You have so many books. A lot of people think of you mostly as a political conservative but in your book, radical son where you talk but your life story, you reveal the side of yourself i as a writer would say i would call a good writer. Youre not just somebody with great ideas but you write well, and in this book, im probably not the first one to call it it has beautiful tone to it, resume nations, obviously on mortality and faith. Thats the title. When you decided to write this book well, let me ask you a simple question. Why did you write this book . People might assume radical son is your story. That was the story of my political transformation from a leftist, somebody who described himself as a marxist revolutionary to a conservative. At what point did you stop describing yourself as a marxist revolutionary, what year roughly. Roughly 1974, when a woman that i had recruited to keep the books nor black Panther Party was murdered by the panthers. That really was the end of my career in the left when he realized i was among gangsters and people who support evidence gangsters. Supported gangsters. What hit me is all of my friends defended the panthers and blamed bettys death on the black the white power structure, which is sort of what they do today only the blame it on trump and his White Supremacy. A lot of people dont remember that period but the violence of those years, its interesting to me dish if you dont mine buff we get into the new book, mortality and faith which picks up your story, for those who arent familiar with your story and with your seminal book, radical son i want to ask you if you dont mind reprise that story to give us a running start. I was raid by cardcarrying communists. Literally. Literally. Our whole community wanted stalin to win the cold war. And to create a soviet america. Where were you raised and what was the community some. I was raised in sunnyside, actually, grew up on bliss street in sunnyside. In sunnyside queens. Yeah. Host most people think of sunnyside or queens, the Upper West Side of manhattan, yes, plenty cardcarrying communists it what colonialized with the communist party. I lift in a development of row houses. Eleanor roosevelt broke the ground there. And they were built like english row houses and then the backyards, they had a commons, and the interesting thing was when the 40year easement was lifted on that commons, everybody extended their backyards into the center, which shows human possessiveness and instincts which is what the left is always fighting, which i why they end up with the gulags and the firing squads. Its you literally were raised among carriedcarrying communists who were root for stalin. Yes. How so . Thats a facinating idea. One thing to be leftist, one thing to be a democratic. Youre talking about something a little different. What was this group and who were your parents that you found yourself in this situation . Well, we could get into that with mortality and faith. People have a need first of owl this book is not a politics in it but its not a philosophical level. This is might be the best book ive written on people who have read it certainly feel in the writing and soing for in the writing is very beautiful. Ive read parts of this book all the way through. Thats a joke. Read parts of this book all the way through but what i have read, it is very writerly and very beautiful. So youre right right, its not a political book. Lets begin with mortality. Were thrown in a world, and people have a great need to think of their lives as meaningful. The idea that were all going to disappear some day and be forgotten is very hard for people take. So they develop various kinds of faith and their faith because you cant know that god exists. You can know through the i mean, i quote pascal in the back who says you can know how to the heart, faith, but you cant know with your intellect. Nobody can prove that god exists and nobody can proof he doesnt exist, or she or whatever. Imager viewing you so ill get it go. Youre a man of religious affects issue understand. But this my perspective. Right. And so people develop a faith, it can be socialism is one kind of faith or communism. Social justice is another. Or you can have a faith in a divinity, and the way i describe it in the book, to believe in a divinity who will sort things out after were dead on the other side, for now we see through a glass darkly as the new testament said and then only face to face. Thats to me a healthy faith. But the if you dont believe in a divinity, you cant most people cant face the meaninglessness of our lives. It doesnt amount its dust in the wind as the kansas song goes. For those people, to get meaning in their lives they get what i call a crypto religious faith which is progressivism, leftism, social justicism and that is the world well be made into the kingdom of heaven on earth really. I always he once had an interview who said how do you live without an escaton. Isnt everything looking for the same thing . Even misguided radical communists, leftists, i would say theyre misguided but all looking for the same thing but disagree on how to get there and what the nature of that thing is what the nature of reality is, but does seem to me that people who are look who maybe believe life has no meaning but cant stand the idea so they want to create meaning. The meaning is created by you recreating the world. You act as god and you you have a Green New Deal and going rearrange thing e everything, and the only way to do that is through a Totalitarian Police state and then you cant do it anyway. You just shoot a lot of people as the soviet union taught us in the last century. This is not a book of idea because theres a lot of narrative and a lot out of my life lessons. When you go through life you have to deal with death. I had a daughter who had a burg defect that caused her to die in ner 40s. And i take lessons from these. I try to deal with the infirmities of age. Science people dont talk but this too much but People Living like 10 or 20 years longer than they did because of science. But they do that because you have parties of you removed by surgeons and so forth. Ive done some of that in the book. At each point i try to give whatever wisdom i have from my life experience. You do some of what in the book. I talk about i had Prostate Cancer and when that metastasized so i had sear jones reengineering of my body. Thats your original head. The almost in the most important thing. He everything is is negotiable but the head at least so far. Well go to a break because its the eric metaxasshow but well keep talking as long as you can stay here. Mortality and faith reflects on a journey through time. Stick around. Its the Eric Metaxas Show and were on booktv. Time talking to david here ritz but ohio book, mortality and faith. How many books have you bulletin you have written a few books. Probably 20 that are worth reading. That are worth reading. What does that mean. Wrote quite few as a left e leftist that werent world reading. Host its funny tech think youyear a radical committed leftist. I did. This you werent playing at this. You were very seriously involved. Correct. And this its really the arguens of the vision in the book that to make our lives meaningful we live inside stories we tell ourses and the stories vary. They can be youll create a dynasty as one. All designed to give you hope or you are going back famous athlete and be in a hall of fame like in a thousand years anybody thats my story. It can happen. But i lived inside this story that i got from my parents, and my community, that we were going to change the world and my whole life was oriented around changing the world. Through communist revolution. Yes. Host in america. Yes. Threw communist revolution are thats what its supposed to do and ends we didnt have quite this litany but classes of racism, sexism, all going to be one big family. Thats the vision of progressives. United by . By this belief that in an earthly redemption. If you dont believe in that . If you dont believe in that, you get in the way. Know what happens the progressives killed 100 Million People in the 20th century. In the peacetime. So the progressive world view that youre describing is at odds with the American World view that we would call freedom or liberty. Thats at odds with human nature. Thats the big problem. Thats another story. Thats the key problem. Its like if you again look at the Green New Deal. They want to pay people who dont want to work. Thats an incentive to be lazy and to live off other people. The other people will resent that sooner rather than later. Those people then become problems. They become you identify them as racists or whatever you want to call them. People who disagree marginalized people. People who dont want to warm are merrillizeed and oppress. Its ridiculous. But theres millions of people who believe it and i would say ten or 15 of the 20 democrat candidates for the nomination also believe it. Let me ask you, because when you talk about we live inside stories, we create stories, because give our lives meaning and hope. But theres a couple of he illusion well its going to go on forever. Its so easy to forget that youre going to die. Its really very easy. Its a normal human denial. So this book really i talk about the stories. For example , juliet barnes, very a lot of jowlan barnes. Julian barnes, who wrote a number of i guess post modern novels. I cant think of the most famous one but what about im. A book called nothing to be afraid of, some is what didnt when he was a little okayed and was afraid of death. His friend said its nothing to be afraid of. And then the whole book is about this and the fact that as writer, famous writer, probably millions of people have read his books but he figures that in a generation or two, there will be nobody reading his books. Apart is his most famous book and most people dont remember it but it was quite a big book at the time. But so he sort of right about that, isnt he, that reading ways. So he called it our scratching on the walls of the prison, which is life, and this is a doesnt have a religious faith. Religious faith is a great consolation and thats why people are so passionately committed to ideas that have been proven to be incredibly die destructive like social justice and socialism and communism, because its such a consolation for the meaningless of our lives, and do you believe that life is meaningless . Im an agnostic, remember . I am an agnostic which is why im good witness on these issues. When you say that, when we were talking about communist radicalism, when you say that its at odds with reality, right . Is that what you said . With human nature. When you say its at odds with human nature, it seems to me youre saying that the american view is selfgovernment and liberty, what would say amore conservative view is not its odds with human nature. Correct. Well go to another break. When we come back i want to ask you because well talk but the coming up. Dont gory. Were october booktv talking with the author, thinker, David Horowitz this, muss book is mow at that time and faith, in this book were talking about the mean offeringlight. Youre talking about meaning of life and this idea that youre saying that your previous view, the communist view, the utopianist view, is at odds with human nature. Led to the murder of my friend and to the murder of 100 Million People in 20th 20th century and that story i lived inside was shattered. That is how i came to all these views, to look at it you only see a piece, there are people who are saving the planet and they get meaning out of that. But you dont look out that. You live inside it. Why . Because it gives your life meaning and if youre not saving the planet or the planet cant be saved, its probably even more likely, it shatters your personal peace. It takes away your consolation. You have to have seen that event in 1974 in a way as a severe mercy. Its took something that horrible to wake you up. I was clinically depressed for seven years. Seven years. Yes. At what point did you it . Wasnt an overnight shift. Well, how do you get out of that . Actually thats the subject of radical son. You put one foot in front of the other. You get involved. I had a writing partner, peter collier, and he for some reason well, he is a catholic and he had a faith and so why get interested in stories we did going to. We were journalists, and i had no interest in but i would follow him and because i had to support my children, i did that. And then put one foot in front of the other and of a while you get inside another story. At what point the life story now is i am going to save this country. I think this country is threatened by people who dont understand the founding. They dont understandy our freedoms come from. They have a contempt for the people who created our freedoms based on misreadings of history. So i understand this is a story and could be meaningless. Could be meaningless. Yes. Youre banking on the fact talk about being on the right side of history. History has no right side. Its not moving anywhere. Why do you say that . Well, its a classical view. In this book i talk about the romans and the greeks, they saw history as cyclical. Didnt everybody see history as cyclical until you get to the western christian biblical view of history. Everybody but the jews. Sen that true. Yes. Thats where the christians get it. I happen to know that. A lot of christians actually worship a jew. Always finding it out. Dont have to point it out to me. Its fact but i guess the question is, once the bible and the god of the bible enters history and creates at least in part, although mostly what we call the west and leads to what we have today in america, it is at odd wiz the idea that history has no right so it or not going anywhere. I think were well, its what reagan said. Were a generation away from losing all our freedoms. We have to fight for it in every generation. If the islamists win, and theres no reason they shouldnt, theyve cleverly infiltrated our societies, they have a barbaric view of the world. Theyre jewhaters. Theyre christianhaiths and ya sidy haters and theyve win its back to the dark ages and its all gone. So i everything is fragile in that sense. Not as fragile dish dont want to be an extremist because i think america is a lot of resilience but i want to get to the pelagian heresy. Heres the fundamental divide. The judeochristian view is contained in the genesis, the first chapters of genesis,ed a familiar eve were given a paradise much bert than the Green New Deal or socialism or communism. But you didnt die with no pain in childbirth, the fruit fell from the trees, but one condition and that is remain in the gorden and do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and other veil. Didnt want to do evil. And adam and eve showed that they they defied god and ate of the tree. Human beings enjoy doing evil. Human beings have always we have inside us all these we have free will. Thats the basic judeochristian idea, that god can easily compel belief. Jesus could have risen all the cross and come back today and do miracles, but god gave us free will which means the freedom do evil as well as good. And that human corruption is the problem. The source of social problems, all social problem issue is not society which there is no such thing. Just a collection of who we are as individuals. Its us. We have bad ten desis tendencies and we fight it. Youre saying this is issue shirt agreeing with the biblical view. I definitely do it but people on the left are followers of pelagius. He was monk in the 4th century a d. A. And he believed that sin against human nature; that human nature left to itself is good. Ing to pelagius. So sinning is going against your nature so he believed if people were good christians, awe all they had to do is to want to be good. I hate to cut somebody off in discussing the pelagian heresy but well be right back. Yao just talk but peligian hersy so continue. If you nodder that the source of our problems is us, is the corruption inside every human being, that has to be fought off. Just our selfcenteredness and you can see it in the infants. If you put two twoyearolds in a room with a lot of ties and leave for five minutes youll hear screams coming from the room. Once you understand that, you understand that people in government are more dangerous than people who arent in government because they have more power. Theyre the same people that cause the problems, and we see this all around us today. This corruption is just epidemic in our government. And even worse are the i what i call the social redeemers. People who think they can redeem the world remember well save the planet. Through politics. You already have environmental radicals talking about putting people in prison if they dont believe in Global Warming and stuff like that. When the sleetors thinned Green New Deal they say well, world war ii globalization so well live under a military regime. Great. Host they say this is watch much as execs stenshall threat as the nazi. Way tenant it to be so they can get power, and that you real end up with a totalitarian state. How can you confiscate 257 million gasguzzling, gas cars in ten years unless you have a military dictatorship. This is what people thats what makes you conservative. Your view of human nate talk to. People 0 the left think people are born good and Society Makes them evil. Corporations make them evil. Patriot track si. Dick cheney. He is behind it all but trust me. He is in a bunker bee anything the earth. Were just his puppets. So this idea is something that obviously you disagree with but i want to good back in the 70s you had the shattering experience of somebody you knew was murdered by the black panthers. How long did it take for you realized, i was with the wrong story, with the wrong almost instantaneous. My closest friends when i told them that the panthers murdered betty, they said it was the white power structure, and we have this today, where i actually a set of a black panther,coats, big icon of the left on Race Relations says theres no such thing is a black on black crime. Its white people are behind it. Its crazy stuff, but publish d. It is fascinating. I know this book mortality and faith, and its about stories and we grab on to stories lately, people call it narratives, and that is the question, were not going to have time to get into is in this segment but when we come back, i want to talk to you about whether there is an overarching narrative thats consummate with reality and i want to get do into that. Were talk giving David Horowitz mortality and fought is the new book. This is the Eric