The Success of Mormonism Depresses Richard Dawkins | Joe Rogan

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. Those are really interesting to me. They are interesting, but because they're so young that we can see how they grow up. You can see the actual process. Mormonism, I'm depressed by how successful it is, actually Scientology as well, but Mormonism since, I mean 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 Outgrowing 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 he said was all about Abraham's journey to Egypt and lots of detail about Egypt and Abraham in Egypt and things. The original manuscripts were destroyed in a fire in Chicago and so he was safe from anybody exposing his translation. So it was discovered that actually some of these manuscripts had survived and they had not been destroyed. And modern scholars who actually knew the language, including some Mormon scholars, created it again, a true translation, which had nothing whatever to do with Abraham or Egypt. This is an absolute cast iron demonstration that Joseph Smith was a complete fake and charlatan. And this is fully documented and yet they go on believing that he was a prophet. And he was 14 too when he came up with it, which is even more bizarre. Was he? Yeah, 1820, he was 14 years old. I didn't know that. He was a little kid. Yeah. He was a boy with a fantastic imagination and it sort of caught fire. Yes, the golden plates which disappeared. Yeah, the seer stone. Look 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 are my favorite. They're my favorite. Yeah, okay. And they come on your doorstep and sort of... They haven't. If they did, maybe I'd change my tune. You all right over there, Jamie? Good? Okay. I'm also very interested in the, perhaps even more recent things, the cargo cults of the Pacific where again, these actually arose in living memory and the worship of John Frum in some of the islands in the Pacific where you can see what happened. And this gives you an insight into what must have happened with Jesus where the Gospels weren't written down until decades after Jesus's death if he ever lived, which he probably did. And so having seen how easily the cargo cults arose, people who worshiped John Frum, worshiped 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 literally... I mean, if you wanted to have a crazy religion, what would be the most ridiculous religion for people to believe in? And he even announced that he was going to do it. They still believe it. But if you're going to have the most ridiculous religion, you would say, well, get a fiction author, particularly a bad one, a bad science fiction author who walked around in a jacket with metals on as he gave himself and have that guy create a religion, a guy who is really self-diagnosing 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. I haven't read it, but I mean, I know the story. The book is fantastic. Yes. It's just so crazy. And it's so strange that to this day, people are clinging to it. And it makes you wonder, what is it about these systems of belief that are so intrinsically attractive to people, so uniquely a part of being a person, these belief systems? I think I get it when there's childhood indoctrination involved. But in the case of Scientology, some of the celebrities who joined it, that's not childhood indoctrination. No. That's just sheer rank stupidity. I think there's also an element of being a part of a tribe. Yes. 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 that there was a career advantage to being a part of Scientology. There were so many successful actors that were a part of Scientology. And they seemed to be disciplined and focused, and they were avoiding drugs and all the pitfalls of Hollywood fame and stardom. And they also seemed to be helping each other, that Hollywood directors who were also Scientologists would look towards hiring Scientologists, producers, and actors. The kind of Freemasonry that... Yes. Yes. It's a 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. That's a very important point. And tribalism is a very important part of human nature, a very bad part, I think. Yeah. And... But a rewarding part as well, right? Well, I suppose so. Stephen Pinker, you probably had him at some point. He makes the point that so much of what we believe, humans generally believe, is not about evidence, but is about, is this part of my tribe? Right. Does my tribe believe this? Yes. And Jonathan Haidt also makes the same point about Republicans and Democrats. There's a fierce tribalism going on. And 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 sort of irrationality, and to instead evaluate claims on the basis of evidence, critically evaluate it, scientific evidence. But it's hard because people have other motives, like emotion, tribalism, things like that.