Peter Thiel: On the Bible (Meeting of Minds with Jerry Bowyer, 2021)

Peter Thiel, the highly successful tech entrepreneur and author, discusses his mentor Rene Girard; the Bible, how we read it, and how it reads us; Jesus’ death and resurrection; atheism and the limitless escalation of violence towards apocalypse. ---Outline:(00:43) The Bible reads us(02:02) Cain and Abel vs. Romulus and Remus(06:05) Cross vs Resurrection(07:26) The Gospels are different from Death of Socrates(09:04) The Bible is discontinuous from pagan classics(11:30) "The idea that victims exist comes from Judeo-Christianity and nowhere else."(14:54) Was Nietzsche somehow extremely close to the truth of Christianity?(17:18) Pagan Pharmakoi, the ancient sacrificial medicine(19:48) Fascism and Communism(23:00) Girard on the Woes against the Pharisees(26:02) The cycle that leads to apocalypse(31:11) Steven Pinker and the story of progress(32:19) Is an apocalypse, such as a nuclear war, inevitable?(35:10) Being too sanguine about apocalypse makes it more likely(42:08) Is there an off-ramp? What would it look like? If we don't know, shouldn't we at least try to figure it out? --- Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY2EUl_3ncA