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Secular Fundamentalists and the Judeo-Christian Ethic
Secular fundamentalists are removing all traces of God and religion from the Public Square in America, says Dennis Prager, popular radio show host and author of Still the Best Hope (2012).
Prager, who cites some shocking examples of 'religion cleansing' is also a Jewish defender of the Judeo-Christian ethic, which gave us the secular state but not secularism, a product of the Left.
Debbie Weissman, the President of the International Council of Christians and Jews thinks the Judeo-Christian ethic is a helpful but limited idea.
An Israeli who is involved in interfaith work with Muslims, Dr. Weissman is concerned that the Judeo-Christian ethic can seem exclusive of other faiths.
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Rachael Kohn: Have you ever heard the term 'secular fundamentalism'? Well you're about to. Dennis Prager, American radio show host and author has had enough, and he's not taking it anymore. His remedy? A bigger serving of the Judeo-Christian ethic, please.
Hello, I'm Rachael Kohn, this is The Spirit of Things on RN, and if the Judeo-Christian ethic is something you're not too sure about, Debbie Weissman, the president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, tells me why she's not too certain about it either. Does it exist, is it a useful term, what does it mean, and does the future of the West depend on it?
One person who thinks the future of the West does depend on it is Dennis Prager. He's a Russian specialist, and he's Jewish, as are both my guests today, but you'll find his argument surprising because he defends the Judeo and the Christian side with equal gusto. The first part of our conversation, however, focuses on how the belief in secularism has changed the public square in America:
Well, Dennis Prager, you're well known as a talk show host, a columnist, author and public speaker, and right now a lot of your comments are taken up with American politics. But I'd like to ask you about something that is of a more general nature, and that's your views on secularism. You argue that America and the West generally is in the grip of secular fundamentalists. When did you start to notice this?
Dennis Prager: When I realised that there was a term for religious extremism but none for secular extremism. I thought that's a bit odd. You can be too religious but you can't be too secular? It seems that somebody had fiddled with the dice here. If there's such a thing as too religious there must be such a thing as too secular, but of course there are people who would contend that is inconceivable. It is like you can't be too rich or too thin, you can't be too secular. By the way, you can be too thin and you can be too rich, for all intents and purposes, but certainly you can be too secular. And society in the West has become too secular.
The European Union was incapable in its charter of even acknowledging that Christianity formed Europe, and in my county...I live in Los Angeles County, and on the seal of the county they had many things, they had a cow for agriculture, they had fruit for our farming industry and our produce, and they had oil derricks for our oil industry, and they had a tiny little cross, it was the smallest thing on the seal. And it represented the fact that Los Angeles was founded by Catholics. That is why it has the name Los Angeles, 'The Angels'. It's not named Los Secularistos, 'The Secularists', it's 'The Angels'.
And yet under pressure from the secular ACLU, which is out to undo any public manifestation of religion in the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union, the board of directors voted 3 to 2 to eliminate that tiny cross. Now, I am not Christian, I'm Jewish, and yet my history was being robbed from me. The cross is my history. I live in the county that was founded by religious Christians. When you take that cross away, you remove my history. That's an example of secular extremism.
I'll give you one more. The governor of the American state of Rhode Island renamed…for the first time in its history, the state Christmas tree is now a 'holiday tree'. That is an example, and I can give you many, and in my forthcoming book to come out I give example after example of secular extremism.
Rachael Kohn: So this is also a reaction against history, it is an attempt to wipe out history. Is that part of a general malaise about history?
Dennis Prager: There is a wiping out certainly of religious history, absolutely. There is a denial as to, in the United States certainly, the religious foundations of America. There are three basic values to the United States, they are on every coin in America and what I call the American trinity, and that is 'E pluribus unum' which means 'from many one', 'liberty', and 'in God we trust'. God has always been central. We've believed that the government cannot establish a state religion, but we have never believed that America was to be secular.
Rachael Kohn: But when you say 'we believe in God', of course a great number of Americans and many people today don't believe in God.
Dennis Prager: But I'm a Jew who doesn't believe in the cross, but I expect to see the cross on the seal of my...this is a new narcissism, it's like, 'Why would I attend your birthday party? It's not my birthday.' I don't think that way, I ask what is good for America, not what does Dennis Prager celebrate. I expect there to be a Christmas tree at the White House. I demand that there be a Christmas tree at the White House, though Christmas is not my holiday. And I believe that if Joel Lieberman had been elected Vice President, who is an orthodox Jew, there would have been a Christmas tree. Religious Jews understand the need for religiosity. It is the radically secular among Jews and among non-Jews who are for the religious evisceration of society.
Rachael Kohn: Dennis, is there a difference, in your view, between secular people and secular fundamentalists? Or do you think that difference has evaporated?
Dennis Prager: No, there is a big difference, there is. Many secular people want the continuity of the religious basis of America. The secular fundamentalist is the one who wants to rename a Christmas tree 'holiday tree', is the government in Davenport Iowa that decided to rename Good Friday...what was that again? 'Spring Holiday' or something. The people in the Supreme Court of the United States who declared that just saying 'God bless this graduating class' violated the Constitution. Those are secular fundamentalists. Not every secular person is a fundamentalist, any more than every religious person is.
Rachael Kohn: So are secular fundamentalists then beholden to a kind of literalism that makes them similar to biblical literalists?
Dennis Prager: They are, but it's not even literalism, it's just they are animated by antipathy. They loathe religiosity. They think that the world would be better if no one believed in God, because the secular 20th century was so beautiful. The most bloody ideologies of the 20th century were both secular—communism and Nazism—but for some reason they never grapple with their own dark history, they only talk about the Inquisition and the crusades, which happen to have occurred 500 years ago and 1,000 years ago, and everybody was bloody them. But the 20th century, virtually every one of the 100 million that were murdered...and I'm not talking about wartime…civilians were killed by secularists.
Rachael Kohn: I think many people would be surprised to hear you describe America, which is often seen as a highly Christian society, as one inhabited and even controlled by a radical atheists.
Dennis Prager: Well, they are not, they are radical secularists. Some of them even contend they believe in God, which doesn't matter to me whether they do or not, it's their actions that matter, not their beliefs. I don't know why it is surprising. The secular left is the same in Australia, in Canada, throughout Europe and in the United States. And among their agendas is to wipe out the vestiges of Christianity, which has been the dominant religion in the Western world. They are not thrilled with Judaism, but it is Christianity that mostly disturbs them. So it's not surprising at all. This is a big part of the culture war in the United States.
Rachael Kohn: Haven't the secularists also been at the forefront of protecting a degree of religious freedom, that is people who have championed antireligious hate laws?
Dennis Prager: I don't know of any antireligious hate laws in the United States, maybe there are, I just don't know. I know there's anti-black hate laws, anti-gay, anti-female...I don't know, maybe anti-Muslim, but I'm not familiar with antireligious hate laws, and we don't need them. I don't think we need any hate laws in the United States frankly. I'm a big believer that you change people's values than you force laws down their throat.
Rachael Kohn: Well, the recent Supreme Court decision on the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church upheld freedom of religion by unanimously affirming ministerial exception, and this was the case that argued the church has a right to discriminate in the hiring of its ministers. So that was certainly an affirmation that the secularists have not won all the battles.
Dennis Prager: Yes, they haven't won the battle that a religious organisation can do what it wants within its organisation. Anything to do with public life, that it keeps winning. I gave the example of how a speaker cannot even say at a high school graduation 'God bless the graduating class', let alone have a Christmas tree or a Christmas play at schools. So yes, I don't consider that a huge victory.
Rachael Kohn: Australia doesn't have a total separation between Church and State, and we've even had a government funded enquiry into school funding which recommends full funding for small religious schools, something unheard of in the United States. Do you think America might suffer from a kind of radical polarisation of the secular and the religious, and result in these kind of extremes, what you've called secular fundamentalism, and of course on the other side, religious fundamentalism?
Dennis Prager: Yes, but I don't think it's symmetrical. America has never been a religiously aggressive country where religion was forced down people's throats. It is secularism that is forced down people's throats. America just understood we are a religious country, it is by and large a good thing, even if I'm an atheist I recognise this is a good thing. Who started these wars in the United States? The answer is they were started by the secular fanatics. When the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that kids in New York could not say the involuntary prayer, which essentially went 'We ask the Almighty's blessings on our teachers and our parents and our country', that was it...why is that offensive?
Rachael Kohn: Dennis Prager is the author of Still the Best Hope in which he argues that the religious basis of American society is being systematically removed from the public square, with dire consequences. We'll hear why he thinks the Judeo-Christian ethic can and must stem the tide.
You're listening to The Spirit of Things on RN and you can download this program at abc.net.au/radionational. Later, another view on the Judeo-Christian ethic from the president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, Debbie Weissman. But now I'm back with American radio show host and author, Dennis Prager:
What do you think has happened? Why has the secular ideal that allows religious freedom in all its diversity to flourish in society narrowed to this kind of exclusivism which you're describing?
Dennis Prager: Well, two answers. First of all it was a religious ideal, religious pluralism. The people who started the idea in America of the separation of church and state, though they would not have used those words, where in fact the American Protestants. This was a very big religious belief that the state shall not be a religious entity. It was not started by secularists, this was started by America's religious Christians, specifically Protestants. As regards to the...what was the second part? Because I did want to answer that.
Rachael Kohn: How did it evolve into a narrow exclusivism?
Dennis Prager: Oh, because of the power of the cultural left. Just like conservatives have values, leftists have values, and one of their values is the radical secularisation of society. From Marx to the New York Times and probably the Sydney Morning Herald, but I'm not certain, I think so, there has been the belief that sophisticated people don't take religion very seriously, that the more intellectually sophisticated, morally sophisticated one is, the more secular one is, it's definitional. And so in order to make a sophisticated society you de-religionise it. And people who believe that God is the author of liberty, which is the essential American belief, or that God said do not murder as opposed to your own heart are considered fundamentalists and intellectual primitives. I believe that it is in fact quite the other way around, because in fact if God did not say 'do not murder', it's not wrong. You can think it's wrong, but it isn't wrong. If there's no transcendent source for 'do not murder', then the source is your heart, but I don't trust the human heart as far as I can throw it.
Rachael Kohn: Well, that brings me to one of the issues that you've taken up in the critique of secular fundamentalists, and you've called it the attack on the Judeo-Christian ethic. How would you define that Judeo-Christian ethic?
Dennis Prager: Well, I do at length in my forthcoming book Still the Best Hope. It's very difficult to summarise, but nevertheless it's an appropriate question, and in a nutshell, number one, that life has meaning because there is a creator. If there is no transcendent creator, life is ultimately meaningless. People may feel that they have meaning, but it's just a feeling. Ultimately I am no more significant than a pebble on Jupiter if there is no God, and so you start from that.
Then the same with morality. The Nazis thought murder was good, I think murder is bad, but if there is no transcendent source for morality, who's to say the Nazis are wrong? And by the way, many secular philosophers have acknowledged that, that there is no secular answer to the problem of cruelty. It is people who don't think the issue through clearly who think that you can have absolute morality without God.
And then there are specifics. Here's a question; is the Earth created for man or is man created for Earth? To put a basic question before modern men and women. The Judeo-Christian answer is that man is the centre, the human being is the centre of creation. The anti-Judeo-Christian view is that that is arrogance on man's part and we are just another part of the ecological puzzle, no more important, and no less important, but the environment, Mother Earth...this whole issue of Mother Earth is an example of the Judeo-Christian and non-Judeo-Christian splits. I'm only going to stop here because of the time factor.
Rachael Kohn: Well, I would say to you that the Judeo-Christian ethic can be a very difficult thing to agree on, given that Christianity and Judaism both as major religions represent a spectrum of conservative to liberal interpretations of the Bible. So which Judeo-Christian ethic does one uphold?
Dennis Prager: Well, that's a very fair question, and the truth is that the Jewish and Christian leftist has everything in common with the secular leftist, and there is no difference in their value system, none whatsoever. What one then just has to argue...for example, I believe that the Bible demands the death of some murderers because it's the only law in the first five books of the Bible, known to Jews as the Torah...there's only one law that is in all five books, 'kill murderers', because God announces in the beginning of Genesis when there are almost no laws in Genesis, there is one though, and that is to preserve the value of the human being, a human being must forego his life if he has committed premeditated murder.
There are many Jews, including some religious and including many religious Catholics and including the last Pope, a great man, who deemed capital punishment now wrong, even though the church throughout its history has been for it, that is the Catholic Church, Judaism has always been, though there are many rabbis who, growing up under the Romans who crucified people as a hobby, opposed it. But I think an honest reading of the text leads you to certain basic views of life.
But you're absolutely right, there are folks on the left in Judaism and Christianity whose values are identical to the secular left who claim that their values are Jewish and Christian. I don't think it's intellectually honest, I think that they are leftists using Jewish and Christian rhetoric.
Rachael Kohn: But hasn't the Judeo-Christian ethic also produced such things as, say, the declaration of human rights, which was drafted in 1948? Do you think that could only have come out of a Judeo-Christian worldview? And if so, what do you think of the UDHR? Is it the enemy or is it..?
Dennis Prager: No, no, I agree with you entirely. But where did it come from? It didn't, with all respect, and I have immense respect for Buddhism, I studied under a Buddhist in England in my university days and I cite Buddhism frequently for its wisdom, but it didn't come from the eastern world, it came from the Judeo-Christian world. You see, you can't destroy the roots of values and then assume the values will continue. I agree with your premise entirely. The Judeo-Christian world gave us…the very notion of a universal human right means that there must be a universal source for those human rights. Well, what is it? If it isn't God, what is it? The United Nations? Is the United Nations record one to be proud of?
So I worry terribly...I look at Europe today, I see a civilisation in decline. It is everything. Look at the arts in America. An artist got a national endowment sum of money for putting his crucifix in urine. In German a big award was just given for a sculpture of a policewoman peeing on the ground and the puddle is part of the sculpture. We've come a long way from Rembrandt and Michelangelo, and it's entirely due to the radical secularisation of the arts.
Rachael Kohn: I note that you see the attack on religion as coming from the left, but what is driving the assault on religion that comes through the TV screen, that brutalises our moral senses, which is full of the most violent images known to man? I recently saw an image of a young decapitated girl hanging from a rope by her legs, and that was part of a detective show. I wonder, is the left responsible for that, or is there something else going on in our culture which is producing this terrifying imagery?
Dennis Prager: Well, nobody argues that the right controls Hollywood. So if that movie was produced by Hollywood, the chances are one in 1,000 that it was a churchgoing conservative who produced it. Hollywood is dominated by people on the left. They are the people who produce this junk, not religious churchgoing people.
Rachael Kohn: Dennis Prager, what the solution to this? I mean, do you honestly foresee any kind of re-moralisation, re-Christianisation, re-biblicalisation, if I can put it that way, of America or the West? Or are we just going down this hole? Are you actually seeing a kind of an apocalyptic end to the West?
Dennis Prager: I don't know if it will be apocalyptic. Look, Germany and Russia and most West European countries, their population is in tremendous decline, and the reason is not affluence. This is a typical political science, self-serving belief; the affluent produce less children. Affluent Catholics don't produce less children, affluent orthodox Jews don't produce fewer children, affluent Mormons don't produce fewer children, it's secularism that produces fewer children because secularism doesn't give you a good reason to have children. 'They are a pain. I'd much rather dine and travel than raise five kids.' I don't know if it's an apocalypse, but it's a steady downhill road.
Will there be a rejuvenation of the West in this way? I have no idea. I know that I've worked my whole life to produce the book Still the Best Hope about these values. I do believe that if people read them they would rethink...a lot of them, not all, would rethink their commitment to the secular leftism that is the default position of the vast majority of people, many of whom by the way are wonderful people. I never make ad hominem attacks. There are members of my extended family who fully differ with me, I love them. And there are people who agree with me who I can't stand. This is not a personal argument. Very good people can have very destructive values.
Rachael Kohn: I thank you so much for speaking to me on The Spirit of Things.
Dennis Prager: You've been very kind, it's been great to be with you.
Rachael Kohn: Dennis Prager's book is Still the Best Hope, something of a personal testament as well as a broad outlook at the demise of religion in the American public square, which of course has a lot of influence here. Prager, who lectures in five languages, is a Russian specialist and the host of a popular American radio show.
You're listening to The Spirit of Things on RN on air and online at abc.net.au/radionational. Here's a reminder of Simon and Garfunkel's vision of a world worshipping its own neon gods, in 'The Sound of Silence'.
[Music: 'The Sound of Silence', Simon and Garfunkel, Tales from New York]
A true classic. Christians and Jews have been talking to each other in meaningful inter-faith dialogues since the Holocaust, and the International Council of Christians and Jews is the peak body for the local councils around the world, including here in Australia. Debbie Weissman is the president. She's Jewish and an Israeli, and on her recent trip here I wanted to find out what she thought about the Judeo-Christian ethic as a concept, a reality, and a useful tool.
Debbie, it's great to have you back in Australia, even if for a short time. Your work for some years has been in interfaith dialogue, and specifically as president of the International Council of Christians and Jews more recently. Do you believe that the Hebrew Bible which Jews and Christians share is a basis for a common heritage?
Deborah Weissman: Well, I definitely do, and this is one of the things we stress within our organisation. In fact on our website we have a section called the 'shared testament' were Jewish and Christian scholars respond to each other's commentaries on biblical stories and themes. And I think that studying these texts together with each other can be very instructive and very interesting. We share the same texts. We don't necessarily share the same understanding of those texts, and that's very stimulating.
Rachael Kohn: Do you find though that there is quite a deal of commonality in the way texts are interpreted?
Deborah Weissman: Actually there's probably less commonality than one might think. We are certainly looking for commonalities, but we are also acknowledging and respecting differences, and I think that it is the differences that are more interesting. We can find different ways of interpreting the same texts. I find that a particularly creative stimulant for thought.
Rachael Kohn: Can you give me an example perhaps of a text in which Jews and Christians would come at it quite differently?
Deborah Weissman: Well, I think that parts of the Bible that have legal implications are interpreted very differently by Jews and Christians. It could be that the narratives and the poetry would be more the common basis because there I think if you have a literary feel and literary skills and you bring them to bear on the text, then often the understanding can be quite similar. But when it comes to understanding and interpreting laws about what we eat and how we spend our time and how we celebrate our festivals, those are obviously very, very different between the two communities, and that's okay.
Rachael Kohn: Would you say that there is a common Judeo-Christian ethic? You were talking about rituals, but what about ethics?
Deborah Weissman: Yes. Well, I think we share some common values. By the way, we share some of them also with members of other religious groups, so by labelling them Judeo-Christian it sometimes unfairly excludes people of other religious communities, particularly from the Muslim community. So I'm not a person who uses that term a lot. I also find that when it comes to values and ethics, I think Christians sometimes place a greater emphasis on motivation whereas Jews place a greater emphasis on the deed itself.
And I just had a conversation last week with a Christian over the issue of charity where I said I don't think the motivation is what is really important. It's good to have a positive motivation and not to give charity so that you'll see your name on a plaque over a building, but the most important thing is are you actually giving it or not. And if it's a question of needy people receiving food, then I don't really care why you're giving it to them, as long as they get it, whereas this Christian gentleman was stressing the idea that good things should be done for the right reasons. And I said good things should be done, and we should strive for the right reasons.
Rachael Kohn: Do you think there is no such thing as a Judeo-Christian ethic?
Deborah Weissman: No, I wouldn't say that. Certainly we share an emphasis on what's called the golden rule; love your neighbour as yourself. Or sometimes we talk about the silver rule which says do not do unto others as you would not have others do unto you. The interesting thing is you can find similar statements in many religious traditions. Certainly they lie at the core of both the Jewish and Christian traditions, and there may be other areas as well, but there are certain issues about which we definitely disagree.
For example, within the Catholic community there are certain ethical ideas about human life that get expressed through a ban on abortion, for example, that get expressed through a decision as to whether to save the mother or the child if one of those lives has to be forfeited, birth control and things like that, where I think Jews have different approaches. So it's difficult to take the idea of Jewish-Christian ethic and really extend it across the board.
Rachael Kohn: Are you aware of Shmuley Boteach's recent book Kosher Jesus and the controversy it has prompted? What do you think of his view that Jewish values and teachings were continued by Jesus, expressed in a different way but essentially continued?
Deborah Weissman: Well, I haven't read the book, so I don't like to really discuss books that I haven't read. I've heard little bit about it. Actually I've heard critical things not because he is too pro-Christian or anything like that, from the opposite point of view, that he basically has ignored a great deal of contemporary scholarship about the New Testament, either ignored or he's just not aware of it. So I don't want to comment on the book, but the particular view that you just quoted, yes, I think that a very strong emphasis in Jewish-Christian dialogue today is the Jewishness of Jesus, the Jewishness of early Christianity.
In fact we've written about this in our Berlin document that we issued obviously in Berlin three years ago, the International Council of Christians and Jews, that it's very important for Christians to recognise not only the Jewishness of Jesus but the Jewishness of Paul. And we have a lot of material about that on our website.
I think that many of the values in the New Testament do stem from certain understandings of what Christians call the Old Testament. Many of the stories in the New Testament are quite similar to stories the rabbis of that period told in the Midrashim. And then there are also some significant differences, and I mentioned one little bit earlier, the attitude towards law. I think the other one has to do with the fact that for Jews, being Jewish is not just a religious identity but it's also an ethnic identity. Paul was the one who basically separated the two and who said that Gentiles can become part of his covenantal community, which obviously was an important move because it made Christianity a universal religion. That's a big break with Judaism.
Rachael Kohn: Do you think that the Judeo-Christian ethic as such is then undermined by the exclusivity of Jewish faith versus the universality of Christian faith?
Deborah Weissman: I hope not. I hope that Jews can achieve a balance between particularism and universalism. Actually I think all human beings have that challenge, and we find the balance in different ways. But I haven't found that my own being a committed Jew rooted in the Jewish community, that that has prevented me from being engaged in dialogue with many, many other people all around the world. I think the balance can be achieved.
Rachael Kohn: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth, argued forcefully recently for the renewal and a reaffirmation of the Judeo-Christian ethic, citing its importance in building the character of Western societies. What do you think of that effort?
Deborah Weissman: It's interesting because usually…Rabbi Sacks is one of my mentors and heroes, and I have been very influenced by his books and his work. Here though I'm interested as to how that statement is heard by Muslims in Britain, for example. And we do have an attempt going now to build a multicultural society in many parts of the world, and by stressing Judeo-Christian ethic, I don't know how that comes across to the other people in the society. So I would want to ask Rabbi Sacks what he meant. I think maybe we might want to be a little more careful in the way we express ourselves.
I certainly agree with him that there is nothing wrong with modern societies being influenced by values that come out of religious and spiritual traditions. I'm not impressed with what is called the secular public square, I think that that has problems also. I'm not against secularists who have positive human values, but I think that sometimes the lack of religion can turn into a kind of a nihilism that's dangerous. So I would want the public square to be informed by religious and secular discourse.
Rachael Kohn: Do you think though that there is a concerted effort by atheists or antireligious groups to take over the public square, and is it possible then in that sort of scenario that the reassertion of a Judeo-Christian ethic or certainly biblical values would be important?
Deborah Weissman: I would distinguish between atheists and antireligious. I know some wonderful atheists, including my late father, who were not antireligious, they were nonreligious, but they allowed room for other people to develop their own religious beliefs and practices. So I think the important phrase there is 'anti'. The question is, are you only anti somebody else or are you also pro a set of values?
And if I go back to my father, my father was definitely a humanist, he was a great believer in democracy, in human rights. I think those are all values that religious and nonreligious people can share and can develop together. So if the effort is to be antireligious, then I would oppose it. But if the effort is to create a safe space where religious and nonreligious people can interact and coexist, then I'm for it.
Rachael Kohn: Do you think those humanitarian values which your father held actually emerged out of the Jewish tradition, out of the biblical tradition which formed his ancestors and his forefathers?
Deborah Weissman: That's a good point. I think some of them did, definitely, although he wasn't influenced directly by the biblical values. But there are some values in the Bible that are no longer appropriate for us today. And when I was a young person in Israel for the first time I was on a kibbutz, kind of a religious socialist communal settlement, and they suggested that there were things in the Bible that are not appropriate today, but the way they are interpreted points in a direction that leads us to today. And the two examples they gave would be monarchy, where the Bible assumes monarchy, not parliamentary democracy because that was anachronistic, but it limits the power of the king in such a way that it sorts of points us in a direction towards greater involvement by the people.
The other example they gave was slavery, where the Bible talks about slavery, but the limits as to how you treat your slaves, it ends up that the Talmud says if you buy a slave, you're actually buying a master over yourself because you are supposed to be so kind and so compassionate towards the slave that, for example, if you have a comfortable bed and an uncomfortable bed, you have to give the slave the comfortable bed.
So what I'm saying is that there has been a development. We are not stuck in the time of the Bible, we've developed these values, certainly in regards to the role of women I think we've come a long way. And so the Bible is a basis, but I would not say that in today's world devout Jews are living by biblical values alone. We've had in between the whole rabbinic tradition, the mediaeval tradition, the modern traditions, and I'm sure that's true in other faiths as well. The Bible influences us but we have to carry it much further.
Rachael Kohn: That's Debbie Weissman, president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, the first woman to be elected to it in its 60-year history.
For Debbie, who for years co-chaired Israel's Inter-religious Coordinating Committee with the Muslim Israeli citizen, Issa Jaber, the dialogue between Christians and Jews is only part of the conversation. Interfaith dialogue must include Muslims, along with other faiths, and that informs her perspective on the issue of the Judeo-Christian ethic.
You're listening to The Spirit of Things on RN, on air and online at abc.net.au/radionational. And now back to Debbie Weissman:
You mentioned a couple of times the difficulty of holding to the notion of a Judeo-Christian ethic because of its implications for Muslims. Are you saying that the Judeo-Christian ethic, though it may exist, needs to be denied or set aside in order to allow for a new kind of relationship to Muslims?
Deborah Weissman: First of all I think that we have to recognise that there are distinct religious communities with their own integrity and we have to respect them and allow them space to practice their own traditions. Some of those religions share things in common. I think that Jews and Muslims are very close ideologically, but Jews and Christians are very close because we share a common holy text which we don't share with the Muslims. Not only that, but Jews pray using the Psalms, Christians pray using the Psalms, so our liturgy is similar.
Jews, Christians and Muslims can sometimes form what we call the Abrahamic faiths, which doesn't mean that we can't also sometimes dialogue and find things in common with people from the eastern religions or people from indigenous spiritual traditions, particularly here in Australia. I'm amazed sometimes at how some of the Aboriginal concepts resonate with me as a Jew, and I don't think it's because we had great historical contacts, I think it's just because we are human beings and sometimes we come out with similar insights.
So I think there can be all kinds of relationships and alliances and dialogues with two or three or more groups at a time, and I'm not against using the word 'Judeo-Christian', I think that sometimes that's appropriate, but I would question sometimes when we use these words how they are heard by others, in what context.
Rachael Kohn: What do you think is the reason for the breakdown between Muslims and Jews?
Deborah Weissman: Well, unfortunately I think it's largely because of politics in the region in which I live, the Middle East, and specifically the problems between Israel and the Palestinians. And I'm very sorry that because of that political conflict that has impacted not only on Jewish-Muslim relations but even sometimes on the Jewish-Christian relations in other parts of the world. And people somehow can't separate the political national struggles from theological discussions, liturgical, textual, ethical et cetera in other parts of the world. I would like us to be able to continue the dialogue, certainly also speaking about what's going on in the Middle East, but not having that dominate our entire relationship.
Rachael Kohn: Isn't the almost universal rejection by Muslims and Muslim nations of Israel, in contrast to the acceptance of Israel by Christians and Christian nations, a sign that the Judeo-Christian ethic is a significant reality as much as is the lack of it in the Muslim world?
Deborah Weissman: That's a tough question. That's a good question. Well, let me begin by saying that 18% to 20% of the Israeli citizenry are Muslims. I wouldn't say they have rejected Israel. They live in Israel, they are law-abiding citizens, they vote, they sit in our parliament. There are some Muslims who served in our army, there are some who have taken positions with our foreign service. So they certainly don't reject Israel...well, there may be a few who do, but I wouldn't say that about them.
The second thing is it has not been my experience that other Muslims that I've met throughout the world totally reject Israel either. I think many of them reject some of Israel's policies, but many of them would make their peace with the idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Of course some are as you described and they reject even the very idea of Israel's existence. I also find the Christian community quite divided on these questions, where you have some people who call themselves Christian Zionists and are very supportive of Israel, and then you have some who feel that there is no basis for a Jewish state, and I think most Christians are in between those two extremes, and I think that they would support the existence of the state of Israel, but they may have difficulty with some of Israel's current policies.
Rachael Kohn: If the Judeo-Christian ethic is not useful in your efforts to build bridges between Jews and Muslims, what is?
Deborah Weissman: Well, I think we share a common belief in the oneness of God. In fact I think Muslims are probably the most fervent monotheists that I know of who reject any kind of symbolism or depiction...I mean, even in a synagogue there are more symbols then there are in a mosque. So we have something in common theologically. During the Middle Ages, Jewish thought was highly influenced by Muslims thought.
Secondly we are both religions based on a legal system. They have sharia, we have halakha, Jewish religious law. Third, some of our laws are even similar. We both have dietary laws, we both have systems for the slaughter of meat. They have what they call halal and we have kosher. We share in common circumcision as a rite of passage. We share in common a reluctance to perform autopsies. In our case it would be only if the information gained from the autopsy can be helpful in saving other human lives. I don't know if they have that same provision. We share in common concepts about feasting and fasting. I think we really have a lot in common in that respect. There have been many periods of history where we've lived together quite successfully.
As I say, now unfortunately the politics from the Middle East casts a pall over this. But right now we in the International Council of Christians and Jews are trying to make common cause with Muslims in Europe because there are some European countries, as there are in this part of the world, who oppose circumcision and who oppose kosher or halal slaughter of animals. So in those cases I would say it's fascinating to me that both of those involved using knives, and it reminds me of the biblical verse that says 'they shall beat their knives or their swords into ploughshares'. Maybe co-operating around some of these issues could bring us closer to peace.
Rachael Kohn: I wonder if you can imagine a Judeo-Muslim ethic?
Deborah Weissman: Again, yes and no. There are things we share in common, there are also areas where we are in total disagreement. I'll take something that might sound trivial, but Jews drink wine. Wine is part of our ritual, and that we share in common with many Christians for whom wine is part of the ritual. For Muslims it's forbidden to drink wine. So we share certain things in common and there are other areas where we don't. On a very basic level of human ethics, as I say, Jews, Christians, Muslims might share certain values, but it doesn't mean we don't share them as well with Buddhists or with Sikhs or with Hindus, or it least some Hindus. So again, I wonder what the value is in just stressing a few at the expense of others.
Rachael Kohn: Debbie, I wonder whether the commonality between Jews and Christians and Muslims lies as much with where they are on the liberal to conservative spectrum than where they are on the spectrum of their religion.
Deborah Weissman: Well, that's an interesting observation, but I guess sometimes there are anomalies, and I think I would count myself as an anomaly because I consider myself quite traditional when it comes to my religious practice but quite liberal when it comes to my political and social views, and I happen to know other Jews who are like me, and I know some Catholics and Protestants who are like me, and I even know some Muslims who are like me. So I don't know if we can always do an across-the-board analysis that way. Yes, there are in all of our communities people who are conservative (with a small c) on everything and there are some people who are liberal on anything, and then there are some people who have perhaps a more complex approach.
Rachael Kohn: That brings me to the question of how you got into this field of interfaith dialogue in the first place.
Deborah Weissman: Yes, it's an interesting story actually. I grew up in a very committed Jewish home where we always had non-Jewish friends, colleagues, neighbours, but my work and the fact that I moved to Israel 40 years ago brought me mostly in contact with Jews. My field of work was Jewish education. I worked with Jewish educators from all over the world, and actually the first few times I came to Australia was only to meet with Jews. But in the mid-1980s a colleague of mine who was teaching in a Christian institution in Jerusalem had to leave the country for a semester, and he asked if I would take over and teach basic Judaism to Christians, and I said, well, I've never done this before, I'm not sure I know how to do it. He said you'll try, it'll work, it's okay.
Anyway, I did it, I loved it, and apparently I was okay at what I did because when he came back they kept us on, and I stayed teaching, and actually to this day I still teach at some Christian institutions. And then I had a life changing experience which was the World Council of Churches in 1988 held a week-long conference in Toronto of women from nine different religions from all over the world, there were about 60 of us at the conference, and I was part of the Jewish delegation. I would say that week transformed my life and started me on the path that has led to where I am now.
I met the most amazing women from religions I hadn't even heard of, and parts of the world I had never been to. And we had so much in common as women and as religious women, and the whole week was devoted to religion, feminism and politics. What a fascinating week. So I think that's really what started me.
Rachael Kohn: Many Jews and Christians don't have the benefit of such a life changing encounter with people from other traditions and are happy to live in their own worlds knowing as little as possible about each other. Do you think you have been able to bridge the gap for some of those people, and how do we do it?
Deborah Weissman: Well, I guess I don't subscribe to the idea that ignorance is bliss. I think that it's good to know more and to meet more people and to travel more if you can. And one of the blessings of our age is the internet, and you could sit in the privacy of your own home and be in contact with people throughout the world. Our organisation has a new updated website that's a very colourful and full of interesting stories and articles and pictures and videos, and we are not the only ones of course. So I think that people all over the world can get in contact with each other.
And I also think that meeting people of other traditions doesn't necessarily weaken our own commitment. I think in my own case it has actually strengthened my identity but expanded it, and now I have to think about a lot more things than I thought about before and I have to incorporate other people and their identities into my world view. So I think it can be done and it should be done.
Rachael Kohn: Debbie Weissman, I'm sure that through your efforts it will be done more and more. Thank you so much for speaking to me for The Spirit of Things.
Deborah Weissman: Thank you.
Rachael Kohn: It's obvious why Dr Debbie Weissman is a prize-winning educator. She's also president of the International Council of Christians and Jews. Earlier in our conversation she mentioned its latest statement on Christian Jewish relations, the Berlin Document, which you can find a link to on our website at abc.net.au/radionational. You can also download this program to hear the audio again at any time. And don't forget to join the conversation on the Judeo-Christian ethic by Adding Your Comment on our webpage. The program is produced by me and Geoff Wood. I'm Rachael Kohn. Join me again next week for The Spirit of Things, right here on RN.
- Dennis Prager
- He majored in Middle Eastern Studies and History at Brooklyn College, graduating in 1970. He went on to study at the Russian Institute (now Harriman Institute) at Columbia University.[3] He speaks, and lectures in several foreign languages, including Russian and Hebrew.[4] He taught Jewish and Russian History at Brooklyn College, and was a Fellow at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where he did his graduate work at the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute) and Middle East Institute from 1970-1972. He is a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He is also the founder of Prager University, a virtual university aimed at educating people through five-minute videos on conservative political and social views. Author of Why the Jews: The Reason for Antisemitism (2003) and Still the Best Hope (2012).
- Dr. Deborah Weissman
- President of the International Council of Christians and Jews, the first Jewish woman to be elected to that post in the Council's more than sixty-year history; she currently serves as the Deputy Co-Chair of the Inter-Religious Coordinating Council in Israel.
She has a Ph.D. in Jewish education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her main field of academic research is the social history of Jewish women's education. A prize-winning Jewish educator, Debbie has had extensive experience in both formal and informal Jewish education, both with Israelis and with Diaspora youth and adults. In the 1970s, Debbie was one of the founders of the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education. For many years, she has developed a specialization in teaching about Judaism to Christians. Outside of the professional realm, Debbie was one of the founders and is still an active member of Kehillat Yedidya in Bak'a, a modern Orthodox synagogue that has excellent neighbourly relations with its Reform and Conservative neighbors and hosts multi-faith groups from throughout the world.
- Title
- Still the Best Hope
- Author
- Dennis Prager
- Publisher
- Broadside Books, 2012
- Description
- A defence of American values against its two oppositional alternatives: Islamism and European style democratic socialism.
Further Information
- The Berlin Document
- Building a new relationship between Jews and Christians
- Presenter
- Dr Rachael Kohn
- Producer
- Dr Rachael Kohn / Geoff Wood
Comments (33)
Cinnie Arida :
18 Nov 2012 6:16:03pm
I could not but be amazed by the interviewees assertion that "In god we trust" was always part of the trinity of Americanism. The founding fathers were secularists and "in god we trust " was added in the 20th century.
That the interviewer did not pull him up on this blatant falsehood is doubly astounding as his arguments all follow on from that assertion.
Emir :
18 Nov 2012 6:34:37pm
I don't know about secularism being responsible for thedecline in birth rates in the vwst generally, it's a over simplistic de-construction....there's mroe to to it...it's a well know fact, proven many times over, that if you educate women in the 3rd world countries and give them the opportunity to work, they have less kids, so in this cane it's 3 things contributing to lower birth rates, feminism (the right to be equal and to be educated etc) and capitalism (the right to work and income indepenfance)....i don't eman that in a perjorative way, it'sa good thing, population can't just keep in`reasing exponentiallly, it has to level out....
TimTim :
18 Nov 2012 6:40:50pm
Oh Denis Denis
There are so many holes in your theories.. you can rely on humans to be better without HAVING to be forced to acknowledge a never proved god/figurehead.
You could try in your life Vipassana or meditation - life is a FEELING and can be enjoyed as such (is not worthless without a theory of god) - as like a dog enjoys life for life's sake and does it's best - as I do we can do..Religion has and is for so many a excuse. I didn't do it God/The Devil/Mohammad whatever makes me do it, I must do it for them. Good deeds are not OUTSIDE oneself they are oneself as Is the FEELING of life that wonderful passion "I am alive I see the trees I see grass I live and love happily" as opposed to I need a god to make that in me. accept responsibility my friend, don't fight off reality.
be happy - don't complain as you do so much of..
It's about time that there is a swing towards secularism.. we are sick and tired of make believe being everywhere - its really annoying..
There never has been any proof for a spiritual being and never will be!
So why flood us with religious images, churches, religious education and so so much more?
Lets be free to choose and that means a secular public space my friend - truly!
It's about time reality and science took a little more firm hold and now in the world we do see a lot more of a sense of reality coming in.. which doesn't mean a possible loss of passion for others and care.
Don't please distract others and yourself. Seems you possibly speak like this for your own self, rather than a whole world and truthfully you sound antagonistic and annoyed.
Good luck out there and try to see change towards rationalism as a wonderful gift and less a world floundering in make believe.
Regards Tim.
Danielle :
18 Nov 2012 6:54:04pm
I think a program about secularisation, as an event that is as a matter of a fact happening, or even has happened (along the path described by someone like Charles Talyor) would really very interesting.
Some actual arguments against the idea of evacuating the public sphere of belief or religion (I'd suggest this as a reasonable articulation of the idea of secularism) would have been a very interesting thing to explore.
Even what you had in your advert before the program, where you offered definitions of fundamentalism whether secularist or religious - discussing fundamentalism would have been revelant, and honestly I think it's a word that we have to remind ourselves of the meaning of... what we mean by it: constantly.
But what you presented today was the stuffing of a straw man, usful in the project that is seemingly Dennis Prager's of the setting of lines of a battle that he hopes to see waged. Accepting the sort of lines he sets for us would impoverish and hurt us all before we've even begun to 'fight'.
The example of Los Angles removing the cross from some public emblem, it's basis on the idea that land demarcated by the name Los Angles came in to existence at the point at which European's arrived in the second half of the last millennium is thoroughly imperialist and probably racist.
"Many secularism philosophers have accepted [that without a transcendent source of morals,] there is no secular answer to the problem of cruelty"
This is hugely embarrassing, and probably isn't worthy of being put to air. (Sorry if I've miss-paraphrased this man, but the transcript isn't up yet.)
Debbie Weissman was a lot more interesting, or if not interesting at least she was interested in ideas.
Sorry this was a little stream of consciousness, I just found the first half of the program insulting to sort of constructive, unification while still honest work that many intellectuals, many men and women of the church as well as lay people are all involved in.... and felt the urge to write.
I was glad I stayed around for your discussion with Debbie Weissman.
For the sorts of discussions I was talking about I'd really recommend the discussion between the Philosophers Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas in this book: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15645-5/the-power-of-religion-in-the-public-sphere
John Md :
18 Nov 2012 7:11:18pm
Prager totally misrepresents American religious history. Tolerance was not an early part of the American religious tradition. The Quaker Mary Dyer was by no means the only person to die because she rejected the prevailing Puritanism.
Later, when Jefferson and Madison and others formulated the constitution, its statements about religion both were a reaction to the warring orthodoxies, and reflected the liberal religious views of Jefferson and Madison others involved. These men were far closer to the modern secularists than to the ilk of Prager. What does Prager make of Jefferson's writings on religion? His extreme conservatism is a mile from Jefferson and Madison, and a mile from most of the other leaders in the formative years 1776-1826. See Gaustad: Faith of our Fathers, Harper & Row 1987.
Prager's complaint about the writing out of Judaeo-Christian contributions to American society is ironic, given his own writing out of the liberal religious perspectives of Jefferson and Madison and others that informed the writing of the US constitution.
In acknowledging the various religious contributions to US society, why focus only on the cross, on Christmas (though the origins of Christmas are pagan with a Christian tinge), and on public prayer? What of the huge Islamic contribution to the Western Christian tradition, not just in mathematics and science, but in theology. Aquinas was hugely influenced by the Muslim Ibn Sina [Avicenna], as well as by the Jew Moses Maimonides. There is of course ample precedent for ignoring the Islamic contribution to European culture, and thence to the culture that the founding fathers took to America.
Weissman does understand and acknowledge the Islamic contribution -- good for her!
Charles Cohen :
19 Nov 2012 3:26:50am
Dennis Prager makes a good point -- sometimes a cross is a religious symbol, and sometimes it's a pointer back into history. "Piss Christ" was done in the 1987, and it's time to move on.
I have to wonder if Prager's attempt to "keep religion in the public sphere", may be motivated by his generally "conservative" outlook. When someone's first example of a generally-applicable "religious" principle is:
. . . "Kill murderers"
I have to wonder what his _real_ agenda is. I bet that "slavery" is also accepted in each of the 5 books of Moses, and it's a normal part of life in the New Testament as well. Does that make it a principle of Judaeo-Christian ethics?
As usual, the devil is in the details. Prager is Grayling, reversed.
Deborah Weissman is cut from different cloth. Her insistence that "Judeao-Christian" is not enough -- that Islam needs to be brought into the conceptual tent -- is refreshing.
I expected that the answer to "Why do Christians accept Israel more easily than Muslims?" would have been:
. . . "If Israel had been established in Europe, Christians would have objected just as strongly."
But I always had a simple mind.
Thanks for the show --
.. Charles
NrG :
19 Nov 2012 9:56:29am
I found this a rather worrying program. Here is a man sprooking an upcoming book about calling people who want to remove the concept of Judeo-Christian ethics from our society as secular fundamentalists.
Well call me one then - he complains about the renaming of xmas trees (sorry that should be Christmas trees) to holiday trees. Doesn't he know that christmas was just pilfered from the pagan's festivals as was easter. These and manner other examples were offered and all it showed was how far out of touch with reality he was.
Why oh why do you let such conservative idiots on to help sell divisive books to support concepts that should have long ago died out?
John :
19 Nov 2012 9:15:02pm
I googled the Hoover Institute and what came up - a photo of Justice Scalia, who in my opinion epitomizes the very worse aspects of American Christian fundamentalism. Even to the degree that he is a leading edge participant in what is described at this reference.
Or Google Gotterdamerung the Yurica Report - Richard Heinberg.
And of course Hoover is very much a part of the right-wing GOP Noise Machine as described by David Brock. Google Hoover it and you will find all of the usual right-wing fundamentalists.
Mumtwothree :
20 Nov 2012 1:35:54pm
The Founding Fathers were mostly members of a religious denomination - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_Fathers_of_the_United_States#Religion
Thomas Jefferson even published a bible!
This is an interesting interview though - worthy of being on Counterpoint!! And I do agree with his concerns about all signs of Christianity removed from everywhere, pretending that that bit of history didn't happen, while still pretending to accept other religious festivals like Diwali, Eidh, etc. What's wrong with Christmas trees? Why can't they be part of the Tradition? What traditions do secularists have to offer to replace them? Do secularists say bah humbug to every part of Christmas? No presents, no dinners, no celebration on the 25th December?
Linda :
20 Nov 2012 1:53:11pm
Go Dennis!
David R Allen :
20 Nov 2012 1:58:06pm
Denis claims morality can only ever come from religion.
Find attached an excellent article in New Scientist that explains morality.
It falls out of the evolutionary imperatives that formed us over the last 10 million years.
God is not necessary anymore. God is not necessary for morality. God is not necessary for decision making, which should be evidentiary. A lot of the examples of secular fundamentalism cited by Denis are supported by evidence, unlike Denis' belief in mysticism.
Support of the death penalty by Denis sealed my view on his morality.
Ladybird :
20 Nov 2012 2:05:19pm
Oh... TimTim..
you said...we are sick and tired of make believe being everywhere - its really annoying." well secularists have the Easter bunny? the Stork? Santa Claus? Tooth Fairies..little elves and the big bang theory?
I ask was Jesus a real person? he was not make believe.. and he claimed to be God and he said quite a few things about Himself...
I am the bread of life (6:35-48)
I am the living bread (6:51)
I am the light of the world (8:12)
I am the gate for the sheep (10:7)
I am the good shepherd (10:11)
I am the resurrection and the life (11:25)
I am the way, the truth and the life (14:6)
The bible is not about make believe.. not like the fairy tales and legends of men. The Bible is truth for daily living and very practical for all sorts of life issues. The Psalms have quite alot
to say about God..
Fellowship with God Ps 5, 16, 25, 37
Knowledge of God Ps 18, 19, 29, 65, 89, 97, 145 and about life". Christians have Christmas day to celebrate the birth of Jesus.. God becoming man to relate to us personally. So was Jesus real?
The Psalms also state it is the fool who says in his heart there is no God.. so I guess that makes you a fool.. and you need to keep on celebrating April fools day.. or wise up to some biblical truths.
Pamela :
20 Nov 2012 2:21:31pm
This guy's just being hysterical. It's the torch-bearers like him that are desperate to keep us in the past of supersition and voodoo. Just because something 'has always been' it doesn't mean it's good to keep on doing it for no intelligent reason. His type are dying out as we evolve and understand more about the science of the universe, and facts rather than the myths and fear-mongering of religions.
Pamela :
20 Nov 2012 2:25:21pm
He talks about declining birth rates as if it's a bad thing. Not surprising from the theists who think we can trash the planet without a thought because their god will save them from their own irresponsibility.
Ray :
20 Nov 2012 2:28:36pm
Really, Rachael!
Is this bloke some kind of religious shock-jock, bent on pushing a variety of rabid ultra-right-wing ideology in the US? (But not here, I trust. God preserve us!)
For a little while I thought you'd invited a clever satirist onto the show in order to lampoon the madness of the extreme religious right in that conflicted country.
But he was for real! I think.
But then, come to think of it, perhaps he did manage do just that ...
Pamela :
20 Nov 2012 2:55:08pm
Ladybird, if I could give Timtim a gold star for his comment I would. The bible IS make believe written my barely literate men back in an age of torture, superstition and fear. It is not the 'word of god' anymore than it is the word of the Flying Spaghettin Monster. Even Hitler said if a lie is repeated often enough it becomes the 'truth', and this is exactly what has occurred here.
Fred :
20 Nov 2012 3:01:43pm
But what is the origin and thus the far-reaching political consequences of the Christian "ethic"?
The "New" Testament is, at its core, an independent tradition. Christianity separated itself from Judaism, and became something else. Unfortunately, in making that separation, the Jewish converts to Christianityy maintained a claim to the holy books of Judaism, and they even claimed to be the new "true Israel" - and, thus, established a principle of cultural superiority that, eventually, gave rise to all the horrors of anti-Semitism that Jewish people have been made to suffer for centuries. Such has also been the source of much of the horrors of institutional Christianity in its drive to gain total power and control over all of humankind.
Such is, among other efforts made on the absurd presumption of cultural superiority, a negative result of the institutionalization of exoteric Christianity as a would be world conquering power-and-control-seeking cult. Added to the absurd presumption of cultural superiority was (eventually) all of the inherently self-deluding and self-corrupting association with political and social power, when the multi-various early Christian movement became associated as the "official" State-"religion", with the power of Rome at its base.
Once the "official" version of Christian-ism was thus defined the then in power church fathers had (n all subseqent times and places) the poltical power to define "heresies" and thus to deal with all of the "heretics" that have always appeared.
Ah - I love the sound of the blood curdling screams of those being tortured, the smell of fresh human blood and of burning human flesh!
John :
20 Nov 2012 4:04:36pm
Who are the now world dangerous fundamentalists? And the source of much of the worlds problems - even potentially catastrophically so.
Fundamentally, among all the religions of the world, ONLY Christianity, and Islam, and to a lesser but now dangerous degree Judaism, are inherently and aggressively associated with an expansionist ideal (and an attitude of not only cultural, but also social and political, superiority) that irreducibly intends, and actively pursues, the destiny to which each of those three traditions apoints ITSELF of total world-domination, or global totalitarian Rulership.
Likewise, by their very nature, these three religious (and comprehensively cultural, social, AND political) traditions are, perpetually, in an intentionally oerformed state of competition, that always seeks, and frequently achieves, conflict, confrontation, and even aggressive warfare with one another - and even ALLother religious, cultural, social, and political traditions, systems, or institutions in the world.
Because of all of this, humankind as a whole must especially beware of these three traditions, including all of their variant formulations, systems, and insitutions.
Likewise, humankind as a whole must, by all right cooperative means, refuse to allow and, altogether prevent, these three traditions from achieving any kind of larger public state of conflict, confrontation, or otherwise aggressive or even warlike opposition to one another or to any of the other religious, cultural, social and/or political traditions of the world.
The total world of humankind can easily be drawn into a terminal state of conflict by means of the public theatrical exploitation of the false-face of exoteric religion pwer - only, in due course, to find that a dark political, social and cultural tyranny has been embraced by seemingly righteous means.
If humankind altogether is not thus vigilant all those who imagine they have exoteric "Rights" of ego-based exclusive "Revelation", whether religious, cultural, social, or political, will never cease by every kind of exercise of Power and War, to pursue authoritarian and totalitarian world domination by means of the final establishing of Kingdom and Rule by their own Winning Side.
The Powers of nation-states that would exercise themselves in the name of one or the other of the threes "Great Religions" of the Middle East now presume they can wage "Final War" and, thus and thereby, establish "Final Rule" - and they are NOW actively moving themselves on that basis.
Nulligravida :
20 Nov 2012 5:28:46pm
"Support of the death penalty by Denis sealed my view on his morality."
Well said David.
And his self-proclaimed aversion to argumentum ad hom was not evidenced by his argumentum ad hom comments about leftists/secularists.
It is lazy yet convenient to generalise -- yea verily, negatively stereotype -- users of birth control as feckless hedonists. He portrayed them as those who see "children as a pain..." and want to "travel and dine out [instead]." That was incendiary and he knows it.
I have no issue with Jesus. It is his fan club I cannot stand.
Nulligravida :
20 Nov 2012 5:34:56pm
"it's a well know fact, proven many times over, that if you educate women in the 3rd world countries and give them the opportunity to work, they have less kids, so in this cane it's 3 things contributing to lower birth rates, feminism (the right to be equal and to be educated etc) and capitalism (the right to work and income indepenfance).."
Yes Emir. Denis knows that too. He doesn't like them womenfolk being independant and having non-procreative sex so he pulls out a strawman like "secularisation" to disguise his real agenda.
David R Allen :
20 Nov 2012 6:12:52pm
This is top secret so don't tell anyone.
Deep in the religious archives, they were going through the most ancient translations of the bible and they found a spoonerism. Turns out the poor old scribe in translating from Aramaic to Greek, had a lapse in concentration.
In Genesis, when it says, "God made man in his own image." The scribe got it backwards. The ancient text actually sad, "Man made god in his own image." Once you make that correction, it puts the rest of the bible, god and belief in perspective.
Ladybird take note of this correction. If the only evidence to support your position is to quote the bible, then you have no evidence. It just contains stuff made up by semi-illiterate men. (In the masculine because it is so sexist.)
Denis made a fine argument for secularism. I would be terrified if he was in charge of the world. If you want to believe in and live by a religious belief in the absence of evidence then knock yourself out. But the moment you try to say that the rest of the world must live by your belief, then you are to be opposed. Secularists are only now, in the west, feeling brave enough to speak up. And they can't in the middle east. Yet.
Religion should be practiced by consenting adults in private.
Natalie :
20 Nov 2012 6:44:40pm
Anyone who advocates capital punishment is a barbarian.
Here is why.
Murder and revenge are intrinsically morally wrong and never justified. Therefore capital punishment is morally wrong and never justified.
The negative exploitation and killing of human beings by human beings violates the heart of one and all.
Except in cases of immediately necessary and otherwise unavoidable physical self defense, all killing of human beings by human beings is intrinsically not right. Therefore, murder is not a human right, revenge is not a human right, and capital punishment is not a human right. People and whole socities that commit acts of murder and revenge thereby toxify and harm, and potentially destroy even themselves. The moral integrity and the altogether human integrity of humankind is aggressively discarde and lost in acts of murder and revenge, whether committed individually and collectivly. Thus, the exercise of capital violates an intrinsic moral law in the human feeling depth.
To perform, or to watch, or even to condone capital punishment is, necessarily, to perform, watch, or condone muder, blood-lust, revenge-killing, evil intention, and heart-negating purposes. Proof of this in the fact that, virtually universally, All who perform, watch, or condone and kind of real physical human-to-human violence feel an unquenchable hurt in their hearts.
Natalie :
20 Nov 2012 7:07:13pm
A more subtle critiqe of the dreadful world view that Dennis promotes.
Only men and women of intrinsic uncaused pleasure are fit for loving here, and thus of being good company for all beings under all conditions.
If you can breathe fully and deeply, and if your breath is consciously attuned, through feeling, to the tangible and infinite Spirit-Energy of the universe, only then can you love.
If your attention is always free of obsession with your thoughts and memories and reactions, only then are you capable of genuine free participation in life under all circumstances.
If your living body is open, relaxed, fluid with feeling, supple and graceful in its action and expression, and not bound up in a physically visible knot of tension and self possession, only then can you live a truly effective and moral or relational life in this human realm.
And, only then are you happy and thus capable of serving others.
Happiness is the now-and-forever Mystery that IS the Real Heart and the Only Real God of every one.
20 Nov 2012 7:08:29pm
thomas jefferson's bible cut out almost all of the supernatural out of it, with very little left. He did it because he didn't like what most of the bible was about
peaceandlonglife :
20 Nov 2012 10:24:15pm
Waleed Aly made some pertinent comments about the "Judeo-Christian Tradition" in the QE37:
<<Neo-conservatives ... posit a clear, identifiable, unproblematic national culture ...
[A] culture that was comparatively homogenous until the relativism of the Left tore at its fabric.
This is an ossified, nostalgic fiction. ...
[Eg that] ours is a culture that stems from the Judeo-Christian tradition, in spite of the fact that the Jewish tradition is very different from the Christian one, and very many Christians before World War II would probably have been repulsed at the connection being drawn.
These are new constructions, presented as history for the purpose of creating what masquerades as an old, established culture.
(p 77)>>
The Nazis were nominally Christian.
Their ideological dogmatism (like religious dogmatism) was diametrically opposite to secular humanist values of tolerance and pluralism.
The social and psychological foundation of the Shoah was laid by the centuries of pogroms instigated by the Medieval Church.
See also: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/martha-nussbaum3a-the-new-religious-intolerance/4211204
To paraphrase a traditional Jewish greeting:
Live long and prosper
Michael :
21 Nov 2012 9:24:49am
Dennis Prager (Did I mention my book?)Yuck, just the tired old Republican "They can't tell us what to do" Such a contrast with the delightful Deborah Weissman.
Wouldn't Jesus be left wing? socialist even?
Depending on your definition of secular ( not being exclusively allied to any particular religion?) he could have also be described as secular?
But perhaps there is a"push back" by some possibly due to the increasing activism of churches in politics esp. in USA. (Tea Party etc)
O yes, the States was not founded for religious freedom, quite the opposite in fact
Jennifer Raper :
21 Nov 2012 1:33:59pm
Judeo-christian Ethic.
This is really a difficult concept to relate to in our multi-cultural/faith world.
However, the issue that confronts us all is that of morality. Is it possible to develop a secular morality that would exist on its owm merits?
How much of our religious morality has been developed by men and " passed off" as the transendent word of God?
It would seem that we are in an "axial" change period of history where humans are desperately seeking to create sound moral ethics to suit the coming global community.
Thanks to your diligence and skills, we have an opportunity to listen to diverse views which we can take to own small 'market place' and contribute to the debate.
Augogo :
22 Nov 2012 11:11:12am
Dear Rachel, I'm so dissappointed in you!
This man's ravings and sprukings are not in the spirit of The Spirit of Things. I'm very surprised that you went ahead with broadcasting this noxious stuff. Surely alarm bells started ringing pretty quick, I'm amazed you didn't listen to them.
This must be a first for your wonderful show - someone advocating the death penalty and claiming it for the Judeo-Christian Ethic.
What next - The Spiritual Diary of Alan Jones?!?
myrna :
23 Nov 2012 11:25:30am
I listened in disbelief and horror to Rachael Kohn's interview with Dennis Prager. I find it baffling that a highly educated and sophisticated person could spout such views. He conveyed claims about those he opposes that seem to me to be distortions of the facts. And what are the 'shocking examples' of secular fundamentalists' 'religious cleansing'? This claim seems to be meant to be compared with 'ethnic cleansing', but can anyone seriously argue that the removal of school prayer or calling a Christmas tree a 'holiday tree' compares to the slaughter and destruction we call 'ethnic cleansing'.
The contrast between Prager's intemperate, and intolerant ranting and the next interview was remarkable. Debbie Weissman was a breath of fresh air; she is proudly religious, even devout, and certainly not wishy-washy, yet she is able to extend an empathic and open ear to others. Weissman's thoughtful observations and comments made me think and reflect, while Prager's aggressive, dogmatic attack was a turn-off.
I commend Dr Kohn on the way she handled these interviews, gently probing so that the listener would be hard pressed to say with confidence which view she prefers; she let the subjects speak for themselves.
Thank you.
David R Allen :
23 Nov 2012 1:49:58pm
This is a thought provoking article on New Scientist that appears to show we can have morality without religion.
Martin Snigg :
27 Nov 2012 1:43:41pm
In times of extraordinary centralisation of power in the state, the presence of independent thinkers like Mr Prager, who have escaped burial by the levelling liberal elite, give me hope. Liberal domination [James Kalb] of education, bureaucracies, government and Hollywood cultural production has created a suffocating smothering group-think.
In these strange times I understand Mr Prager to urge the active remembering of in what way God vouchesafes liberty of the self, household, and polis.
"There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not in a single country….All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak….Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples." Paul Roberts
That defences of the obvious are needed goes to the morbidity of our culture and public life.
I hate what it has done to many young men for example, emasculated by state sponsored liberalism and feminism and supplied by cultural 'elite' with Jesus and stumbling followers of Christ as the outlet for their justified rage. Jesus' proclamation of the freedom of the adopted children of God must seem in this artificial atmosphere as bizarre as bidding geldings to be fruitful.
I will follow Mr Prager's example of dignified refusal to think with the powerful liberal establishment, ordered toward their own survival, as all establishments are, but unprecedently has abolished any standard by which to hold it to account - and effectively inculcating this in the young with its subversion of traditional institutions. All the while scrupulously remaining silent that it is an establishment "liberalism's extraordinary ability to disguise its own nature." http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/sites/8000.turnabout.ath.cx/files/LibTradChurch.pdf
Shane 2 :
03 Dec 2012 5:22:33pm
Jefferson didn't believe in the supernatural stuff peddled by the Christian Bible so he wrote his own leaving out the supernatural stuff. That is heresy right there. Paine was an atheist. Washington attended church but did not consider himself to be enough of a believer to take communion. Adams was a deist who didn't believe Jesus was the son of God. These guys were religious outliers in American society in the 1780s.
Imagine the outrage if Obama rewrote the bible because he didn't like large chunks of the original!
dave s :
07 Feb 2013 11:26:53am
i dont think god was ever necessary
thanks for trying to point out that article but you have to subscribe to get it from new scientist ( it is theirs anyway )
you can get it here :
i use sam harris' "the moral landscape" as my reference book
and pat condell on youtube for inspiration ( he believes jesus could have been a masochist and wanted to get up on the cross )


text:
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"Block Island....great getaway!" Top 5 Page for this destination Block Island by Pawtuxet
Block Island Travel Guide: 43 reviews and 63 photos
Block Island is a small island with very few year round residents..but the population explodes in summer months. The beaches are beautiful, town is small, plenty of clubs, bars, restaurants and shops to keep you busy when not on the beach. Most people make it a day trip, but if you stay on the island...be sure to book your hotel ahead of time.
You can bring your car or your bike on the ferry. Expensive to bring a car. It makes sense to bring a bike, however. Block Island isn't as developed as Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket (which are part of Massachusetts....Block Island is part of Rhode Island). If you want party time around town.... or quiet time with nature away from town... you can find it all here.
Notice that there is an airport for faster service to the island. BTW...plenty of challenging hills if you are on a bike.
- Pros:Small island, lots of beaches, clubbing, and quiet patches
- Cons:Sometimes feels too small.....
- In a nutshell:Come for quiet relaxation, or to focus on the "happening" clubs
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Have lunch on the porch overlooking Great Salt Pond. We haven't tried this one yet....but all these old porches are fun... more travel advice
A couple of us said we'd probably we'd probably be too chicken to take this ride....while a couple of others in the... more travel advice
The bluffs of Block Island have been in the news quite a bit because of the erosion problems of an island. In fact there... more travel advice
Of course there are many beaches on the island. I always prefer the quiet ones tucked away, but in my younger days I... more travel advice
Nightlife (1)Clubs & plenty of partying
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Comments (20)
These photos are great Janet! You have catpured some amazing photos of Block Island - It brings back great memories for me! :-)
Interesting sounding place. I'll be sure to visit next time I go back east.
Indeed what a lovely place for an anniversary and to share with family. Something for everyone to do as much or as little and relax as one wants.
Looks like a wonderful place to explore and make memories!
Hi Janet ! Is that really a real turtle ? Wow !!! Congratulations with the anniversary
Wow Janet! What a great place to spend an anniversary and being with family members - even better. Congratulations!
What a lovely place for a family get away. Happy belated anniversary.
It seems you had a great family trip to this pleasant hideaway. It's hard to beat sunshine and sand! The new photos certainly add sparkle, it looks a great place to visit.
Seems like a beautiful spot to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Restful, appealing, and charming. You've done a great job presenting this delightful location.
Hi, Janet! I'm sure I would enjoy my stay there!
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