Judeo-Christian Values

 

I watched a video that I took notes on and will comment on. I watched a 5-minute video narrated by Dennis Prager, and released on 5/22/23, entitled What Are Judeo Christian Values?:  “Judaism and Christianity are the only two religions that share a sacred text and a fundamental set of values. Judeo-Christian values are the moral foundation of Western Civilization. Here are the values they share and contribute:

 

 

1.     “There is one God.”

 

My response: I am not a monotheist solely, but I am also a polytheist.

 

Prager:

 

2.     “There are objective moral truths as there are scientific and mathematical truths.”

 

My response: there are likely objective moral truths, but the moderate in me says we can only know them with high probable certainty, but that will suffice.

 

Prager: “3. Because there are moral truths, good and evil are the same for all people.”

 

My response: I agree.

 

Prager: “4. God, not men, government or popular opinion or popular vote is the source of our rights. All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

 

My response: I agree.

 

Prager; “5. The human being is created in the image of God. Every life is precious. Race is of no significance.”

 

My response: Prager is no advocate of sacred egoism-individualism as I am, but I see the benevolent deities as individualists and individuators with unique names and personalities, and we are made in their image, so we are to individual-live, be individuals first, and maverize. The life of each person is sacred and precious, and race or group rights are not important, but each individual of any race or ethnic group, with his personal singular identity and his individual rights is what God wants us to emphasize most. If race is not relevant, Dennis, and it is not, you are half-way to accept the primacy of egoist ethics over altruist ethics.

 

 

 

Prager: “6. God imposed order on the raw universe, an order based on the distinction between God and man, God and nature, man and woman, human and animal, good and evil.”

 

My response: Yes, God did impose order upon raw nature, and the contrasting sets of entities or conditions show that God, good and love have their rational property of uniting and dividing competing concepts, entities, and conditions out there in reality, so that we can identify, signify, describe with words and then categorize as good or evil. In this way general progress and moral progress can advance in the world.

 

Prager: 7. “Man is not basically good, or suffers from original sin. There is the naïve modern belief that man is basically good. We need God-based rules to keep us from our natural inclinations.”

 

My response: I agree wholeheartedly and a society that abandons God is a society with chaos, lawlessness, injustice, needless suffering and finally and perhaps extinction.

 

Prager: “8. Therefore our natural moral inclinations are a very poor moral guide. Do not follow your heart but Judeo-Christian values.”

 

My response: We are not to follow our hearts, our feelings—though there are noble, truth-rich hunches we can trust (I do this myself, but it does not hurt to validate these hunches against our values, if possible.)—we should heed but not be easily swayed by our irrational drives and desires, , our urges and temptations, without first and consistently comparing and contrasting them with our Judeo-Christian values—and I would add, sacred egoist values, guided by reason, dispassionate reason, as Ayn Rand advises.

 

Prager: “9. We have free will and are responsible for what we do.”

 

My response: We from birth always have some free will and basic conscience in place, those psycho-spiritual forces and expressions of our consciousness while existing, but until we choose and work for years at self-realizing, our good will, our much strengthened consciences that guides us to act well and lovingly, our internal goodness and free will, are not as powerful and impactful as they are later when we are of a strong will, and know more and have gained wisdom about how to live, and how to react in new circumstances when time is short and we have no more than limited information at our fingertips.

 

Prager here provided a brilliant and realistic insight into the core values of Western civilization—at least citing its Judeo-Christian themes accurately.