What did the Founding Fathers believe about religion? Were they Christians, or just deists? Did they believe in secularism, or did they want Americans to be religious? Joshua Charles, New York Times bestselling author and researcher at the Museum of the Bible, explains. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2ylo1Yt Joining PragerU is free! Sign up now to get all our videos as soon as they're released. http://prageru.com/signup Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips. iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ PragerU is on Snapchat! JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/29SgPaX JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2c8vsff Script: What were the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers of the United States? There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding this subject. But there shouldn’t be. Because of their prominence, I will discuss George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin—our nation’s first three Presidents, and the man referred to as “the First American”—all of whom, even if some did not individually adhere to orthodox Christianity, were steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here’s what we can say for certain about their religious beliefs. 1) All of the Founders believed in a transcendent God, that is, a Creator who exists outside of nature. 2) All the Founders believed in a God who imposes moral obligations on human beings. 3) All the Founders believed in a God who punishes bad behavior and rewards good behavior in an afterlife. The notion that any of the Founders believed in an impersonal deity who merely created the universe and then left it to itself is false. All of them believed in a God who, as Franklin said at the Constitutional Convention, “governs in the affairs of men.” Let’s start with George Washington. Washington’s writings, both public and private, are full of references to the Bible. This is certainly true during his eight years as the first President of the United States. Here is Washington at his first Inaugural: “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” In all likelihood, Washington was an orthodox Christian. Like Washington, Benjamin Franklin also referenced Bible verses, stories, and metaphors throughout his life. His calls for prayer at the Constitutional Convention were typical of his attitude. Franklin, who had his own unorthodox views, summed up his faith this way: “That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.” While the religious views of Washington and Franklin are clear, those of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson are more complicated. Adams referred to himself as a Christian throughout his life, but did not believe in traditional Christian doctrines such as the trinity or the divinity of Jesus. Nonetheless, before, during and after his tenure as President, Adams repeatedly asserted his admiration for the Christian faith: “Those general Principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the Existence and Attributes of God,” he wrote. Likewise, Adams spoke of his great respect for the Bible. “[T]he Bible is the best book in the world. It contains more of my… philosophy than all the libraries I have seen…” Those who suggest that Adams was against religion like to quote from a letter he wrote to Thomas Jefferson in which he said, “This would be the best of all possible worlds if there was no religion in it.” For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/were-founders-religious

In recent years, many academics and others have condemned President Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as unnecessary and immoral. Yet this interpretation relies on a poor understanding of history that both lacks perspective and ignores context. Dropping the bomb shortened the war and saved countless lives -- both American and Japanese. In five minutes, Professor of History at Notre Dame, Father Wilson Miscamble, explains. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2ylo1Yt Joining PragerU is free! Sign up now to get all our videos as soon as they're released. http://prageru.com/signup Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips. iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ PragerU is on Snapchat! JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/29SgPaX JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2c8vsff Script: President Harry S. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved to be one of the most controversial decisions in American history. As the years have passed, the controversy has only intensified. More and more people -- both in America and abroad -- have condemned both President Truman and America for that decision. But this criticism is based on limited historical knowledge of both the situation Truman confronted and the basis for his decision. Such flawed analysis has been aided by the unfortunate influence of some very bad history, such as that written by members of the so-called "atomic diplomacy" school. These historians disgracefully alleged that Truman proceeded to drop two atomic bombs on a Japan, which he knew was on the verge of surrender, so as to intimidate the Soviet Union in the already developing Cold War. That specious interpretation must be refuted fully. Truman sought to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two major military/industrial targets, to avoid an invasion of Japan, which Truman knew would mean, in his words, quote, "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other," end quote. His assumptions were entirely legitimate. By July of 1945 the Japanese had been subjected to months of devastating attacks by American B-29s, their capital and other major cities had suffered extensive damage, and the home islands were subjected to a naval blockade that made food and fuel increasingly scarce. Japanese military and civilian losses had reached approximately three million and there seemed no end in sight. Despite all this, however, Japan's leaders and especially its military clung fiercely to notions of Ketsu-Go ("decisive battle"). In fact, the Japanese government had mobilized a large part of the population into a national militia which would be deployed to defend the home islands. Confirming the Japanese determination to fight on is the fact that even after the use of atomic bombs against both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military still wanted to pursue that desperate option. The atomic bombs forced Emperor Hirohito to understand clearly, and in a way his military leaders refused to comprehend, that the defense of the homeland was hopeless. It took the unprecedented intervention of a Japanese emperor to break the impasse in the Japanese government and finally order surrender. It was only the dropping of the atom bombs that allowed the emperor and the so-called peace faction in the Japanese government to negotiate an end to the war. All the viable alternate scenarios to secure American victory -- all would have meant significantly greater American and allied casualties and much higher Japanese civilian and military casualties. According to American military estimates at the time, those numbers would have been well above one million. Hard as it may be to accept, Japanese losses would have been far greater without the bombs. And the overall casualties would also have included thousands of Allied prisoners of war whom the Japanese planned to execute in case of invasion. For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/was-it-wrong-drop-atom-bomb-japan

Is the European Union good for Europe? Or would Europeans be better off without it? Nigel Farage, a leader of the United Kingdom's Brexit movement, shares his view. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h Joining PragerU is free! Sign up now to get all our videos as soon as they're released. http://prageru.com/signup Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips. iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ PragerU is on Snapchat! JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/2aozfkP JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2aoz2y9 Script: If one big government is bad, imagine how much worse two big governments would be. But that’s what people living in Europe have had to deal with: their own nation’s bloated government and the super-national government of Europe, now known as the European Union. Bureaucracy times two! How’s that for a horror show? Well, actually, you’ve no idea. It’s worse than you think. Believe me—I know, because for seventeen years, I’ve represented South East England as a member of the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative body. I was also leader of the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, where I lead Britain’s efforts to leave the European Union. To their everlasting credit, that’s just what happened on June the 23rd, 2016: The United Kingdom left the European Union. The world knows it as “Brexit.” Brexit is a statement of national sovereignty. Don’t misunderstand me: I like nations. I like borders. I like the people that live within those borders making their own laws. But I don’t like it when faceless bureaucrats make laws for nations they don’t even live in. But that’s what they do in the European Union. Imagine a Belgian telling a Brit how much he can charge his customers—or the reverse. The EU bureaucrats do this in a myriad of different ways, all day, every day. It is a conspiracy of the elites. Who are those elites? Well, they’re a bunch of self-important, overpaid, social engineers with useless college degrees who have never done a proper day’s work in their lives and have no connection with ordinary, decent people. I’ll take the good sense of an Italian farmer or a French baker over the arid intellectualism of an EU bureaucrat any day. And I say these things not as an anti-European; I love Europe! It’s a fantastic, exciting, great continent: different peoples, languages, and cultures. But these peoples, with their languages and cultures, have effectively been hijacked by a giant, ever-expanding bureaucracy: the European Union. People will say, “but isn’t there a parliament, a European parliament, that represents the people of Europe?” Well, yes, but this body has got no real power; it can’t make its own laws. Rather, the power resides with the European Commission. They’re unelected and they can’t be removed, and that’s how absurd the whole thing is. The European Parliament meets in Brussels. At least, that’s what I thought when I was elected there. But once a month, do you know what happens? They load the contents of our offices and papers into big, plastic trunks, and they put those trunks on lorries, and they drive them nearly 400 miles down Europe’s motorways to a French city called Strasbourg where, for four days, the contents of our offices, and our papers, are put into a new office, and the parliament then sits there. Twelve times a year this back-and-forth happens, and this from an organization who say they want to reduce their level of carbon footprint! This, from an organization whose accounts have not been given a clean bill of health by the auditors for the last twenty years! This…a parliament? It’s more like a traveling circus. For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/brexit-why-britain-left-european-union

If you were mailing an extremely important package, you'd probably trust FedEx more than the U.S. Postal Service. But why? Is it because FedEx is a private company, while the post office is run by the government? What are the differences between the "private sector" and the government sector? Why does it matter? Find out in this animated two-minute video. Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2ylo1Yt This video is part of a collaborative business and economics project with Job Creators Network. To learn more about JCN, visit https://www.jobcreatorsnetwork.com. Joining PragerU is free! Sign up now to get all our videos as soon as they're released. http://prageru.com/signup Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips. iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys Join PragerU's text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful. VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com FOLLOW us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/ PragerU is on Snapchat! JOIN PragerFORCE! For Students: http://l.prageru.com/29SgPaX JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2c8vsff Script: If you had something really important to mail, would you head to the Post Office, which is run by the government and considered part of the public sector, or would you go to a place like UPS or FedEx, which are private businesses. Politicians in the media often talk about the private and public sectors of our economy but what's the difference? And which one is more effective? The private sector is made up of businesses or corporations owned by people. The private sector includes malls, grocery stores, and your local diner. To make a profit in the private sector, businesses must earn our money by offering us products and services that we want or need. When businesses have to compete for the same dollars, prices go down because no one wants to pay twice as much for shoes at one store if you can get the same pair cheaper at another place. On the other hand, the public sector is not supported by profits. It doesn't have to compete for our dollars. Instead, the public sector uses our tax dollars to fund its services. So we pay for these programs no matter how much or how little we use them. The government decides how our tax dollars should be spent in the public sector. This makes sense for some things. For example, you probably wouldn't want firefighters or police officers competing with one another for your business. In other cases though, this means things cost more or service is worse. The U.S. Post Office has $100 billion in debt and is regularly bailed out with taxpayer money. And the Department of Motor Vehicles isn't usually known for fast, friendly service. In contrast, private companies know that if they offer poor customer service and don't make money, they'll go out of business. When comparing the private sector with the public sector, it's clear that the market-driven private sector is more efficient. When you don't have to be profitable or accountable, things tend to be more expensive and the service is worse. So when there's a choice between a private sector or a government service, think about that package you really need delivered.