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.

Timestamps:

0:43 The Bible reads us 
2:02 Cain and Abel vs. Romulus and Remus
6:05 Cross vs Resurrection
7:26 The Gospels are different from Death of Socrates
9:04 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?