Artificial Theology

A few moments later, someone in the audience stood and offered a correction. “It’s not true what you said about Girard,” a man’s voice said.

Thiel—who often has a tendency to stonewall or steamroll his interlocutors—squinted in the speaker’s direction, trying to determine exactly who was pushing back. The voice had the rounded vowels and soft Rs of a recognizably Austrian accent and conveyed a quiet, familiar authority. “On many occasions,” the speaker went on, “young people asked Girard, ‘What should we do?’ And Girard told them to go to church.”

The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.

WIREDLaura Bullard

Please right now read Laura Bullard's article. It's long, thorough, insightful. Readers interested in what Peter Thiel is up to in tech and politics and, of course, wealth have engaged with it. I haven't yet found any theologian taking it up. Oh, but here's someone.

The voice belonged to Wolfgang Palaver, a 64-year old theologian from Innsbruck, Austria, whom Thiel had last seen in 2016, the year they both delivered eulogies at Girard’s funeral.

One of the things that makes me want to read whatever Laura Bullard writes next is the way she includes Palaver in the narrative, with what I'd call his pastoral concern for Thiel.

I've almost worn out my kneejerk incredulity and outrage at the comic book anti-theology Thiel is parading around. Lectures. Seminars. He says he's a "hard-core Girardian." He's a no-core faux-scholar peddling snakeless snake oil. Girard's theology has God in it; Thiel's version does not.

If anybody would like to chew on this with me, hello please.

Memory: in the summer of 2001? 2002? I flew from Newark to Albuquerque, rented a pickup truck and camped around NM for the first time. Part of the time, and the 'excuse' for the trip, was a conversation about Rene Girard's theology put together by a Presbyterian minister and attended by, I think, eight people at Ghost Ranch's Santa Fe place. Girard is still a puzzle to me. But an honest, real puzzle, not hyper-materialist artificial ... growl....grumble...

11/30

Silicon Valley Apocalypse Capitalism

“Maybe if you aren’t trying to destroy the world, you’re not trying hard enough.”

The Nerd ReichGil Duran

and a comment:

matthew fox
·14 Nov

Brilliant! Like so much of Gil's research and writing. And Prophetic--Rabbi Heschel defines the prophet's primary role as "interfering." Thank you for your interference, Gil, and your speaking truth to Silicon Valley's powerful dark side and dark slide into Evil and democracide and matricide (killing of Mother Earth) and taking on the current Anti-christ mantle.
I humbly recommend my book on "Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ" that offers Silicon Valley and others a way out of Thiel and MAGA's nihilistic madness and pseudo-theological ramblings. And I offer an invitation to sane Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to offer light at this time of dark night politics and fascist capitalism including but not limited to supporting healthy and bodily and cosmic ritual such as our Cosmic Masses that were birthed here in the Bay Area 30 years ago.