Think a Second Time

In all of my reading, I have come to regard Mr Prager as a father figure. I am comforted in the knowledge that with his guidance and writings, we all have a chance to resolve some of the ills in our lives and by extension the wider society we live in. I’m currently enjoying his Rational Bible: Exodus.

Great read

The seller has sent a carefully packed, mint fresh copy of the book. This is my first experience of a purchase with sunrise sellers and look forward to more such clean cut purchases from itAs for the book itself, it is so wonderfully written with quite a lot of fresh and creative ideas which can be explored further for living a clear ethical and spiritual life.Thanks a lot to the author also.

Mr. Prager's book of essays on many subjects is outstanding. I just received it & began reading almost immediately. I couldn't put it down. He writes succinctly, w/beautiful English prose, & with such wise, often, common sense responsibility that seems lacking in much current writing & behavior.His essays @ the Baby Richard & "Doe" family in Illinois, 1991-95, were spell binding reminders of the fact that we (I) put so much faith in justice, the US Court System, & the well educated, "wise" judges, appointed or elected. But they, too, have "feet of clay" & on occasion, can use their appointments to further a particular agenda. It was during that same time that my husband & I were adopting our twins (a different state) & knew that there were other viewpoints in the courts that could have made our children's outcomes very different.I planned to read the essays over time (a beauty of essays), but finished this book in one long holiday evening! I'll return to it & savor some of the essays a second time. Believe me, it is a current book well worth reading.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Even though it is somewhat dated the concepts have held up well to the test of time. I don't always agree with him, but every chapter is very stimulating.

While Rush Limbaugh shouted his way to the depths of conservatism’s moral bowels, Dennis Prager has spent his life holding those same values up in a warm and shining light. He wrote this book in the mid-90’s, but I still found tremendous value in his thoughts, many of which are still applicable today. It is described as 44 essays on 44 subjects and is essentially his thoughts on American culture and society after having hosted multiple national radio shows since the early 80’s.The premise of the book is a simple one; don’t take things for their face value. Think twice about them. For example, Prager makes an excellent case for offering money as a reward for kids to do well in school, something I had always thought was crazy. Kids should learn because it builds good character, and when they find a field of study that they genuinely enjoy, they make a career and a life out of it, right? He exemplifies how most households that produce good students do so with a reward system, whether that reward is a parent’s love, more social freedom to spend with peers, or a spot on the Dean’s list. So why not money? Additionally, he compares this system to modern adulthood. How many adults in this country work a job they dislike for the simple reward of money? I would argue a majority. Is it that crazy of an idea to prepare kids for this lifestyle at a younger age? “It is very difficult for anyone, even the most motivated adult, let alone a hormone-driven, attention-wandering teenager, to love learning algebra or grammar.” Prager writes, “we should not care so much why young people learn math, history, foreign languages, and how to write properly. We should be concerned that they do learn these things.” Personally, I think he has a point. We live in a society that is motivated by money, and I imagine that a great many aimless school children would become dedicated students if there were monetary rewards attached to good grades. Of course, I am not a parent, and will not be involved in any educational decision making for any young people anytime soon. The point is that thinking twice about this subject changed my perspective.While the chapters of this book differ widely, they all tend to touch on different aspects of our societal norms. One of the recurring themes is the focus on goodness and evil. Prager notes how most parents want their kids to be good people, but “few parents actually make their child’s goodness their primary concern. Most parents are more concerned with their child’s being a brilliant student or a good athlete or a successful professional.” Our esteemed author is a practicing Jewish man, and he attributes a lot of society’s current problems between good and evil to the rise in secular ideologies and the subsequent decline of religiosity. While religion teaches people to be good in accordance with God, “more evil has been committed, i.e., more innocent people have been slaughtered, tortured, and enslaved, by secular ideologies in this century—Nazism and Communism—than by all religions in the history of the world combined.” On this point he is factually correct. “It has been the societies influenced by Judaism and Christianity that first outlawed human sacrifice and slavery, raised the status of women to its present unprecedentedly high level, and created democracy. And in these societies, literature and the arts thrived as nowhere else.” Again, he is factually correct. Makes you think twice, doesn’t it?In another essay, Prager makes a good case for capital punishment (the death penalty) for convicted murderers. It A) gives the family of the victim a sense of closure and relief; B) gives the community and society a sense of justice; and C) would discourage others from committing murder. Personally, I think a 25-to-life prison sentence would be worse anyways. Living a life in a cage is no life at all and I feel great sorrow for all the men and women spending their days behind bars, in this country and in others.In April of this year I was in Hawaii for a week to celebrate my mother’s birthday and take a much needed vacation after a year of Covid lockdowns. While we were there, we went out to dinner with some of her friends who were also on the island visiting, and I found myself at a six-person table in the middle of five chatty older women. The evening of our dinner party was the same day that Derek Chauvin was declared guilty of the murder of George Floyd—and he will most likely spend the rest of his life in prison. The other five women, my mother included, were jovial and celebratory of the verdict, and when they heard the news they high-fived each other and cheers their drinks. I participated in physical form, but on the inside I felt very uncomfortable about it. I felt like they were not celebrating the justice brought to a community and nation and were more excited about the fact that he was being punished. I don’t care what crimes a guilty individual has committed, I will never celebrate when a human being is sentenced to spend the rest of their life in a cage. It seems wrong and inhumane to me. Was he guilty? The jury says yes. Did he deserve his sentence? Again, yes. But I don’t think celebration is the correct response and it made me feel dirty inside. Had they been celebrating an accurate appraisal of the justice system, that would be acceptable, but they were not. I pity Derek Chauvin and whatever remains of the rest of his gloomy life behind bars. I truly believe that a humane death sentence would be preferable to life in prison. Why not give the convicted person a choice as to their punishment?Again, Prager has more to say on good and evil when he writes that “A great deal of evil emanates not from selfish or cruel motives, but from good motives. This is particularly true regarding extremism.” We have all seen the rise of political and ideological extremism in our country these past few years, and for those of us moderates in the middle, it has been an increasingly confusing time. Whether you are an extremist on the Right or the Left, we all want the same things: to live in a happy, healthy, safe, and prosperous society. It is surprising how many of us have forgotten the simple fact that we all have far more in common than we do different. We would do wise to remember it, and take some advice from Prager: be good people, because good people with strong moral values make a good society. So think twice about some of your ideas and beliefs. Think twice about why other people think the things they do, and consider their point of view before reaching for judgment. Think twice about your own decisions and their potential affects on others.