Joe Rogan was born in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts.
Rogan was raised a Catholic, which he says is the reason he doesn't "take religion that seriously,"[1] something he said as part of a comedy routine where he picks apart the logical fallacies in the Bible–so it must be taken with a grain of salt.
But when it comes down to it, Rogan is extremely critical of the Catholic Church. He sees it as an institution of control, that has somehow managed to oppress people through the ages because of a "nonsense fairytale."[2] Speaking of the Bible and those who take it at face value, Rogan said:
C'mon, just shut the fuck up. Just stop it. You're talking goofy nonsense.[3]
Rogan is highly skeptical of anyone who claims to have cosmic answers, Catholic or otherwise, and blames them for a) many of the world's conflicts and b) getting in the way of people who really are looking for answers. ((Joe Rogan on Religion. YouTube.)) He takes a sort of militant agnostic's view, saying:
When are we going to get past this? When are we going to step up and say: No one knows, you don't know, don't say you know, if you say you know, you're crazy.[4]
But if he will speculate on the possible nature of God, his ideas come off as vaguely pantheistic. He once mused:
If there is a God, what God is, is the energy that creates everything. It might not be a conscious thing, or it might be all conscious things together as one thing in some sort of a framework that we can't even recognize.[5]
Scale it down, Rogan
Rogan's politics are sort of frenetic. He seems to be a guy who is appalled by a lot of the sociopolitical things he sees going on in the world, and will rail on about it, but it doesn't really equate to a consistent political philosophy.
If anything, it's a distrust for the government. He and his buddy, radio host Alex Jones, get together sometimes and talk about all the corrupt and shady things government will get into.[6] It could be interpreted as some rather fringe, conspiratorial ideas. (Rogan thinks the moon landing was a hoax, by the way.[7] )
But if we're going to nudge Rogan a bit toward the mainstream, he's probably closest to a libertarian. His distrust of the government naturally leads him that way–and he's one of these guys who seems to think everyone does–or should–agree with him. He said when talking about Ron Paul (whom he endorsed in 2012):
I think it's interesting that [Ron Paul], who says all this shit about making the government smaller, which everybody agrees on, stuff about lowering taxes, and just a lot of common sense small government stuff, and you'd think there would be a groundswell of conservative people behind him… Our government's fucking out of control. We're governed too much.[8]
To try and wrap Rogan up would be very difficult. He's obviously a critical thinker who doesn't want to be pigeonholed or classified. He doesn't take things at face value, questions prevailing paradigms and surely doesn't mind telling you what he thinks.
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