TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: 5 Ways to End Fear of Pentagrams-All Start With F
Date: 01/20/23 Length: 1:06:29
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, Happy Warriors. And thank you for tuning in to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show. And thank you as always, for all that you do in telling other folks about the show, because without you doing that there is no way to explain the growth that we enjoy. And we try find so gratifying and so encouraging to me in preparing the show. Now, here's what I would like you to do today. Remember, our focus is on revealing how the world really works. And here's what I think will be most helpful. How about, you get a piece of paper, or a notepad and a pencil or a pen. Or you could use if you really are very high tech, you could use your tablet with one of those drawing pens. And whatever it is, go ahead and draw a circle, about maybe anything between two and five inches in diameter, just you know, easy, comfortable size, easy to work with. And now if you want to do this really well, you will go and get hold of a compass. I mean, every household needs a compass. Even if you don't have any children in school. Even if you didn't keep your old compass from school geometry classes come on as an adult, it's time to get a fairly decent reasonable quality compass. They only cost a few dollars. And they're good to have. For what Well, four kinds of interesting geometric puzzles that you'd enjoy, but also for the purposes of today's show.
Daniel Lapin 1:47
Okay, so you've done a circle. Now what you want to do is place five equidistant points around the circumference of the circle. Now, because a full circle is 360 degrees. In other words, if you imagine a radial arm in the circle, describing one full revolution, it will by convention have gone through 360 degrees. And so a half a circle is 180. And a quarter circle is 90. Well, if you divide a circle into five, as we're doing, it will come out to be 72. So each of these if you weren't, don't do this. But if you were to draw a line connecting each of these five points on the circumference of the circle to the center, each of those radial arms would be 72 degrees apart. By the way, talking about interesting puzzles with a compass. There are some of you maybe not many, but there will be some of you who will find this challenging, and very interesting. And if any of you pull it off, be sure to let me know. Okay, you go to RabbDanielLapin.com, be sure to let me know. What I'm telling you is that there actually is a way to place five equidistant points on the circle very precisely using nothing but a compass not using a protractor, just a compass, it can be done. And it's strangely satisfying to those of us who enjoy that kind of a thing. Anyway, you've got yourself five points now. And I want you to write next to each point, the following word. Next to one point, write the word family. Next to another point, it doesn't matter which point or which order just doesn't matter. Just pick any other point and write finances. So you've got family and finances now next to a third point, put down faith and extra fourth point put down fitness. And next to the final point put down friendship. Now take a ruler, and I want you to join each point to the other non adjacent vertices. In other words, start off with any of the points. Do not try and draw a line between that point and the point to the left of it or the point to the right. In other words, not to the two points on either side of it, but to the remaining two points. Go ahead and connect them and do this with the other points as well. When you finished
Unknown Speaker 4:39
Oh, no, look what I've made you draw. I can't believe it. Oh, a pentagram, a satanic symbol. Oh, no, I'm so sorry. All right.
Daniel Lapin 4:52
Let's not get carried away here. My point is that I first of all want to assure you that the this idea that this pentagram, this five pointed saw that you've now drawn with a, one of the five F's at each of the vertices, is somehow an evil symbol. And nothing could be further from the truth. And it didn't even get to become a didn't even get to be seen as a bad symbol until, oh, gosh, until the late 1800s. And then again, there was a sort of resurgence of satanic interest in the United States in the 1970s. But originally, the thing goes back a long time, one can find early mentions of it in early Middle Ages, somewhere between the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the arrival of the printing press in 1450. But towards the earlier say, it starts showing up and always as a good and positive sign. For instance, the five points were often seen as fire, earth, wind, water, and human spirit. In other words, you know, what an early attempt at sort of trying to catalog the nature of existence. And there were various other representations. But it was always a positive thing. And when you think about it, it's rather visually, it's a rather satisfying thing, just because of the ratio between the line segments, it sort of satisfies the human eye for the most part. And there it was, you know, no harm, no foul, not hurting anybody. As a matter of fact, they're sort of some writings of it, but fairly, fairly, recently. I mean, there's, there's an old document called the Key of Solomon, which is filled with Hebrew letters and Hebrew words. In Hebrew, it's called [Hebrew spoken], the Key of Solomon, meaning King Solomon. And it's, it's it's ostensibly, a Kabbalistic document. Nobody really knows how far back it goes. But probably sometime, as I'd say, in the, in the early Middle Ages, I don't know if I had to guess I'd say probably somewhere around 800 900. You know, Islam had just taken off, and there was sort of a certain amount of interest in in spirituality and the occult. At any rate, you know, filled with filled with Hebrew references and the importance of it, based, of course, on the Pentateuch, The Five Books of Moses, the idea that the most influential document in western civilization, namely, the Five Books of Moses was a document divided into five. And that was essentially what the original concept of the five pointed star was. That's all there was to it.
Daniel Lapin 8:10
In the 1800s, there was a priest called Alphonse Louise Constant. I may not be pronouncing those names correctly, but he was a French Catholic priest. And in the summer, in the late 1800s, he had a big falling out with the church. And he left the Church changed his name, he took a Hebrew name. He was not Jewish, he just took a Hebrew name, which was the Hebrew equivalent of as he sort of Alphonse, he took Eliphas who was a son of Esau in the book of Genesis. And then he took for Louise, he took Levi, and he became Eliphas Levi. And under the name Eliphas Levi, he, he wrote a fair amount of stuff, attacking the church attacking Christianity, and saying he wanted to be the opposite of that. So becoming sort of, again, a little bit anti Christian and anti church and, and moving in the direction of the occult, and so he's sort of his name also comes up in the connection with trying, which sort of with sort of turning the pentagram, the five pointed star into an evil symbol. It never was before so I just, I just mentioned that because it's so easy for us to become superstitious and frightened of things that shouldn't be frightening us and the pentagram is one of those things that just shouldn't, you know, don't worry about it, believe me. You have nothing whatsoever to worry about the AI the idea that this shape exerts some kind of evil, malign power over our lives, it's simply not the case. It's not a reality. And as I say, the symbol itself is very old, generally always associated with positive things, as I say the Five Books of Moses, and then the five elements is the way that the Greeks saw it, and so on and so forth. Nothing, nothing whatsoever to be worried about.
Daniel Lapin 10:29
But far more usefully, and far more interestingly, it serves as a very good blueprint for the ancient Jewish wisdom teachings of the five s, what are the five F's? Well, you've just written them down? family finances, friendships, fitness, and family? What did I say? Friendships, finance, family, and fitness and faith, there are your five you wrote them down, and then you connect to them. So now you see, each one is connected by a curved line to the F on either side of it, and by two straight lines to the remaining two F's. And, and what this does is to tell us something very important. And that is that, look, we all realize that fulfillment in life comes from having family from having friends. And a comfortable, successful life comes from having finances, and physical health. And then for a lot of people, it comes as a surprise that faith is also a necessary component. Because many people assume all you need if you got finances, you got friends, you got a family, and you got your health, well, you're good to go. You don't need anything else. But what those interconnected lines help us understand is that without all of them, you actually find it very hard to get any of them. And so, yes, there are a few people who've managed to sacrifice everything else in life, their health, their friendships, no family, all for the purpose of finances. Yeah. But for the most part, right, it doesn't work. As I like pointing out. I had the pleasure of once meeting George Burns, he was already 100 years old, I'm pretty sure when I when I met him, and and I can assure you I talk about having met him far more than he would ever have talked about meeting me fact I'm sure he never ever mentioned. But I met him and I remember chatting about his enjoyment of cigars. He used to smoke two or three cigars a day. And it struck me at the time that it would be a very bad idea to imitate him in that era. Yes, George Burns got away with smoking three cigars a day. And he lived to be over 100 years old. But for the most part, for most of us, that's not how it's gonna work. And so yes, is it possible for for somebody to ignore everything in life except chasing money? Yeah. And then there may be a few people who get away with it. Is it possible that there is a one or two people who do nothing but develop their body building and in a gym? That's all they do? They have no interest in friendships or families or anything? That's all they do? Yeah, there's probably a few people like that. But for most of us, we will find that the only way is all or nothing. You either focus on all of these things. And you end up with all of them, or you focus on you end up with none of them by focusing on only one. And so it's really the some of these connections are easier to see than others.
Daniel Lapin 14:09
Look at the finance family, what I call the crosslink. The finance family crosslink. Okay, what is that telling us? This is the line that links finance to family. However, you drew your circle in your five star five pointed star doesn't make any difference. But you will find that there are there is a line joining the finance point to the family point might be a curved line might be a straight line, but whatever it is, that tells us that finance and family interlink with one another. Now, let me just clarify what finance and family mean. And then I will elaborate but meanwhile you got your drawing in front of you, right? You're not cheating you do. Have your drawing I know you do, I'm counting on it. And so, financial relationships, okay, our relationships were, first of all, you have relationship with your money. And you even have followed my teachings on this. And you've gone to all the trouble of learning how to read financial statements, because you can't possibly hope to change a metric if you can't measure it. So for instance, somebody who tells me that he's trying to lose weight, but he doesn't own a scale to weigh himself, I know he's not serious about it. Because if you're not going to keep a track record of it, then you're not going to change it. If you don't have a way of accurately measuring your finances, you're not going to change them. And, and so you have a relationship with your money, you have a relationship with people that are business relationships, there are customers, there are clients, there are vendors, and and these are important relationships in your business and professional life, obviously. And then we have family relationships. And those are relationships that are sexual or the result of sexual relationships. That's what family means. And some of you may well be thinking about, well, what about adopted children and so on, which is something I have discussed in other shows, and we'll discuss it again, but not for today. Right now, the idea is that a family, you know, if you get together for a holiday with with family, and you got there with uncles and aunts, and your parents and your children and your cousins, you realize that all of these people are all there together, experiencing the joy of family togetherness, only because many years ago, grandpa and grandma enjoyed a close physical relationship. And that intimacy is what produced family. And so there are financial relationships. And there are what I call sexual relationships, even though obviously, many of them, you know, you're not going to necessarily marry your cousin or anything, but you understand what I mean. These are relationships that come about fundamentally through a biological relationship, then you have friendships. So we've looked at finances, we've looked at family, friendships are neither financial nor sexual. These are our friendships and there isn't anybody who hasn't realized and who doesn't know that one of the surest ways of destroying a friendship is by by leaving sexual relationships intrude. That becomes very problematic. So friendships on either fitness, physical fitness, your health, and finally, faith, those those are the four.
Daniel Lapin 18:03
now look at the line that joins finances and family. And what this is saying is that having finances helps with family, and conversely, having family helps with finances. So yeah, first of all, men understand that they are able to attract a higher quality woman to marry them if they have a few dollars in the bank. And certainly, if they're on the track, if their ambition is coupled with a vision and a plan that way, because a high quality woman is very aware of the importance of finances, to the building of a family. So everybody knows that. What everybody probably does not know is and this is something I saw for the first time, in a London Times, is quite a distinguished newspaper in the United Kingdom. In January, when Gosh, was jet. I remember it was January 2009. So that's quite a few years ago, but that was the first time that I saw articles about research being done, on the satisfaction that women feel in the relationships with their men, when the man is financially successful, as opposed to any isn't. And so you know, you've often heard man why oh, I want her to love me for me, not for my money. There is no separation. There is simply no separation at all. And this is something that is not easy for us to understand, but it's important. I don't think anybody put it better than the great American psychologist and author and thinker called William James. And William James wrote a book called The Principles of Psychology. And in the first volume, he writes these words: "treated as a part of me and at other times is simply mine. And then again, as if I had nothing to do with it at all. In its widest possible sense, however, a man's self is the sum total of all that he can call his."
Daniel Lapin 20:39
That's really that that's deep and significant, and it's important. So I'll say it one more time, then I'll read a bit more "in its widest possible sense. A man's self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors, and friends, his reputation, and work, his land, his horses, his yacht, and his bank account, all these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant. If they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down, not necessarily in the same degree for each thing. But in much the same way for all."
Daniel Lapin 21:24
That is so accurate, and, and so powerful. So when men fail to realize that they are very critically linked to their possessions, and to their assets and their wealth, they do themselves a disservice, and they do their families and their friends a disservice. It's I know, it's a shocker because we like to think of ourselves as being much more important than our money. But it's not. It's not so simple. And we are very, very linked and so that a a woman feels a deeper satisfaction in being with a man who can take care of her or as the Times article points out in a number of the women who were interviewed say, Yes, I feel safe and protected. And not surprisingly, under circumstances when they feel safe and protected. They are able to relax and and feel greater joy in the relationship. And so yes, the finance family crosslink makes sense. It's easy to understand. People, we do know that married men make much more money than single men. That's a reality. In both the United Kingdom and the United States, poverty is tied primarily not to skin color, but to marital status. Single men very poor. Married men make money. So family produces finance, finance helps to create family, that finance family crosslink is almost self evident. You barely needed me to maybe you didn't need me at all to tell you that.
Daniel Lapin 23:11
Now, how about let's look at the line linking friendship and family. How about the family friendship crosslink? Take a look at that line. Well, that suggests that friends help with family and family helped with friends. Well, sure. Having friends who take marriage seriously, and who take family seriously, they help you do the same. If you mix with a group of friends who have the same family values you do, it becomes much easier. If you are trying to hold and build a family and you mix with divorce people or you mix with people who who don't want to ever get married. It actually makes it harder for you to do what you have to do. So yes, having the right friendships helps with family and family. Yeah. The fact is that you find it easier to make friends when you are part of a family. What do I mean by that?
Daniel Lapin 24:10
Again, I speak to a lot of men at lectures and events and speeches I give or seminars I give. And I asked and everybody every man confirms it, that most of the the most pleasurable and enjoyable social interactions and friends that a man has come about because of people he met through his wife or through his children. And that's really commonly the case. So some of these cross links are really easy to figure out. They're easy, they're easy to see. But let me pick one now for today that is a lot more difficult to see.
Daniel Lapin 24:48
But before I do that, let me ask you whether you are already a member of our happy warrior community are you I hope you are. But if you're not, well, I think you're missing out. Because, as I said, friendships are really important. And to be able to connect with like minded people here in our happy warrior community, makes your quest so much easier, because all of a sudden, you're in contact with people who are trying to do exactly the same thing you are, build up your finances, strengthen your friendships, build and strengthen your family, make sure that you build and strengthen your body and your health. And that with all of that, you also have your faith intact. And so try and if you're not trying to become a member of the happy warrior community, it's really easy. What it does is, first of all, it allows you easy access to the material on the happy warrior website. And all of that is encouraging and inspirational and strengthening but more important, it also allows you to have connection and conversation with other happy warriors. So simply go to RabbiDanielLapin.com. Or you can also go to the wehappywarriors.com website, wehappywarriors.com or RabbiDanielLapin.com, you'll find the link in the description below. And that way you can become a member it's a it's a very nominal cost. And that is to for obvious reasons, that not only sponsors this show, but it also makes sure that we're able to sustain the community of happy warriors that you can easily belong. So go ahead and do that. And that way we know that you are part of our community, and that we all together, strengthen and inspire one another, to move ahead and to improve our lives through rejuvenating our five F's, our finances, our friendships, our families, our fitness and our faith.
Daniel Lapin 27:20
And so, look at the faith family crosslink. That's an interesting one, the somehow family increased faith or does faith increase family? What? What's that all about? So let's find out about this a little bit. First of all, a question is the world over populating? All we at is one of the most serious existential threats to humanity. overpopulation. Is that the case? And if so, is the movement called Zero population growth? A great idea? Well, is the world over populating? Well, it doesn't seem so because a number of countries like Spain, for instance, rashes and other country, a number of other countries are recognizing that they're actually experiencing the reverse problem. Their populations are shrinking. And this is true for Sweden and for Germany and a number of other Western countries. A number of countries are said like Spain and Russia, and several others are actually trying to give financial rewards to people who have children. You know, literally payouts, oh, you're having children great. When your child is born, you get a pat, because they realize that the real problem is population decline, not overpopulation. I mean, after all, the whole idea of the the whole zero population movement began with Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich writing a book in the 60s called The Population Bomb. And in that he said that, that by the year 2000, England will have devolved into a small group of impoverished islands inhabited by 70 million starving people. He also predicted that by 2000, billions of people will die of starvation, because they're just going to be too many people for the Earth to sustain. Look, it's many years have gone by since he published that book about 60 years. And it's it's kind of hard to ignore that there are twice as many people on earth now, as when he wrote the book. That's right. In the 60s there were about three and a half billion people on Earth, and now they're about seven or 8 billion people on on the earth and guess What? The United Kingdom doing just fine. For billions of people dying of starvation, not at all, a lot of people eating a little bit too well, a little bit to fence a little to obesity. That's the real problem. Are there people who are not getting enough to eat in Africa and parts of Asia? Yes. Not many. But there are. And those are? Let's put it this way. Is that because there are too many of them? Do you think that Africans ate better when there were fewer of them? No, that's not the problem. The problem is at problem of culture, a problem of institutions a problem of market failure to bring the food to the market where it's needed, from the places where it actually is growing. So there are there are real reasons for why they are hungry people in Africa. But the reason none of the reasons have to do with overpopulation. So by the way, here's an interesting thing I only became aware of a few weeks ago, and that is that the two main founders of the so called Z P G, zero population growth movement, were this Professor Paul Ehrlich who by the way hasn't quit, he's still going on about it, even though he's been disproved again and again and again. But it's him and Professor Charles Lee Remington, who is at Yale University. Now, here's
Daniel Lapin 31:33
the crazy thing, by the weirdest of coincidences, which as you know, do not exist. Both of the founders of the movement that says, there are too many people, this is a crisis, people are going to die. They're hoarding, they're crowding, there's too many. Both of these people, Professor Ehrlich and Professor Remington are etymologists. They are insect specialists. I find that so interesting. Because if your whole life is given over to insects, then the notion that insects are going to sort of reproduce in crowd Yeah, you know, I mean, you know, there's peep, you know, your house, heaven forbid, your house can be taken over by termites, and they grow and reproduce. And it's a huge problem. Yeah, and it's like there with a lot. I mean, any ant nest can expand enormously. So if you sort of see human beings as just large insects, I guess it's easier to sort of see them as a problem, as an infestation that has to be wiped out one way or the other, maybe. But the problem is that there isn't such a problem. Now, here's the interesting thing. Logically, you'd think there ought to be. And this goes back all the way to the late 1700s. In the early 1800s, with the English economist, Thomas Malthus, saying that we're all going to starve we're gonna die of cold because there's not going to be enough clothes for everybody. When Paul Ehrlich wrote his stuff in the 1960s, almost no scientists challenged him and said, You're an idiot? Are you out of your mind that from 1960 to 90 to 2000, we're going to overpopulate the earth, we're going to have too many people and billions of people are going to starve to death. You're an idiot. No, almost nobody challenged him. You know why? Because on the surface of it, if you thought that human beings are nothing but large insects, and if you view the story of humanity, only in materialistic and physical terms, removing faith, removing the spirituality, removing the infinite creativity, that God imparted to the human being, then yes, I guess it makes sense. And so, you know, scientists are materialists and that limits their abilities. And, and so yeah, understandably, nobody challenged virtually nobody challenged Paul Ehrlich nobody challenged Professor Charles Lee Remington. And, yeah, it's sort of it sort of makes sense. And, and on a physical level, I understand why nobody called them out. Because if you remove the spiritual aspect of human beings, creativity and desire for the infinite Well, yeah, I guess, I guess it could look very problematic. But it does not seem as if overpopulation after all, is the problem. And today, the latest problem is climate change, as I'm sure you're aware. And so that's all they talk about, and nobody speaks about overpopulation anymore, because it's obvious that this is not the problem.
Daniel Lapin 34:51
So now, let me ask you this question. If you had to emigrate to another country, and there were no Family considerations or language considerations, all things being equal, which they never are, of course, but hypothetically in a thought experiment, you've got a choice of two countries. One, is the country with a growing population, the other is a country with a shrinking population. Which would you choose? Is there any question in your mind, for purposes of getting a job for starting a business, you want a growing population? For cultural optimism, you need growth? What do I mean by that?
Daniel Lapin 35:37
There is a way in which a person is similar to a society. And let me try and explain this. When a person, and I mean, here, a younger person, just loses the love of life, loses his optimism, and starts being overwhelmingly conscious of of his own eventual death, whether he's dying or not, even if he's not dying. That's not a person you want to partner up with. It's not a person you even want to spend time with. You know, they use words like depressed and depression, it's, I'm not gonna go there. Because as you know, we've spoken in the past about some of these things, and mental health and spiritual realities. But a large part of that kind of morose and morbid misery comes from being incapable of escaping the, an almost overwhelming consciousness of death. And yes, I mean, yes, if you if you do not have a way, if you lack the spiritual techniques of escaping that and shedding it and banishing it, then yes, I guess you'll be pretty miserable. I get it. And in other words, an overwhelmingly even subconscious awareness of your own impending mortality, even if it's 50 years away, can make people very miserable. Well, guess what, you won't be shocked to hear that the same effect takes place on a societal level. When a society sees its own demise on the horizon, it goes a bit crazy. It really goes a little bit psychotic. A society that sees its numbers going down, starts behaving self destructively. And that is something that has occurred in much of what we think of as Western civilization. And so when you choose to emigrate to a country, and one country is growing dynamically, and the other one is shrinking, why on earth would you choose to go to a shrinking country, even I'm just leave aside the the the joyful pleasure of seeing lots of children around I've spoken about this before, in some countries that I visited. There, there is such a difference between being in a country where there's a lot of kids around, and there's a lot of moms and dads and little kids and families out on picnics. But there are parts of the United States of America where I live, where you can go and not see that at all. Really, there just aren't any kids around, there are places like that. And it's really not. It's just not that pleasant. It just isn't. And, and you can feel it. I'm sure as you go around the country. Also, as you travel, you'll see there are places that are very family centric. And there's lots of moms and dads and young families and little kids and people in restaurants or in the parks or whatever it is. But then you can be in other places. By the way, Beverly Hills, California is a place where you just do not see little kids, you just don't see families. So it's something you very much sense. Now obviously, in order for populations to grow, then you're going to have to have family formation. And one more thing, it's not enough to have an increase in population. You also have to have an increase in population of people who are valuable to society. Now Oh my goodness. One of the things you hear and I I've read demographers is I prepared for today's show. I've read demographers say well population are going down is going down so we'll just have to make it up with immigration. And we've got to try and understand if that works. And in order to do that, I'm going to now I'm going to issue a warning. What I'm now going to tell you is disturbingly undemocratic. It is not something that is easy to hear. But it is the truth. And I do understand that many of you will experience cognitive dissonance hearing this, you're going to want to tune me out or turn me off, you're going to want to stop listening, because what you're about to hear is going to be so profoundly disturbing, that only some people are going to be able to listen. And to say, the way I grow, is by hearing ideas that are alien to me, even perhaps ideas that are disturbing to me, and then I will weigh them up. Maybe they're false, and I can dismiss them and waste no more time with them. Maybe they're complete nonsense. They are merely the meanderings of a moron. But if on the other hand, I decide they may have some truth to them, well, then I have to go through the painful process of growth. And yes, growth is painful, because growth involves change and change is always difficult. So let me launch into this, I've given you a warning, those of you who are feeling a little delicate, can put it away for another day.
Daniel Lapin 41:34
Here is the idea, my dear happy warriors. Not every human being is of equal value to a society. Not every human being is of equal value to a society. Now, I'm not saying about whether every human being is of equal value to God or not, I have no idea. But I do know that to anybody who wants their nation, their country, their society, to flourish, to succeed, to be successful, to be a great place to live in and a great place for your children and your family to thrive in. You have to acknowledge the fact that not all human beings are of equal value. Let me explain the difference in value between different people has nothing to do with whether or not people appear on the society pages, or whether people are venerated as celebrities. But the simple reality that some people really do more to benefit the health and durability of society, then other people do. Okay. And let me go ahead and explain. Imagine now in your mind's eye, two different men. Let's look at the first one. This guy lives on charity, which is to say he gets a welfare check from the government. His apartment is covered, he gets food stamps. Basically, he does no work at all. Occasionally, he actually holds up a convenience store and pointing a gun at the clerk gets him to empty the cash register. And that's where he gets occasional spending money. He has fathered 12 children with 12 different women. And all those 12 children are growing up in a female household, also on welfare, doing poorly at an already underperforming school, and are already also engaged in petty crime. That's one guy. And there's guys like us in America, there's guys like this in the United Kingdom. Now, let's look at the other man compare this man, same age. This man works six days a week as a framing contractor on construction sites. He's still married to his high school sweetheart. He supports her in their shared desire that she be a stay at home mom. They have three kids being homeschooled. One of them won the state spelling bee. One is involved in raising chickens and goats in the youth agriculture program for ah, and the littlest child is teaching herself to code computer programs. Are these two men of equal value? One is living off government tax money, the other is contributing to it. The other one has fathered 12 children that in all probability look as if they too will be a burden on society. The other guy is father, three children who are going to be productive members of society. Are these two guys of equal value? Like I said earlier to God, maybe I don't know. But to me, or you or any other citizen, concerned about the health and future of the society of the culture of the country, wouldn't you agree that we need more of the second kind of man and fewer of the first? How could you not agree with that?
Daniel Lapin 45:35
Another example, this is from Germany, to men in Germany, and I want you to visualize them. Hans, has worked at Mercedes Benz in Stuttgart in Germany for five years since he apprenticed there after school at the age of 18. He's never had an encounter with a policeman. He has 20,000 Deutsche marks in his bank account that he saved up over the years, it's earning interest, and Hans is soon going to marry Liezl, who's a daughter of Hans's parents, friends and neighbors. Now, Muhammad, is also 23 years old, also lives in Stuttgart. He is one of about 50,000 Muslims living in the city of Stuttgart. Muhammad is the son of an immigrant family from Algeria. Muhammad has no job, lives on German government welfare money, has served two years in prison for rape, and has had numerous assault charges since he was 16. These are real portraits by the way, nothing imaginary. There are 1000s of Hans's in Germany, and also 1000s of Muhammad's all they have equal value to Germany, and to any German citizen who loves his country, and wants his grandchildren to grow up there happily, safely and prosperously. Whether that happens, really depends on whether German culture makes more Muhammad's or more Hans's. That's it, for a society to thrive, you've got to have growing population. And you've got to have good people. And one more thing, and good people, by the way, means that we agree on what good means, right? Nobody says, Well, according to whose rule of what good, no, we all know what good means. And one more thing, widely accepted, commonly agreed upon customs and conduct, commonly respected institutions of society. That's what it depends on. And so when I spoke earlier, of that there were people who don't have enough food to eat in Africa. So because too many people, it's because of no widely accepted customs and conduct. Now commonly respected institutions, law, property rights, all kinds of things are absent. So. So now, we've spoken about fertility, that not only are we not suffering from a situation of too many human beings, but we're suffering from a situation of too few. The United States of America has a birth rate of about 1.6. England has a birth rate Padme of about 1.4. Australia has a birth rate of 1.3. By the way, Africa as a whole, the continent of Africa has a birth rate of about five, and what you will hear from politicians, and I've heard it from demographers as well. And that's no problem. These birth rates are low, but it's no problem. We'll make it up with immigration.
Daniel Lapin 49:09
But you see, demographers often overlook what I said earlier, which is, it's not enough to have a growing population. You got to have a growing population of good people. You got to have a growing population of people who work as roofing contractors and raise their children, not people who live on welfare. You got to have a population that has more Hans's than marmots. If you're talking about Germany, and it doesn't have to be Muslims. By the way, I took that one particular example, just because it is so common. Now I've recently studied large numbers of a demographic demographic studies and projections. I've looked at United Nations figures I've looked at national figures of different countries and and Many, many academic analyses of us and all of them share two features. They all agree that fertility rates around the world, including the continent of Africa, have been dropping significantly. And, and that the drop has actually reached dangerous levels. In other words below replacement levels in much of the world. Number two, they all agree that this is because of industrialization. And here's the weird thing, happy warriors, you probably know what I'm gonna say. The funny thing is, that of all the studies that I have been scrutinizing, and it's been about, you know, between 15 and 20, maybe not a single one of them mentions Israel. And here's the problem with it. You see, Israel is unquestionably a an industrialized, modern nation. As a matter of fact, it is actually more industrialized than the United Kingdom, France or Germany. Its per capita GDP is nearly $60,000. It's higher than than Austria, I think it's higher than the Netherlands. It's higher than Sweden, it's higher than Hungary. It's, it's higher than Germany. I'm serious. It really is the GDP per capita. So yeah, it's undeniably an industrialized country. And instead of a below replacement level, of between 1.3 and 1.6 children that we see in you know, England, America, Australia, Europe, Israel is about 3.5 children, per per, per female. It's, it's it's incredibly high. It's got to be paid attention to. And what all these academic studies do is simply ignore Israel's information, because it's inconvenient to their theories.
Daniel Lapin 52:28
And so what is the truth? The truth, my friends, is that, contrary to everything, and, and I know, many people will say to me, Well, where are your credentials as a demographer? You know, what, what gives you the right to challenge these official studies by universities and by government economists? Well, just common sense, really, just the idea that I do not have to subvert my own brain in the favor of somebody who is so called, quote, an expert, or somebody who has a scientific credential after his name. No, I can question something. And I can ask a question and I can even decide whether something makes sense or not, to me. The theories that it's all because of industrialization don't make sense. It's not only disproven by Israel, it's disproven by something else. And that is pockets in the United States, pockets in Europe, pockets in the United Kingdom, pockets of what? Religious people that's what it's as simple as that, my friends, the collapse of fertility is not because of industrialization. It is because of secularization. People who have a relationship with God, marry and have children, people who don't do not, for the most part, that generalization is remarkably accurate. And so you find that even in Israel, the religious population, both Jews, Arab and Christian, and there are about 185,000 Christians in Israel. Those populations of religious Jews, Christians and Muslims have a fertility rate of about five, whereas secular Israelis, secular Israelis, primarily occupying Tel Aviv, parts of Haifa and other locations, the secular part of Israel's population have a fertility rate much like that of the United States of about 1.6. So this is really impressive. Wouldn't you really got to granularize the data a little bit, it's not good enough. Like in the United States, it's not good enough to look at states, because they're too, they're too big. You've got to break it down to the 3000 or so counties in the United States. And when you do that, you discovered something very interesting, which is that the fertility rates of America as a whole is 1.6.
Daniel Lapin 55:27
But when you look at the fertility rate of religious Christian communities, predominantly in smaller towns in the south, the fertility rate, much higher, much higher 2.2 2.3 2.4 fertility rate in a religious Jewish communities, mainly New York, parts of New Jersey, parts of Maryland parts of California, parts of Florida, religious Jewish communities, fertility rate over there, about four fertility rates among Latter Day Saints, LDS members in Utah, also higher. And so we find that the average around America is 1.6. For many, many Americans, the fertility rate is zero. And for religious Americans, Americans have faith, it's well up above two above replacement levels significantly. So happy warriors, the most shocking, fascinating and accurate information in today's show is that the drop in fertility around the world corresponds not to industrialization, but it corresponds to secularization, people of faith are still having children. And so now, you understand why at the beginning, I questioned the crosslink, between family and faith, it's a hugely important one, without faith, very, very unlikely that you're going to see much in the way of families you see here is something which almost everybody should be able to relate to, when I tell you that the act of getting married requires faith. It does. Because logically, from a scientific point of view, it makes no sense to marry somebody, you're tying yourself to somebody in a very deep and meaningful way.
Daniel Lapin 57:43
And at somebody you don't know everything about, in some cases, you know, a certain amount, but but many, many happy marriages resulted result from people knowing one another for a few months, not a few years. Mrs. Lapin and I got married after we knew each other for four months in total. And this is not unusual. I think all our children got married not knowing their spouse less than five or six months most at most. And so, yeah, there's, you get married, you know why? Because it's an act of faith. And that's why people with no faith, find it hard. But this is also the same as making an investment or starting a company. There are so many things in life that require faith. Because if you wait for all the data to come in, it'll be too late to do the thing, whether it's marriage or an investment. So you got to realize that a faith muscle that is developed in religion can also be used to the benefit of other areas such as family and finance, faith, really, really helpful. I'll tell you something else. Having a child can be frightening. It you know, people say, Well, this is how much money it's going to cost to raise the child to the age of 18. Zero No, no, it's it's scary stuff. The act of bringing a child into the world requires faith. And I'll tell you something else that is even more important than that is that faith transforms the act of having a child from something terrifying into something joyful. That's what faith does. Faith does produce families there's no question about it and produces fertility marriage and families. Not in that order. And but the reverse is also true. Families also build faith. Ministers, people in ministry will tell you. And I've had many such conversations, particularly with the church leaders around the country, that they have people in church through the youth years, they have them at the youth ministry. And then when children or young people hit college age, they vanish. When do they come back to church, after they get married, and particularly when they have children, when they form families, they're back in church. So families help faith. And faith helps families. And so if you are a single guy or girl in your late teens or early 20s, now is the time to start thinking about your future family. Some will tell you, you're too young. But the truth is, that if you are brought up in and you live in a culture of faith, You're not too young to embark on life's greatest adventure, and peak of personal growth, and fulfillment, building your family. If you're young, you stand maximum chance of marrying a virgin. And marrying as a virgin and to a virgin, we know that this is one of the biggest and most reliable predictors of marital stability. I know this is very unpopular stuff. If I if I was into woke ism, I'd say Oh, I hope I'm not triggering anybody. But I have far too high an opinion of happy warriors and listeners to this show. So I'm telling it to you how it is. I know in the 21st century, it sounds crazy. But it is, if you're young, you stand a maximum chance of marrying as a virgin and marrying a virgin. And we know there is no question about this. This is one of the biggest and most reliable correlators No, I'll go further than that predictors of long and happy marriage. If you marry young, you stand the least likelihood of making bad serial decisions, bad serial decisions that can and most likely will hurt your future life prospects. I ask people this all the time. You know, when I'm speaking in churches and synagogues when I'm giving, even when I'm doing business seminars, I ask people in general, and I say, Look, you don't have to answer this for yourself answered for people, you know, it's less embarrassing that way. But everyone knows you, you know, we're all giving our own life experiences.
Daniel Lapin 1:03:01
My question is, Are most of the bad decisions you made in your life? Did you make them before you got married, or after you got married? Now, some people will say the bad decision we make we made was getting married. And in those cases, what what often happens is people fell into the trap of becoming sexually infatuated with somebody, which all the flow of oxytocin makes you then think you fallen in love. And then you get married. People think that's the normal routine. That's what you're supposed to do. But the problem with that is that you're marrying based on a feeling not a commitment. And feelings are very unreliable. And so not surprisingly, people have done that, down the road, when there's a period that the feelings subside or weaken that everybody has that. They assume that that's a reason to end the marriage. And they proceed to do just that. But ordinarily, most times, particularly guys, but women as well, of the serious mistakes you've made in your life, most of them you make between puberty and marriage. And so that's why I say that shortening that time is usually a very good idea.
Daniel Lapin 1:04:33
Because you're not marrying, because you can't wait to sleep freely and openly with the other person. You're married because you and the other person share the same commitment to honor God, your families and your future children. And so you're far more strongly equipped to deal with the inevitable tribulations of family life. That's the key thing. And so, my dear happy warriors, it is time for us to wind down for today. And we've covered an awful lot of stuff. But I hope as always, I really do hope it means so much to me when you write and tell me that you found it useful, you found it valuable, even if you found it enjoyable, although I'd rather you don't enjoy it, but make use of it, then that you enjoy it. But don't make use of it if I have to be faced with that choice. And so visit the website. If you're not yet a member of the happy warrior community, go ahead and go to wehappywarriors.com and join the happy warrior community become part of us. It's it's a very, very small and insignificant cost, it really isn't a lot. And that way you bring value into your own life. And you bring support and encouragement into ours as well. So thank you very much indeed, on behalf of all of us here, and I wish you a week of growth and fulfillment, in your finances, in your families, in your friendships, in your faith, and in your fitness. Onwards and upwards. God bless.
