David Wolpe: belief

Transcript context

…When you look at Michelangelo’s David statue in Florence, do you feel that’s your David, or is that a Christian David being portrayed? And if so, what’s the difference? Here’s what I would say. He’s portraying the Hebrew David, but the idea of having such a magnificent David statue is a Christian idea. So if I could say it that way. Wow. Very good answer. On Islam, if we look at Islamic countries in the world today, we’ve all noticed in different ways — this is a generalization, but it seems to me a true generalization — their ability to be stable democracies seems problematic, at least right now. And I’m not just talking about the Middle East. If you look at places like Bangladesh, Malaysia, other parts, they’re somewhat democratic, but they don’t seem to mature into “normal democracies,” the way, say, South Korea and Taiwan have. And of course much of the Middle East: they’re not close to being democracies. And why, at the deepest level, you could explain — as a matter of intellect, theology, metaphysics — has the doctrine of the religion ended up correlated with this result?…

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