The Success of Mormonism Depresses Richard Dawkins | Joe Rogan

the Joe Rogan experience young religions - as I've gotten older are more interesting things like Mormonism and more particularly Scientology which is even more preposterous probably the most preposterous one that we have though those are really interesting to me they are interesting but because they're so young that we can see how they grow up you couldn't see on the actual process Mormonism I'm depressed by how successful it is actually Scientology as well but Mormonism since when we know Joseph Smith was a charlatan everything about him screams charlatan and yet plenty of respectable people including presidential candidates men in suits appear to believe it in the case of I mean I discuss it in a growing God in addition to the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith purported to translate another book called The Book of Abraham which was in a different language some ancient Egyptian language and he published his full translation of the Book of Abraham which was he said was all about Abraham's journey to Egypt and lots of detail about Egypt and Abraham in Egypt and things the original manuscript was were destroyed in a fire in Chicago and so he was safe from anybody exposing his translation but it was discovered that he some of these manuscripts the device had survived and they had not been destroyed and modern scholars who actually knew the language including some Mormon scholars translated it again a true translation has nothing whatever to do with Abraham or Egypt this is absolute cast on demonstration that Joseph Smith was a complete fake and charlatan this is fully documented and yet they go on believing that he was a prophet when he was 14 - and he came up with it which is even more bizarre see ya 1820 he's 14 years old I didn't know that there was a little kid yeah just a boy with a fantastic imagination and sort of caught fire yes the golden plates which disappeared yeah and the seer stone into a hat it's just so strange to me that it persists but the people that practice the religion are so nice they are some of the nicest cult members I've ever met in my life yes I suppose so Mormons of my faith they're my favorite yeah absolutely even when they come on your doorstep and sort of they haven't if they did maybe I changed my mighty right over there Jamie good okay I'm also very interested in the perhaps even the even more recent things like the cargo cults mm-hmm the Pacific where again these these actually arose in living memory and I was of the worship of John and from in in some of the islands in the Pacific where you couldn't see what happened mm-hmm and this gives you an insight into what must have happened with Jesus where you know the Gospels weren't written down until decades after Jesus's death if he ever liveth which he probably did and so having seen how easily the cargo cults arose people who worship John from worship Prince Philip believed that cargo planes were sent by their ancestors and would build dummy airfields with dummy control towers and radar dishes and dummy planes on the airfield and things this is all within living memory and something like that it's just so transparent that something like that went on in the early church well the Scientology story to me is the most bizarre because it was literate I mean if you wanted to have a crazy religion like what would be the most ridiculous religion for people to believe in well and he even announced he was going to do it yes I still believe it but if you're gonna have the most ridiculous religion well you would say well get a fiction author particularly a bad one a bad science-fiction author who walked around in a jacket with medals arms he gave himself and have that guy create a religion a guy who is really south died noticing his own psychological issues and trying to deal with him through this concept of Dianetics yeah I'm sure you read Lawrence Wright's book go ahead read it but I mean I know the story the book is fantastic yes it's just so crazy it's so in it's so strange that to this day people are clinging to it and it makes you wonder like what is it about these systems of belief that are so intrinsically attractive to people so uniquely a part of being a person these these belief systems I think I guess it went as childhood indoctrination involved but in the case of Scientology some of the celebrities who joined it that's not childhood in the notion that's just sheer rank stupidity I think there's also an element of being a part of a tribe yes that especially the celebrity thing because I've met quite a few of them out here especially in the early days the 90s before the internet came along and sort of exposed a lot of this stuff and South Park before they came along and exposed it there was quite a few people that thought there was a career advantage to being a part of Scientology there were so many successful actors there were a part of Scientology and they were they seem to be disciplined and focused and they they were avoiding drugs and all the pitfalls of Hollywood fame and stardom and they also seem to be helping each other that Hollywood directors who were also Scientologists would look towards hiring Scientologists producers and actors they're kind of freemasonry then yes yes there's some strange thing that we are all very attractive attracted to being a part of a tribe and being a part of even if the belief system is ridiculous if we are in a group that subscribes this belief system it's very attractive to people it's a very important point and tribalism is a very important part of human human nature a very eat of a bad part I think yeah and the rewarding part as well I suppose so Steven Pinker you probably had him here some point he makes the point that so much of what we believe we humans generally believe is not about evidence but is about is this part of my tribe right what does my tribe believe this yes and Jonathan hi it also makes the same point about Republicans and Democrats yes there's that there's a fierce tribalism going on and it's it accounts for so much of what people believe as opposed to actually looking at the evidence the Center for inquiry which my foundation has just merged with is of course all about trying to get people off that sort of thing that of irrationality and to instead evaluate claims on the basis of evidence critically evaluated scientific evidence but it's hard because people have other motives like emotion tribalism things like that [Applause]

Channel: JRE Clips

Views: 1,569,986

Keywords: Joe Rogan, JRE, Joe Rogan Experience, JRE Clips, PowerfulJRE, Joe Rogan Fan Page, Joe Rogan Podcast, podcast, MMA, Joe Rogan MMA Show, UFC, comedy, comedian, stand up, funny, clip, favorite, best of

Id: Imud8xaGkmo

Length: 7min 31sec (451 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 21 2019