Joe Rogan - Is Mormonism a Cult?

Series, or something along those lines. See that's an interesting, I'm absolutely convinced most of these guys believe what they say. Now maybe they're bullshaders at the start, or they only partially believe, but they repeat the rhetoric, their followers give them positive reinforcement, they come to believe it. And you know David Koresh, he was, you know, I write down the barrel, he totally believes. Willing to die for his beliefs. And he also was having sex with everybody. Yes. It's another one. I mean it's so common. Yeah, it's almost cliche. I have a friend and his ex-girlfriend grew up in one of these sort of religious cults, and it was the same deal. The head guy was having sex with all the women, and you know he would have sex with different people's wives, and everybody had to let him. Yeah, same thing with the fundamentalist Mormons. What's his name that's in jail now? Jeffries. Jeffries. Jeff. Jeff. Is that it? Jeffries. It's not Jeffries? I'm not thinking of Jim Jeffries, my friend, the comedian. But anyway, yeah, that's how it gets corrupted. I don't know if you ever read John Krakauer's book, Under the Banner of Heaven. This is the guy, the mountain climber that did Into Thin Air and the one about the Alaskan kid. Anyway, he wrote this book called Under the Banner of Heaven. The Alaskan kid who died? Yes. The one they made that movie about? Yeah. What was that movie? Into the Wild. Into the Wild, yeah. So he did Into the Wild, Into Thin Air. Krakauer is a great writer. He's a great book. He starts to investigate the murder of this polygamous family in Utah. Just as a journalist, he's going to do a story for the New Yorker or something. And then he realizes, takes them down the path of this incredible world of polygamy, which still goes on. Now, legally, it's not legal, but they marry one and then the others are so-called sister wives and they're just there. And they live in these border towns along the border between Colorado and Utah, like Colorado City and all. I've been to some of these places. It's like a Twilight Zone episode. You go into this town, the gas station, whatever, it's like, oh, it feels kind of weird here. And so Krakauer discovered this whole world of going all the way back to the founding of the religion and what's the name? Joseph Smith. And he gets this revelation from God that, well, basically he's banging the woman down the street. He's married. And so he gets this revelation from God and Krakauer has this scenario in the book where he tells his wife, now, honey, I've been talking to God and you're not going to believe this, but he says, I have to marry this, you know, so-and-so down the street. He's like, oh yeah, well, I have to start seeing other guys. No, no, God was very specific about this. It's just for the guys. And how do I know you talked to God? Well, my buddies, they were there. They heard it also. And this is the first page of the Book of Mormon is an affidavit. These are the people that heard the revelation. They all sign it and it's like, okay, so this is how it starts. Well, when Joseph Smith started it all off in 1820, he was only 14. Yeah. That's what's, you need me a 14 year old, it's not a liar. That's right. They just learn how to lie. It's not even like that they're bad people. When you're 14 years old, you are a developing entity. Right. You know, like your frontal lobes not fully formed. You don't really know what you're, you're practicing sentences. You know what you're doing, trying to exert your influence. And this guy was just very creative. He was, and he got chased out of, and Paul Myra in New York is where he started. And then he moved to Missouri when basically he was in trouble with the law and other issues. And then he got in trouble there and he was killed. And usually this ends a cult when the leader dies. Now there's a, there's a kind of a, there's a critical period. If you get a new dynamic leader to take over, like in the case of Scientology, David Miskovich took over after Elron Hubbard passed over to the other side. And he managed to keep it going. Same thing with Bring Him Young. It was Bring Him Young that turned this little cult into a world religion. And they just went further west to Utah to get away from federal authorities. Now how much of a hit is Scientology taking from that Leah Remini series? I think, I don't, we don't, I've not seen any data like on memberships and they're all secret about that anyway. It's proprietary data. So who knows? I can't imagine they could survive. Well they could survive because they have tons of money through real estate investments, but I can't imagine their numbers could be doing anything but shrinking. Yeah, between the Lawrence Wright book, then the HBO documentary with featured. Just gripping stuff. Crazy. Yeah. And your dialogue with, with the Leah was incredible. And she's just a hero amongst, you know, seculars that fight against cults. That's really, that's really the best way to do it. Not top down laws against cults unless they're doing something obviously illegal, but just bottom up members speaking out. I had David Miskovich's dad on as well. Right. That was, that was sad. Yeah. That was sad because I felt like I was talking to a guy who felt like he wasted his life. Right. And lost his son. Right. And he brought his son into Scientology. The whole thing was, that was really disturbing. Yep. It's just, it's just very strange that the United States government is allowing those people to be tax exempt. I mean, with all the evidence that's available. Yes, I know. Go and look at what they're proposing and what they believe and the Thetans and the frozen entities that were dropped into the volcano. All the crazy shit. Well, the story about their, this is what really worried me about the IRS. I mean, I've always thought, you know, I don't fear the hell or the devil, but I fear the IRS. You know, I take, I'm pretty careful about that, but they're the only major organization I've ever seen that beat the IRS and they did it through thousands of lawsuits. I think they sued him like 3,500 times or something. Well, they had every single member that they could get to do it and sue them as well. They were getting all their members to sue it. They were suing. I think that was the story. Isn't that how it worked? Yeah. And eventually the IRS just said, okay, if I get your tax exempt. Which, I mean, if they're letting the Mormons do it and why wouldn't they let the Scientologists do it? I really don't think any religion should be taxed. No, I agree. It's ridiculous. I agree. I mean, in 2018, with what we know about reality, the fact that we let some old voodoo superstitious nonsense not have to pay taxes and exert extreme power politically, socially, economically. It's crazy. Well, and they, like preachers get it, they can live in a house tax free. They don't have to pay property tax on the home that they own. So there's a lot of these side benefits also that you don't normally hear about. So gross. So the freedom from religion foundation and some of these other organizations, ACLU, are trying to combat some of this. But legally, how do you distinguish that from say a nonprofit like Doctors Without Borders or one of these other groups? Well, the Clinton Foundation. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was some statistic recently in the Clinton Foundation, how much money in 2014 they actually donate to Cherry. Oh Christ. It was like 6%. Something like extremely low. The rest of it, payroll. Oh yeah, mostly expenses. Private flights. I mean, that's what it is. They're scams. Yeah. Yeah. It might be good to just clean house and just no one gets a tax free status. Yeah. Unless you're just, well, I don't know. I feel like there is room in the world for compassionate charities that are actual charities. Yeah. They're really legitimate. There's room in the world for them. And I think that they should have tax exempt status. But I think we should be really stringent about what we accept. Yeah. Well, the Supreme Court then, they have a problem is where do you draw the line? Right. Somebody says, well, I have a goofy belief that the Jains have some weird beliefs or something, but they're manning the soup kitchens. They're helping the poor and there's no corruption. So what's the difference between them and the Scientologists is to say, hey, we have our own religious beliefs that to you sound goofy, but to us they're true. What's the difference? Well, the Mormons are fascinating to me because they do seem goofy when you look at the idea that Joseph Smith, who was a 14 year old, found golden tablets that contained the lost work of Jesus and only he could read them because he had a magic seer stone. And then when the local towns people came to see, well, where are these stones? Oh, the angels came and took them away because you did not believe it. It's so preposterous, but Mormons are really nice people. Totally nice. They are the best cult. They're the sweetest, nicest people. Well, I think they've made the transition from cult to religion, to a religious sect. And most Christians no longer consider them a cult. Some evangelicals do because they're pretty far out, but most mainstream Christians say, yeah, yeah, they're Christians. I mean, they accept Jesus as their savior. And technically that gets you in the club. They just got to let all that Joseph Smith stuff go. Yeah. Because the way they treat people is fantastic. I mean, I'm not a big fan of them going to these poor countries and proselytizing and getting these vulnerable people to become a part. But I think the way they deal with community and the way they deal with each other, it's a very warm and friendly and family environment. And most of the Mormons that I've met that are practicing have been very nice people. Yeah. And they're serious about their tithing and the 10%. I mean, they have strict rules about this, like capital gains, its equivalent on capital gains. So if you sell your house and make a profit, you got to give 10% of that to church, not just your income, not just your paycheck. And they're pretty strict about that. And the money, as far as I know, mostly goes for good causes that really does help poor people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.