Sometimes I think with conservatives like these, who needs lefties?
Dennis Prager, a very prominent Jewish conservative, the founder of PragerU, came out and said this nonsense during a Jordan Peterson roundtable over at The Daily Wire on the Book of Exodus.
During a roundtable discussion about the Book of Exodus, Dennis Prager, a prominent conservative talk-radio host and self-described "religious Jew" (not Orthodox), said that "men want variety," and if viewing pornography is a "substitute for adultery, it's not awful." He also said that a man looking with lust towards a woman "is not a sin in Judaism."
Ahh yes, just what the religious rightwing movement needs at this moment, to be soft on pornography and denial of sin.
Here's the clip:
I understand that Prager may have different religious beliefs, but if there is one truth conservatives must rally around given society's off-the-rails sex-and-gender implosion, it's that pornography is a great and destructive evil.
Excusing the sin of lust is not the way forward. It is merely a softer demon than the ones that now stalks the halls of abortion clinics, family drag shows, and trafficking operations.
Pornography is the root of so much evil.
Here's what Jesus had to say in Matthew 5 (the passage Prager explicitly shot down):
You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Here's another verse Prager should heed from Luke 6 regarding his beliefs on the line between thought and behavior:
A good tree doesn't produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn't produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren't gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
Perhaps Job 31?
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. For what is our lot from God above, our heritage from the Almighty on high? Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong?
Or Genesis 4?
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."
Is being a voyeur in other people's sex acts an innocent thing? If Prager reads the Old Testament, can he find a single verse where God talks about adultery and unfaithfulness where God is not angry and the punishment is not death?
