Fireside Chat Ep. 216 — Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People? | Fireside Chat

Hi everybody, welcome to the Fireside Chat. I'm Dennis Prager. This is Otto. Otto needs no introduction. I might need an introduction, but Otto does not. That was it. That might be the only movement you see from Otto on this Fireside Chat. On the other hand, he has been known to leave in the middle. This is happening more frequently, and it might be related to the fact that he has not had a raise since the beginning of the Fireside Chat. So, who knows. What number are we? 216. Oh my cron. Oh, that's right. An opening announcement. Dallas Baptist University is a comprehensive, Christianity-centered, nationally-ranked university with a mission to produce the next generation of servant leaders. DBU graduates at Dallas Baptist University, where I was and love being there, are men and women of a deep faith who strive to reflect the values of genuine patriotism. They can be found in the classrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, and beyond all throughout America and around the world. To learn more about the value of a DBU education and how you or your student may be eligible to receive a $1,000 scholarship, visit prageru.com slash DBU. DBU, Dallas Baptist University. Great. So, apropos, as it happens, I'm going to talk to you today since I feel that I need to always go back to this subject, although this will be a different aspect of it, because it is the most important subject in the world and it is the least talked about in schools and in the regular media. I'm going to talk to you about God. Do you know, by the way, just parenthetically, we live in the most secular generation in the history of the world. There has never been a religionless, godless society in recorded history. We have created it in the West. To our great detriment, the chaos that we're seeing in so many arenas, men give birth, good and evil are opinions, there's no objective truth, there isn't even objective truth in math. I mean, it's endless, the chaos, and this is all a result of the breakdown of Judeo-Christian values in the West. Anyway, I'm going to talk to you about God from this perspective. The number of people who believe in God and whose belief in God, in my opinion, is flawed. Not that they don't believe enough, but that they believe, in my opinion, incorrectly. Not that I have the only correct vision of God, but when I explain this one to you, you'll realize why it's not a good idea. People ask, and always ask, why did something bad happen to them? It's a very fair question. What they think, though, if they think of God, is, why did God allow this to happen to me? Especially people who have great faith in God. I believed in God, and now look what happened. A loved one got cancer, or I got cancer, or hit by a car, or you name the... I'm trying to pick the worst things that could possibly happen. Not that you got a bad grade on a test, but seriously bad stuff. So first let me say something I have known for years. There is no connection between your religiosity and God's protection of you. It's very common, and it's rationally and religiously baseless. Jews do it, Christians do it. If I have enough faith in Christ, I'll be protected. Or if I observe enough Jewish laws, be a faithful Jew that way, I'll be protected. I once spoke in a synagogue in London, an Orthodox synagogue, and a man, after my speech, a man got up and said, Mr. Prager, how do you explain a Jew who has tried to live a wonderfully religious life, observed the laws of Judaism, the Torah, and rabbinic law, all of Jewish law, and then gets a heart attack prematurely, or cancer? And I was somewhat floored by the question, because it never occurred to me that there was a contradiction. That if you were faithful enough to God's commandments, you would end up with not having a disease. So I said, raise your hand, I said to the whole congregation, raise your hand if you agree that if you, and I specified two very big Jewish laws, keep kosher and keep the Sabbath, that you will be protected, more likely to be protected from illness. And half the hands went up. And the same with Christians, because I work actually at least as much, in fact, more with Christians, and speak constantly at churches. Many believe, I know that many believe this, because if something bad happens, their faith is very much shaken. I was so Christ-centered, you know, led a Christian life in whatever that means to that individual, and here I am, my child has cancer, or I have it, or whatever it might be. As I said, I have never, I literally never, and I've led a religious life all of my life, I've never believed that leading a religious life in any way protected me, that meant God would protect me from calamity. It doesn't even occur to me that that is the way in which things work. God allows bad things to happen to people. Now, God is with you when bad things happen. That I do believe, and I think that's very important. But that God will protect me? I long ago made up a term for this notion of God doing what we want, and that is celestial butler, a butler in heaven. God is not a celestial butler. Which brings me to point number two on the very same theme. I am not interested in asking God for things, I am interested in knowing what God asks from me. That is my preoccupation vis-a-vis God. What does God want me to do, not what do I want God to do. You will lead a happier, better, finer life if you are guided by what does God want me to do than what do I want God to do. These are major things in one's approach to God, and I'll give you another reason why it's so important. A lot of people lose faith because they had the belief that their religiosity was a way for God to engineer God's taking care of them. In other words, they think, oh, if I am faithful, if I'm a faithful Christian, faithful Jew, God will protect me. Then bad thing happens, and what happens? Your faith is shattered. Now, I have not been tested because terrible things have not happened to me, so I can't say for sure how I would react. But since I so don't believe God protects me from calamity, it is hard for me to believe that I would be adversely affected faith-wise if it did. I already have incorporated into my faith the notion that God allows bad things to happen. A lot of people's faith has been shattered because they sort of made a deal. I'll be a wonderful Christian, I'll be a wonderful Jew, you'll protect me. So they were a wonderful Christian or a wonderful Jew, then they ended up not protected. Poof, there goes their religiosity. I don't know where people got the idea that they will be protected. I'll tell you why I so don't believe it. A, I'm very rational in my religion. That's why the name of my commentary is The Rational Bible. But B, it's very narcissistic. Since everybody knows how many wonderful people have been hit with cancer or a dying child or friend or spouse or chronic sickness or bankruptcy or other calamity, why would you think God would allow it to happen to them but not you? Why are you specialer? I don't think I'm specialer. That's, I guess, what it means. I know so many decent wonderful people who have suffered, not in my life only and not even primarily, but just knowing about it from history. And I'm supposed to go, oh, but I, unlike everybody else, I will be protected. There are so many wrong ideas about God. It's no wonder that a lot of people have abandoned religion. That's not religion. That's celestial butlerism. Take care of me. I said celestial butler, maybe babysitter in the sky. So I just, people should not have that belief. You'll have a much better life if you ask what does God want from you? And it starts, in my opinion, with the Ten Commandments. That's why I'm such a big advocate of the Ten Commandments. You live by the Ten Commandments, you will live a godly life. You will live a good life. Society will lead a good life. You know, stealing isn't wrong. I've discussed this, right? I'm here. In this post-Judeo-Christian world, for a massive number of intellectuals, stealing isn't wrong. I mentioned to you that in America, so I'm saying this because a lot of you are listening in other countries, the National Public Radio had an interview last year during the height of the violence in the United States, the organized violence, with a woman who wrote a book in defense of looting. Now, it would be an interesting question. Could any faithful Jew or Christian write a book in defense of looting? Hard for me to imagine. And it is, it's a violation of the Eighth Commandment. It's a big deal. The Ten Commandments would solve the world's problems to a large extent. It wouldn't cure cancer. But I'll tell you one thing, it would free up a lot of funds to find cancer cures, because we'd have to spend so much less money on defense if people just lived by the Ten Commandments. So I thought I'd share that view with you about God. Okay, let's go to your questions. And we begin. Hi. Hi, Dennis. My name's Amber. I'm from Citrus Heights, California, but I'm living in Whittier with my husband of five months today. We just realized we were pregnant on Saturday and we're having a baby in July. Do you have any advice for a newly married couple and a newly married couple having a baby? Thank you. Yes. Should I give it? Oh, yeah. Well, congratulations, first of all. You made wise decisions, both to get married young and to start having a family. You will be rewarded later, not by God, but by the reality of being able to live a life with the kids grown up already. You'll be young enough to do whatever you want. You'll probably have grandchildren. You might have great grandchildren. There are a lot of benefits to starting a family early. So advice for newlyweds and newlyweds with a child. I'll start with the child part. This is very sobering advice, but I'm a big believer in sobering advice because sober advice leads to much more happiness than wishful thinking advice. So here is a line that I made up many years ago about what happens when a child comes. Ready? That which is created by passion then kills it. It's sort of one of the, if you're, if you can laugh at life and you have to, it's one of the funnier aspects of life. Passion made that child. And then the child comes and does a pretty good job in most cases of not, if not killing, hopefully not killing, certainly lessening it. You can't make love quite as often with a baby around as you did prior to a baby around. That's a logistic fact. It is because the baby is around, but more important is waking up in the middle of the night. And at least one of you is probably dead tired and your preoccupation has changed. So that's my advice. That leads to my advice to part one, newlyweds. It is extremely easy and tempting and natural to focus on your child, especially the first. It is also a boo-boo. You must focus on each other just as you did prior to the child coming. It's counterintuitive because the first child in particular is so exciting and you're going crazy. Gaga in love with this child, but your love and the beauty of love, it's not a pie. You don't, you don't lose love by giving love to X. It doesn't stop that amount of love from Y. An apple pie or any pie, you take a piece away, there's less pie, but that's not true with love. So I'm not asking you to love your child less. I'm simply saying, make sure you equally love and show that love to your spouse after the child comes. In the long run, your child is much more interested in a happy home than in a home where he or she is the center of your attention. I don't think they should be the center of your attention, children, at any age, to be perfectly honest. You obviously have to attend to them when they're helpless as a newborn, there's no question. You can't say, listen, you know, if you need any food, just open the fridge. Obviously that's not possible. You feed them, you clean them, you diaper them, you take care of them. I mean, they're, they're helpless. That's, that's a given. I, I, I have children. I know that. I raised children, but this is a very important, really important thing. Your husband must remain the center of your attention and he must remain the center of yours, just as before the baby. You don't know that now because the baby's not there, but within a day of the baby's arrival, you will realize that this advice is not natural. The natural thing is to focus almost all of your attention onto that child. By the way, when children get older, it is even worse to make the child the center of your life. It's bad for you and it's equally bad for the child. If I may, I guess, of course I may, it's my, my chat. I was never the center of my parents' attention. Maybe, and I, I don't know about one or two, I have no memories before five, but certainly from five on, I was never, they were each the center of the other's attention. And while I lamented on occasion, and really only on occasion, that they were not more affectionate toward me, in the long run, it made me who I am. I'm happy with the way I am. I can always improve, but I like the fact that I was not the center of their lives. At any age, I thought that was a great thing. They were the center of each other's lives. I think that's good. They didn't come to all of my sporting events. In fact, I didn't even want them to. I may have had an exaggerated sense of masculinity, but I remember thinking, I don't really think mommy and daddy need to show up when I play basketball. That was my thinking. Maybe I was wrong, but I'm just telling you the way I thought. It's sweet to go to some of their games. It's a preoccupation to go to all of their games. That's my view. But that's, of course, much later on, you're having a new baby. So my advice, you and he must be the centers of attention for both of you, baby or no baby. Okay. All right. Jess 31, Melbourne, Australia, hi from Australia, aka the Prison Island. That's correct. It was the Prison Island when it was founded. It's been returned to the Prison Island. My husband and I listen to you every week. Nice. Thanks for being such a light in this world and speaking such wisdom. We live in one of the lockdown cities in the world, currently dealing with mandated vaccines for most aspects of life. My husband and I both have given up our employment, cannot go to the gym or restaurants. Our son misses out on pool, play groups, etc. With all this pressure to get vaxxed, we have lost friends who feel we are dangerous, even if we choose to get a test before seeing them. We realize people are brainwashed, paranoid and unreasonable. It is not about science anymore. What do you think the agenda is? Is this all about money, power and control, or is it more sinister and the goal is social credit system? Australia is now talking about a digital identity to live. Is this the new world order? I worry about the camps they are building here. By the way, they've built camps for non-vaccinated in northern Australia. Basically, the why behind the extreme vaccine push. Lots of love and God bless the popplestones. Okay, this is a very long one and really important. I've never told people not to get vaccines, but I do honor people who made the decision not to take them. But why the hatred of the non-vaccinated? They've been taught that the non-vaccinated are killing the vaccinated or that they're taking up all the hospital space. This is largely propaganda. First of all, if you have a vaccine, why do you care if the next guy doesn't have a vaccine? Do you not believe in your vaccinated status? This would be the first time in the history of vaccination that the vaccinated care about whether the next guy is not vaccinated. What good is the vaccine if you're worried about the non-vaccinated? Do you know that in the United States, over 92% of the population is vaccinated, either vaccinated or had COVID, so they both have antibodies? So what is the screaming about? The other 8%? What is it about? Yes, money in the United States, I don't know about abroad. In the United States, money is a huge factor. I never knew this. The number of things I have learned in the last two years makes me wonder what did I know two years ago? One of them is I used to defend quote, big pharma. I'd say, hey, listen, whatever you say, drugs have saved my life and many other lives. How can you attack big pharmaceutical companies? But now I realize how much they run. Their advertising is such a dominant factor in American life and how much money they give to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control in the United States, billions and billions of dollars, not just in advertising, but in donations to various causes like the CDC. Here's the proof that money is a huge factor, at least in America, for Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson in particular, but all the companies. This might be the first time we have had an illness and no work was done to find remedies for it, cures for it. Why is the entire preoccupation with vaccines? Why isn't it with medicines, therapeutics as they're called? Hey, you got COVID? Take this, you'll probably get better. Well, there isn't this. Hydroxychloroquine and zinc and ivermectin, and they have been used all over the world. They are among the safest drugs in the world. Hydroxychloroquine is on the World Health Organization list of the essential drugs. The dismissal of ivermectin as a horse dewormer is just, well, look who's here. This is Snoopy, ladies and gentlemen. Snoopy is currently taking care, is it Otto's eye or ear? Eye? Yes. He will do this until Otto finally rolls over, getting tired of it. It's actually sweet to see them take care of each other. You love your brother, don't you? Well, all right, to the extent that I can compete with one dog licking the other, which I fully understand is a tough competition. Megan is doing the impossible, pulling Snoopy away from anything. Oh, look at that. Good. All is good. The money factor is huge and corrupt. The lack of search for a therapeutic. Indian states, states in India that have used ivermectin have had tremendous success. One theory as to why Africa has had so few deaths, except for South Africa, from COVID is that so many people had already been on hydroxychloroquine to prevent malaria. It's the best reason I've heard, to be perfectly honest. So that's one. Another is the world is divided between two groups. Those who drive properly and those who drive slowly in the passing lane, the left lane in America, right lane in your country. But there are many divisions, the happy and the unhappy, the moody, the non-moody, the cheerful, the un-cheerful, the generous, the non-generous. I mean, there are thousands of divisions, but here's one big one. There are people who love to have power over others, and there are people who don't. As one who has zero interest in having any control over another human being, I don't even understand what animates people who love control over others. But that must be a very common human desire, because it has been practiced in so many parts of the world, where people love to control other people. That's a fact, a factor. Another factor. So money, control, and another factor is fear. Fear, as I said on a fireside chat, is more powerful than love or hate. I learned that in the last two years. I thought love and hate were the most powerful emotions. Fear is. Fear is greater than love or hate. So those are three of the factors that have led to the current crisis. What's our timing? Well, I think we have time for another question. Is that correct? This is from a nurse. Yes. Interesting. Hope, 53 Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thank this. Thank you. Thank you for your words of wisdom and lessons on courage. I used this courage last week. I am a nurse in a large rehabilitation hospital. The unit I work on takes care of our sickest patients. I have taken care of many survivors of COVID who were very debilitated from being ill. A co-worker, also a nurse, posted on social media the following. The majority of patients clogging up our health care system are unvaccinated. You should not be entitled to treatment. You don't trust science enough to get vaccinated, but you trusted enough to get treatment when you're on death's door? I feel it's too little, too late. Ironically, this happened the same day as fireside chat number 213, which I heard after this happened. I almost never post anything on social media, but I could not keep quiet about this. I asked if she knew everyone's personal reason for not being vaccinated. I also pointed out that we take care of everyone regardless of their life choices. Do smokers or a whole long list of other problems caused by life choices deserve to be treated? Of course they do. This division among us is very concerning. How is this ever going to get better? I don't know how it will get better. I do know that we have to just keep making the case for what we believe. First of all, as I have said now repeatedly, the hatred of the unvaccinated, the pariah status of the unvaccinated is truly remarkable. It's hard to imagine a parallel. Maybe blacks in the South, in the Jim Crow era, gays during AIDS. But this public announced hatred, did anybody say blacks did not deserve to be hospitalized if they were ill? Maybe some true pathologic hater did, but it was never widely said. And why only about this? If a mass murderer is wounded by the police, a guy who's just shot up 25 people or 50 in Vegas, let's say he were wounded, would you treat him? So someone who has just tortured a partner or a spouse, beaten up a baby, they're okay to treat, but not the unvaccinated? Even the unvaccinated who had COVID and therefore have natural immunity? It shows you the power of the media to build up hatred. This too has been revelatory to me in the last two years. I thought that the media could only brainwash people in a dictatorship. I found out that they could do it in a free society. It's a real issue, but we need to calmly state our case. And ultimately, truth prevails. The question is, how long is ultimately? For that, I don't have an answer. Okay, y'all, it's been great talking to you. I thank you for watching. I want to remind you that fireside chats number 39, 58, 107, 181 are as relevant as this one. The themes are not dated. The topics might be contemporary, but the subjects are not dated. So in other words, look at some past ones, choose some, send them to friends, because I think what's said here has a lot of significance. At least I hope so. I'm Dennis Prager. Thanks again.