Without Remembering the Past, Wisdom is Impossible

Without remembering, wisdom is impossible. Wisdom is learning from our own lives and from the lives of others. Wisdom matters because good cannot be achieved without it. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil. However much evil movements have appealed to the bad side of people’s natures, almost every one of them, communism being the most obvious example, also appealed to people’s good intentions.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom, pg. 137

Remembering the Past Aids Wisdom

People attain wisdom in large part by remembering what happened in the past. No generation can attain wisdom without studying and remembering the past. None of those who believed in the 1960s aphorism, “Never trust anyone over thirty,” became a wise person. Without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world amount to nothing. Intending to do good without having wisdom is like intending to fly an airplane with no knowledge of airplanes or the laws of aerodynamics.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom, pg.111

The Growth of a Lie

A lie keeps growing and growing until it is as plain as the nose on your face. A boy who won't be good might just as well be made of wood.

The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio

Tyranny Can Never Be For Good of People

Think About It

Men are usually competent thinkers along the lines of their specialized training only. Within these limits alone are their opinions and judgments valuable; outside of these limits they grope and are lost—usually without knowing it.

Mark Twain, Christian Science, pg.52

Gratitude Needs Remembrance

Only when people remember the good others have done for them will they have gratitude. Unfortunately, however, most people remember the bad people have done to them far longer than the good. Or to put it another way, gratitude takes effort; resentment is effortless.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom, pg.111

Wisdom vs Knowledge and Intelligence

In recent years, many societies have lost reverence for the old. The reason wisdom, certainly in comparison with knowledge, is often undervalued or not valued at all. And one reason for that is knowledge is far more valued due to extraordinary advances in technology, medicine, and science. Likewise, intelligence is far more valued than wisdom—think of how many parents want their children to be “brilliant” versus how many parent want their children to be wise (in truth, few parents even think in terms of wise, a term that cannot be measured on tests). The loss to society has been immeasurable. Societies need wisdom far more than knowledge; indeed, knowledge without wisdom is likely to lead to catastrophe. Think how societies like Nazi Germany, the USSR, North Korea, and the Iranian mullahs misused both their intelligence and their knowledge.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom, pg. 46

It is Dangerous Out There!

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Winston Churchill

Wisdom is NEEDED

All the good intentions in the world are likely to be worthless without wisdom. Many of the horrors of the twentieth century were supported by people with good intentions who lacked wisdom. … [W]e live in an age that not only has little wisdom, it doesn’t even have many people who value it. People greatly value knowledge and intelligence, but not wisdom. And the lack of wisdom—certainly in America and the rest of the West—is directly related to the decline in biblical literacy. In the American past, virtually every home, no matter how poor, owned a Bible. It was the primary vehicle by which parents passed wisdom on to their children.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Exodus: God, Slavery, and Freedom, pp.xvi-xvii

The Culture and the Church Have Lost Their Soul

We live in a world where personality has more street value than character. ... We find ourselves in a world where pleasures are embraced without moral norms or a sense of social responsibility.... The quest for truth has been replaced by the preoccupation with pleasure and entertainment.  Thus, we live in a world of the therapeutic and the psychological, where people are engaged in an endless pursuit of self-fulfillment and entitlement  Sin has become little more than the infringement of personal rights and privileges; there is little thought of defining it by the standard of the holiness of God. ...

[T]he church has lost its soul.  The quest for contemporary relevance has led it down the path of increasing irrelevancy and marginalization.  The evangelical church is on the brink of becoming another of the many social, do-good agencies whose purpose has to do with helping people to more fully enjoy this life while neglecting the implications of eternity.  While our culture has shown a marked inclination to secularism, the church seems to have followed suit….

John D. Hannah, Our Legacy: The History of Christian Doctrine, Introduction.

Science: The Secular Religion

Modern men and women have substituted “experts” for prophets and priests. Science is the secular religion, and “experts” are its prophets and priests.”

Dennis Prager

Fear

Abortion is NEVER Necessary

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