The Charlie Kirk Show - November 26, 2022


The Rational Bible: Deuteronomy with Dennis Prager


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

148.41948

Word count

4,977

Sentence count

436

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Dennis Prager, author of the new book, Deuteronomy: God Blessings and Curses, a rational Bible commentary, joins me to talk about the importance of the Old Testament in shaping the structure of our society.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, happy Friday, special Friday episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:04.000 My conversation with Dennis Prager, one of my mentors, and just people that have impacted my thinking so tremendously, author of a new book, Deuteronomy, God Blessings and Curses.
00:00:16.000 A rational Bible commentary.
00:00:18.000 It is life-changing.
00:00:19.000 It is an unbelievable work.
00:00:21.000 You've got to check it out.
00:00:22.000 It is, again, called Deuteronomy, God Blessings and Curses, the Rational Bible by Dennis Prager.
00:00:30.000 Email me your thoughts as alwaysfreedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:32.000 To hear Dennis Prager in person, come to AmericaFest at A-M-F-E-S-T.com.
00:00:37.000 That is amfest.com.
00:00:40.000 AmericaFest is the place for you to stay engaged, stay involved.
00:00:44.000 Phoenix, Arizona, December 17, 18, 1920.
00:00:48.000 Check it out.
00:00:49.000 Email me your thoughts as alwaysfreedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:53.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:54.000 Here we go.
00:00:55.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:57.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:59.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:01:03.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:01:06.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:01:07.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:08.000 His spiritism up of this country.
00:01:10.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
00:01:15.000 Turning point USA. 0.65
00:01:16.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:25.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:28.000 Brought to you by Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage.
00:01:31.000 For personalized loan services, you can count on.
00:01:33.000 Go to andrewandodd.com, the wonderfulandrewandtodd.com.
00:01:40.000 Hello, everybody.
00:01:41.000 Welcome to this very special conversation on the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:45.000 I am honored to have with us today a teacher of mine, someone who I listen to regularly, especially his fireside chats.
00:01:53.000 And I learned so much from Dennis Prager.
00:01:55.000 Dennis, welcome back to the program.
00:01:57.000 Well, that is a beautiful introduction, Charlie.
00:01:59.000 Great to be with you.
00:02:00.000 And I mean it.
00:02:01.000 So I really want to talk about your new book.
00:02:04.000 And by the way, I just have to say, your Rational Bible series is a life-changer.
00:02:10.000 It really is.
00:02:11.000 Genesis is incredible.
00:02:13.000 I'm working my way through Exodus.
00:02:15.000 And it is now the third one that's published.
00:02:17.000 Is that right?
00:02:17.000 That's right.
00:02:18.000 That's correct.
00:02:19.000 I didn't go in order.
00:02:20.000 I did two, one, five, four, three.
00:02:25.000 So don't ask why I did it that way, but there was reason.
00:02:31.000 So I did Exodus, then Genesis, and now Deuteronomy, the fifth one.
00:02:35.000 By the way, Charlie, you will find this fascinating, I have no doubt, as I did.
00:02:41.000 And I wish I knew it when I wrote my commentary on this fifth book of the Bible.
00:02:47.000 But I didn't know it, and I learned it just recently.
00:02:50.000 The most frequently cited book by the founders of America is Deuteronomy, more than any other, not just biblical, but secular book.
00:03:01.000 That was going to be my first question.
00:03:03.000 So you totally stole my thunder.
00:03:04.000 So, but let's, what parts of Deuteronomy did they reference or cite?
00:03:08.000 What is it in Deuteronomy that our founders obviously found so important as they were designing the structure of our society?
00:03:16.000 So by way of answer, what people don't know, because we live in a secular sea, we're swimming in a secular sea.
00:03:27.000 People don't realize how deeply the founders of this country were influenced by the Bible.
00:03:35.000 For example, that on the Liberty Bell is a verse from the Bible.
00:03:38.000 I mean, how many people, and especially, by the way, this is interesting, the Old Testament.
00:03:44.000 I mean, they were either doctrinally Christian or nominally Christian, but the Old Testament is really what moved them.
00:03:52.000 Jefferson and Franklin designed a great seal for the United States, and it was the Exodus.
00:03:59.000 There was a scene of the Hebrews, the Israelites, the Jews in the wilderness.
00:04:05.000 That is how much the founders were influenced by these books.
00:04:10.000 So even from an American standpoint, one should know what these books have to say.
00:04:19.000 But when you said it was a life changer, that was what I wanted to hear.
00:04:25.000 It is meant to change people's lives.
00:04:27.000 What did they find in Deuteronomy, you asked?
00:04:30.000 Laws about governance.
00:04:31.000 First of all, the Ten Commandments is repeated.
00:04:33.000 This time, in Exodus, it's from God, and in Deuteronomy, it's from Moses.
00:04:40.000 And it's virtually identical, except interestingly, for one thing, one major thing, the others were minor, where the reason for the Sabbath is different.
00:04:54.000 God says, it's because I created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, so that when you keep the Sabbath, you are stating to the world that God created the world.
00:05:07.000 But Moses says it is because you are now free, and free people don't work seven days a week.
00:05:14.000 It's a very interesting difference.
00:05:17.000 That's fascinating.
00:05:18.000 And that's the only one in the 10 that's changed?
00:05:21.000 Yeah, well, yes, there's another minimal one of which eludes me for the moment, but it truly is minimal.
00:05:31.000 This was the one that was major, and it's fascinating.
00:05:36.000 It shows Moses figured, listen, these people who just got out of Egypt aren't interested in announcing that God created the world.
00:05:47.000 They're interested in how their lives have been changed because of the Exodus.
00:05:53.000 So he was very pragmatic.
00:05:55.000 And by the way, it's a completely irrational term.
00:05:58.000 I make the point.
00:05:59.000 If you work seven days a week, you may be wealthy, but you're still a slave.
00:06:05.000 Yeah.
00:06:06.000 And so I'm not familiar.
00:06:08.000 In Deuteronomy, does it start the same way as if it's the 11 statements, which I am the Lord your God who delivered you from Egypt?
00:06:15.000 Yes.
00:06:15.000 Okay.
00:06:16.000 Correct.
00:06:16.000 So it starts the same way.
00:06:17.000 Can you talk a little bit about it's actually the 11 statements, not commandments, and how important it is?
00:06:22.000 Well, it's actually, no, it is the ten statements.
00:06:24.000 The Hebrew is ten statements.
00:06:27.000 English is ten commandments because the first of the statements in the Hebrew version is, I am the Lord your God.
00:06:35.000 I took you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage. 0.92
00:06:38.000 That is not in the Ten Commandments as such for the Christian or non-Jews generally.
00:06:47.000 I don't find it problematic, but just to be technically accurate, I think people should know that.
00:06:54.000 The Hebrew is ten statements because the first is a statement, not a commandment.
00:06:59.000 And that's an important thing to remember because literally it's about remembering.
00:07:04.000 It is the acknowledgement, hopefully, from the recipient, the Jewish people, that, hey, I'm the one that brought you here.
00:07:11.000 And before we go through these ten, can you build that out a little bit more about why that's critical?
00:07:17.000 Yeah.
00:07:19.000 I'm the Lord your God.
00:07:20.000 I took you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage. 0.92
00:07:25.000 So, number one, on a very basic level, you owe me something.
00:07:34.000 And I liberated you.
00:07:38.000 You're in debt to me.
00:07:40.000 And the beauty is the debt is nothing for God.
00:07:44.000 There's nothing there for God.
00:07:46.000 It isn't like I took you out of the land of Egypt, so bring me great sacrifices so that I could munch on yummy food, which is what it would have been in the pagan world.
00:07:57.000 But rather, hey, listen, I took you out of Egypt. 0.73
00:08:00.000 Now, don't murder.
00:08:01.000 Don't steal.
00:08:03.000 Don't commit adultery.
00:08:04.000 Be honest.
00:08:05.000 Honor your parents.
00:08:07.000 It's very powerful that the way in which you express gratitude to God, it's for all of us, not just the Hebrews 3,200 years ago, is by treating our fellow human being decently.
00:08:21.000 It's fascinating.
00:08:23.000 I want to talk more about the Ten Commandments in a second, especially treating your parents heavily, which is something I learned from you, which I find to just be so fascinating.
00:08:34.000 And one of the most important conversations I've ever heard you give was about the difference between treating your parents lightly or cursing them or honoring them or treating them heavily.
00:08:46.000 It's fascinating.
00:08:47.000 So that'll be a teaser.
00:08:48.000 But I want to ask you about a verse that is very important in Christian theology, as I believe it is in Jewish theology, which is Deuteronomy 6:4, which is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
00:09:02.000 What is the significance of that verse?
00:09:04.000 It was re-quoted again by Jesus in the New Testament.
00:09:08.000 And I'm going to butcher this, Dennis, but I believe that's the Shema Yizarel, if I'm not mistaken. 0.93
00:09:15.000 Well, you didn't butcher it.
00:09:18.000 Okay.
00:09:20.000 It wasn't.
00:09:21.000 Butchery would be too big a term.
00:09:27.000 I'm ribbing you.
00:09:28.000 You were close, actually.
00:09:29.000 It's fully.
00:09:30.000 I urge you.
00:09:31.000 No, no, I salute you.
00:09:33.000 It's the Shema Yisrael.
00:09:35.000 That's the way it would be.
00:09:36.000 Or Jews really just call it the Shema. 0.96
00:09:39.000 Shema means here.
00:09:40.000 And by the way, even that is an important point.
00:09:44.000 This is the credo of the Jewish people.
00:09:47.000 Jews often, even non-religious Jews, if they know they're about to die, they will say, Shemai Yisrael Adama Elohino Adonai.
00:09:58.000 Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, or the Lord is one. 0.57
00:10:04.000 Jews walk to the gas chambers saying this.
00:10:07.000 It's a very, it is the motto of Judaism, of the Torah.
00:10:13.000 And what you'll find of interest, and by the way, I got to tell you, I'm very, very touched at how carefully you've read this, that you knew the heavy and the light.
00:10:24.000 We'll get to it.
00:10:24.000 I know you said that, but that's a big deal.
00:10:28.000 So I make the point that it's here, O Israel, or listen, O Israel, not look.
00:10:37.000 We often say, look, there's only one God, which is how we would speak, right?
00:10:44.000 Not here, there's only one God.
00:10:47.000 We don't speak that way.
00:10:50.000 The Torah, the first five books, and for that matter, the rest of the Bible, but especially the first five books, don't trust the I. 0.78
00:11:01.000 I get emails all the time, Dennis, from people.
00:11:03.000 In fact, I have one right here.
00:11:04.000 Charlie, I don't get along with my parents, and I think I'm going to avoid them this holiday season.
00:11:11.000 What does it mean, Dennis, to treat your parents heavily, not lightly?
00:11:17.000 When one knows the Hebrew, and it's a blessing in my life that I know biblical Hebrew very well, because I couldn't have done this commentary, the rational Bible, without that.
00:11:31.000 So you obviously found this fascinating, and I have a feeling your many listeners will.
00:11:39.000 So it says, honor your father and mother.
00:11:42.000 That's in the Ten Commandments.
00:11:45.000 The word honor is the same as the word for heavy.
00:11:52.000 And here's the beauty.
00:11:54.000 The word curse is the same root as the word light, the opposite of heavy.
00:12:03.000 So in effect, there are two laws about parents.
00:12:08.000 You must honor them and you cannot curse them.
00:12:12.000 But it could be just as well translated.
00:12:15.000 You must treat them heavily and you may not treat them lightly.
00:12:21.000 So that's the point from the Hebrew that you picked up, and I salute you for doing so.
00:12:27.000 So as I have said much of my life, and I've been teaching this for 40 years, there's no law to love your parents.
00:12:36.000 As part of an answer to the person who wrote to you and whose letter you just read, there is no law.
00:12:43.000 There's a law to love the stranger.
00:12:45.000 There's a law to love God.
00:12:47.000 There's a law to love your neighbor.
00:12:51.000 There is no law to love your parents.
00:12:54.000 And I think that that's brilliant on the Bible's part.
00:12:57.000 It understands that a lot of people have, at the very least, ambivalent feelings towards parents.
00:13:03.000 We're not commanded to love our parents.
00:13:06.000 So an analogy I would give is this.
00:13:11.000 I not only don't love the current president, I have deep contempt for him.
00:13:16.000 However, if he walked into the room, I would stand up, not for him, but for the presidency.
00:13:23.000 So I honor the presidency, even though I have contempt for him.
00:13:29.000 And you honor your parent no matter how you feel about them.
00:13:34.000 Now, obviously, if your parent beat you, put you in terrible circumstances of sexual molestation, or I mean, those are outlier issues.
00:13:49.000 And what is it, you know, bad cases make bad ones.
00:13:52.000 And by the way, we don't even get, those emails aren't the case.
00:13:54.000 It's I don't get along with them.
00:13:56.000 Exactly.
00:13:57.000 That's right.
00:13:58.000 And so you don't get along with them.
00:14:02.000 But it doesn't absolve you from periodically contacting them, from sending them an email or a text message at the very least or a call.
00:14:14.000 And I write, I open up the introduction to each of the volumes of the rational Bible with my own story.
00:14:20.000 And I note that I had a difficult time with my parents, as so many young people do in my late teens and early 20s, especially late teens.
00:14:30.000 But I am proud to say, although I'm not saying it for the reason of pride, I'm saying it because that's what God commanded me.
00:14:40.000 I called my parents every single week of my life.
00:14:46.000 It didn't matter what circumstance I found myself in.
00:14:50.000 I called them every week.
00:14:53.000 And I did it because, I mean, ultimately I did it.
00:14:58.000 I had a sense of indebtedness to them.
00:15:00.000 And, you know, in adulthood, I got along just perfectly with them.
00:15:04.000 But I did it in the beginning because I believed God commanded me to.
00:15:09.000 That is the importance of believing God commanded you.
00:15:11.000 All of these young people or these adults who won't speak to their parent because the parent voted for Donald Trump, these despicable adults, they're despicable for doing this. 0.68
00:15:23.000 By the way, you're despicable if you don't talk to your parent for voting for Joe Biden. 0.95
00:15:27.000 Yes. 1.00
00:15:28.000 There's something sick in your soul. 1.00
00:15:30.000 You're a narcissist to some degree I can't even relate to. 0.99
00:15:38.000 That's why we need commandments.
00:15:41.000 I don't care if you hate your father for voting for Trump or for voting for there wouldn't be a commandment if it was easy.
00:15:49.000 Bless you.
00:15:50.000 That's exactly the point.
00:15:51.000 There's no commandment to love your child.
00:15:54.000 And it matters, and you say this all the time, Dennis, which we're going to get into in the next segment, how you behave towards your parents, not how you feel towards your parents.
00:16:03.000 It's a fundamental difference.
00:16:07.000 You have no idea how much it means to me how carefully you've read my stuff.
00:16:12.000 I mean that I have touched a guy like you is a big deal.
00:16:17.000 Dennis, what I'm so struck about your Bible commentary when I read it is you go out of your way to communicate in the preface of Genesis, if I remember correctly, at least I think in every one of them, that this is written for Christians, for Jews, but also the non-religious.
00:16:32.000 Please talk about that.
00:16:34.000 So there are Jews, I don't know how many, I don't know what percentage, but in the religious world in which I grew up in Judaism, I think there was a sense that, which is totally understandable, that God gave the Torah to the Jews, and then they would put a period at the end of that sentence.
00:16:56.000 I never, of course, I believe that, but I never accepted the period at the end of the sentence.
00:17:02.000 And what are we supposed to do with it?
00:17:05.000 See, I never believed that something could be relevant to one group, but not to another.
00:17:11.000 If the Torah has something to say to a Jew, it has something to say to a non-Jew. 1.00
00:17:16.000 And my analogy is Beethoven.
00:17:19.000 Would anybody say, oh, Beethoven has only something to say to Germans?
00:17:23.000 I mean, the idea is preposterous.
00:17:25.000 Shakespeare only has something to say to the English?
00:17:28.000 Preposterous.
00:17:30.000 The Torah is either relevant to all of humanity or it's irrelevant to the Jew. 0.97
00:17:36.000 That is how I look at it.
00:17:38.000 And my teaching it to non-Jews as well as Jews for much of my life proved it to me. 0.57
00:17:43.000 And so it's either the greatest font of wisdom ever devised or it isn't.
00:17:50.000 And if it is, it's universal in its applicability.
00:17:54.000 When I write it, I'm thinking often of a peasant in rural China.
00:18:04.000 I'm not kidding.
00:18:05.000 That is my image.
00:18:06.000 Will the peasant in rural China understand the point I'm about to make?
00:18:12.000 Who never heard of Moses or never heard of the God of the Bible or Abraham?
00:18:17.000 Wright, exactly.
00:18:19.000 So let me ask you this, Dennis.
00:18:21.000 It is called the rational Bible, which some smug college students that I will talk to would find that to be a contradiction of terms.
00:18:30.000 And that's their approach, obviously not ours.
00:18:32.000 They'd say, how could you be rational towards a book of, you know, miracles?
00:18:38.000 Fairy tales.
00:18:39.000 Yeah, fairy tales.
00:18:40.000 I don't even want to use that descriptor.
00:18:42.000 That's what they say.
00:18:42.000 Yeah, that's what they say.
00:18:44.000 So here's the irony in today's world.
00:18:48.000 The people who say men give birth think they're rational and think the Bible is irrational.
00:18:56.000 This is how powerful the indoctrination has been.
00:19:00.000 I use reason and only reason to make every point I make.
00:19:04.000 I never asked the reader to take anything on faith.
00:19:08.000 And if I did not use reason persuasively, then I failed.
00:19:13.000 But I do it for two reasons.
00:19:16.000 One, because I don't ask people to take anything on faith.
00:19:21.000 That's why it's called the rational Bible.
00:19:22.000 But B, I don't.
00:19:26.000 My route to God is through reason.
00:19:29.000 I admit it.
00:19:30.000 I'm not saying it's a better route, but that is my route.
00:19:34.000 It was not prayer.
00:19:36.000 It was not a God appearing to me.
00:19:39.000 It was not a spirit that dawned upon me since I was a kid.
00:19:46.000 It had to make sense.
00:19:49.000 These books do make sense, and it's my task to show how much sense they make.
00:19:56.000 And you do a remarkable job of it, including some of the laws that are mocked by the secular world.
00:20:04.000 The one that just comes to mind that always struck out to me, and I can't remember.
00:20:10.000 I don't even think it's an Exodus.
00:20:11.000 It's just maybe, maybe it is.
00:20:12.000 It was in one of the speeches you gave, is that if an animal murders a human, you must kill the animal.
00:20:18.000 And the point being, what?
00:20:20.000 That taking human life is a big deal.
00:20:22.000 Yeah, by the way, the word for an animal would be killing a human, because an animal can't murder.
00:20:30.000 Right, because there's no free will and there's no moral aspect.
00:20:33.000 Yes, thank you.
00:20:34.000 It's a very important point.
00:20:38.000 And Deuteronomy has something analogous since you asked about Deuteronomy for good reason.
00:20:44.000 That's the latest volume.
00:20:46.000 So there's a law there that's really obscure, and I'm sure 99% of readers who read it, their eyes glaze over.
00:20:54.000 There's a whole ritual, if a dead person who's clearly killed is found near your town or village, you don't just bury the body.
00:21:08.000 You understand, we let this man down.
00:21:14.000 And people don't know how seriously the Bible, and especially the Torah, which is the first five books, which are the basis of the Old and New Testaments, take murder.
00:21:29.000 For example, how many Christians even know that God prescribes capital punishment when creating the world?
00:21:38.000 It's in Genesis.
00:21:39.000 There are almost no laws in Genesis.
00:21:41.000 All the laws are in the other four books.
00:21:44.000 But there are maybe two or three or four, maybe actually seven, I think it is, in Genesis.
00:21:53.000 One of them is, if a man's blood is shed by another human being, human beings must shed his blood because in the image of God, man is created.
00:22:06.000 You are violating the sanctity of human life by letting every murderer live.
00:22:14.000 Wow.
00:22:15.000 And that's why it drives me crazy when people, Catholic, Protestant, or Jew, who say that they take their religion seriously come out against capital punishment in every case. 0.80
00:22:31.000 Do you know that in the five books of Moses, the Torah, it is the only law in all five books to take a murderer's life?
00:22:41.000 So that, back to your point, the point that I make, why do we kill an ox that gores a human to death?
00:22:50.000 It's not the ox's fault.
00:22:53.000 And obviously the Torah knows that.
00:22:57.000 So I'll give you an example.
00:22:58.000 You'll love this.
00:22:59.000 If we have the time, I don't want to.
00:23:02.000 Is this Lenny?
00:23:03.000 Is that the...
00:23:05.000 When you talk about if you let the animal live, you keep on pointing to the animal and you say, oh, yeah.
00:23:09.000 Yeah, the ostrich.
00:23:10.000 It was an ostrich.
00:23:11.000 Yes.
00:23:12.000 Yeah, very many years ago on my show, a woman called up.
00:23:17.000 My dad had an ostrich farm, and one ostrich kicked him to death.
00:23:22.000 So I said, did you take the ostrich's life?
00:23:25.000 She said, of course not.
00:23:27.000 So I said, I don't understand.
00:23:28.000 What do you do?
00:23:29.000 Do you point out, oh, yeah, this is the ostrich that killed my father?
00:23:34.000 Yeah, that's cruel, actually.
00:23:36.000 Well, It's demeaning to the father.
00:23:40.000 Yes, that's right.
00:23:40.000 That's exactly right.
00:23:42.000 So let me ask you about one or two of the more obscure laws, if that's okay.
00:23:48.000 Because, you know, people, I'm far from a biblical expert, but every once in a while there's a smart alec that will come up to an event and they'll ask me about one of the laws, and I just couldn't answer it.
00:23:58.000 Okay.
00:23:59.000 So what is the rational case?
00:24:01.000 This one's in numbers, so I might put you on the spot of a different one.
00:24:05.000 And I think this is only the one delegated for women, and I think there's only three of them, where you must set aside a piece of dough when baking bread. 0.85
00:24:15.000 What is the rational explanation for that?
00:24:19.000 So, yeah, it's odd that somebody would raise that.
00:24:24.000 Why would any ceremony be problematic?
00:24:28.000 I can understand where people are troubled by taking the life of a bad child that occurs, which I explain as one of the great moral achievements of the Torah.
00:24:42.000 Why would it bother somebody?
00:24:46.000 That's a new one to me, Charlie.
00:24:48.000 I must say.
00:24:52.000 It's like saying, gee, I'm really troubled by the fact that they sacrificed doves.
00:25:00.000 Or I'm really bothered that people do communion.
00:25:02.000 Yeah, that's right.
00:25:04.000 I was going to use communion, but then they could say, well, I can't really believe it becomes the body of Christ and the blood of Christ.
00:25:11.000 Okay.
00:25:14.000 I'm not troubled.
00:25:15.000 I try to explain ceremonies.
00:25:18.000 And ultimately, that is explained.
00:25:21.000 By the way, since I raised it, I just want people to know about the killing of a rebellious or bad son.
00:25:30.000 It was never done in Jewish history.
00:25:32.000 What the Torah did was brilliant.
00:25:36.000 It took the right to kill a child away from parents.
00:25:40.000 It was the first civilization to ever do that.
00:25:44.000 If you want your child to be executed, you bring him to a court, but no court ever executed a child.
00:25:52.000 And I'm not talking about an eight-year-old. 0.86
00:25:53.000 I'm talking about a really horrible, it's obviously a horrible kid, bad seed, if you will.
00:25:59.000 But that's what the purpose of that law was.
00:26:03.000 So I go out of my way to explain all the toughies, including eye for an eye, which was another awesome moral achievement.
00:26:11.000 The eye of a nobleman is not more valuable than the eye of a peasant. 0.92
00:26:18.000 That's what it's saying.
00:26:18.000 That's human equality, is what it's saying.
00:26:21.000 That's exactly what it's saying.
00:26:24.000 Wow.
00:26:25.000 Yep.
00:26:25.000 So, I mean, there's 613 laws, and Deuteronomy has a fair amount of them, including, I believe, some that talk about the family.
00:26:35.000 For example, should a man die childless, his brother must either marry the widow. 0.93
00:26:40.000 That's Deuteronomy 25, I believe.
00:26:43.000 Right.
00:26:43.000 This was to protect the woman has now lost the ability to have a child and to be taken care of.
00:26:54.000 This is a very early way of taking care of a widow. 0.90
00:26:59.000 That's what it was about.
00:27:00.000 It is not practiced.
00:27:02.000 It was not practiced for most of Jewish history.
00:27:06.000 People must, it's like the founders.
00:27:10.000 You have to put the founders in the time in which they live.
00:27:14.000 The Torah wasn't written for 2022 alone.
00:27:18.000 I'm guided by it in 2022.
00:27:20.000 But it isn't written only for 2022.
00:27:24.000 It had to elevate people.
00:27:26.000 Why are there sacrifices at all?
00:27:29.000 The biggest reason, according to the greatest Jewish philosopher who ever lived, Maimonides in the Middle Ages, was to wean them away from human sacrifice. 0.87
00:27:37.000 Much better to sacrifice an animal than sacrifice a human.
00:27:41.000 You have to understand things in the context.
00:27:44.000 We should do that with laws. 0.78
00:27:47.000 You gradually make people better.
00:27:49.000 You don't just abolish overnight something and then it doesn't work.
00:27:55.000 So that's the reason it's worth reading this stuff.
00:28:00.000 All right, Dennis, tell your position on what, do intentions matter?
00:28:04.000 Tell our audience what your belief is.
00:28:06.000 Well, intentions matter.
00:28:08.000 For example, if someone's on trial for homicide, it makes a big difference if the person dropped a hammer doing construction work and it split a guy's skull open and he died, or whether he went with a hammer and split the guy's skull open and he died.
00:28:30.000 Clearly, one is intentional and one is accidental.
00:28:34.000 So in those instances, intentions matter.
00:28:39.000 But as a general rule in life, only your behavior matters, not your intentions.
00:28:47.000 The number of people who intended good and supported communism is in the millions.
00:28:53.000 But it was the greatest slaughtering machine that has ever existed in history.
00:28:57.000 100 million people just by communism alone.
00:29:01.000 So that's why whenever I hear, oh, he meant well or she means well, I think, who cares?
00:29:09.000 And I think I agree with that in large part.
00:29:12.000 I would just say, though, maybe on interpersonal relationships, this is an example, right?
00:29:17.000 If my wife forgets to feed the dog, I would treat that completely differently than if she decided to starve the dog. 1.00
00:29:24.000 It's the same action.
00:29:25.000 Yeah, well, that was my homicide.
00:29:26.000 That was my homicide analogy, of course.
00:29:30.000 But remember, that's a specific act of a specific person in a specific condition.
00:29:43.000 I know you agree with me because you and I so know the damage the left has done and is doing today, but a lot of these people don't mean to do damage.
00:29:54.000 They don't wake up in the morning and say, how can I destroy America?
00:29:58.000 I see what you're saying.
00:29:58.000 How can I destroy the Western world?
00:30:01.000 What you're saying is that we shouldn't exempt them just because they say they mean well.
00:30:06.000 That's exactly right.
00:30:09.000 And I mean, it caught me in that unbelievably great podcast you did where it was the, I love myself with unlimited good intentions, or I'm a broken human being knitted together with an endless ocean of good intentions.
00:30:23.000 All that self-love nonsense that is permeating society.
00:30:28.000 Don't start me.
00:30:30.000 It's one of the great.
00:30:31.000 You know, I have to admit, and this may not even sound good to your many listeners.
00:30:37.000 In my whole life, I never even thought, do I love me?
00:30:44.000 The idea makes me laugh.
00:30:48.000 You should respect me.
00:30:49.000 I do ask.
00:30:50.000 Yes, that's right.
00:30:51.000 I do ask, do I respect me?
00:30:53.000 Yes, I must say, yes.
00:30:55.000 And unfortunately, we live in a world where self-love is glorified.
00:31:00.000 It actually creates miserable people. 0.90
00:31:02.000 I really narcissist. 0.95
00:31:03.000 That is exactly right.
00:31:04.000 Yes.
00:31:05.000 If you love others, you'll be a happier person than if you just work on loving yourself.
00:31:09.000 I don't want you to self-loathe either, obviously.
00:31:12.000 But I don't even know what I love me.
00:31:14.000 What does that even mean?
00:31:16.000 No, I'm not kidding.
00:31:18.000 I don't know what it is.
00:31:19.000 It's inherently dual personality, too.
00:31:21.000 It's creating as if there's an I and a me.
00:31:25.000 As if there's two sorts of beings.
00:31:27.000 And so it's very confusing.
00:31:30.000 I would say so.
00:31:32.000 So, Dennis, in closing here, we only have a minute and a half remaining.
00:31:35.000 What did we not cover on your Rational Bible series you want our audience to be aware of?
00:31:41.000 In Deuteronomy, the latest volume, there is a law that almost nobody knows about, and it is the one that I always cite on behalf of this book.
00:31:55.000 That is not, I don't mean my book, the book of Deuteronomy.
00:31:59.000 Man goes into war, his army is victorious.
00:32:05.000 He sees a woman belonging to the conquered people. 0.99
00:32:08.000 He wants her.
00:32:10.000 The law in Deuteronomy is you cannot touch her.
00:32:15.000 You can bring her to your home.
00:32:17.000 You must let her mourn her family for 30 days.
00:32:21.000 You don't touch her.
00:32:23.000 And then if you still want her after 30 days of her crying, and it says crying, you can only touch her if you marry her.
00:32:33.000 Given the amount of rape and war in all of human history, I find that law alone says, wow, this is a special book.
00:32:44.000 That's a law of restraint and decency.
00:32:46.000 And for an entire movement that wants to talk about progress, that's something very special.
00:32:52.000 Yep.
00:32:53.000 Dennis, thank you so much.
00:32:55.000 And everyone, check out the Rational Bible.
00:32:57.000 It'll change your life.
00:32:58.000 God bless you, Dennis.
00:32:58.000 Thank you.
00:32:59.000 God bless you.
00:33:00.000 Thank you.
00:33:01.000 Everybody, email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
00:33:06.000 And I mean it.
00:33:07.000 Check out the Rational Bible, Deuteronomy, Exodus, and Genesis.
00:33:11.000 They're just terrific.
00:33:12.000 And come to AmericaFest, everybody, A-M-F-E-S-T.com, amfest.com.
00:33:17.000 Post there behind me, December 17, 18, 19, 20, in Phoenix, Arizona.
00:33:22.000 God bless you guys.
00:33:23.000 We'll see you soon.
00:33:28.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.