alt Hacker NewsVatican Rebukes Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures in Rome
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It must be fun to be super rich. They live in high castles where few reach, and talk with cloud over their heads. They hold parties high in wine and drug, that flows down into the river through the aqueduct, then picked up by the masses.
These people are not interested the love and charity parts of Christianity. They are interested only in the hate and doom parts of it.
He seems like the kind of guy who was only ever a few bad days away from having a full-on break with reality.
I wonder if he's been talking to AI a lot and it pushed him over the edge to psychosis?
It seems these lectures are closed but does anyone have a transcript or writeup of the core arguments? I'd be interested to know what he is saying first hand.
At some point people are going to start asking awkward questions going all the way back to the PayPal mafia and everything that has subsequently happened. Thiel landing on the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group just looks too ridiculous, but is a thing, and now this guy goes off ranting about the Antichrist?
I am actually sympathetic to much of what Thiel has done, but the current arc makes the supposed Howard Hughes oddities look positively reasonable.
They don't own Rome anymore, the Vatican is their own country now thanks to ol' Benny. Anyway, both parties here are idiots with high opinions of themselves who actually believe in a pile nonsense, but which of the two has really caused more harm for humanity?
There is no "THE Antichrist" there are only antichrists, plural, normal not supernatural people and organizations that behave in a notably non-christlike way, and both parties here seem to qualify easily.
> spelling out Silicon Valley’s plan to weaponize religion in a war against democracy
:eye_roll: Is Google on board with that plan? Or Apple or Meta or Netflix or anyone? Who is “Silicon Valley” to this author?
Based on my recollection of The Bible and the Book of Revelation (it's been almost 30 years since I was last forced to read it), Peter Thiel and his ilk match the definition of what an "antichrist" is or should be.
For all Thiel's supposed invention, he's having a lot of trouble building a needle you can thread with a camel.
Not a great time for blasphemy.. I have to wonder where a fatwa would lead with the US' conservative religious allies.
Unlike a lot of the posters here, I find Thiel interesting.
I agree with his idea that humanity was stuck in a rut technology/progress-wise until the past few years, and I'm glad we're out of it. I wish we were building more stuff faster (housing, nuclear, renewables, electric cars, etc). I don't consider myself a "transhumanist" but I do think that humanity should orient itself towards overcoming what have been our fundamental limitations (scarcity, death, etc). Ultimately, that could lead to some form of transhumanism albeit in the far, far future.
Thiel's "antichrist" spiel is the idea that fear related to existential risks (climate, nuclear, AI, etc) will make people too timid, and lead to a one-world government that de-prioritizes progress and economic freedom, resulting in longterm stagnation. I'm not especially worried about that, but I do think that excessive timidity is a real problem. I don't mind that Europe increasingly doesn't care about economic growth and has made it harder to invent/build/create, but I don't want the whole world to be like that.
If you disagree with this broad view, think about it more concretely. Take the example of nuclear reactors. If we had been steadily building nuclear reactors for the past 70 years, they would be smaller, safer, more efficient, energy would be more plentiful, and climate change would be less of an issue. Ultimately it was excessive fear that led to the decline of nuclear energy. So, if you find the "antichrist" stuff bizarre and off-putting, at least consider the basic point: excessive fear is a real obstacle towards the goal of fundamentally bettering the human condition.
ehhh, for a lot of traditional Catholics neither Thiel nor Rome are Catholic currently so I think there would be disagreement with both sides here
I thought Thiel's argument was that the anti-AI crowd might tend towards a pagan primitivism (like with mentioning those like Greta) and authoritarian measures to stamp out technology with an Anti-Christ leader, emphasizing base physical pleasure over technological "progress". I guess that's one "End Times" possible trajectory.
Catholicism's not necessarily really for or against (classically) liberal democracies, with exception of specific configurations that might be condemned afaik with books like "Liberalism is a Sin" (liberalismisasin.com) or writings against the "heresy of Americanism".
The Vatican could have pointed to Catholic views of prophecy, like Rev. Huchede's "History of Anti-Christ", so people might compare views being presented: https://archive.org/details/huchede-history-anti-christ-best...
p. 11 says, in contrast to a top comment here that claims there is no singular Anti-Christ figure: "the Sacred Scriptures speak of Antichrist in various places as being a particular person or individual."
Rome has been thought to have fallen to modernism with the Vatican 2 changes, which sets them up more for accepting or bringing about the rise of an Anti-Christ movement in the views of some traditionalists
(can elaborate on anything if anyone requests it)
Ironic he fears the Antichrist yet backs Trump, who fits many of those traits.
> His florid arguments have the architecture of a conspiracy theory, weaving together random and disconnected elements to make grand assertions. And those assertions—cosmic and sweeping—are more concerning than convincing.
To this extent, Shpiel is like any zealot who stalks the halls of institutional religion.
However...
> Thiel is consciously seeking to position himself as a figure of religious authority, using scripture and philosophy to preach in favor of a capitalism that murders democracy. He clearly wants to recruit people to his cause, perhaps to start a movement.
Many US voters have already joined the movement and the current Presiking speaks and acts as though he has no intention of being removed.
US voters need to wake up if ever an awakening was needed. Home-grown lunatics and thieves now run the country. As oligarchs, they are positioning themselves to be untouchable by destroying democracy and the rule of law:
> his companies and allies embedded in Trump’s fascist regime and his protégé, JD Vance, a heartbeat from the presidency—Thiel has launched a campaign to herald the Antichrist.
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>but he still cannot stop talking about the Antichrist
Well with the antichrist in charge of the US, I guess he has a good example to follow :)
To me, all this shows is being rich still won't make you smart.
With that said, I wish the Pope would send a real message. Start excommunicating Roman Catholics who enable Trump. I would start with the ones on the US Supreme Court then move on to Congress and the VP.
Here's the Vatican's article (in French): https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/03/14/thiel-heresie-bena...
The title translates to:
>American heresy: should Peter Thiel be burned at the stake?
I wonder, if I was surrounded by wealth in the same way, if I would schedule talks on my wacky ideas. The blind encouragement of insurmountable wealth must be intoxicating.