Chuck Lorre Tells Joe Rogan That Abandoning God Leads Societies Toward Tyranny

Chuck Lorre, the television producer behind “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory,” told Joe Rogan this week that societies which discard belief in a supernatural god tend to replace that belief with devotion to political extremes.

Lorre appeared on “The Joe Rogan Experience” Tuesday, the same day his memoir, “Sitcom: A Memoir,” was released. He was raised Jewish, later joined the Church of Scientology, and has since described an interest in Buddhism.

During the conversation, Lorre argued that wealth and fame fail to deliver lasting fulfillment.

“It’s not the real solution. The real solution, you know, I’m going to say it and then regret it, but the real solution is a spiritual solution. You have to find something beyond this world,” Lorre said.

When Rogan asked why he expected to regret the comment, Lorre said he didn’t want to be lumped in with “new age bulls—.” Rogan responded that he thinks the word “spirituality” has been co-opted by people who have given it a “bad name,” while noting he knows people who are “legitimately spiritual,” including a Christian acquaintance who builds homes for homeless people and helps them recover from addiction. Lorre agreed, calling such people “real” and “role models.”

Lorre went on to observe that humans are distinct from animals in that they construct religions to organize their understanding of the world.

“You wanna call it true or not, it’s an organizing element that no other animal does,” Lorre said.

He added that the factual truth of any particular religion matters less than the function it serves — and that when societies strip God out of that function, something else fills the void.

“When civilizations or cultures that took God out of the picture, they replaced it, with the Communist Party, with a fascist dictator. You know, it’s the same idea: ‘Organize around me. Doesn’t matter if I’m right or not, organize around me.’ And people will,” Lorre said.

Lorre likened shared religious belief to a tent pole holding up a society’s sense of reality, warning that challenges to that belief can provoke fear and anger.

“And if you take that away from them, they get angry. It freaks them out because it’s like the tent pole. That tent pole moves, the tent comes down and everything, you know, if you believe that this is the truth and someone says, ‘No, it’s not. It’s bulls—.’ Everything else you believe is in fair play. Everything,” he said.

Lorre has not shied away from political commentary himself. Last month at the Project Angel Food Angel Awards in Los Angeles, he used his acceptance speech to call President Trump a “Russian asset,” joke about whether Trump had suffered a fatal heart attack, and describe the first lady as “a surgically enhanced, cold-hearted Yugoslavian escort who clearly hates her husband.”