Joe Rogan is not a religious man. He has been open about his opposition to organized religion from his early days as a stand-up comic to the largest podcast host in the world. Even as he has had theologians and believers on to make the case for their religion.

And the UFC host, who was raised in a Catholic household and went to a Catholic school, has revealed where this opposition comes from on episode #147 of the JRE MMA show. The new bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and the latter’s coach Tim Welch were also a part of the episode.

Joe Rogan reveals how his step-father shaped his beliefs about religion

In the conversation with O’Malley and Welch, he told them how his mother and father split up when he was little his step-father was a hippie and living in a liberal city like San Francisco at the height of the anti- Vietnam war movement made him go sour on religion.

“Well my parents split up when I was young and then my mom, when my mom married my stepdad, my stepdad was a hippie. And we lived in San Francisco from the time I was seven years old. So it was like the height of the Vietnam war, the hippie movement was in full bloom. My stepdad had long hair. We lived around all these just like counterculture people… So there was no religion,” the UFC commentator said.

Rogan’s estranged relationship with his biological father

Joe Rogan has had an estranged relationship with his biological father and hasn’t spoken to his father and namesake, Joseph Rogan Sr., a former police officer. Rogan has been open about his biological father being violent and abusive. “My real father was crazy. He was like a psychotic person who beat the f–k out of my mother, he beat the f–k out of my mother. He picked my cousin up by the hair and threw him” Rogan has said about his father. Rogan’s biological father and sister, however, have rubbished the claims of abuse.

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Certain understandings and theories of human psychology hold that a what and who a person is can be traced to their childhood experiences. And given the childhood experiences of Rogan, including growing up around hippies, his adverse experiences at Catholic schools, and the absence of religion in his early days, may explain his atheism.

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