The term “Judeo-Christian values” is frequently used.
I am one who uses it.
I do so for the same reason the late great British prime minister Margaret Thatcher did:
“The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition,” she said, “are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the word, for which we all long… There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.”
Mrs. Thatcher was a believing Christian. I am a believing Jew. While we have some religious beliefs in common, we have different theologies. But we have the same core values. And in societal terms, moral values are far more important than theologies.
That is why traditionally religious Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and Jews are aligned on almost every important social issue.
Here are 10 of those values.
No. 1: There is one God. That God is the God introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible — the source of one universal morality.
No. 2: The Hebrew Bible (the only Bible Jesus knew and which he frequently cited) introduced the most revolutionary moral idea in history: that there are objective moral truths just as there are mathematical and scientific truths. Without God as the source of moral standards, there is no moral truth; there are only moral opinions.
No. 3: Because there are moral truths, good and evil are the same for all people.
No. 4: God — not man, not government, not popular opinion, not a democratic vote — is the source of our rights. All men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” declares the American Declaration of Independence.
No. 5: The human being is “created in the image of God.” Therefore, each human life is precious. Therefore, race is of no significance since we are all created in God’s image, and God has no race.
No. 6: The world is based on a divine order, meaning divinely ordained distinctions. Among these divine distinctions are God and man, man and woman, human and animal, good and evil, nature and God, and the holy and the profane.
No. 7: Man is not basically good. Christians speak of “original sin” in referring to man’s sinful nature; Jews cite God Himself in Genesis: “The will of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). They are not identical beliefs, but they are both worlds apart from the naive Enlightenment belief that man is basically good. And they come to the same conclusion: we need God-based rules to keep us from our natural inclination to do evil.
No. 8: Therefore, we must not follow our hearts. Both religious Jews and Christians are keenly aware of how morally dangerous it is to be led by our emotions. Those who reject Judeo-Christian values are far more likely to follow and promote the advice, “Follow your heart.”
No. 9: God gave us the Ten Commandments — the core of Judeo-Christian values. Therefore, to apply but one of the Ten Commandments to our morally confused secular age, you must “Honor your father and mother” even if they voted for someone you loathe — meaning, at the least, remain in contact with them and do not dare deprive them of the right to be in contact with their grandchildren.
No. 10: Human beings have free will. In the secular world, there is no free will because all human behavior is attributed to biology and environment. Only a religious worldview, because it posits the existence of a divine soul — something independent of biology and environment — allows for free will.
There is another important aspect to the term “Judeo-Christian.” The two religions need each other. Without the Old Testament, there is no New Testament. Virtually every Christian moral principle derives from the Hebrew Bible — not only the 10 Judeo-Christian values enumerated here, but such basic moral principles as “Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), “Love the Lord your God with all your heart …” (Deuteronomy 6:5), and “Love the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:19).
At the same time, Judaism needs Christians. It was Christianity that carried the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible to the world. This was acknowledged by the greatest Jewish thinker after Moses, Maimonides.
Thus, while people speak of “Judeo-Christian” values, people do not speak of “Judeo-Muslim” values. As the noted Jewish scholar David Novak writes, “Maimonides rules that Jews may teach the Torah to Christians but not to Muslims because Christians believe Hebrew Scripture in toto to be the revealed word of God, whereas Muslims believe that primary text to be the Quran; for them, Hebrew Scripture is a flawed revelation. Thus, Jews and Christians share a common revelation in a way that Jews share with no other religious community.”
The ultimate embodiment of Judeo-Christian values has been the United States of America. America’s Founders were Christians (some culturally, some doctrinally) who were rooted in the Hebrew Bible. America was founded not to be a replacement of Israel, but a “Second Israel.” Until recently, it was.
Dennis always provides food for thought. Rational thought and objective reasoning.
There is nothing rational, objective, or scientific about Original Sin, Adam and Eve, The Garden of Eden, A Talking Snake, Noah’s Ark, The Parting of the Red Sea, A Virgin Birth, The Raising of Lazarus, The Resurrection, The Ascension Into Heaven, The Second Coming, The Rapture, The Apocalypse, Heaven and Hell, Eternal Life, etc..
Religious mythology has its rational elements within a vast and overwhelming context of unreason and the illogical. Mythologies of all kinds, from different religions and different cultures, can have their rational and useful teachings, when interpreted in rational ways. But religion qua religion demands that the believer to take Holy Scripture LITERALLY and that is irrational and unhealthy.
Dennis Prager didn’t mention any of those things, you did.
Filled with Leaps of Logic, building to a Grand Finale of Irrationality that Scripture Must be taken Literally! He knows from experience that humans are like a “herd of cats”, each of us with Free Will doing our own will (path).
This will be great for THX. He hates Judeo-Christian values and Prager. And the funny thing is he has everything he needs pre-written down on his notecard Objectivist bible.
I don’t hate Jews or Christians, or even Muslims. There are even Liberals who are truly well-meaning, decent people, who simply are naive, ignorant, and maybe even useful idiots, but I don’t hate them.
As an Objectivist I’m simply trying to point out to everyone what the actual philosophical basis of freedom, liberty, peace, and prosperity on earth actually is.
Objectivism is the answer if your goal is to achieve freedom, liberty, peace, and prosperity on earth.
“In accordance with the principles of America and of capitalism, I recognize your right to hold any beliefs you choose — and, on the same grounds, you have to recognize my right to hold any convictions I choose. I am an intransigent atheist, though not a militant one. This means that I am not fighting against religion — I am fighting for reason. When faith and reason clash, it is up to the religious people to decide how they choose to reconcile the conflict. As far as I am concerned, I have no terms of communication and no means to deal with people, except through reason.” – Ayn Rand
Nice try hypocrite. It doesn’t really matter what Rand says. You are most certainly fighting against religion, because you smugly insult us daily.
Since you have no “terms of communication” and “no means to deal with people”, which is obvious maybe you should just shut up. Your Objectivist grift is massively failing.
Just go away.
And a hearty B.S. call goes out to you and your self serving answer.
You do not have the lock on the actual philosophical basis of anything, let alone freedom, liberty, peace, and prosperity on earth actually is. Considering we have had all of that off and on over the years without relying on your faux religion and it’s high priestess.
You will never get what you want by harassing everyone.
Whenever I read Prager, I am so sorry, and sad, for him. In so many ways he seems to be such a nice and wise man. The very idea that a man can live his whole life, and then die, having ‘missed it all’, is such a somber and sobering thought for me.
Some may not like what I will say next, but I will say it anyway. In the Bible, in the New Testament Book of John, John 14:6 is the following: “Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” (NAS). BAM, BULL’S EYE! END OF DISCUSSION!
Prager has rejected his own faith’s promised Messiah! And if you are angry at this comment, don’t be angry with me, THIS is what Jesus Himself said to people everywhere and for all times! I would say to Prager, and to Jews everywhere: you had better deeply ‘look into this’ because your eternal destiny depends upon it.
So, before Jesus said that, nobody went to the father?
That is why I fell out of the religion into which I was born and brought up as during Religious Knowledge sessions at school ( 2 per week ) when the Master said if one is not a Christion, their soul cannot be saved, I asked what about the people who lived before Jesus or had never had the opportunity of hearing re Jesus. The answer was ” that’s their hard luck “, something I could not accept and stopped believing in Christianity, studied Judaism, which I found I could more accept, almost became converted but stopped at the last stage as I could not accept the instruction gays etc should be stoned to death or thrown off cliff top. I also realise people accept the religion of the country or people in which they are born and live, ie do NOT think for themselves.
As Dennis said, it is values, not theology, that binds us. Theology is another subject for which I could rip John and the New Testament to shreds. End of discussion.
You could rip me to shreds, you say? No, you cannot. But you are rejecting the plain, express words of Jesus which I quoted above in John 14:6. Never good. From your comment, I immediately think of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:22 (NAS). “Professing to be wise, they became fools, . . . ” In fact, you might read the whole first chapter of Romans for the context of this other verse. In fact, you might read the whole New Testament–it’s your soul we are now talking about. You are merely trying to play ‘gottcha’ games, and I am trying to say to you that without Jesus Christ as your Savior you are ‘lost’, and if you die ‘lost’ your Soul/Spirit will exist eternally separated from God and be forever thereafter in a place the Scriptures call Hell. God gave to each of us Free Will (meaning the power to chose our own destiny) about this matter. You will both live forever as you have chosen, and you will miss in this life the peace and joy that comes from having a personal relationship with God.
The Jews are Gods chosen people, he gave them a place and has a place for them in His perfect plan. You need to read and understand the Bible more clearly.,
“Judeo-Christian” is a myth; a made up term by Jews to make Christians think we’re all alike. We’re NOT all alike. Jews murdered Jesus Christ and they would do it again gleefully. Jews don’t even believe in Hell. This is the propaganda they spew explaining how Jews, 3% of the population own 25% of all assets in America. “We’re all like.” They don’t ever mention the Germans killed them when they got to 21%. Some historians agree that the Jews would’ve been killed Adolf Hitler not withstanding. And that is the truth.
I hate that we can’t edit these comments, so I’ll quote myself :This is the propaganda they spew explaining how Jews, 3% of the population own 25% of all assets in America. “We’re all like.” Was supposed to read it’s okay, we’re all alike; Haven’t you ever heard of Judeo Christian values?”
….”And that is the truth…?”
As Goethe stated, “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”
Oh dear Daniel, what a disgusting posting. It has been proved Jews did NOT kill Jesus , apart from not having the ability to do so. For millennia the Catholic Church had preached that and caused the damnation in Western eyes of Jews for 2000 years until Israel managed to get Jerusalem back and the Vatican took fright. As for the Germans, what they did is the most hideous crime in history. Britain and America can stand proud in that one enabled the re-creation of the State of Israel and the other has stood by and upheld Israel, despite the UN ruled by Muslim majority of countries. Despite the VAST difference in the number of Jews in the world compared with Muslims what are the respective numbers of Nobel Prize winners?.
Hitler was not the ONLY Nazi, plenty of others were equally as sick and evil.
Jesus lived and died a Jew, not a Christian. He was murdered by the Romans. As Dennis said, God has no ethnicity. So Jesus, the Jew, was not God.
Jesus, according to the Holy Scripture mythology, was executed by the Romans with the unequivocal and enthusiastic approval of the Jews.
“In the letters of Paul, which are regarded by historians to be the oldest works of the New Testament (written 10 to 20 years after Jesus’ death), Paul mentions, almost in passing, “the Jews who killed the Lord, Jesus” (I Thessalonians 2:14-15). While probably not central to Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ life and death, the idea that the Jews bear primary responsibility for the death of Jesus figures more prominently in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which have slightly different accounts of Jesus’ life….
All four gospels suggest either implicitly or explicitly that because the Jews were not allowed to punish other Jews who were guilty of blasphemy, they had to prevail on the reluctant Romans to kill Jesus.” – Martin I. Lockshin
“Who Killed Jesus?” – Martin I. Lockshin
Jews did not kill Jesus, he willingly and knowingly died for your sins and for mine.
So true. A PREDETERMINED HOUR. The hour of Christ’s arrest, trial and crucifixion was determined in the counsels of the Godhead from all eternity. Although slain by wicked hands, Christ’s suffering and death were according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Acts 2:23. JESUS WAS THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB FOR OUR SINS. This hour was predestined, and because predestined it was prophesied. Both Matthew and Mark, in their account of Christ’s arrest, quote his saying, “All this has taken place, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Matthew 26:56.
You are entitled to be an antisemite and hate Jews, but bear in mind that you will be judged for it by others. You are a hater that adds no value to any discussion.
Jews are unique individuals just as any other group. There are good and bad people in every group including Christians and conservatives. Antisemites are the bad people, not the good ones.
Your hate is no different than any left wing racist like Whoopi Goldberg.
Yehuda Levi, what did Ayn Rand say? Why did the Founders find it necessary to separate Church and State? Why is there a truce between Judaism and Christianity today, Yehuda Levi? Because reason became dominant over faith during the Age of Enlightenment. Most Jews and Christians today simply don’t take the crucial details of their theologies literally and deadly seriously today in modern, secularized, times. And the devil, as they say, is in the details.
“I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind—a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence. And more: no man or mystical elite can hold a whole society subjugated to their arbitrary assertions, edicts and whims, without the use of force. Anyone who resorts to the formula: “It’s so, because I say so,” will have to reach for a gun, sooner or later. Communists, like all materialists, are neo-mystics: it does not matter whether one rejects the mind in favor of revelations or in favor of conditioned reflexes. The basic premise and the results are the same.” – Ayn Rand
Wow, I have no idea what any of that gobbledegook means. Maybe you can explain it in actual English
You are a presumptuous little worm.
You really ought to stop telling us about Judaism and Christianity today. And you really ought to stop speaking for Christians and Jews. You have not a single clue. What any of us think.
You aren’t an expert on anything….just a jerk on a comment board
By the Power of His Word….spoken as revealed in Genesis 1….The Cosmos began. The observable Universe, more expansive than the mind of man can grasp, is thought to be only a fraction of what actually exists beyond the confines of our own corner of space. It is fitting and healthy for us to consider for a moment the immensity of God’s creation before we turn our gaze back upon His highest creature.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776. The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, When in the course of Human Events, It become necessary for One People to Dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal status to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.
We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident, That All Men are Created Equal. That They are Endowed by Their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Even as a little Girl I loved Israel, and the Biblical truth. I used to pretend I was Esther, or Ruth, or Rebecca, and play their parts in the Bible, with Joy. Heres Your Sign: God has provided His Word as an infallible testimony to His Person, His Power, and His plan.
We need only believe Him, and like Abraham, we will be credited with righteousness. In other words, the full counsel of His Word points to Jesus, (His Person), His Resurrection (His Power), and His Gospel. (His Plan.) The Curse he placed on Creation was in response to Adam and Eve’s disobedience and sin. Genesis 3:17-19 and being deceived by Satan. The Unprecedented Flood that covered the whole earth in (Genesis 7). because the corruption, wickedness, and immorality had grown in huge proportions, as well as the Fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of sexual sin, (Genesis 19.). The refusal to acknowledge the multitude of signs on this earth and miracles performed by Jesus assert in a parable that the( hard of heart will not be “persuaded”) even is someone rises from the dead. (Luke 16:31.). Jesus point was driven home in John 11 and 12. After He raised Lazarus from the dead, the Pharisees finally admitted that He was Performing, “Many Signs.” The plagues that came upon Egypt and the Pharaoh for keeping the Israelites in Bondage, more proof of God’s power. Those who deny truth will never see the Kingdom of God…They continue to stumble in their blindness.
When I was a little child I used to pretend I was a research scientist working in a lab. What I wanted more than anything was a microscope and a lab kit with test tubes, bunsen burner, and chemicals.
But my father, like the father in “Christmas Story”, would just tell me “You’ll blow your eye out kid”.
Your blasphemy and mockery of God is so acknowledged. Always an arrogant unbeliever who scoffs at truth.
Yes you are that full of it.
“Come on Man…..”You know the Thing.” Some People worship the CREATURE, rather than the CREATOR.”
Do you mean censorship as Florida and other states are practicing?
Virtue signaling. Like, I own and use an AK47 so trust me I’m I good person wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Thank God for His abounding Truth!!!! ROMANS 1:21. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds, and animals and reptiles.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. THIS PROPHECY IS FULFILLED. TO THE LETTER. GOD’S WORD IS TRUTH.
When we worship the CREATURE instead of the CREATOR, like many depraved people do, we lose sight of our own identity as those who are higher than animals….made in the image of God.