TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: How To Banish Abuse and Trauma From Your Life
Date: 06/16/23 Length: 56:15
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, happy warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show where I your rabbi reveal how the world really works. Thanks for being part of the show because you know that the more that things change, the more we need to depend on those things that never change. And those are the things we talk about. This is not a show for clowns or creeps or crooks or cranks. No, this is a show for happy warriors. People who love the fight, who loved the challenge, love the struggle to overcome entropy, and to accomplish their work. And to make everything in their lives stronger through strengthening their five F's. That's what defines us, happy warriors. Yes. When we focus on our friends, and on our family, on our faith on our fitness and our finances, everything else is going to be fine as well.
Daniel Lapin 1:14
Now, somebody said to me recently, why isn't mental health one of your five F's? Is it just because you couldn't find the F word to explain mental health? And I said, No. I could have if I wanted, I could have said psychiatric fitness, or something like that. That's not really an F. That's a p, but alright, fine. You got me. But no, the the reason is, because it's the same reason somebody suggested I include fun. And you people you should I'm getting it. This is fun. What does that mean? Fun. Relaxation? Well, it depends. If it's under fitness, then fine, go for it. But if it's spending hours in front of a screen, you know, watching stupid videos there No, don't do that. That's not even if even if your body says oh, this is fun, because I love doing I think that's a terrible idea. So I mean, you really don't want to do so Absolutely. No fun doesn't belong there. But what about mental health? If I, you know, if I had an F word for that would have a no, of course not.
Daniel Lapin 2:28
People. Look, you've got to understand something very basic. Mental health is the natural default condition. Okay, when problems occur, usually, they are the results. Now I'm going to tell you something. Now, that is very provocative. And I don't mean this to be provocative. And I shouldn't even need to give out any caveats of look, I'm hoping I'm not meaning to hurt anyone. Oh, come on already. Let's just focus on the things we have to know. Right. And one of the things we have to know is that if your family relationships are good, and your friendships are good, and your physical fitness is as good as you can make it and your finances are in shape. And you also have something of a connection with the Creator of the Universe. I'm sorry, I know there are people who are not religious listening, but you have to hear that, you have to know that because it's not really that optional. I mean, you know, free, free country, everything's optional. You can do July couldn't do what you like, but you do need to know that if your relationships with money. And family relationships include sexual relationship, obviously, all of that as part of family, your finance and financial relationships, your friendship and your family and your finances, your fitness and your faith. All of that is in good shape. The odds are your mental tranquility will be at a very high level as well. Right now, I know that people like the idea of Oh, there I was just walking down the road and I got hit by something, you know, I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. That's simply not true. And you fooling yourself if you believe that you are a victim of fate without independent agency without the ability to sculpt every detail of your life without the ability of creating your own spiritual schematic, which your life follows very meticulously.
Daniel Lapin 4:52
And so, there there are additional words that I would encourage you to banish from your vocabulary. Please, please stop using the word trauma. You know, unless it's in a, in a jocular sense. I couldn't find parking downtown or was so traumatic and everybody smiles. But other than that, please don't use it. I'll tell you why don't use it because life has challenges. Life is difficult. Everybody has their burden in their package. The problem with the word trauma is that it is undefined. It's beloved by the mental health industry, obviously, but it shouldn't have any currency in your life. You simply shouldn't use the word trauma. I'm having a, I'm going through trauma or, you know, it was traumatic. No, it's an undefined word. And so for one person, not having an ingredient on hand to bake a cake is dramatic. And then there are other people a doctor was telling me the doctor works in an emergency room somewhere in the middle of the country. And tells me that he says a different racial groups, different demographic groups react differently to pain, and yes, real trauma. And he said that Asians can come in with huge amounts of massive physical trauma. And he'll say to them, how on a scale of one to 10, How badly is the pain hurting and he knows it's got to be up there at seven or eight because he's been a doctor for many years. And he says Asians in general will downplay pain, and downplay trauma. It's, it's nothing. Yeah. And he said, there are other groups that are very say, this is very notable. You can really, you can really see the difference. But it's not healthy, to upgrade every challenge you have. And I'm not diminishing the challenges, right?
Daniel Lapin 7:09
We all have challenges. In all of those areas, whether it's health or family or fitness or finance. People have challenges, you know, I get it. But if we use the word trauma, it suggests overwhelming, it's yes, nothing we can do anything about. And it also suggests that we have nothing to with it in the first place. Not true. In finance, you know, it's true, right? Today's financial problems are the result of yesterday's awful decisions. You know, that's true. I mean, that's true for 99.8% of people who are in financial stress, it's because of bad decisions that were made in the past. Now, you know, this is like blaming the victim, you know, this is this makes people feel even worse, saying and look it is painful. I've had my setbacks and failures. And I don't mind telling you, I sat myself down. I said, you're good at telling this to other people. Now, tell it to yourself, you caused this problem. Not today. Maybe not yesterday, not today before, but in the past, you made bad choices, you made bad decisions, and now you're paying the price. Not pleasant for me to hear myself telling me that I'll tell you that not pleasant. But at the same time, it did feel like one tiny little step on the road to recovery and on the road to rebuilding. In other words, acknowledging that I caused the problem is tantamount to acknowledging that well, that means I am capable of bringing about the solution as well. And so big trauma, but trauma doesn't have definition. Right for some people, you know, having financial problems and losing their, their business or losing their house or whatever. very traumatic.
Daniel Lapin 9:19
But it's not a good word for it, because that's not the same as other small and minor matters that people increasingly are using the word trauma for. And so I'd strongly recommend that if you have to tell somebody, you know, something happened and look, I broke my arm don't say I had a traumatic injury. I say exactly what it was. I was in a car accident and I broke three ribs. You know what, but leave out the word trauma. It's, it's a destructive word. And, here's the important thing. Remember how much you and I are affected and impacted by the words, that our own ears hear, our own mouth articulates. We are among the people that are most persuaded by our own words, please, please remember that and be aware of that. And so as soon as you use a word like trauma, what you are really saying, or what you what you're being what your spiritual being is hearing you say is, yeah, I couldn't have I couldn't have any ability to deal with that. This was a traumatic experience, it just, it came out there and hit me. Nothing much that I could do about it. And that's, that's a real problem.
Daniel Lapin 10:50
Another word like that is abuse. Abuse. You know, she's been married for four years, I don't know how she could have stuck it out with that sort of abuse going on. Okay, what does that mean? Exactly? It means he hits her with a hammer every couple of days. What does it mean? Or? Or does it mean he asks her to keep the house tidy? What What is he doing to her that's so traumatic, please, that is abusive, please stop using the word abuse. in that context. You know, if you, if you want to talk about it, abusing a machine or abusing a motorcycle, or, or abusing a, some part of your property, that's fine. But to use it in terms of human experience, I would strongly discourage it, I would strongly encourage you drop the word trauma and you drop the word abuse, because it's undefined. It doesn't all it all it means is an attempt to generate emotional reactions of horror, without telling us exactly what happened. And as the word is laden with so much emotional baggage, oh, she's been suffering abuse. He's been suffering abuse. I was abused by my parents growing up as a child. What does that mean? Exactly? I'm not saying there aren't cases of children who endure horrific childhoods. But I've also heard people who have grown up, I really have people who have grown up in very privileged circumstances, who's speaking about the horrible abuse they suffered as children. Look, let me tell you one thing, other than in a few exceptions, a tiny, almost imperceptible minority of exceptions, your parents really did pretty much the best they could. They weren't trying to give you a bad start in life. They were trying to give you a good start in life. They weren't trying to give you bad memories, they were trying to give you a lovely childhood. That's pretty much what your parents were trying to do. Did they succeed? Well, probably not. Really. And I'll tell you something else. If you are raising children, or you're going to, you're probably not going to do a whole lot better, you're gonna try just the same. But look, you think about it, you know, you're tossed into this job and so many job in the world, you're tossed in with no training, no expectation, no instruction manual, nothing. All of a sudden, you know, you're there you are you, you get married, and you're as excited as could be. You can't believe it. There you are living with this incredible man, this man you've been looking up to and now actually, you actually wake up next to him every morning is incredible. You know, the guy is I mean, gosh, he, he remembers when he couldn't even approach he was so terrified of asking her out. And then their their relationship became enriched. And eventually, he proposed marriage. And now they're married. And they've been married a couple of years, and he's still absolutely intoxicated with her. I mean, he walks around breathing in the scent that wafts around his house, because she's there. And it's all incredible and wonderful, and she's is basking in, in being loved and taken care of, and protected and cherished, and all is terrific. And, and then she becomes pregnant. And everything's still everything's still terrific. I mean, you know, there's a first few months of discomfort and a little bit of morning sickness and but then, you know, by the time the middle of months of pregnancy arrived there, they're enjoying themselves. They This is terrific, and then all of a sudden, whoosh. out of the chute, here comes a baby, and you're expected to be Parents. And, and and then you know, the two years later the baby's a toddler, and a little after that four or five years old, and they starting to develop a personality and a will. And all of a sudden, you're discovering that. Nobody told you how to deal with this, like, what are you supposed to do with a tantrum? In the grocery store?
Daniel Lapin 15:25
What are you supposed to do?
Daniel Lapin 15:27
And what are you supposed to do when your little toddler says No, I won't, or, or million other circumstances that crop up. So, you know, wives, parents, talk to one another, the amount of encouragement and self-improvement and growth that can come from mom and dad talking to each other and encouraging each other is incredible. It's also, you know, twice as many people as one person. So there's more books to read. And there's a lot of good stuff out there on child raising. And it helps you and you start falling into a pattern, and you're beginning to understand the development of a child. Now, you don't need a child development degree, you don't need a psychology degree. You're a parent, you know, God, God gives parents the ability to take care of their children and to raise wonderful children and to prepare happy, successful human beings. Yeah, you've got that ability. And because the resources are out there, and I must tell you the challenge of a single mother alone or a father alone, raising children staggers my mind. I simply do not think it can be done. I know there are people heroically doing it. But it's no fun. I just don't think could be much fun. And yes, I know, you know, wonderful mothers and wonderful fathers, they look, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change a thing in the past year, I think you probably would, being happily married to the other spouse, the other person who helped bring this child into the world, I bet you'd like to be there. But so, you know, I know people do fantastic jobs.
Daniel Lapin 17:14
But parenting, it's a wonderful growth opportunity. But we've got to, we've got to know that. This is a part of the five F's, all of these things come together. And they integrate, I'm able to function more effectively at my job, because I have a husband and children at home, or a wife and children and homes, how I would have preferred to have put it but I made a little accommodation there to modernity. Do you see what I did there? So yeah, that's, that's, that's how it goes. So please, try and stop using the word abuse, and stop using the word trauma in the context of your life or other people's lives to describe somebody else's as having gone through abuse, but when you don't even know the details of what how it's just not good. These are terms that have been co-opted into regular usage. They've also been devalued. Whereas once upon a time, you know, 79 years ago, I'm recording this in June of 2023. So 79 years ago, 150,000 young men, all in one day on the sixth of June 1944, 150,000. Young men, no, there actually weren't any young women there, stormed ashore, many of them chopped down on the very beach about 10,000 lost that day. But those kinds, like, did anybody meet them up afterwards, the general pattern set up a trauma center, not for their physical wounds, but where they could talk about their experience to a therapist. Now, that didn't happen.
Daniel Lapin 19:14
And I'll tell you something else. I have alluded to this in the past. I want to state this explicitly. Now, even though I'm not going to be going in depth into it, although it is on the schedule for in-depth treatment on this show a little bit down the road. And that is talking through bad experiences, traumatic experiences, even talking through them again and again and again, reliving them with a therapist, talking them out, letting them out. All this stuff makes it worse, not better. I know this is contrary to all the current practice, which is to talk and talk and talk and you get to pay hundreds of dollars an hour if you live in the right cities in the country, hundreds of dollars an hour to a therapist who will happily listen to you, while their mind wanders over all kinds of things that they're thinking about. Because all they have to do is feign interest, and listen to you chattering away about the abuse you suffered as a child and about the trauma you've endured. And none of this makes any of it better in the slightest. And that's one of the reasons that a number of people used to have the experience of talking to sometimes father, sometimes uncles, eventually grandparents, who had fought in World War Two, and it was not always easy to get them to talk about their experiences, because they knew that talking about it makes it worse, not better. And so this is a complete lie of the current mental health industry, that talking these things out is better. No it actually isn't. And this has been discovered, and there have been some interesting reports already on children who witnessed bad things, children who witnessed one parent killing another children who have witnessed school violence, and they've seen their children who are given school department, Education Department, school, district therapy, treatment, mental health counseling, all of these things provided to the children, they've discovered that in general, the children who didn't participate in this did far better in just getting back to normal than the children who did. And it makes sense when you think about it, right? Every time you talk about it, you relive it, it's not as if you work it out of your system. What do you think this is, you know, like, changing the oil in your car, you pull the plug and let it all out. That's not what happens with human beings. And bottling it up. It you know, again, these are all words that carry with them. heavy emotional baggage, always bottling up his feelings. No, bottling up is not a good word to use. They use it if you want to. But it's it suggests something other than what is really going on. And so it's it's not a case of bottling up the feelings, but it's more a case of, I've dealt with it okay, fine. It's not great, it's a bad memory, it'll fade in time, that's one of the great mercies of memory, it will fade in time it will go away. But talking about it again, and again, you never let it move off the front burner into the darker recesses of memory doesn't make any sense.
Daniel Lapin 22:44
So all of those are our reasons why abuse and trauma are words that really, really should be expunged from your vocabulary. And that being said, mental health is not something you have to go out and seek. Mental health is not something you know, physical health is different. You go to a doctor have a checkup, it's not a bad idea. But do you think it's a good idea to go to a psychiatrist or a therapist or a psychologist and have a mental health checkup? In a particularly sense there is no actual test that can demonstrate or validate the presence of a mental disease not true with physical, right? You got shingles, they'll find it doctors, skillful doctors will identify it and they'll diagnose it and they'll provide you with whatever treatment is available for it. But there is no way to objectively diagnose mental health. And the evidence is situations that I'm aware of where people have received actually different diagnoses from different so called mental health professionals. It's just, it's reached a point in the United States of America and elsewhere in the West, particularly the United Kingdom has reached the point where mental health is on everybody's lips. It's all people talk about, and all the people and the number of people who are on psychotropic drugs, and the number of people who are receiving treatment. People it started, it's enough already, right in 90 cases out of 100. It's not necessary. All you got to do is fix up your finances and fix up your family relationships and fix up your friendships, and fix up your physical fitness and fix up your faith connection. Your mental health will be just fine. I promise you that.
Daniel Lapin 24:57
Now I have made that sound as if It's relatively simple, you know, just fix up your finances, fix up your physical fitness, fix up your friendships, fix up your family, fix up your faith. Now, obviously, these things are hard. That's part of what being a happy warrior is. We are enthusiastic about confronting the challenge. That's what it is. Mental health is the natural consequence of developing your five F's. It's not only mental health, it's a robust state of mental tranquility and acuity. A robust state is the consequence of working on your five F's, and here's the best part of it. It's not as if there is an objective finish line to any of the five F's that you have to get to, and then then you're going to be okay. No, it's the struggle that brings value. It's the work you do on fixing your finances. It's the work you do on building a family and, and building, maintaining, nurturing, restoring family relationships. It's the work you do on fitness, it's not as if there's an eventual measure of bodily strength or heart rate, you may have targets to work towards while you're while you're working out and exercising. But in general, it's the process, you feel terrific after a good exercise session, regardless of how you compare to other people, because it isn't a specific finish line. It's the process.
Daniel Lapin 26:38
And that's true as well, if you start taking tentative nibbles into the area of faith, my goodness, what a change there is in one's life. If one becomes understanding of the spiritual reality, which is a preliminary step in faith, if you if you start off by taking stock of your finances, figuring out getting you know, learning how to read financial statements, making financial statements for yourself, it's a start and you feel great, you've started tackling the challenge, all of these things. And so it is also with as you work on these things, really from day one, you start feeling the improvement in your mental health, your ability to concentrate, your ability to focus, your ability to relax your ability to be in the moment, all of these things are the result of progress and growth in your five F's.
Daniel Lapin 27:43
Ireland, beautiful islands, pretty country, nice place to visit. The Irish government is now working on a plan to kill 200,000 Cows over the next three or four years. Now look. I haven't I have such a soft spot for cows. When I was lecturing in Switzerland recently, one of the people in the audience came up to me and we spoke afterwards. And turns out he's got a Swiss dairy farms got a few 100 Beautiful Swiss cows. I can't tell you how it was going to be about 45 minutes outside Zurich, I can't tell you how much. I wanted to take the time and go and visit these cows. And it's a dairy farm. That it just wasn't there just wasn't the time I was I was on all the time until I had to leave for the airport to return home. But, look, I really like how so I grant you that. If it's possible, it's you may be detecting an added level of peak and unhappiness about this piece of news over many of the other symptoms of a dying and decaying culture. But nonetheless, I hate the idea of killing 200,000 cows. What's purposeless, I mean, it's senseless destruction. Why? Because the European Union, the EU government in Brussels decreed that cows are a major contributor to carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. And that will make it difficult for the European Union to meet its climate commitments. This insanity but I want you to see, and I believe I will be being of use to you and that's what I really wanted. I want to be sure that at the end by the time you finish listening to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, you say to yourself, Okay, that was useful. My time was well spent. I am better equipped now to be a happy warrior. I'm better able to do the thing. I understand something better than I did before. And so I'm going to help you see this. Okay. And so I looked into this. Sure enough, I wish I could say it with the right, Irish brogue. But the Agriculture Minister of Ireland is a guy called Charlie McConalogue. And he this morning told the news sources I was following Daily Telegraph in England and others. He is committed to reducing methane emissions. And one of the things he's going to do, he's going to wipe out about 75,000 cows a year for the next few years. Okay, that's Ireland. Another part of the by the way, Irish dairy farmers are not as happy as he is about this. In the Netherlands, another country, part of the European Union, and well done British, you guys got out just in time, maybe even a bit late. But the Dutch Administrative Court has established - this is like the highest court in Holland, that the Dutch government was breaking European Union law. Do you mind? This is like the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling that something has to happen, not because of the Constitution, not because of the laws passed by the United States Congress. But because the United Nations said something or the European, it's an insanity. What happened to sovereign power. But the highest Dutch court in in the Netherlands, says that the government was breaking European Union law by not hurrying up doing what? That's right, killing more cows. It sounds crazy. They already that government already followed the European Union ruling that they have to lower speed limits on all Dutch roads. So now, the even on highways and Holland has, you know, like Audubon's just like Germany. I mean, most of Europe does. And on those roads, Holland has reduced the speed limit now to about 64. What, why? Because climate emergency. But the main thing is, we've got to kill the cows. So it's really unbelievable. So these cows are being killed in Holland and Ireland. And I've been trying to find out what are the I'm sure there are other countries as well. It's just that Holland and Ireland have very well-developed dairy industries. Greece, for instance, doesn't have a lot of dairy farms. But I've tried to see if the other countries but basically, the word has gone out, kill the cows, kill the cows. That's what you gotta do. You gotta kill the cows. Because, well, you've got to placate the anger of the fearsome god of nature. Because the fearsome god of nature will bring global warming and climate change and oceans will rise and flood. There'll be great punishment for doing what? Right What is the sin? The sin is civilization, the sin is economy and economic progress. The sin is industrial progress, everything that makes civilization possible. And that's the sin. Really, you know, why is Rabbi Lapin confusing the theology of sin with a very simple but mistaken European Union policy, which is kill half a million cows very soon, in order that they will stop emitting dangerous carbon dioxide gases? Well, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you why I say what I'm saying. So okay, I should mention my way that Holland is the EU's biggest meat exporter. So you can imagine the devastation this is going to inflict not only on individual farmers, but on the country as a whole, which derives benefit from being able to sell large quantities of meat, but now they are going to have to slaughter nearly a quarter of a million cows for no benefit whatsoever. It's evil, absolutely evil. So here I've told you now rulings from the ecclesiastical authority of the European Parliament, that cows must be killed.
Daniel Lapin 34:55
And now what I'd like you to do is listen, as I reach you and I'm not getting to play games I could I could just read and say, guess where this comes from? But I'm going to tell you it comes from the Bible. Exodus chapter 24, verse five, he sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and their sacrificed young cows as peace offerings to the Lord. You see how this could sound very similar? Right? Please, Lord, we mean peace. We don't mean to be bad. We don't mean to be evil, we don't mean to sin. So please, let us kill these cows in order to placate you. Do you see what I'm saying here? How about the book in Numbers, chapter eight. Now the Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the cows, and offer one for a sin offering and one for a burnt offering to the Lord to make an atonement. That's exactly what's going on my friends, kill the cows to make atonement for industry, for capitalism, for economic progress for Western civilization in itself. Book and Numbers chapter seven, verse 17. And for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five goats, five male lambs. This was the offering of Nahshon son of Amminadab. Look, what I'm trying to point out to you is that religion is as needed by the human being, as oxygen and water. It's just that your body immediately tells you when you haven't had enough food or when you can't breathe, you start becoming fixated, and no oxygen. But your body doesn't tell you when you're getting too little faith. It only tells you in the passage of time, by which time it's usually too late. When you're deprived of water, your body protests and yearns and struggles for water. And if it gets water, it's in good time. Even if it's, you know, in a day or two or three oxygen, well, you need that much sooner. But when you get it, you'll be okay. Trouble is our need for faith. Our need for religious connection is real, but you don't feel it. Because everything seems normal life seems okay. And it's only in the passage of time that lots of things are not going well. And you don't realize that the problems must be attributed to the complete lack of anything in the area of spirituality and faith during the early years when you could have got that right. What I'm saying is, everybody has this need this idea that there's got to be a bigger force and a bigger power. It's only a question of who it is. I choose the big G of God. But there are a whole lot of people who choose the little g of government. And there are a whole lot of people who choose nature, the environment as their God and nothing is too much to do for the environment. I got to tell you, two years ago Hurricane Ida struck the United States, it was August 2021. And interestingly enough New Yorkers, sophisticated New Yorkers, New Yorkers who took pride in not being influenced by the primitive taboos of religion, they took pride in being enlightened atheists. They claimed that the reason Hurricane Ida flooded the New York subway system, you remember water came into the subway. The subway had to stop running. And Upper East Side New York liberals. They they designated this as a cosmic phenomenon. They saw it as this is what happens to us when we ignore the dangers of climate change. And so I thought this is terrific. There really is very little difference between primitive tribesmen in remote isolated desert islands, who say Oh, the thunder and the lightning is because God is angry that we did this or that or the other thing. This there's no difference. Oh, you know why? The the evil the angry god of nature flooded them. New York subway system, because we haven't done enough killing of cows, or eliminating cars, or getting rid of gas stoves and gas furnaces because somehow or another for people to burn gas, a beautiful clean energy source at home is terrible. They misuse electricity, but it's fine. If the electricity utility the generating station uses gas as they do to drive their turbines, which then are coupled to generators to produce the electricity. So again, this is all religious symbolism, for you to burn gas in your gas stove, or in your heating furnace is evil. But if the electrical utility does burn the exact same gas in order to produce electricity, that you will then burn to get the heat in your home, somehow or another. The juggling of that makes sense, but it does if you realize it's a case of religious belief.
Daniel Lapin 41:02
So please don't make the mistake of thinking religion means exclusively Judaism, or Christianity or Islam or the Latter Day Saints. No, Religion is a system of belief that attempts to make sense of the world in which we live by reference to a higher power. And they are many of them are simply emulations. of biblical belief. That's all that's going on here. And so the slaughtering of cows, absolutely, it's a sacrifice. It's bringing in sacrifice. That's all it is. Conceptually, it's the same idea, as Exodus chapter 24, or Numbers, chapter seven, or chapter eight, or numbers, Leviticus chapter 23, there are all kinds of instances throughout the five books of Moses, where we read about the slaughtering of animals. But it's, it's done there, because God requires it. And in the European Union, it's done because their God requires it. You see, in the absence of religious faith, in the absence of faith in God, people in their desperate need to structure an external authority will come up with the environment, nature, and so on. And there are many, many other similar examples, where people adopt fervent belief in some greater power, in honor of which almost everything must be sacrificed. And when it comes to nature, and the environment, our comfort, our safety, and even our survival, has to be thrown into doubt, as long as we can replicate the Furies of the god of nature. And I beseech you to be aware that the so-called experts, the scientists who are of course, the high priests of secular fundamentalism, which is the faith we're talking about, it finds expression in subgroups, you know, just as Christianity has various subgroups. Judaism has various subgroups. So the faith of secular fundamentalism has various subgroups. One of them is socialism, that promotion of aggressive socialism, and other one is environmentalism. Climate change is a part of that. These are various sub-churches in the church of secular fundamentalism, which requires sacrifice just as surely as the God of the Old Testament requires sacrifice. I'm not comparing them by the way, in another show, I plan on talking about the sacrifices of the Old Testament and what their purpose was and why they existed and what they achieved. But for now, just to be aware that the people who say these things speak with exactly the same fervor and conviction, and scientists have established this this is beyond question the sciences settled. You can't raise any questions about this.
Daniel Lapin 44:35
Are we really running out of fossil fuel? Well, I don't think so. Wouldn't it be possible to explore the possibility that more and more fossil fuel is being created as time goes by? It's not a finite resource that we're sucking out of the earth, leaving the earth dry and empty? No. Maybe it's like mother's milk. Right? The baby doesn't exhaust it. More is being made all the time, baby drink away, enjoy. There'll be plenty. You want to use use oil, go for it. Go for it. There'll be plenty now, you can't explore that. Let's find out. No, it's a given piece of religious doctrine that we are running out of everything. Shortage is the key phrase. We're short of everything, which makes sense, right? Because limitless pneus is only the province of the god. That's the only place where abundance comes from everything else is material and and is therefore limited. Correct. So obviously, if you live in a godless world, if you live in the world of secular fundamentalism, then obviously everything is limited, because all you acknowledge the reality of is the material world and all things material are limited. It's pretty clear. I mean, this is not advanced theology or anything. That's how it is. So obviously, yes, we're running out of everything. And the climate is changing. Oh, yeah, absolutely. We're running out of time. That's another thing, all of these things.
Daniel Lapin 46:10
Greta Thunberg, you might remember her the shrill Scandinavian teenager who, you know, does what teenagers do, which is get hysterical about things like you know, last year it was the Beatles. This year, it's climate change, whatever, I understand what teenage girls do I get it, no problem. The problem is stupid, older men who give credence to it and take it seriously. But she had a run back and expansion, early Twitter, because in 2018, she said, the Earth only has five years left. And in five years' time, everybody will start burning up. Well, she had to go and take it away, because it's now 2023. And guess what? The warnings are still coming. But the goal is to always keep them just by the way, the ideal timeframe that the gods of secular fundamentalism, like is 10 years. The big danger is in 10 years time. Now, obviously, they've been saying it for a long time, but very few people, you know, pull out statements, stupid statements, false statements made by, shall we say, John Kerry, the climate czar, in the United States of America, at least and say, hey, you know, you said, we're going to be in a crisis point where the noticeable rising in water levels by 2021 Already, nobody that you see, keep it about the dangerous about 10 years away. Now, everyone's saying that with exactly the same conviction, that they spoke about population explosion in the 60s and 70s. And it was the, you know, back then it wasn't climate change, back then it was too many people. And they use exactly the same apocalyptic language that we hear from today about climate change, you should be beginning to get the idea that the important thing is that destruction is upon us. Somehow, it doesn't much matter what it is. Destruction is upon us. And it's the scale of destruction that is going to require international cooperation to solve. It's maybe we need to empower the United Nations a little bit more so as to help solve these because whether it's overpopulation in the 70s, or whether it's climate change in the 2020s. These are obviously too big a problem to be solved by your children's preschool. This has to be solved by an internationally coordinated effort. And you get the idea, and you should be able to beginning to see some of the motivation for all of this.
Daniel Lapin 48:51
At any rate, no, no further back then the 1970s population explosion was the problem. Literally, they were talking about people being squeezed so there's no place to even live on the planet. That's what they were talking of. The reality is that global fertility has collapsed. That's what's happened. And so we are watching for the first time in a very low probably since under maybe since the Black Death In medieval Europe. We're seeing the population of the planet declining, it hasn't started declining yet, but it looks like it could. Now I'm not making a prediction of that happening, but it certainly looks plausible. At any rate, one thing is clear, and that is overpopulation is not a problem. As recently as 2000, that's 23 years ago, the world average fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, which is comfortably above the replacement rate of two point - which at two 2.1, which is a stable population figure. Today, in 23 years, the global fertility rate has gone from 2.7 to 2.3. And it's falling. So the, by the way, if you take the largest the 15 largest economies in the world, they all have a fertility rate below 2.1. Got it? I mean, think about that. Every, I mean, all the developed parts of the world with vibrant economies think of for the most part Western civilization running at below replacement level. Now, is this a problem? Well, it depends. You see, if you speak to folks from the 1970s, well, they should say, Oh, fantastic, everything's great. But they're not saying that, because everybody understands that a stable population, same population size does not work when I said doesn't work. And what happens is that there is economic stress that is a result of a declining population. And that causes social disruption. And it's not it's nonviable. You can't there is no such thing as a successful country with a stable population, just keeping the same population figures all along. I know, it's logical. I know, it seems it ought to work. It doesn't. And we can talk about, and by the way, feel free to write on my website at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. You know, that there's an easy way for you to become a happy warrior. And comment or tell me what you think. And I'll do my I read everything, and I answer a lot of it. So don't hesitate to do that. But listen to the New York Times. Now. This is fantastic.
Daniel Lapin 52:03
Again, right now, right, late spring 2023. Soon, we won't have enough kids to fill our schools. That's a problem. That's the headline New York Times. I thought overpopulation was the problem yesterday, I'm trying to show you the dangers of listening to the experts. Listen to your own self, listen to your own intelligence, listen to your own thought process, figure it out for yourself. Don't be sold a bill of goods by people with an alphabet of letters after their names. Just wear up. I'm not saying Listen to me. Don't listen to me either. Just weigh it up. Think about it, look at it objectively. Ignore things that say studies reveal, experts claim ignore that sort of stuff. And just ask yourself, so only 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 35 years ago, they're speaking about overpopulation, threatening all of humanity. Now, the economist at prestigious British economics newspaper speaks about the economic failures that will be due to diminishing population. And which, you know, these things are already visible in Japan and South Korea. In the United States. It's already a problem. This is all very, very real. But now, even the woke liberals of the Upper East Side of New York, well, they figured out the lack of, of people is a is a huge problem. Why? Well, let me let me read it to you soon. We won't have enough kids to fill out schools. That's a problem. And that article appeared in on June 14 In, in the New York Times, the number of school-aged children in America is declining. Well, yeah. Because fertility has been down, people are having fewer kids. And so this has been around for enough years now. So is that at the entry level school entry level? Well, guess what? There's not enough children to fill the schools. My friends, please think about this for a second. Can you tell me why is this a problem? The headline says soon we won't have enough kids to fill out schools. That's a problem is why didn't like hey, guess what? Soon there's not going to be enough coffee drinkers to fill up all the Starbucks stores. Really? I mean, so shut the stores. Who cares? Since when do you think this way? This is an upside down topsy turvy way of thinking. Well, we don't have enough children to fill the schools. So shut the schools. What's the problem? Right you the guys who pushed zero population growth. You are the guys who said there's too many people good. We listened to you. There is now fewer people great shut the schools. demolish the buildings and turn them into parks or whatever else you want to do. Why is this a problem? You know the answer, don't you? teachers' unions. Do I need to say more? All right. Well, I don't think I need to say more about anything because we are running short of time for today. So, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, subscribe, please to the podcast. That's good for everybody. So go ahead and do that. Visit the website, and it's Rabbi Daniel lapin.com. And you might be interested in taking another look at a book I wrote called America's Real War. I didn't write it yesterday, but it reads as if I wrote it yesterday. It tackles the very issues we've been talking about ripped from today's headlines. So until next week, when we share time together, I am your rabbi. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin wishing you a wonderful week of progress with your family, with your finances, with your fitness with your friendships, and with your faith. God bless.
