Timeless Wisdom: Ultimate Issues Hour - In God We Trust

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. Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.

Or not to be, that is the question.

Where was God? Isn't God supposed to be good? Isn't he supposed to love us?

Does God want us to suffer?

10 years, you're not finished yet?

Marty, why did you do this to me?

Who are you, Bruce? I am God.

Bingo!

Yatzee.

Is that your final answer?

Our service has got— ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Well, it was nice to meet you, God.

Thank you for the Grand Canyon, and good luck with the apocalypse. Hi everybody, and welcome to the Ultimate Issues Hour on the Dennis Prager Show. I'm Dennis Prager, and indeed, this third hour of the three-hour show on Tuesday is devoted to some great issue of life. I've explained to you what I call the American Trinity, the explanation of American values, which inaugurates also the Prager University video on the internet with over 100,000 hits already. And I want many, many more so that more and more Americans understand what I should have realized so long ago, but it took me till about 10 years ago to realize it was in my pocket. Every coin has the Trinity of America, not the theological Trinity of Christianity, of course, but the values Trinity of America. In God we trust, e pluribus unum, and liberty. I want to talk to you about In God we trust and explain what we're talking about here, and it's many things, but most of all it is something that if you go to a regular high school, that is a regular secular public school or secular private school, and then college, it's incredible, but you will never have to confront this simple fact. If God is not the source of values then there are no objective values. And the founders of America understood that it is God who is the author of our inalienable rights, not man. Man cannot be the author of inalienable rights. What man giveth, man can take. Man giveth, man taketh. Anyway, why is the man who give it gives it any higher than me? Where do values or rights or anything come from if there is no God? I'm posing this question to those of you who are secular. I'm not saying that you can't be a nice person if you are secular or atheistic. Of course you can. I'm just— that's not my point, nor is my point that everybody who believes in God is nice. I would have to be an idiot to make such a point. But the notion, the obvious notion that God is the source of values or values have no eternal or objective meaning, that notion is obvious. This is what was understood by the great people who founded this country. That is why God is on the Liberty Bell. God is the author of liberty. Who else is the author of liberty? You tell me. Mitochondria? Molecules? DNA? Our evolutionary ancestors? Who is the author of liberty? Or of goodness? Or of right and wrong? Or of standards of good and evil? Who could— you don't get them from cells. You don't get them from DNA. Science provides zero guidance morally. Zero. That's why people who tell me that they believe in science— wow, that's, that's, that's frightening. Of course I believe in science as far as science is concerned, but not as far as anything else is concerned. Science doesn't tell me what is right or wrong. Science tells me how to do whatever I want to do. It's the opposite. It's the opposite of right and wrong. It's do it if you can. So this country has been founded on a God-based morality, and if you don't agree that God is necessary for rights, for liberty, for morality, you give me a call, because that's what's taught. Who needs God? Reason, human experience, the human heart, human goodness, or whatever it is, that will be the source. Will you tell me what the source is if it's not going to be God? You tell me. Reason? Tell me what— where else you get thou shalt not murder from, and what would make it— what would make it compelling. 1-8-PRAGER-776. 1-8-PRAGER-776. 877-243-7776. 877-243-7776. I, I remember so vividly when I taught college, and then when I taught college kids at a summer institute that I directed when I came out to California many years ago, kids from the most elite colleges who had never in their lives confronted the simple question, without God, how do you know that there's a right and a wrong? Never. I spoke to philosophy majors who never involved themselves in this question. No God, no right and wrong. You have only opinions about it. And it's quite remarkable that this is not confronted. That's why I have contempt for most of the liberal arts education. It's not only is it agenda-driven, it's not even philosophically serious. You have to— it's the ultimate, ultimate question. On the— it's the Ultimate Issues Hour. This is the ultimate of ultimate issues. Where do meaning and where do morality come from if there is no God? And the answer is they come from nowhere. And the founders knew this. That's why this notion we get our values from the Constitution as opposed to from what we had originally considered a divine text, the Bible, is such nonsense. Where does the Constitution— the Constitution was written by men, so we get our— so therefore what, Madison is the author of my values? I don't get it. Let's go to your calls. Cleveland, Ohio. Mike. Hello, Mike. Thank you for calling.

Hey, Dennis, how you doing? Big fan of the show.

Thank you for that.

Um, I wanted to say, first of all, I want to preface this by saying that I am a Christian, so this might come as a little bit odd. For me, but it's a question I've kind of thrown back and forth, and I don't know. I want to get your opinion. If we say that goodness stems from God, how would we react if God commanded rape or commanded murder? It would still seem that goodness would almost dwell outside the realm of God. However, we wouldn't have any, like, prescriptive obligation toward it. I think our obligations come from God, but it almost seems that goodness exists abstractly, right?

You are a very intelligent young man. You really— you know, I, I don't throw— I don't throw these accolades out regularly. That, that's— you obviously think this through. So let me think it through with you. First of all, uh, the question itself: what if God commanded something evil?

Right.

Then be— would it then be good? Okay, the question itself is analogous. It's not identical to, but analogous to one I remember in elementary school where a kid would come over to me and say, so, hey, uh, Prager, uh, you think God can do anything? And I would say yes. And then this guy would say, well, can God make a rock so heavy that he himself can't lift it? And then walk off cracking up that he had trapped me.

Right.

It's a self-contradictory question. God cannot command what is evil. But having said that, and that's not the end of my answer, yes, if God is the author, things are good because God said so, not because Dennis thinks so. That is correct. Right. However, however, having said that, this is the third point. God it is believed by the, by the tradition and traditions that introduced this God into the world, did give all humans a conscience, right? So therefore the conscience is divinely inspired, divinely made. Therefore we have to use conscience.

Therefore, number 4, if something is becoming quite the, uh, syllogistical argument Well, it's become— I, I'm not even saying I disagree with you. I was just kind of making a joke because we're saying therefore, therefore, therefore.

Well, well, right.

All right.

But these, the, these therefores are critical. Therefore, therefore, one would have to ask if something that would— that was just prima facie evil were, were being ordered, then one would have to say it wasn't God who did it. One was mishearing. But we have— that's why I'm not a big believer in God telling us what to do beyond what has already been told in something like the Ten Commandments. That's why I'm very wary of new commands, as it were. Back in a moment. Great call. This is Dennis Prager, The Ultimate Issues Hour.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom. We'll continue right after this.

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

You're listening to The Dennis Prager Show. This is the Ultimate Issues Hour. And there is no greater ultimate issue than this one. There may be some tied, but this is as big as it gets. You know, I talk about the American Trinity— God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum, and Liberty— and I haven't explained the In God We Trust in detail, and I will work on the others another time. But the primary aspect of "In God We Trust" is that there is a God who is the source of our values. No God, no good and evil. Now let me explain what that means. It doesn't mean that there aren't people who can do good or people who can do evil. Of course there are. It means that there's no objective standard. It means that they don't really exist. They are opinions. You prefer kindness and he prefers cruelty. That's all. But if there's no God, who is to measure? Please, folks, who's to measure? There's no God. Who measures? DNA? Where do you get values from if not from God? Your heart? Your conscience? Well, what is the conscience though? If everything— if there is no God, there's— what does it mean, conscience? Show me the DNA that makes up a conscience. What's, what's a conscience molecule? Did you ever isolated one? Is their conscience fluid? It's astonishing to me the, the lack of serious thought given to this, and in high schools and on college campuses. What do you do? What do you do for good and evil if they're— if, if you don't believe in God? That doesn't mean that atheists are all bad. I said this before, I've said it every time. It's a— it's— and I'm going to take another call on her right now. There are atheists who can do good. There are religious people who can do bad. How people act is not my question. I'm not discussing how people act. I'm discussing whether or not good and evil objectively exist if there is no God. Where— what is the source of right and wrong? Okay, let me take more of your calls. Whittier, California, and Louis. Hello, Louis, Dennis Prager.

Hi, I'm one of your 90% agreeers, and this is in that 10% category, which falls in the disagreement area. I think you're toeing a really fine line because at times it almost sounds like you're saying if you're an atheist or an agnostic that you can't objectively know what's right and what's wrong, what's good and bad, what's evil, what's not to be done and what's to be done.

It almost sounds like you're saying that you're not quite sure. You can know if you're an atheist subjectively. And I also believe that— wait, wait, wait, wait, let me— wait, wait, let me just say too that an atheist has been given a conscience by God, in my belief, just as much as, as a believer has. So you have— there is a compass, there's a compass been given to you. But if it's not been given by God, Louis, what do you believe the conscience is? You know you can't find it in an X-ray.

Well, let me put it to you this way, Dennis. Um, I know that 1 1 2, not because someone told me, but because I can see that it's so. It's an axiom. An axiom is something that's self-evident.

What is the axiom? And what is it? All right, so what—

what is wrong? Because I can see that it's so. Does that necessarily mean that I—

okay, then explain to me, explain to me then, Louis, if that's the case, why it is that so many more people murder children than say 1 and 1 is 3. Nobody says 1 and 1 is not 2. No one. Hitler agreed it was. Mussolini agreed it was. Stalin agreed it was. Saddam agreed it was. There's universal agreement on 1 plus 1 is 2. There is massive disagreement on right and wrong.

Okay, you're talking about actions again.

No, no, on disagreement on what is right and wrong. Not, not, not even on what they do.

No, we don't even know for sure that that some of those people that committed those evil acts didn't know that they were doing something evil and did it anyway.

All right, here's the bad news, Lewis.

Believe in God on what's right and what's wrong sometimes.

Okay, well, the bad news is that vast amounts of evil have been committed by people who thought they were doing good.

That's true, I, I agree with that.

Okay, therefore you can't say it's an axiom because nobody on Earth denies 1 and 1 is 2 unless he's mentally defective. But vast numbers of people differ on what is right. Do you think suicide bombers think in their heart they're doing wrong?

Uh, I, you know, I can't say. I would say many of them think that they're doing the right thing. I can't say that there aren't some that—

Oh, all right, well, all right, we can't—

without talking to them, probably think they're on a call.

Okay, then it's obviously not an axiom, Louis. If it's an axiom, people accept it. People— that's so— it's so— so it's— that's, that's the point. It's, it's not axiomatic. Goodness is not axiomatic at all. The people who cheat in, in, in daily life, the people who cheat in daily life don't think it's an axiom that what they're doing is wrong. The people who cheat in daily life or cheat in business— forget, forget killing children— how about cheating, cheating in business? They will say, well, you know what, everybody, everybody does it, it's no big deal. I mean, people have rationalizations all the time. That's another reason we need God, by the way. Not just because that makes morality real, but because it makes morality accountable. You're not accountable to anybody if there's no God, except the government or the police force. But what if they're not going to catch you? Like in the Congo today, you can rape and murder and nobody will catch you. It's been done to millions of people in the Congo in the last decade. Alrighty, let's go to, uh, let's go to some more of your, uh, challenges and calls. Esther in Los Angeles, and thank you, Louis, appreciate your call a lot. Hello, Esther, Dennis Prager.

Hi, Dennis, thank you so much for taking my call. Um, I had a question. Um, I believe in God, but, um, and I'm very happy that this country is, uh, run with the belief in the Judeo-Christian God. But my question is, who's to say whose God do we follow? Because some people could follow God, but it might not be the same God that I believe in, and it might not be— I mean, in a sense, that's the subjective standard. Because, you know, there's people who like a Muslim God, or— I mean, I know that's the same God, but I mean, there's different ways that we interpret it. So who's to say that we're following the right God?

That's right, you're right. I didn't say that we know that we're following the right God. I never made that claim, Esther. I only said that if God is not the source of do not murder, murder is not wrong. It's just, it's just a subjective opinion if you think it's wrong, right? I admit I— listen, that's my whole point. In fact, I make a leap of faith that the God of the Ten Commandments is real and gave the Ten Commandments, but I admit it's a leap of faith. But if you believe that murder is wrong without God, that is your leap of faith. Everybody makes a leap of faith. The atheist makes a leap of faith to right and wrong. I make a leap of faith to the author of what is right and wrong. Is that clear?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you. I fully acknowledge that. All I'm saying is if there is— if this God of the Ten Commandments didn't give them, then those things are merely human-made suggestions. But I can't prove to you that there is a God. I can only prove to you logically that if there is no God, murder is a matter of opinion, not objective wrongness. Back in a moment. I'm Dennis Prager.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning. You can only save one. Who do you save? Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his The audience splits 3 ways: 1/3 chooses the dog, 1/3 chooses the stranger, and 1/3 aren't sure. Why? Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong. But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions. And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all? In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality, and why Judeo-Christian values shape the moral foundations of the free world.

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

If There Is No God by Dennis Prager, available now at PragerStore.com. That's PragerStore.com. Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here, the Ultimate Issues Hour. We have 3 mottos in our American value system: In God We Trust, E Pluribus Unum, and Liberty. I'm talking about In God We Trust and that God is the source of values. By the way, if you haven't seen my video, Prager University Prager University video on YouTube. Please look at it and please show it to as many people as possible. The one hope we have, I think— I'm certain, I don't think— for America is to reacquaint ourselves with our value system. And in 5 minutes, I think that we have done this on this video. It's Prager University at YouTube. Or prageru.com. Not prageruniversity.com, we couldn't get that, but prageru.com. All right, or— and likewise, I remind you that an hour like this where, uh, so few graduates of high schools and colleges and graduate schools have ever had to confront this question of where do values come from if there's no God It's a sort of hour you might want to play over for others. That's why we have Prager Topia, where you subscribe to the shows and you get them. $7 a month, that's it. Prager Topia, it's at prageradio.com and at dennisprager.com. And I just made the point, I don't know if the person was an atheist or not, but doesn't matter. You know, the atheist who believes that there is good and bad has made a leap of faith that there is good and bad, that it's not just a matter of personal opinion. Anybody, anybody who believes that there is really a good and an evil in the world is making a leap of faith. The believer makes a leap of faith that there is a God who gave the standards of right and wrong. But whoever believes— any atheist who believes there really is right and wrong, that, that, you know, that just taking a random child and, and killing him is wrong, is also making a leap of faith. Unless the person is prepared to say, well, I think it's wrong, but it's not really wrong, which is what a lot of people do say now. But if you believe it really exists, you have made a leap of faith. All right, let me take some more, uh, let's take some more calls and challenges. Robert in Azusa, California. Hi, Dennis Prager.

Hello, Mr. Prager. I'm a longtime fan of your show, but the last time I talked to you was probably, uh, 1992 or something like that.

That's, that's a long time. Well, you know what, I like hearing from you every 17 years.

Yeah, okay, great. I really, I must say, I really like, I really, really like your show because it's, because it's so philosophically oriented and talks about questions like this.

Mm-hmm. Good.

And, uh, but my question to you is kind of maybe tangential to the one you asked a little bit, but the question is, if it could be proved, if you imagine that it could be proved that, uh, we can have a system of a rational system of morality, uh, would you, uh, would you switch to that system or would you keep the God-centered one?

Well, it's— well, I would always have the God-centered one because even if there were a reason-based one I would still have no one to whom I'm accountable. God is necessary not just to— for the existence of objective right and wrong. God is necessary because otherwise we're not accountable for our actions.

Okay, well, that then— that accountability, uh, remains the, uh, I guess the quintessential faith, uh, proposition.

Well, they're all faith propositions.

Well, I don't believe—

because, well, but you don't believe that, but I don't know why. What is— let me ask you a question, Robert. Since you derive all of your morality from reason, what is your position on abortion when the mother's health is not endangered?

Well, I— that's one of the tougher questions.

I don't think— tough? I— why? I don't think— so reason doesn't give you— at least you're honest enough to say reason does not give you an answer.

It gives me part part of it. It gives me somewhat of an answer. I don't think it— I don't think it's, uh—

When does reason suggest life begins, human life begins?

Well, I think reason suggests that life begins somewhere— well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it— I would say human life, okay?

Yes, obviously.

I would say strictly speaking that human life probably philosophically begins at birth. The reason I say that Okay, hold on, we'll be back in a moment.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Your beloved dog and a stranger are both drowning. You can only save one. Who do you save? Every time Dennis Prager asks that question, his audience splits three ways. One-third chooses the dog, one-third chooses the stranger, and one-third aren't sure.

Why?

Because we live in an age where increasingly feelings define right and wrong. But if morality is based on emotion, then murder, rape, and theft are just opinions. And if people feel justified, why is rioting or destruction wrong at all? In his new book, If There Is No God, Dennis Prager explains why civilizations cannot survive without objective morality and why Judeo-Christian Values shape the moral foundations of the free world.

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

If There Is No God by Dennis Prager, available now at pragerstore.com. That's pragerstore.com. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Dennis Prager here. This is the Ultimate Issues Hour. One of the great issues of life, which is astonishingly non-addressed in high school, college, and graduate school, which is unbelievable when you think about it, but when you think further about it and you know the state of education today, it's unfortunately not unbelievable, is how do you have objective values if there is no God? I can't prove to you there's a God, but I can logically prove to you the obvious. If there is no God as the source of right and wrong, right and wrong don't exist. They are simply matters of personal or societal opinion. That's all they are. I like gray, you like yellow. I like keeping people alive, you like killing people. I mean, it's just, it's, it's a like-dislike issue. Unless there is a God. And if you believe there really is a good and evil and there isn't a God, then you have made a leap of faith. You, you have made some leap of faith. There really is good and evil even though there is no God. So you, you are an atheist as far as God is concerned, but you are not a non-believer. You decided simply to, to believe in something that exists even though you can't prove it. You can't prove good and evil exist. Anymore than I could prove God exists. All right, let's take some more challenges. Golden Valley, Minnesota, Dennis Prager. Hi.

Thank you, Dennis. It's an honor to speak to you.

Thank you, Tim.

I, I gotta be honest with you, Dennis, uh, some of what you're saying really truly frightens me, um, because don't you believe even for a second that talking the way that you do by insisting that without belief in God, that you don't believe in values or that you can't have values. Don't you think that gives— I mean, the similarities between the rhetoric of today and what happened in Weimar Germany before the collapse into Nazism is— the parallels are astonishing. I mean, Nazi Germany was a result of the fascist left and the religious right. And I mean, it's It's frightening to say that somebody— it's a leap of faith to believe in good or evil or right or wrong.

Well, wait, what? You made it— you made a couple of different claims here. First, on the Weimar Germany issue, I don't know why you hold the religious right responsible for Nazism. I mean, the religious right in Nazi Germany was, was not often a force for good, and often it was a force for evil, which is a tragedy. But Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon. It was a post-Christian, even anti-Christian phenomenon.

I'm aware.

Okay, all right, so let's leave that aside. So what? Yes, anyway, you're right, it is frightening, but the world, the world is a frightening place. Uh, evil, evil often wins. It is widespread. The most— definition of evil though, see, to me, to me, the deliberate infliction of cruelty upon the undeserving.

See, that's it. Well, that would be an example of evil, but evil itself is anything which destroys life. Good being anything which forwards life.

Well, that's not true. It's not anything which destroys life. I'm for capital punishment. I'm for self-defense. It's not true. I'm for destroying Osama bin Laden's life.

No, because, no, see, capital punishment isn't necessarily— you're, you're, you're not— you're, you're, you're too— you're focusing it too narrow. When you broaden it, capital punishment is actually a deterrent to others to commit the crime that the person being punished—

Yes, I, I have— well, that's right, that's one of the reasons. Yes, you mean life in the broadest sense?

Yes, life being my life.

Okay, so that is— so that is— all right, that's Tim's definition of good.

No, that is the definition of good. If life is the ultimate value, every other thing— every—

but no, no, no, but who said— but wait, wait, wait, that's a big if, Tim. That's Tim's statement that life is the ultimate value. There are people who believe pleasure is the ultimate value, and if it takes— and it means taking your life, then they'll take your life. Whatever you claim to be the ultimate value, Tim, or anybody else, That's your leap of faith. That's no more objectively true than, than my belief in God. That's all. You, you, you, you can't, you, you can't deny or you can't ignore that fact. You have made your leap, but somebody will make a different leap. That's why I would like to spread the notion that the God of the Ten Commandments is real and that the Ten Commandments reflect real morality. That's, that's what I believe people ought to be doing, and that's where I have put all the eggs of my moral basket and, and world improvement basket. All right, all right, let's, uh, let's see here. Oh, okay, uh, we'll go to, uh, San Antonio, Texas. And David. Hello, David. Dennis Prager.

Hi, Dennis. Great to talk to you again.

Thank you.

Yeah, I have a— my sister-in-law is English, and, you know, she was raised— her parents were religious. She grew up, and I'm not really sure when she made the conversion, but she became an atheist. And her and I've had some really long talks. I've actually had her thinking different ways. But, you know, one of the things that I've always thought and wanted your you know, call on it was, you know, these people that are atheists that are good people, they get their moral values from somewhere. And it's that, that small amount or large amount of, of, of church that they had when they were kids. Because, you know, some of the values that they espouse are the same thing, you know. You know, thou shalt not murder.

That's right. That's right. Now listen to this from somewhere. That's right, David. You're going to love this. It's not mine. So I can give it all the praise I want. I don't remember whom I first heard it from, but it is brilliant. It's called Cut Flower Ethics. And the author compared ethics without religion, without God, to flowers without their soil. You can cut flowers from their soil, and for a while they look like they're living. But eventually, of course, they wither and die without the soil that nurtured them. If, when we have cut off ethics from the soil that nurtured them in the Western world, the religious God-based soil, they look like they are existing, like they're surviving on their own, but they will wither and die also. We continue on the Ultimate Issues Hour on the Dennis Prager Show.

If you have a friend on whom you think you can rely, you are a lucky man.

If you found the reason to live on and not to die, you are a lucky man.

Creatures of voice and sky.

Final segment here of today's edition— this week's edition, actually— of the Ultimate Issues Hour. Part of the American Trinity, as I call it, E Pluribus Unum, Liberty, and God We Trust, is in God We Trust, the importance of God, the— well, importance is actually understated— the indispensability of God to morality. And in case you're just tuning in, the proposition is quite simple and I think logically irrefutable. If there is no God who is the source of morality, morality therefore does not objectively exist. It doesn't mean an atheist can't be a nice person. It doesn't mean believers are all nice people. How people act is not the question here. It's whether or not real good and evil, they really exist, or they are matters of subjective opinion. If God says thou shalt not murder, then murder is wrong. No God to say it, then it isn't wrong. It's just a matter of personal opinion. Let's go to Detroit, Michigan, and Tony. Hello, Tony. Dennis Prager.

Hi Dennis, uh, first of all, I, I really do enjoy your show. I listen to it daily. I'm in the car daily, so I do listen to it. What, what I don't understand is, again, the leap of faith that you are taking is right from the beginning, right from the axiom of the conversation, is that, uh, the Bible or the Quran or the Torah was written by God. It was not. Those values, those institutions, those those, you know, words came from the hand of man. It was man's consciousness that developed those values. You can't tell me that man, you know, the only reason one doesn't murder is because God forbids it.

You mean— No, I didn't say that's the only reason at all. There may be emotional reasons of revulsion against murder. You may think it's wrong. All I said was that murder isn't objectively wrong if God does— if there is no God to say it's wrong. If there is no God, we're just molecules. Tony, we're just molecules.

Dennis, you're making the claim there's a God. It's incumbent upon you to prove it.

No, it isn't. No, it isn't. I'm not— I'm not saying it's provable. You're making a claim that there's a good and an evil. It's incumbent upon you to prove it. No, it isn't. You can't prove there's a good and an evil, and I can't prove there's a God. All I can prove is that if there is no God There's no such thing as objective good and evil. They're just opinions. That's all I'm saying. It's a big all, but that's all. I don't offer God for proof. It's not provable. I admit it. But I want people to be intellectually honest enough to understand that if there isn't a God, something above DNA that put in us a knowledge of good and evil, then there is no good and evil. It's just a personal opinion. That's why it's so big. Plus, there's no one to be accountable to because you don't have to answer for what you did. Only if there is a God do you. All right, thank you for listening, and I hope you'll go again— Prager University at YouTube. Just go to youtube.com, put in Prager University, watch the video on America's values. God is one of the central The ones. Thanks for listening.

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

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

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