Peter Thiel is 1 of the most interesting representatives of Silicon Valley. He was the first in this environment to bet on Donald Trump, anticipating the later pro-Republician word "technoziomali". He is powerfully influenced by leading co-workers of the president of the United States – J.D. Vance, and until late besides Elon Musk. He presents his imagination of the future openly and, unlike his colleagues in the industry, is not afraid to talk on matters of religion and religion.
Peter Thiel is the founder of PayPal, a associate of the Facebook Supervisory Board and co-founder of Palantir technology – a surveillance strategy utilized by the U.S. Army and national police. Like the precursor of the alleged Hendging Funds, he inspired the contemporary "Face of Artificial Intelligence", Sam Altman, and introduced high-risk investment into the Arkana of the future US Vice President, J.D. Vance. Next to Raymond Kurzweil, Thiel is considered 1 of the most influential visionaries in the technology industry. It was him who was credited with a crucial share in Trump's election success; he bet on him erstwhile the remaining representatives of the industry's triumph seemed unrealistic. As a longtime associate of the Republican Party, he describes his political views as conservative-libertarian.
Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, but spent his childhood in South Africa among the German minority. He was raised in an atmosphere of spiritual Protestantism. He did not abandon his faith, even though he has been openly admitting his homosexual orientation for many years. In 2017, he entered a pseudomarital relation with financier Matt Danzeisen. Today, as 1 of the fewer representatives of Silicon Valley, he speaks openly in spiritual terms. He is characterized by his excellent cognition of the Scriptures; for example, erstwhile discussing faith, he throws Bible quotations like a sleeve.
However, Thiela's Christianity has an highly individual character, due to its Protestant background. He does not admit dogmas and traditions, although the stories recorded in the Bible are interpreted primarily by the prism of René Girard's philosophy, Catholic, Stanford lecturers and creators of the celebrated concept of scapegoat.
The American is convinced that man has received large freedom from God. This conviction extends to the borders of dangerously close deism. erstwhile asked if God was the master of history, he replied that “assigning besides much deed to God is simply a large problem.” Thiel absolutely disagrees with the anticipation of supernatural intervention into the created world. This approach is considered besides decisive and, in fact, "Calvinian". Confronted with the message that God had erstwhile straight interfered with man's history, sending his boy into the planet to deliver us from the darkness of sin and indirectly—the political shackles of the cruel planet of that time – Thiel stated: “I am not that Calvinist.”
This approach is peculiarly evident in Thiel’s fascination with the Book of Revelation. citing Girard, a technocrat not only rejects the supernatural origin of Armageddon, but opposes the concept of God's wrath:— We created weapons capable of demolition on a biblical scale. If it's over, we'll be responsible. Meanwhile, the full past of the planet is blaming the gods for what was solely our fault. In Girard's view, God is not angry, he does not gotta engage in combat, he is not our rival – explains in 1 of the interviews.
It can be said maliciously that specified a God is surely closer to an open homosexual, dispelling the communicative of Sodom and Gomorrah, not to mention the concept of sin calling for vengeance to Heaven.
Christian Transhumanism
The utmost humanistic grasp of Christianity allows Thiel to reconcile his religion with concepts whose common denominator is to transcend his own nature through knowledge. In the past, he has invested heavy in the technology of prolonging human life and cryonics, the method of freezing the body in anticipation of times of faster technological progress. He does not full agree with the Christian approach, which upholds that the glorified soul and the glorified body are the consequence of man's cooperation with God's grace, and the man who tries to fulfill the promise of eternal happiness with method tools will end up simply as a dystopian caricature.
– The way I realize Judeo-Christian tradition, for me it is about transcending nature. It's about crossing borders. The best message to describe a man is: we are fallen. The apparent message of Christian thought is that something is incorrect with you (as a consequence of first sin—ed.). And it's true. But with God's help, you can cross, overcome this reality – he spoke in an interview with Ross Douthat from the fresh York Times.
– From a Christian standpoint, transhumanists are not ambitious enough. Can we even call them transhumanists? Cryonics present looks like a 1999 retro memory. They didn't even decision forward with respect to the transcendence of the human body. Let's take a look at the head transfer, but I'd like to keep my body. I will not be content with a computer program that will simulate me... I don't want to throw everyone (transhumanists – ed.) into 1 bag, I don't think all they say is simply a lie, due to the fact that lying assumes bad intentions – adds.
Thiel is not an opponent of transhumanism, on the contrary. He believes that the work on physical transcending of human nature – extending life, creating a man in a laboratory, crossing boundaries (including sexual boundaries), uploading the head to the cloud – is incomplete if they do not besides concern the spiritual sphere. In a neckless effort to combine the 2 concepts of salvation – through supernaturality and through technology, the American does not see the contradiction that the adoption of 1 way automatically excludes the other.
It is impossible to service 2 masters; or we accept the full Revelation, consequently believing in supernatural human dignity (hence the Church's opposition to in vitro, abortion or euthanasia) or, as Jacek Dukaj says, we want to “take our own hair out of the swamp”. On the way, by violating natural law, e.g. in the form of genetic interference in embryos (human enhancement) or giving digital beings legal personality.
Who will the Antichrist be?
The desire to combine fire with water leads to this, especially in the late published Thiel’s antichrist concept. In a nutshell, a technocrat in the function of the biblical Antichrist puts 1 totalitarian planet government, built under the pretext of protecting humanity from existential threats: uncontrolled AI development, atomic war, climate change, biological weapons, etc.
– The political consequence to specified threats is 1 planet government. atomic weapons? The UN armed to the teeth to control it. Global management of information technologies. 1 global mega-computer overseeing the work of all computers (...) flowing from the atheistic doctrine the alternate is – 1 planet or none – explains in the already mentioned interview with the fresh York Times.
– How will Antichrist take over the world? In my opinion – constantly threatening the approaching Armageddon, on the way imposing further regulations (...)
In the 17th century, I could imagine an Antichrist as a figure akin to Dr. Strangelove (a mad scientist unleashing a atomic war – ed.), but present more likely to match Greta Thunberg – he added.
Although in any ways Thiel is right, the billionaire does not see the another side of the medal. Ross Douthat, the interviewer, pointed out that Thiel co-creates military surveillance technologies (Palantir) and combat technologies (Anduril), from which the possibly totalitarian government will benefit. – Wouldn't it be a gibberish of past if a man openly afraid about the Antichrist's arrival made toys for him, accidentally speeding up his arrival? – asked the writer what Thiel said only that he was “not convinced” to do so.
Looking at the conservative phrase in the United States, Catholics must take peculiar care. Though today's Silicon Valley representatives have left the paradigm climateism and Vokeism, ideologically they proceed to advance visions far from Christ's teaching. peculiarly dangerous are the attempts to “baptize” Christian thought with a gnostic-technology imagination of transhumanism.
It is much harder to separate between open opponents of religion and those who effort to sale heterodox ideas under the cloak of biblical orthodoxy. And as past teaches, many of the most dangerous ideas for mankind – specified as social Darwinism or real socialism – came from false interpretations of the promises contained in Scripture.
Peter Relich
