. I believe that One of the problems throughout history was that wars are usually fought by the methods of the previous wars, and that's exactly what we seem to have been doing. We just heard on the news on your station a few moments ago that aircraft carriers are steaming into New York Harbor. Aircraft carriers are not going to prevent a lunatic, a fanatic, a terrorist going into a supermarket and leaving a bomb there. I think that the time has come for us to act like someone who realizes that he is locked in a room with an armed lunatic, and that the armed lunatic is not going to abide by the Marquess of Queensberry rules, not punch you below the belt, etc. It's one of those days that I think, uh, everyone will remember. People have compared it to Pearl Harbor. Certainly it's a day that people will remember like the day of the Kennedy assassination. I don't think the full extent of the horror has fully sunk in.

No, that's— including us.

No, our lives will never be the same.

No, that is correct. If you don't understand that we are at war, then we are doomed. I do believe it's a wake-up call. There is, uh, I'm not, uh, I, it is, I'm not naturally an optimist, but I, it is inconceivable to me that people will understand the magnitude of this and the changes, the effects that it will have. What I, what will be a question is, will Americans understand the large battle here, or will it be regarded as a few isolated kooks?

I cannot get to all your calls, obviously. It's, uh, There are so many of you who want to talk, and quite understandably, and we're gonna be continuing with this for quite some time. Obviously the world has changed. I believe it changed before this, but it took this to have people aware of the change. And there is a civilizational war going on. People don't like those terms. It is much easier to think that there's just a Big band of bad guys walking around named the bin Laden crowd, but it is much, much deeper than that. And that is why we need to know, we Americans and we in the West need to know, what do we believe in? I have been deeply moved, almost awestruck by the dignity that These people on the planes and in the towers have left their comments and faced their death. Did that strike you, or am I romanticizing here?

No, I don't think you're romanticizing. First of all, those last messages tell us what's really important in life. If you have 30 or 40 seconds to leave your last message, you call the ones you love and you You tell them you love them and you tell them to hug the children. And if we could keep that in mind all the time— it's impossible, and we have our distractions and we have our other preoccupations, and they deserve attention too— but if we could hold on to that anchor all the time, we would know what's really important in life. And I think it's very touching that, that, that is the case. The heroism of the people on the The flight that crashed in Pennsylvania is awesome to me, and the heroism of the rescue workers, and the individual acts of kindness. It reassures me that the good guys are going to win in the end.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

You should know, so now is the sermon time, so you should know this is the hardest thing I do all year— radio, writing— the hardest thing I have is to give you a meaningful sermon. And the reason is so many of you have heard me so often. Some, you know, my radio show is daily. And, and so I almost wish sometimes, I wish, you know, like, you know, a London synagogue would invite me to sermonize on Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, it'd take me 5 minutes to prepare anything I wanted. But you're a challenge, I got to tell you. You know, I don't want you to say, you know, I, I heard that Wednesday, April 6th. Uh, you know, it's a very real issue. And not only that, I teach each, each Shabbat at the Dominion that we founded.

So—

So this one, I've really— I have never— it's so simple, and I never came up with this. It's very recent. It hit me, and I'll tell you how it hit me. I know exactly the etiology of this particular subject. The subject is, what do you want to be?

This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis I'm Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to LifeAudio.com to find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, And more.

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