0:00

That

0:02

would be funny. That would be funny.

0:05

Ow! Hi there, everybody. Welcome to

0:07

the Fireside Chat. And

0:09

we're having a semi-dog convention

0:12

to begin with. This of course is Snoopy.

0:15

Mr. Tubbs is not... Oh my

0:17

God, that was perfect.

0:20

Just made it for the introduction. Mr.

0:24

Tubbs, we're hoping to train

0:26

to take that spot

0:29

which was held for years

0:31

by the late great Otto. Oh,

0:34

right now Megan, the possessor

0:36

of the most famous arm in America, is

0:39

trying to do it. Well, at

0:41

least you're getting a glimpse of

0:43

Otto. Oh.

0:45

No, I mean Otto. I mean of Mr.

0:47

Tubbs. Okay.

0:50

Yes. Look up, Mr. Tubbs.

0:52

Say hi. All right. Anyway,

0:54

welcome to the Fireside Chat.

0:57

I'm going to do something I rarely do. I'm

0:59

going to open up with a question because

1:01

that will lead to

1:04

some important opening comments.

1:06

And then I'll go to the video question and the other questions.

1:10

So here it is. It actually comes

1:12

from a

1:13

young woman named Jenny in Kigali,

1:17

Rwanda. Rwanda is in East

1:19

Africa. Hi,

1:21

Dennis. I'm Jenny from Rwanda. I

1:24

heard your Dennis and Julie episode.

1:26

And you should all know that I do this

1:29

weekly podcast

1:32

with Julie Hartman called Dennis

1:34

and Julie. I have no doubt you

1:36

would love it. You could watch it or you can listen

1:38

to it.

1:40

It

1:42

brings out different parts of me that as

1:46

a result of our communication,

1:49

it's a unique podcast. I

1:51

heard your Dennis and Julie episode where

1:53

you discussed most religious people's faith

1:55

in God being contingent

1:58

upon receiving his protection.

1:59

from calamities slash

2:02

suffering. I too

2:04

held that belief for a long time

2:07

and subsequently lost my faith

2:09

in God after going through

2:11

a series of personal tragedies in

2:14

my late teens and early twenties.

2:17

And I mostly consider myself agnostic

2:19

now. What do you think

2:21

is the point of believing in God if

2:24

he won't intervene when tragedy

2:26

befalls us? What benefit

2:29

is there in praying and cultivating

2:31

a relationship with a God who

2:33

was supposedly all loving, all knowing,

2:36

and all powerful,

2:37

yet watches us suffer without offering

2:39

any help? Thank you for all

2:42

you do,

2:43

because I've learned a lot since I began listening

2:45

to you last year.

2:47

Well, now

2:49

you know why I decided to open up with

2:51

this question.

2:54

This is a very, very

2:56

important subject to me

3:00

because I believe that people's understanding

3:02

of God is profoundly flawed.

3:05

I don't blame them at all. I certainly don't blame

3:08

you.

3:09

I believe that a

3:11

great many people have a flawed understanding

3:14

of God, and

3:16

that flawed understanding is

3:18

what leads a lot of people away from

3:20

belief in God. So

3:23

let me begin by saying I never, ever,

3:27

even as a child, believed

3:30

that God is there to

3:32

protect me or anybody

3:35

else from suffering,

3:38

including unjust suffering. I

3:41

have never had that vision of

3:43

God,

3:44

and my vision is correct.

3:46

And I know that almost sounds arrogant because

3:50

different people have different visions of God, and they're

3:52

all legit, you might say, but that's not

3:54

true.

3:57

And the reason that I say it with such a strong

3:59

sense such certitude is

4:02

that I use reason to come to belief.

4:07

And most people who believe use a combination

4:10

of what they've

4:15

been taught, what they're

4:18

used to, what they want to believe.

4:20

I call my Bible commentary

4:23

the rational Bible for a good reason. My

4:26

vehicle to God

4:27

and to understanding the Bible is reason.

4:30

God gave us reason. He didn't give it to

4:32

Mr. Tubbs. Mr. Tubbs

4:35

and any other animal does not have

4:38

reason. We humans

4:40

do, we should use it.

4:42

So on this issue

4:44

of God being there to protect

4:46

us from suffering,

4:49

the reason that at

4:52

a very early age, I found that untenable

4:55

is that I knew how much suffering there was

4:57

in human history and God

5:00

allowed it to happen. So

5:03

when people say

5:04

they expected God to help

5:06

them in their suffering,

5:09

my first reaction is, well, but

5:12

God didn't help billions of

5:15

others when they suffered.

5:20

Why didn't that trouble

5:22

your faith in God? And

5:24

I'm not saying this God forbid as

5:26

a criticism or an attack,

5:29

just as a logical question. I'll

5:31

give you an example. I may have given this on

5:33

a fireside chat, but I

5:36

can't expect you to remember everything I've

5:38

said.

5:40

I got a call on my radio show many

5:44

years ago from a woman said, Dennis,

5:47

I just want you to know, I was always

5:49

opposed to capital punishment.

5:52

You've heard me speak about this one.

5:54

Yeah, it's okay. And

5:56

I never,

5:59

I, I, I, So I never agreed with you, you

6:02

Dennis. And

6:04

now I do. They were really, why?

6:08

I do because my brother was murdered, which

6:12

is of course horrific. And

6:14

I want the murderer put

6:17

to death. So

6:19

of course I offered my condolences to have

6:22

a loved one murdered is, the

6:24

word is overused, that's traumatic.

6:30

But I didn't let it go with that.

6:32

I said, so let me understand something.

6:36

When anybody else's brother

6:38

was murdered, you were against

6:40

capital punishment.

6:42

Now that your brother is murdered, you're

6:45

for capital punishment.

6:47

Why weren't you for capital punishment

6:50

when all these other brothers and sisters were murdered?

6:53

And the same thing

6:55

I would say to anybody who says, well, I've

6:58

endured this unjust

7:01

suffering. Now I can't believe

7:03

in God. So you could

7:05

believe in God when all these other people

7:07

in history

7:09

have undergone unjust suffering.

7:15

I don't get that. Intellectually,

7:18

I just don't understand that.

7:22

Number two, God's purpose is not to

7:24

bail us out of suffering. I

7:26

don't know where people

7:28

get the idea, at least biblically. I

7:32

know that there are Psalms that imply,

7:35

God hears the prayers and answers, the

7:38

prayers of those who call out unto him. I understand

7:40

that. And

7:42

I do believe God hears

7:45

us. I

7:47

do deeply believe that.

7:49

But it's obvious that he

7:51

does not answer what we want in

7:56

many, many cases. He

8:01

is not, as I have put it so often, a celestial

8:04

butler. You have stopped believing

8:06

in a God that doesn't exist. A

8:10

God that bails everybody out of suffering doesn't

8:13

exist.

8:15

God allows suffering. By the way, why

8:17

God allows suffering, it's

8:19

a very fair question. I don't

8:22

have a great answer to it, and I've thought

8:24

about it all of my life.

8:26

There are two types of suffering, man-made

8:29

and natural. Cancer is natural, earthquakes

8:31

are natural, and man-made

8:33

is murder, torture, rape, and so on.

8:38

God doesn't intervene usually

8:42

in either.

8:45

Let's say God did.

8:47

What kind of meaningful life would that be? So

8:50

let us imagine there was no disease. It

8:52

was not possible to

8:55

get sick.

8:56

Is that the world that

8:58

we would like to have been created? Maybe.

9:02

I can't imagine it. So

9:04

what would happen exactly? Let us say

9:07

you decided to

9:10

forgo sleep, get

9:13

three hours of sleep, five days in

9:15

a row, then

9:18

to, I

9:20

don't know, go out in freezing

9:23

weather with no coat on.

9:28

In other words, is there any

9:30

way you could have contracted an illness?

9:35

It would entail a world where

9:38

animals could not kill people, perhaps

9:40

not even each other, because that's also

9:42

a question against God,

9:45

as it were.

9:46

With regard to human

9:48

suffering,

9:51

would you believe in a God who stopped

9:53

every single human who

9:55

hurt any other human?

9:59

Where would that be?

9:59

Where would that end? How about a slap

10:02

in the face? Would God allow that,

10:04

but not a murder?

10:06

Okay, so you're saying, oh, he would allow a slap

10:09

on the face.

10:10

10 slaps on the face? No

10:13

matter what, you're stuck. Would

10:16

he allow an insult? Insults

10:18

can hurt. Would

10:20

he allow that? Would

10:22

he allow people to lie? Lies

10:25

cause more evil than slaps.

10:29

Would God allow people to lie? Once

10:32

you want an intervening God, and

10:35

that's the only God you'll believe in, then

10:37

it ends the human condition

10:39

as we have it. It's,

10:42

we're robots. We

10:44

can't hurt verbally. We

10:47

can't hurt physically. We can't

10:49

be hurt. We can't get sick.

10:52

Do we die? If

10:56

you fall, if you fall from a third story floor,

11:01

will God let you die? Or does

11:03

he parachute you down?

11:08

So I've never believed in such a

11:10

God. So therefore the

11:13

God you have stopped believing in is

11:16

not the God I believe in.

11:18

It is not the God

11:20

that I believe

11:22

exists in

11:24

the world of the Bible from which I get

11:26

my notion of God.

11:29

So then if God doesn't, you

11:32

ask if God doesn't help

11:34

us, what is he there for?

11:36

I'll have an answer to that. He's there to

11:38

tell us how to lead a good life. He's

11:40

there to give us hope.

11:43

Cause if there is no God, we die.

11:45

And that's the end for eternity.

11:49

Whereas if there is a God,

11:51

there's something, there's some afterlife. This

11:54

life is not meaningless. He gives life

11:56

meaning. He gives me moral instruction.

11:59

He gives me,

11:59

and afterlife, he gives hope.

12:03

There's a lot that God does. And

12:06

for those who have a profound relationship

12:09

with him, that is life-filling.

12:11

I have a relationship with

12:13

God, but it's more respect

12:15

than intimate, which

12:18

is fine. Everybody works their

12:20

own way through that. By the way, I'm

12:22

very, very

12:25

open, and I'm very rational.

12:27

And I wrote in one of my first

12:29

books, Think a Second Time, it's

12:32

a book of 44 essays. It's an introduction

12:34

to my thinking on 44 subjects.

12:38

And one of my essays is, Is

12:40

God Lovable?

12:42

And I wrote, I find

12:44

the hardest commandment in the Bible,

12:46

love the Lord your God with all your

12:49

heart, with all your soul, with all your might.

12:52

I have never found belief in God

12:54

to be difficult. I have found

12:56

loving God to be difficult, precisely for

12:59

the reason you said. But that's

13:01

not the same as not believing in God. I

13:03

deeply believe in God. So

13:08

I believe if you think this through

13:10

rationally,

13:12

you can come back to a belief in God,

13:14

but not back to the belief in the God you

13:16

believed in before. That's

13:19

not God. That is, as I

13:21

said, a celestial butler,

13:24

a butler in heaven,

13:28

Superman

13:30

on call to help me out.

13:33

Okay, that was important. Let's

13:38

go down. Now, if I can do this, ladies

13:40

and gentlemen. Wow. Oh,

13:43

I did it. Wow. The video

13:45

question of the day. Hi, Dennis.

13:47

My name

13:49

is Maryam Petrosian, and I'm a current employee

13:52

at PragerU. I've been watching fireside

13:54

chat since I was a freshman in college, and

13:57

I have a question for you. I'm wondering.

14:00

Where is your favorite place to travel, whether

14:02

domestic or internationally?

14:05

My go to vacation spot

14:07

anywhere. OK,

14:11

this may depress you.

14:13

I am in my go to

14:15

vacation spot. This

14:19

house. I

14:22

travel so much. Virtually

14:25

every week of the year. That.

14:30

The thought of having no work and being

14:33

at home

14:34

with my wife and

14:37

my friends and

14:40

my audio system, my music,

14:43

my photography, my hobbies,

14:46

it sounds great.

14:48

Having said that, you're

14:51

really asking, perhaps, what's

14:54

my favorite place to visit?

14:56

I get that a lot because I've been to 130 countries.

15:00

I've been abroad every single year

15:03

since I was 19.

15:04

Except

15:07

for 2020. There

15:11

was no way to go anywhere. I

15:13

would have gone.

15:14

But there was no place to go.

15:18

And I

15:21

don't have a great answer. I will just tell

15:24

you that whenever

15:27

I'm asked that two places come to mind,

15:30

I love visiting in visiting India

15:32

and I love visiting Israel.

15:34

And. As is my

15:38

want, I

15:41

asked myself a long

15:43

time ago.

15:45

Why those two places?

15:49

And what do they have in common, if anything?

15:52

And I came up with an answer.

15:55

They're the only two countries with their own

15:57

religion.

16:01

There are many countries with Islam, there are

16:04

many countries with Christianity, there's

16:07

only one country with Judaism,

16:09

and there's only one country with Hinduism.

16:12

Well, technically, I believe Sri Lanka,

16:15

but it's off

16:17

the coast of India

16:19

or Nepal, but basically,

16:21

it's India.

16:24

So I think that that's part of the reason they're

16:26

very interesting because

16:28

they have their own religious culture,

16:31

and it has made them very, very interesting.

16:35

But I have found virtually every one of the 130

16:37

interesting.

16:39

There are a couple that I am not aching

16:41

to go back to, but it's very rare.

16:45

But other than that, I

16:47

really,

16:49

if I have time, it's enjoyable

16:51

being home. It's enjoyable taking

16:53

a road trip. I love taking car trips.

16:57

The American road is a legend.

17:00

This is a country of roads.

17:02

You can go anywhere basically

17:05

by car,

17:06

and I love that.

17:08

Okay, here we

17:10

go.

17:11

Oh, this is a toughy.

17:14

Sibel,

17:15

C-Y-B-E-L-E

17:17

with an accent over

17:19

the E, the first

17:22

E. 39, Cincinnati, Ohio,

17:25

USA. Hello, Dennis. Thank you for

17:27

your contribution to humanity. That's very sweet

17:29

of you. I homeschool my two children

17:32

and consider myself lucky to have found PragerU.

17:35

You are lucky,

17:37

and we're lucky that you found us. Educational

17:41

programs that me and

17:43

the kids,

17:44

I know people don't do it anymore, but it should be the

17:46

kids and I

17:48

absolutely love. What

17:50

you have created is truly a treasure trove.

17:53

Well, I didn't create it, but

17:55

I helped create it, and it

17:57

is a treasure trove. My question.

17:59

is with regard to a recent

18:02

fireside chat topic, why

18:04

you should stay in contact with your parents.

18:07

That's a passion of mine, as everybody knows.

18:10

My husband does not know his father and

18:12

was not raised by his father or mother. After

18:15

being raised by his maternal uncle,

18:18

so that means his mother's brother,

18:22

the mother came back into his

18:24

life when he was 18 and

18:27

we maintain a relationship with her. Recently,

18:30

his father reached out via Facebook.

18:33

My husband is no interest in meeting this

18:36

stranger and I don't blame

18:38

him. I'm curious what your

18:40

thoughts are on this unique situation.

18:43

Thanks again for everything. When

18:46

I speak about the moral

18:48

demand that

18:50

unless you have been horribly

18:52

abused, you owe it

18:54

to your parents to be in touch with

18:56

them. You don't owe it to them to

18:59

love them,

19:00

but it is wrong not

19:04

to be in touch at all. It is almost

19:06

always just wrong, really wrong, gratuitously

19:10

cruel.

19:11

Well, I am referring

19:13

to the people who raised you. I'm

19:16

not referring to necessarily

19:19

a birth parent. I'm

19:24

told that in Rome, there were, so

19:32

in Roman, there is a

19:35

different word for the

19:38

parent that raises you and the parent

19:40

that gives birth to you. I

19:42

know one is pater and I don't remember what the other

19:44

is

19:45

in case of the father.

19:48

That's correct.

19:51

The parents who raised you, you owe

19:53

contact

19:55

to.

19:58

Those who gave birth to you,

19:59

birth to you and did not raise you,

20:02

I

20:02

don't believe you have the same obligation. Does

20:05

that answer the question?

20:07

Good. OK.

20:14

Wiley, 27 Keller, Texas. Dennis,

20:17

you are a man who claims to have virtually

20:19

no expectations.

20:21

That's true. He knows me. Do

20:24

you hold expectations for audio

20:27

equipment? What about relationships

20:29

with people? Do you hold expectations

20:32

that they will be there for you in a pinch?

20:35

I hold very

20:38

few expectations. You got me right. What

20:41

is an expectation?

20:44

The certitude that something will

20:46

happen.

20:47

I expect the sun to rise tomorrow.

20:50

Right. So do you. Everybody

20:53

does. That means you

20:55

know what will happen. That's

20:58

what I understand an expectation is.

21:01

But I don't know what will happen, especially

21:03

if I can't control it.

21:06

I can expect me

21:08

to be a decent person tomorrow.

21:12

I can have expectations of me, but

21:14

I can't have expectations about what I

21:16

don't control. Anything

21:19

can happen to anybody

21:21

at any time.

21:22

That's the way it works. Do

21:25

I have expectations of my audio equipment?

21:28

Well, what does that even mean? Do

21:30

I expect it to turn on when

21:32

I turn the on button on?

21:35

Yeah, yeah. But

21:37

I also know there's

21:39

a good chance one day it won't

21:41

work. Very few,

21:43

very few items last forever.

21:47

So I don't think in terms of those expectations.

21:49

Do I have expectations with relationships

21:52

with people?

21:55

I have hopes,

21:57

but I don't think I have expectations.

22:01

And so it's part of the reason I'm so grateful

22:04

for my friends.

22:06

Remember expectations is the enemy

22:08

of gratitude.

22:11

If you expect a, you

22:13

won't be grateful for a

22:15

and gratitude is everything.

22:19

Do you hold expectations that they will be

22:21

there for you in a pinch?

22:25

If I, if I were in deep need,

22:32

I would hope that they would be there more than I would

22:34

expect it. That

22:38

that's what again, that goes

22:41

back to my earlier statement of having hopes more

22:44

than expectations. All right, let's see.

22:51

Okay. It's a long one. I

22:53

wonder

22:54

if I could Julian in Bristol, England. Hi Dennis.

22:57

I thoroughly enjoy your fireside chats and regularly listen while I walk

22:59

my eight year old Springer

23:02

Spaniel named bunkers. Hi bunkers. My

23:07

question is this. Our

23:10

modern world seems to be really focused

23:12

on real life. Be really focused

23:14

on rights. Everyone it seems

23:17

is fighting for their rights.

23:20

I wonder whether anyone

23:22

has a human right at all. What

23:25

exactly is a human right? What makes

23:27

it a right? Why is even shelter

23:29

or food a right? I

23:32

don't believe anything is a right.

23:35

Everything we enjoy is not a right. It is a privilege.

23:38

This means that as a general rule, everything

23:40

I enjoy is a source of gratitude.

23:43

Because of this, my focus in life switches

23:46

from what life owes me to

23:49

thankfulness for what I have and

23:51

to what I can continue to contribute

23:55

to help others. I believe

23:57

if our culture switched its focus

24:00

seeing everything as a right to

24:02

regarding it as a privilege, we

24:04

would live in a much better society

24:07

where people are generally happier and more

24:09

loving and giving toward others.

24:12

Sadly, I'm not sure it's possible. Do

24:15

you agree?

24:17

Okay. So

24:21

my take is a variation

24:24

on yours.

24:25

I have said much of my life

24:28

that my religious upbringing

24:31

was not

24:33

what secular life

24:35

teaches. Secular

24:38

life teaches we are born

24:40

with rights and all

24:43

of the discourse is know your rights.

24:46

This is your right. This is your right. I

24:49

grew up in a religious world where

24:52

what was built in were obligations

24:56

and I believe that an obligation

24:59

based world will produce a

25:02

much kinder world than

25:04

a rights based world. So

25:07

I wouldn't say privilege. I don't

25:09

think it's a privilege

25:13

if you can eat. I

25:16

think it's

25:19

a sweet way of looking at it.

25:21

I think it's a little poetic and but a nice

25:24

nicely poetic.

25:26

What I think of is I am obligated

25:29

to feed the hungry and

25:32

I'm obligated to feed me and my family,

25:35

obviously. So

25:38

obligations trump rights

25:41

in our discourse.

25:43

We are rights drunk. I

25:45

agree with you entirely in

25:47

that regard. The way

25:49

I think of rights is much more

25:52

I have a right not

25:55

to be hurt. I have a

25:57

right not to be murdered.

25:59

to be embezzled

26:02

from a woman not to be raped. I

26:04

mean, some of men are raped by other men, but generally

26:08

it's women

26:09

of a right to not

26:11

be

26:12

criminally assaulted.

26:15

But in terms of life, I

26:17

think in terms of obligations,

26:20

and that would be a better world.

26:24

Okay, let's see, we met

26:26

bunkers already.

26:29

Patrick in Blountville, Tennessee, 66.

26:33

Do you think it would be beneficial to our nation

26:36

to have a third political party like

26:38

maybe the constitutionalist party?

26:42

No, I don't. Every

26:47

attempt in American history at a third party has

26:50

hurt the party

26:52

which broke off into another party.

26:54

Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican, the Republican

26:56

started his own party and assured

26:59

that a Democrat would win. Ralph

27:02

Nader ran on a third party ticket and

27:04

made sure that a Republican would win.

27:07

I am 100% against third parties. They

27:11

make people feel good, but they don't do

27:13

any good.

27:14

Change the two parties that exist, work

27:17

on them. Okay, and by

27:19

the way, once you had a third party, the

27:22

same exact problems would arise within

27:24

a generation or two, and

27:27

then you'd want a fourth party.

27:29

That's human nature.

27:30

The problem isn't parties, it's

27:33

people.

27:37

All right, let's see here.

27:40

Here's a good final one. Hello,

27:42

Dennis and clan. You're the clan,

27:45

guys.

27:46

I am so grateful for

27:48

this show and your books that have helped

27:50

me organize and flesh

27:52

out my opinions to speech

27:55

and practice. I saw a quote

27:57

on Facebook the other day that said, kiss

27:59

me. Kids need to be complimented more

28:02

than they are corrected. Seems

28:05

like a dangerous route to go. I

28:07

would love to hear your thoughts on this.

28:10

Thanks for all you do."

28:14

I can't believe that. What

28:17

a stupid quote. Oh

28:19

my God. Kids

28:22

need to be complimented more than corrected.

28:27

Oh, I believe you saw it.

28:29

I believe that. When

28:32

young people call me up, and this is

28:35

frequent, Dennis, we're

28:37

going to have our first child.

28:39

What's your biggest recommendation in raising

28:41

a kid? I say, here it goes.

28:44

Self-control is

28:46

infinitely more important than self-esteem.

28:49

And they go, thank you. As

28:52

soon as they hear it, it makes sense. I

28:56

would say that I was corrected. The ratio of my being corrected

28:58

to my being complimented

29:01

when I was a kid was approximately 10,000 to one.

29:07

I think I was complimented as

29:09

a kid,

29:10

I think three times.

29:12

And

29:15

the reason is I think I remember

29:17

two of them. I'm just assuming there was a third. The

29:21

purpose of being a parent is not to make your

29:24

kid feel good. It

29:28

is to make your

29:31

kid good, not feel good, just good. And

29:34

that's how you do it. Of

29:37

course, you should compliment them if they've earned

29:39

it. I have no issue with that. But

29:41

I think that's what I'm saying. I'm

29:44

not saying that. I'm not saying that.

29:46

I'm saying that. I don't think

29:48

you'll be able to do it if they've earned it.

29:52

I

29:53

have no issue with that. But this massive worry

29:56

that they won't have high self-esteem

29:59

They that I don't love them.

30:03

It's all been unwise, very

30:06

unwise.

30:09

Yes, it's very important to correct your child.

30:14

Who else is going to correct them?

30:16

Friends don't correct generally.

30:19

And if you don't correct them, they'll keep doing their own

30:21

thing. Why is that a favor to them?

30:24

Tell me why is that a favor to a child not

30:27

to correct them?

30:31

So

30:32

that that is obviously

30:34

what you expected me to say. And

30:37

I said it and there

30:39

you go.

30:40

Okay, everybody.

30:43

Great to be with you. See you next week.