More wisdom from Dennis Prager

Here we go again. I'd like to continue listing some interesting comments from Dennis Prager's book called Still the Best Hope. It's an important book that compares the United States with its values against Islam and European-style democratic socialism. Here are some more things Dennis has to say:

1. There never has been a model of non-Muslim equality under Muslim rule. Jews and Christians fared poorly throughout most of their sojourn in the Muslim world.

2. The fact is that America has been the greatest model of liberty, the greatest spreader of liberty, and the greatest preserver of liberty the world has ever known. It believed that it was its mission to spread liberty.

3. Individual liberty exists in inverse proportion to the size of the state. The bigger the government/state, the less liberty the individual has. The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.

4. If people are not morally accountable to an all-powerful state or to a monarch and they are granted an amount of personal freedom that is unprecedented in the history of mankind, they need to be accountable either to themselves – that is, their own hearts and consciences – or to a God who is moral and who judges each individual (and nation).

The first alternative was out of the question for the Founders – and should be out of the question for anyone who doesn't romanticize human nature. The heart is an awful guide to good behavior.

5. The American experiment in liberty was inconceivable to the Founders – and should be inconceivable to everyone today – without God and without God-based, morality-teaching religion.

6. When Leftists make the argument that God and religion are unnecessary, they omit to note that this is only achievable with a strong state.

7. The American Revolution was in essence the political and military expression of a religious movement.

8. If people were basically good, we wouldn't need value; we could rely on the human heart to always do the right thing. But the heart is not a moral compass; it is a generator of emotions. Values are there to overrule our heart, our emotions, our appetites, our weaknesses, and even our often flawed reasoning.

9. When we say that if there is no God, there is no good and evil, we are not saying that an atheist cannot be a good person. We are saying that there is no objective good and evil.

10. While secular government is a good thing, secularism has been devastating for individuals and for societies. On the individual level, among these consequences have been increased unhappiness (all surveys report that religious Americans are happier than secular ones); increased reliance on drugs, sex, alcohol, and mine-numbing entertainment to get through life; moral confusion; a paucity of wisdom (for example, belief in male-female sameness); and a search for substitute religions such as Marxism, socialism, fascism, communism, environmentalism, and pacifism.