Peter Thiel (CEO co-founder of Palantir) realised the religious right are a fanatical base of support if you can get them on your side. So that’s what he’s trying to do.
People are complicated, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around a gay man being a true far-right christian in 2025. There are religions compatible with being LGBT, but it’s just hard to reconcile that with modern christo-fascism.
I don’t recall the link for now, but there was a fairly long piece a couple of weeks (months?) ago that went into the Thiel religious awakening. The short version is that he doesn’t necessarily believe in Jesus so much as he believes that organized religion is so important as a binding agent in society that you’re better off pretending to believe in it, advocating for it, and imposing it by force if it seems necessary, all to satisfy the human need for mimesis, or imitative desires and behaviors.
Society’s movement away from Christianity in particular as a uniquely humane and sophisticated global-ready religion means it’s okay to fall back on older “tribal” religious patterns like assertive scapegoating to reimpose the world order. There is room for regions of the world with independent traditions to impose them as a means of having a safe and orderly society, because it allows the Christian region to interact with a relatively small number of competing ideologies, which satisfy similar psychological needs for their populations, and therefore a balance can be maintained. It’s better for the system if most people hold sincere beliefs about the supernatural aspects, but it’s not utterly critical, particularly for elites, as long as folks legitimately buy into the societal repercussions of failing to rely on religion for social control. It’s like Pascal’s wager on meth, which is appropriate because a lot of it dates back to a German guy who was a Nazi apologist through most of the thirties until being discarded by them right before WW2. Some of this is strictly IIRC, so be on notice, LOL.
Conveniently, all this allows the Christianized advocates for this worldview to declare any systemic threat to the triumph of their vision for world peace to be accurately-enough referred to as the Antichrist, and the things you’re allowed to do to oppose the Antichrist are quite broad.
JD Vance is thought to be well-ensconced in the ideology.
EDIT: Found it, plus a couple of others that discuss the same thing. Thiel is absolutely nuts, but not quite the way he’s sometimes portrayed.
He believes something incredibly toxic and nuts, but I’m not sure it’s exactly that Christianity is “true,” but rather that it’s just so incredibly useful that it might as well be, and therefore it’s not hypocritical to espouse it with gusto, regardless of what you personally think about the supernatural.
I’m not sure of that.
He certainly sounds like he does. But what he says is just a little too out there, and too self serving, for someone that clever to easily convince me they actually believe it.
I think Thiel might actually be crazy and believe his own pseudo Christian narcissistic bs. He was raised fundamentalist. He’s starting a weirdo evil billionaire cult Acts 17.
Peter Thiel (
CEOco-founder of Palantir) realised the religious right are a fanatical base of support if you can get them on your side. So that’s what he’s trying to do.Hasn’t he always been a weirdly Christian tech guy?
It’s possible, but not that I’m aware of
Oh no, it’s even worse. He actually believes in the religious stuff he’s talking about. Not just a manipulative schemer, a true believer.
People are complicated, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around a gay man being a true far-right christian in 2025. There are religions compatible with being LGBT, but it’s just hard to reconcile that with modern christo-fascism.
The Episcopal Church of theUSA is welcoming to LGBTQ+ folks as is the United Church of Christ. Thiel isnt part of those though.
I don’t recall the link for now, but there was a fairly long piece a couple of weeks (months?) ago that went into the Thiel religious awakening. The short version is that he doesn’t necessarily believe in Jesus so much as he believes that organized religion is so important as a binding agent in society that you’re better off pretending to believe in it, advocating for it, and imposing it by force if it seems necessary, all to satisfy the human need for mimesis, or imitative desires and behaviors.
Society’s movement away from Christianity in particular as a uniquely humane and sophisticated global-ready religion means it’s okay to fall back on older “tribal” religious patterns like assertive scapegoating to reimpose the world order. There is room for regions of the world with independent traditions to impose them as a means of having a safe and orderly society, because it allows the Christian region to interact with a relatively small number of competing ideologies, which satisfy similar psychological needs for their populations, and therefore a balance can be maintained. It’s better for the system if most people hold sincere beliefs about the supernatural aspects, but it’s not utterly critical, particularly for elites, as long as folks legitimately buy into the societal repercussions of failing to rely on religion for social control. It’s like Pascal’s wager on meth, which is appropriate because a lot of it dates back to a German guy who was a Nazi apologist through most of the thirties until being discarded by them right before WW2. Some of this is strictly IIRC, so be on notice, LOL.
Conveniently, all this allows the Christianized advocates for this worldview to declare any systemic threat to the triumph of their vision for world peace to be accurately-enough referred to as the Antichrist, and the things you’re allowed to do to oppose the Antichrist are quite broad.
JD Vance is thought to be well-ensconced in the ideology.
EDIT: Found it, plus a couple of others that discuss the same thing. Thiel is absolutely nuts, but not quite the way he’s sometimes portrayed.
He believes something incredibly toxic and nuts, but I’m not sure it’s exactly that Christianity is “true,” but rather that it’s just so incredibly useful that it might as well be, and therefore it’s not hypocritical to espouse it with gusto, regardless of what you personally think about the supernatural.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-real-stakes-real-story-peter-thiels-antichrist-obsession/
I’m not sure of that.
He certainly sounds like he does. But what he says is just a little too out there, and too self serving, for someone that clever to easily convince me they actually believe it.
Yeah, he’s a bonafide nutcase
Ooga booga antichrist
Plz gib billions 🥺
I fight antichrist and help bring back Jesus! 💪
I just need billions 🥺
Peter Thiel is a co-founder and biggest individual share holder of Palantir with 3% of all shares. The CEO is Alexander Karp (also a total nut case).
Oh! I didn’t realise. Thank you
I think Thiel might actually be crazy and believe his own pseudo Christian narcissistic bs. He was raised fundamentalist. He’s starting a weirdo evil billionaire cult Acts 17.