Part One: Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ

Summary

Behind the Bastards — “Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ” (Part One)

Podcast: Behind the Bastards
Host: Robert Evans (with guest Sarah Marshall)
Release Date: November 4, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Robert Evans and guest Sarah Marshall embark on a deep dive into the obscure religious and philosophical obsessions of Peter Thiel, focusing especially on Thiel’s recent four-part lecture series about the Biblical Antichrist. The show explores the influence of fringe theology and fascist philosophers on Thiel’s worldview, the bizarre collective he’s inspired in Silicon Valley, and what these beliefs might mean about the tech billionaire’s priorities and sanity. The conversation weaves in incisive humor, historical context, and plenty of criticism, all while picking apart the underpinnings of power among American elites.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Bad Guys, Bizarre Realities, and “Michelle Remembers”

• The episode opens with playful banter (00:04–03:24) before shifting toward the recurring theme: why bad guys (like Peter Thiel) are more eternally fascinating than “good” historical figures.
• Sarah plugs her new CBC podcast, “The Devil You Know,” which concerns the Satanic Panic and its recurring influence.
  • Robert humorously notes that “Michelle Remembers” is a more important book for understanding America than “Kissinger’s Diplomacy.”
    • [Robert Evans, 04:03] "No, it’s Michelle Remembers. That’s the book you need to read if you want to understand how politics works in this country."

2. Introducing Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession (06:20–09:44)

• Evans connects the ongoing American attraction to fantasy and irrationality with Thiel’s own public crusades, noting his pivotal role in PayPal, Gawker’s destruction, and his mentorship of political figures like J.D. Vance.
• Episode’s Focus: Dissecting Thiel’s bizarre obsession with the biblical Antichrist and the philosophical stew it comes from.

3. Peter Thiel: From Dangerous Genius to Crackpot? (13:00–15:47)

• Evans admits re-evaluating Thiel’s reputation from “scarily intelligent and disciplined” to “maybe just out of his mind” after reviewing Thiel’s Antichrist lectures.
  • [Robert Evans, 13:34] "I may have overestimated his intelligence and cunning… I think he’s out of his mind in a way that’s made him less functional."
• Thiel’s fixation on the Antichrist is introduced as a case study in disordered thinking among the rich and powerful.

4. The Acts 17 Collective: Evangelizing Billionaires (15:47–28:55)

• Thiel’s lecture series was hosted by the Acts 17 Collective, inspired by a New Testament chapter where Paul tries to convince intellectual elites of Christianity in Athens.
• The group’s goal: Proselytize to Silicon Valley’s billionaires, not the poor/masses.
  • [Robert Evans, 27:41] "Acts 17 is like, we need to be proselytizing… not to the people Jesus talked to. But like the billionaires. We need to convert the billionaires."
• Sarah and Robert lampoon the group's attempt to both backronym their name and create a church based on affluent parties (26:33–37:27).
  • Memorable Quote: [Sarah Marshall, 36:52] "No wonder nobody likes white people."
• Their “church services” feature caviar bumps, DJs mixing Bible camp music, and, unforgettably, a 55-minute Thiel lecture at a birthday party.
  • [Robert Evans, 41:39] "Peter Thiel gets up spontaneously and… gave a 55 minute lecture on forgiveness and miracles."
• Critique: The group embraces an “upside-down” version of Christianity — a religion for the already powerful, which Robert calls “fundamentally heretical.”

5. Thiel’s Philosophical Influences: Girard, Schmitt, and Scapegoating (18:10–23:50, 46:55–50:41)

• Thiel’s philosophy is heavily inspired by:
  • René Girard: Belief that societies rely on scapegoating. While Girard advocated rejecting the scapegoat impulse, Thiel seems to see it as politically useful.
  • Carl Schmitt: Fascist legal theorist focused on how to subvert liberal democracy by exploiting borders/exclusion.
  • [Robert Evans, 20:27] "That's kind of the fundamental weak point that all liberal democracies have... the existence of a border is an opportunity to carve groups… out of the body politic."

6. Inside the Antichrist Lectures (52:01–98:08)

The Lectures’ Setting and Source Material

• The lectures drew on theologians and philosophers to build a new, billionaire-centric theology.
• Documentation comes from a banned attendee who published near-verbatim notes (52:04).

Thiel’s Scriptural Interpretations and Errors

• Thiel positions Daniel of the Old Testament as the “first historian”; Evans and Marshall thoroughly debunk this as both ahistorical and (potentially) ignorant of biblical scholarship (53:46–58:10).
  • [Sarah Marshall, 56:32] "The same way that Bunicula wasn’t actually written by a dog."
• Thiel interprets Daniel 12:4 as a prophecy that the end times will follow an increase in knowledge—using this leap as justification for much of his apocalyptic theorizing.

Antichrist, Progress, and Apocalypse

• Thiel recycles a familiar trope: “Technological progress has stalled except for information technology,” which Evans ridicules with hard evidence from medicine, auto safety, and more (85:52–89:50).
• Thiel’s core obsession: Progress is stuck, society is stagnant, only a brilliant tyrant (presumably with tech-guy solutions) can avert apocalypse.
• He twists Christian apocalypticism into personal self-insert fanfiction, taking a messianic role:
  • [Sarah Marshall, 73:50] "He’s made himself the main character of the Bible, which is... I can’t think of another person who’s managed to do that."
• Thiel ignores or dismisses that standard Christianity holds that apocalypse is inevitable and cannot be “stopped” by human means.

Universities, Fears, and Strawmen

• Evans points out Thiel’s illogical spread of blame—to universities (“professors only teach that things get better”), the non-existence of the Antichrist in modern thought (which polling blatantly disproves), and more (76:12–77:55).
• Multiple strawmen arguments, historical inaccuracies, and a tendency to conflate academic humility with intellectual weakness are frequent targets of mockery throughout.

On Tyrants, Dictatorship, and the Self-Insert Messiah Complex

• Thiel proposes a “dictator to stop the Antichrist”—a position Evans calls “deeply anti-Christian.”
• The hosts emphasize the dangerous trends among tech elites, where dissatisfaction, ego, and endless “unmet desires” lead to scapegoating and authoritarian yearnings, with Thiel as archetype (49:52–50:41).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Thiel’s Antichrist fixations:

  • [Robert Evans, 13:36] "I've become increasingly convinced that he's like unwell in a way that's leading him, that's made him less functional as a person. And I kind of think this Antichrist obsession is an example of that."

• On Silicon Valley Billionaire Church:

  • [Robert Evans, 27:41] "Acts 17 is like, we need to be proselytizing... not to the people Jesus talked to. But like the billionaires, we need to convert the billionaires."
  • [Sarah Marshall, 36:52] "No wonder nobody likes white people."

• On DJ Canvas and “Just Got Saved” Mixtape:

  • [Robert Evans, 41:14] "Who wouldn't want to get down with Peter Thiel and a bunch of venture capital guys."

• On Thiel’s Notion of “Stagnant” Science:

  • [Sarah Marshall, 87:32] "What does it matter if something advances? If you can't make exponential profits off it, who cares?"

• On The Antichrist and Tyranny:

  • [Robert Evans, 73:12] "Peter's whole idea: the Antichrist will come and bring about the end of days, but I also think it can be stopped. And that's not the religion, my dude."
  • [Sarah Marshall, 73:50] "He's made himself the main character of the Bible... [he's] writing self-insert Bible fan fiction."

• On Billionaire Dissatisfaction and Scapegoating:

  • [Robert Evans, 49:52] "For these guys, there's so little that they can really say. There's nothing above them... So they define, and honestly, most of the government is in their pocket... Instead, they pick the thing they can't control... the small number of people who get elected on progressive agendas. And those are the people... responsible for all the problems."

• On Picking the Antichrist:

  • [Robert Evans, 96:31] "Honestly, like, Peter Thiel’s not a bad pick. If you’re going with the more traditional view... I feel like Mr. Beast—very probable Antichrist."
  • [Sarah Marshall, 96:56] "Yeah, I can see it. There’s nothing behind his eyes. We can all agree on that, right?"

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Show Begins, Friendship Chatter: 00:01–01:49
• Sarah's CBC show “The Devil You Know” Plug: 02:48–03:57
• “Michelle Remembers” and American Fantasies: 04:03–05:48
• Peter Thiel Intro and Gawker Recap: 06:20–09:44
• Acts 17 Collective, Party-Church for Billionaires: 15:47–28:55
• On Thiel’s Philosophical Pillars: 18:10–23:50, 46:55–50:41
• Who is Daniel in the Bible, and Why Does Thiel Care? 53:46–58:10
• Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Lectures Begin in Detail: 52:01–98:08
  • Thiel’s “Science Has Stopped” Rant: 85:52–89:50
  • On Antichrist, Apocalypse, and Self-Insert Theology: 73:12–74:13
  • Universities, Antichrist Polling, Strawmen: 76:12–77:55
• Who’s the Real Antichrist?: 96:31–97:15

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Tone & Style

The episode is irreverent, deeply sarcastic, and intellectually rigorous beneath the banter. Sarah and Robert wield humor to expose the absurdity, arrogance, and dangers of tech-elite theology and reactionary politics, while providing robust historical and philosophical context for listeners unfamiliar with the topics.

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For Listeners New to the Show

This episode is a signature Behind the Bastards blend of dark comedy and dense research, pulling no punches as it analyzes Peter Thiel’s slide from Silicon Valley kingmaker to would-be apocalyptic theocrat. Through their deconstruction of his Antichrist lectures and religious posturing, Evans and Marshall shine a light on the delusions and social pathologies at the top of America’s tech pyramid, and why these should concern us all.

Skip to part two for more on who Thiel thinks the Antichrist actually is… and more takedowns of billionaire self-insert theology.

Transcript

[Sarah Marshall]

Call Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast where Robert Evans is still waking up, still kind of hungover, which I know I've introduced like a third of our episodes that way. And it might lead some of you to wonder, does Robert have a problem? And the answer to that question is no. I have a solution. Sophie, how are you doing today?

[Sarah Marshall]

I'm in pain, but my best friend's.

[Robert Evans]

Here, so that's a win.

[Sarah Marshall]

And you, my other best friend. I have two. I have two. It's okay.

[Robert Evans]

I know where I stand. I know where I stand.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Sarah Marshall, welcome to the show.

[Sarah Marshall]

Hello, Robert. A pyramid. Is this the strongest shape or. Well, I guess a triangle, but a pyramid, if you're in marketing, I. Sophie, I'm so happy to be here with you, my legend, my queen. And Robert, you, a guy who is also here. I'm just kidding.

[Robert Evans]

Thank you.

[Sarah Marshall]

So alike. And I think of you every time.

[Robert Evans]

What an honor.

[Sarah Marshall]

I see a goat.

[Robert Evans]

Every time you see a goat. Okay, that's good because there's a lot of those out there. You and Sophie were talking about your beautiful friendship, and it made me think about the differences between deep male and deep female friendships. Because when I was thinking back to my stories with my best friend, and it's all the different times that either I puked on Lenny or Lenny puked on me.

[Sarah Marshall]

I have one of. So there's some differences, but only one. Yeah. Well, no, I have two. I have two anyway.

[Robert Evans]

But yeah, that's good. That's a good number. That's a good number.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, it's. I mean, what do you think that your kind of the stuff of your intimacy with your male friends is about?

[Robert Evans]

I don't know. You know, honestly, I think a big part of it's just male or female friends. It's just that kind of bone deep trust where you feel as comfortable with another person as you do. Like feeling alone on your couch. I would say that's about the highest level of intimacy in or out of a romantic relationship that exists.

[Sarah Marshall]

Just to say, Robert, I would love to puke on you.

[Robert Evans]

Thank you, Sophie. That's very sweet.

[Sarah Marshall]

It will happen one day. You guys just keep putting in your hours.

[Robert Evans]

I've avoided puking on you for the same reason.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thank you.

[Robert Evans]

I think I've puked on more people than the average person. The most at once was like nine, but yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Wow. The most at once.

[Robert Evans]

I'm proud of that. It took some work. It took some work and elevation.

[Sarah Marshall]

I like to stay in and watch the Drew Carey show. So I don't get the opportunity as much. It's a great shame.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now that you think of it, I've never puked on someone while watching the Drew Carey show, so there may be a causative effect.

[Sarah Marshall]

Speaking of great shows, I would like Sarah to plug her new show for our audience. I have a show to plug. And, Sophie, you have been such a help to me in my show advertising tour, going hither and yon, ringing my cowbell, telling people about my new show, which is called the Devil youl Know. It's from CBC Podcasts. It features such iconic performances as our dear friend Jamie Loftus performing the book Michelle Remembers.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, my God. Yeah, that's a win that just needed.

[Sarah Marshall]

To happen and now it's happened. And it's also an attempt to kind of tell the story of the Satanic panic and its initial spread in the 80s. It's sort of long shadow in the 90s and how it came back in a way that suggests it never went away in the present day by talking to individual people whose lives were dramatically affected and often pretty much destroyed by it. And yet it's also, I think, not that depressing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Really want to emphasize that. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I've had an argument with a friend about whether or not his argument was that Kissinger's Diplomacy was the book that you needed to read in order to really understand American statesmanship. And I was like, no, it's Michelle Remembers. That's the book you need to read if you want understand how politics works in this country.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, you said American and I was like, psychopaths. No. Okay. Weird. I thought. I think that. Yeah, I think that's true. And it stands to reason that the book that explains America is Canadian.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, often this is the case. Often that's the case.

[Sarah Marshall]

I would love to hear your thoughts on Michelle Remembers, because it's a book that, like, defies description, you know, I.

[Robert Evans]

Mean, it's a book that I think says a lot about how irrationality can be foundational to a lot of people's fundamental beliefs about how the world works. And it's also a book about how. I mean, the story of the book and how it became popular and what happened during its creation is incredibly relevant for foundationally how everything from reality TV to modern politics works in this country. Like, it's the story of a fantasy overtaking reality in the minds of tens of millions of Americans based on nothing. But, like, oh, I'd rather believe that there's that satanic pedophiles run the country than Anything else?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, yeah. And that's like one of the things we're trying to get at and which is, you know, kind of this enduringly fascinating thing of like, why did people. Why did it feel less scary in a way, to believe in what was seemingly the scariest thing possible.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And there's, you know, that's actually very relevant to what we're talking about today, all of this, both how irrationality and fantasy become like the undergirding aspects of people's understanding about reality. And how about these things have come to completely dominate US Politics and culture because they primarily. Primarily because they dominate the thinking and the rationality of the power elite in this country. And that's why today, you and I, Sarah, are going to be talking about Peter Thiel's weird obsession with the Antichrist.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, my God. Oh, this is amazing. Wow. Cause I know that he's a handful and I feel like I heard probably from Sophie that this is.

[Robert Evans]

He's a bushel and a peck. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

I'm so excited. Is Peter Thiel. Is this the guy who took down Gawker all by himself?

[Robert Evans]

He sure did. This is the guy who funded well with Hulk Hogan. Hulk. Hulk was a load bearing part of that.

[Sarah Marshall]

He got Hulk Hogan to Hulk out all over Gawker and journalism and free speech. So that's nice. This is an I heart podcast.

[Maggie Freeling]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Robert Evans]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place, it's a way of life. Now, this ain't just any old podcast, honey. We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors, and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Come be a part of my Zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

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[Sarah Marshall]

I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that.

[Turning River Road Narrator]

Meant for my heart.

[Robert Evans]

Podcasts and Rococo Punch.

[Turning River Road Narrator]

This is the Turning River Road. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to the Turning river road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

So we've done a two parter on Peter about his, like, life and background, but this is the guy, he's the co founder of PayPal. He actually was the guy who kind of like orchestrated Elon Musk's ouster from the company and they were at odds. Now they're friends again. It's a beautiful story.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, I'd watch an HBO original movie about that. That would be like a six out of 10, you know, starring Jeremy Strong.

[Robert Evans]

And oh, I was going to say Jared Leto for both of them.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, that.

[Robert Evans]

He's the only man upsetting enough to play.

[Sarah Marshall]

Both those guys will make test audiences puke.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

On each other.

[Robert Evans]

Or Jesse Eisenberg. I realized the other day because I saw him in that Kieran or Rory Culkin. Which one of the Culkins was in the movie with him? Kieran Culkin. And he was good. And I was like, oh, I've hated Jesse Eisenberg for years, I guess, because he just did a good job of playing Mark Zuckerberg. Like, I think I just hated him because he did a job well.

[Sarah Marshall]

He really did, though. But the thing is, he kind of always plays guys who you're like, no, get away from me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you don't seem safe. Like, I'm watching my drink around you. Jesse Eisenberg, which again, I don't think real Jesse Eisenberg has earned that kind of stuff.

[Sarah Marshall]

I guess all of his characters, you're like, look, it's not to be rude, but I'm gonna Be a little rude. It's fine.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You upset me on some fundamental level. There's something wrong in the pit of your soul, Jesse Eisenberg. And I'm glad you've been able to turn that into your career.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But. Yeah, you're not welcome in my house.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thanks for him. Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Sorry. If you're listening to this podcast, Jesse.

[Sarah Marshall]

Eisenberg, really taking no prison. This is, you know, you have to be provocative in today's political wins, and we're doing it.

[Robert Evans]

You have to be ruthless to get into the mood to talk about the things Peter Thiel believes about the world. Because despite being an aspiring immortal CEO king and one of the major patrons of the modern far right and the guy who got J.D. vance's career started, you know, he funded his campaign. He funded. He's his mentor. Despite all of that, Peter Thiel, Imagine.

[Sarah Marshall]

Being that guy's mentor. You're like, hey, buddy, you killed the Pope, and your face still looks like a catcher's mitt.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's fine. Still doing good.

[Sarah Marshall]

Why don't you have an apple juice or an applesauce?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Why don't you sit down over here next to me? Yeah. Despite. I mean, maybe.

[Sarah Marshall]

Or because of sports reference. That was so beautiful. Oh, it catches me. Yeah, well. Yeah, well, that's kind of a classic MST3K descriptor of, like, I don't know, a Robert Zadar type.

[Robert Evans]

I will Robert Ziddar do all the.

[Sarah Marshall]

Baseball references I can. Robert Zadar. Oh, Zidar.

[Robert Evans]

The kids don't know Robert Zadar. You know, I'm glad kids look up Robert Zadar.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's spelled Z apostrophe D A, R, obviously.

[Robert Evans]

And yes, he had a condition. That's why his face looked like that. And it's often fatal. But in his case, he was, like, right in the sweet spot, where it just made him an incredibly in demand character actor during the 1980s.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. He played a lot of alien prison guards.

[Robert Evans]

Lot of alien prison guards. Yeah. Anyway, Robert z'dar. Not much to do with Peter Teal, but the other stuff we were talking about does.

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay. Peter Teal.

[Robert Evans]

I've gone back and forth in my studies on Teal, and I think in the biographical episodes we did about him, I concluded he's one of the very few of these guys who scares me because of how intelligent and disciplined and patient and competent he is and the fact that disciplined and intelligence and patience with him are married to, like, 30 billion, billion dollars in net worth. Right. Which is a dangerous mixture for a guy who thinks democracy should come to an end and is actively working to further that goal this week. I think I have to make a mea culpa because I don't entirely agree with that anymore.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, that's exciting.

[Robert Evans]

I may have overestimated his intelligence and cunning, which I don't. He's still a dangerous man. Right. I think he's out of his mind and I think he's out of his mind in part because he's not as smart as certainly he thinks he is and not as smart as maybe I thought he was. And you know, it's tough for me to tell entirely what's going on here, but I've become increasingly convinced that he's like unwell in a way that's leading him, that's made him less functional as a person. And I kind of think this Antichrist obsession is an example of that. Cause this is. It's very disordered thinking that you see when you listen to him try to explain his beliefs, which I'm going to do to you. I'm gonna try to walk you through everything. He recently did a four day lecture series laying out his theories on the Antichrist. There've been articles about this. Yeah. If you're reasonably online, you might have seen something about this. Cause the lectures weren't public, but they were publicly advertised. The page for the registration for these lectures is still up on some service called Luma that I'd never heard of before this. But it was in the Embarcadero in San Francisco on September 15 was the first of these and it was called the A4 Part Lecture Series. And the picture of this is just like Peter Thiel from 15 years ago underneath the logo of the group that supported this speech, the Act 17 collective. It's weird how young Sophie could pull up that and then like a modern day photo of Peter Thiel. It's just like. It's fitting, I guess, for a guy whose most public obsession is with living forever. But yeah. So the event summary reads, you are warmly invited to a series of four lectures by Peter Thiel addressing the topic of the Biblical Antichrist. Peter is a technology entrepreneur and investor who has spent much of his career writing and speaking about how his Christian faith informs his understanding of the world. His remarks will be anchored on science and technology and will comment on the theology, history, literature and politics of the antichrist.

[Sarah Marshall]

I have 2025 Peter up on the screen for you. Robert. I'm just going to say it. Last place in the Katie Lang tribute competition.

[Robert Evans]

That's a fair Comparison.

[Sarah Marshall]

Sarah and I love Katie Lang. That's not the point here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, no. And I love Peter Thiel, you know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, you don't. And I mean, certainly the Lord loves him, but maybe not anybody else.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I don't know about the Lord, but, yeah, possibly. Possibly.

[Sarah Marshall]

If I were Jesus, I would simply be looking at a lot of people who talk about me a lot and being like, I don't know you. Please stop implying that we're friends.

[Robert Evans]

This is.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, I'm sending you a cease and desist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's gotta be like, I'm sure you've experienced the same thing. Like, when you get a degree of fame, every now and then you'll meet fans who will talk about something you did that meant something to them. And the way they will explain it is like, that doesn't sound familiar to me at all. That's what you took out of that. That's not what I meant in any way. Do I say that to you? Do I say, like, oh, no, that had nothing to do with, like, you've read in something completely absent there. Or do you just, like, smile and nod?

[Sarah Marshall]

People think I often or remember me saying something that I feel like is smarter than I said because I don't know it any longer. But then you're like, did I know it at one time and then I said it and then I forgot it? Or are they confusing me with some other show they listened to that same day? It could be that, too. Sometimes. It's very interesting.

[Robert Evans]

I've seen it all happen where it's like, no, that was a guest who said that and you just transposed it to being me.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thanks for giving me credit. Yeah. I've been listening to Simpson's commentaries, and one of the things the writers kind of consistently talk about is like, who wrote that? Was that your joke? Was that my joke? I can't remember. Or like, someone being like, I loved that joke in that episode you wrote. And they're like, I didn't write that joke.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

And I love that this had nothing.

[Robert Evans]

To do with that.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. This is my favorite thing you did. Well, I didn't.

[Sarah Marshall]

But you're like, but I was. I was near it and I was around. So, yeah, I was in the room.

[Robert Evans]

I was in the room when that joke was made. Absolutely.

[Sarah Marshall]

I midwifed that joke.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I provided moral support to the birth of that joke.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So this summary of Peter's lecture on the Antichrist goes on to note that Peter's thinking about the anti. His beliefs on this subject. Draw from the work of several prominent theologians and philosophers. These include Rene Gerard, Jonathan Swift, and former Bastard's POD alumni Carl Schmitt. Now, if you haven't listened to those episodes, I would recommend listening to the Carl Schmidt episodes. The gist of it is Schmidt was a right wing political philosopher, and when the Nazis came to power, they basically called him up and said, hey, you're writing the educated justification for why Nazism's good. Like, we need you to come in and do that. Right? Yeah, it's not great. And you know, Schmidt was a perfect fit for this job because his earlier work had been a huge influence on a lot of prominent Nazis. So he helped influence the Nazis and how they took power. A big thing he wrote about was how to use effectively the creation of borders in order to destroy liberal democracy. Basically, his, his kind of, in a nutshell, be working. It does works very well. And he's the guy who. The basic idea was that like, anytime you, every society, no matter how like liberal a democr, draws a line between, like, who are members of the community and who aren't, who is a citizen and who isn't. And wherever you find that line, anytime there's a border, that's the thing you can use to destroy that liberal democracy, because you figure out where that is and you start pushing it inward and you start trying to define other groups as not part of the community. Right. And that's kind of the fundamental weak point that all liberal democracies have. And it's, you know, in a way, it's kind of the other side of the anarchist belief that like any border implies the violence of its maintenance. Right. The existence of a border fundamentally implies violence because that's the only way to maintain a border. And what Schmidt was saying is the existence of a border is an opportunity to carve groups of people out of the body politic in order to gain authoritarian political power. Right. That's Carl Schmidt, who Peter Thiel loves and sees as a big influence. Right.

[Sarah Marshall]

So he's not being subtle about any of this. He's like, here are my top three influences. One of them helps my top Nazis so much.

[Robert Evans]

My, my, my buddies. Yeah, these are all my faves. Well, and it's the other guy that he listed there, Rene Girard, is a. I mean, neither of these guys are like, exactly household names. But Gerard, a big part of like, his belief system was the idea of like, scapegoating, right? And how like, scapegoating works within, you know, and like, why communities pick scapegoats and, like, how the whole process works. And that's also, like, a major influence on Peter Thiel. Like that which is, you know, not. Again, if you look at the kind of politics, like the right wing politics that he's supported during, like, his lifetime, it makes sense that he finds these kind of things influential. Like, so Schmidt's essential idea is that, like, when once a human society has reached the level where most people's basic needs are satisfied, there's still, like, unmet desires. But people don't know, like, entirely what it is that they want that they don't have. And so they engage in mimicry where they, like, look at what their neighbors who are doing the best have. And they seek to. They aspire to mimic the most impressive people in their society. Right. And because people are never really satisfied and this mimetic rivalry never really leads. I mean, it's never something that you can actually achieve or get the things these unfulfilled desires can't really be met. And so people need, like, an explanation for why it doesn't work, for why they're not happy. And that tends to get channeled into a war of all against one via what called a scapegoat mechanism. Right. And so these are the two huge, like Schmidt and Gerard are the two huge, like, pillars of Peter Thiel's, like, personal philosophy. And one of the things Gerard believed is that Christianity kind of marks this turning point in human consciousness because, like, the crucifixion narrative is fundamentally Jesus being murdered in an act of collective violence against a scapegoat. Right. And so that's kind of this Christianity leads to this sort of epiphany by which human beings have started to realize that, like, the scapegoating rituals that we engaged in are wrong and it's like a bad thing to do. And yeah, that's kind of where Gerard goes. Peter Thiel winds up taking this in some weird places, right? Where basically Gerard's attitude was that you have to reject scapegoating because Christ's example is proof that it's fundamentally evil and wrong. And Teal's kind of interpretation from that is that you can't really avoid scapegoating. That's the inevitable path forward. And so it's kind of a thing you have to. It's a tool you have to make use of. This human need to scapegoat is a thing that you can use to drive politics. That's essentially where Peter Thiel takes this guy. Cause Gerard was not advocating.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's aware.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Well, we're all watching that happen, you know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, yeah. It's not to Dairy Queen, that's for sure.

[Robert Evans]

No. So these are Peter Thiel's kind of favorite philosophers that have inspired his takes on the Antichrist. And unfortunately, full audio of these talks is not available publicly. 7 hours of or so have been leaked to a couple of different outlets. I don't have them, tragically, but we do have one attendee took word for word, nearly notes of the first lecture, which got him kicked out of subsequent lectures. So we've got that and we've got articles that have summarized and quoted directly from teal in these lectures. So I feel pretty confident that I can explain what this motherfucker believes to the extent that it will ever make sense. So before we get into that, we should talk about the group that funded this lecture series, which is the Acts 17 collective. You would have seen that on the photo of Peter that we posted a little bit earlier. If you're watching it, the name of the Acts 17 collective is based on chapter 17 of the book of Acts and, you know, the Bible. And this chapter concerns. Hmm.

[Sarah Marshall]

She said Bible, you said Bible. Sarah goes.

[Robert Evans]

Heard of it, heard of it, heard of it, yeah, yeah, yeah. You might have caught this one. And it's the New Testament, which, if you're not into religion, it's the aliens to the Old Testament's alien.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, God, that's so true.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, Jesus is sort of a Ripley figure. I think a lot of people have argued that over the years. He was clearly heavily inspired by Ripley. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Unless he's, you know. There's a little bit of Newt in there, too, though.

[Robert Evans]

There's a little bit of Newt in there, sure. Absolutely. I think the Apostle Paul is Hicks. Generally, Biblical scholars agree that the Apostle Paul was inspired by Corporal Hicks. Yeah. So chapter 17. Yeah. There's a broad consensus. You have to really read the original Aramaic that Aliens was written in to get a lot of that. Yeah. James Cameron writes exclusively in Aramaic is a ton of. It's a real problem for a lot of this collaborating. So Act 17, the chapter that's in, concerns Paul and some of his companions on, like, a trip through Greece. They're not just in Greece or they're not just in Athens, but it's like they spend a lot of time in Athens arguing about religion with philosophers. Right. They're going to these different markets and public places and synagogues and they're talking to, like, educated scholars about religion to, like, argue that, hey, Christianity is. Is a thing basically. I'm summarized. I'm. I'm yada yada ing this a lot. But, like, hey, girl.

[Sarah Marshall]

It is like, have you thought about Christianity?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Have you thought about Christianity in, like, a logical and, like, like, sense? Like, he's. He's trying to make the intellectual. This is like, that chapter is like Paul arguing and debating with a lot of intellectuals about his new religion. Right. It's like. Which is relevant. Yes. It's like the Shark Tank part of the Bible. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's Sarah, Sophie. Girl, you got a hey, girl. And I say girl, whatever.

[Robert Evans]

Is that a Shark Tank joke? Sophie. How am I supposed to get that?

[Sarah Marshall]

No, it's. It's for the youth ladies who peaked in high school on. On MLM, Facebook 10 years ago Kind of a thing. Oh, it is that happening.

[Robert Evans]

But yeah, it is definitely that for Paul, where he's, like, sliding into the DMs of a friend from high school who happens to be like, a rabbi, being like, hey, I'm doing this new thing. You wanna hear about it? Can I get you to show up? Like, there'll be free makeup. We'll give you a free makeover. Talk about Jesus.

[Sarah Marshall]

There's gonna be snacks. We're gonna learn about leggings. Yeah. And also Jesus. Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Jesus wants you to sell these leggings. No. That is exactly what's going on, basically. And the Acts 17 collective is inspired by this chapter dedicated specifically to spreading Christian doctrine. Two political and cultural elites in Silicon Valley. Right. Which is why that chapter makes sense. Right. Because Paul is kind of talking to these sort of intellectual elites. Acts 17 is like, we need to be proselytizing. Not to the poor, not to the huddled masses, you know, not to the people that, like, Jesus talked to. But like the billionaires, we need to convert the billionaires.

[Sarah Marshall]

So it's the opiate of the few now, right, Exactly. I mean, they are obsessed with not dying, so it does make sense that they would be like, yeah, yeah, my immortal soul. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Flipping the chair around backwards. You kids are interested in eternal life, huh? I know a guy who offers eternal life. You don't even have to take your son's blood, Peter.

[Sarah Marshall]

Exactly. Well, you do have to take the son's blood.

[Robert Evans]

The son. Somebody's son's blood. That's right.

[Sarah Marshall]

So less gross. You just have a cracker and some grape juice.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. And if you want to be immortal listeners, whatever sponsor of the podcast comes on next will ensure that you never die. Just you, though.

[Sarah Marshall]

Heard that.

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[Robert Evans]

All I know is what I've been.

[Sarah Marshall]

Told and that to have truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Sarah Marshall]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Robert Evans]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Robert Evans]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Sheryl McCollum]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Robert Evans]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley. Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases using you've heard of and Thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

In 1997 in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like the Path of Worry, Dump Road, and Fear Creek.

[Robert Evans]

Discoveries of Saturday.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

Investigators made a new discovery yesterday afternoon.

[Robert Evans]

Of the torso of a woman.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

Investigators believe it is the work of a serial killer. Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

[Robert Evans]

We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

With nightmarish secrets from Tenderfoot TV and iHeart podcasts. This is Le Monstre season two, the Butcher of Mall, available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

And we're back. I hope you're enjoying your new immortality. You know, you're gonna watch everyone that you love and care for die. Everything that you care for end eventually. Watch the stars themselves wink out, but, you know, have fun with that.

[Sarah Marshall]

I didn't think it's through.

[Robert Evans]

You know, people never do with immortality.

[Sarah Marshall]

Also, what about the scenario where if you're immortal and everyone else dies and then there aren't people to maintain nuclear reactors and they all melt down and then the globe is covered in nuclear fallout, what are you going to do then, Dracula?

[Robert Evans]

I feel like I can maintain a nuclear reactor.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. The one in your area is going to be. So you're going to take care of the one in Washington, so we'll be sure.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll. That'll be good. I mean, all that nuclear waste from the Hanford site's gonna poison all of the waters, but that'll happen anyway. Good stuff.

[Sarah Marshall]

I mean, where else are we gonna get those albino gators or whatever they have up there?

[Robert Evans]

Exactly. You know, I assume that in a couple of generations, it'll be gator territory. The Pacific Northwest will warm up enough finally. Then I could have a gator farm in my yard.

[Sarah Marshall]

We were always meant to be gator territory. Really? Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Everywhere was. Everywhere was. So. Yeah. The Act 17 collective, dedicated to preaching to the most needy in our society, which is tech billionaires.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yes. Well, they do have the heaviest hearts I've heard Yes.

[Robert Evans]

In the Egyptian sense. Yes. It's funny. What I think is funniest about this is like the Act 17 works perfectly as a name. You're referencing a part of the Bible that's relevant to what the group does. But they needed to make it into a backronym anyway, which I don't understand because, like, no, it already works. Why would you make this an acronym? But they did. And so they've decided that ACTS also stands for acknowledging Christ in technology and society.

[Sarah Marshall]

All right, all right.

[Robert Evans]

Again, unnecessary. But I hope you're happy.

[Sarah Marshall]

I guess you got a back max, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Sure, man.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So the organization was founded by, or at least co founded by Michelle Stevens. And she. I mean, she was some sort of entrepreneur. She was involved in. In tech to some extent and kind of did this after she left the company. Her husband Trey was one of the first. Trey Stevens is one of the first Palantir employees and now works for Peter's venture capital fund as a partner. So this is a guy who was involved in Peter's military spying company and also his VC fund, and it's his wife that founds the Act 17 collective. And I found an interview with Michelle where she explains how the group came about. And so this is their origin story, per Michelle. By the end of 2023, my company was winding down. And my husband's 40th birthday was that November. I wanted to celebrate big. We invited over 220 of his closest friends to a three day birthday party in New Mexico called the Roast, the Toast and the Holy Ghost. On the Holy Ghost Day, we thought we'd have a sort of remixed church service. Wouldn't it be funny if we tricked a bunch of people into going to church? We served caviar bumps, breakfast pizza, mimosas and spiked coffee. DJ Canvas had come out with his crew to play a Saturday night set, remixing all of our beloved movie themed songs into a trap beat. He also does this for Christian and worship music. He's got the best dance moves.

[Sarah Marshall]

No wonder nobody likes white people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That made me cringe nearly to death. Sarah. I'm gonna be honest.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's also funny that they're like, isn't it fun and subversive to have caviar bumps and then go worship Christ? And it's like, no, because like, the whole problem in America arguably, is that the prosperity gospel has taken over Christianity and it's no longer a moderating influence on capitalism.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Yeah. And that the.

[Sarah Marshall]

And also, it's just gross and silly to be doing that. It's gross. Stop it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's. It's just deeply upsetting. And it's this. It's this fundamentally poisonous thing that stands against most of what their religion has. Has at least publicly stood for over the course of, like, the history of the faith. Like, it's. It's fundamentally a heretical interpretation of Christianity, I think.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right. Like, if you take the good parts of Christianity, which I feel like most people would acknowledge that there are, like, at least some. Some good ideas in there. Like, one of the main themes is like, don't eat caviar off each other's hands. While a huge percentage of the population is in dire poverty. That's one of the main things.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You don't have to like the religion to be like, okay, well, the one time that, like, literally God beat people up, it was because they were money changing in the temple.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Probably shouldn't have Money changers. He might not like money changers at all, actually.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's so funny. It's like.

[Robert Evans]

Which is just what Peter Thiel and his friends do. That's what a venture capital fund is. They're changing money.

[Sarah Marshall]

And also PayPal, where you literally just move money around for a fee.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It is really. It's just. It's fascinating. And it's like, what is it like to become enthusiastic about a belief system that your actual beliefs are pretty much contrary to? You know, I'm very curious about that.

[Robert Evans]

That's. That's the thing. And the answer is you have to, like, remake the belief system into something that is. Does not familiar to most people who actually, like, are members of the faith. Like, you have to create your own Christianity, which is what Peter's done. That's effectively what these Antichrist lectures are, is him reinventing Christianity for billionaires.

[Sarah Marshall]

So he's the Antichrist twist.

[Robert Evans]

That is the twist at the end of this. Before we get to that, though, you have to hear a little bit of DJ Canvas. I just. I needed to. I tried. I didn't have the courage, the raw heroism to look at examples of his dance moves. So we're gonna have to leave those to our imagination. But I did find his Just Got Saved mixtape, and Sophie's gonna play you, like, 15 seconds of that. So let's hear it. Say, I am not forgotten I am.

[Sarah Marshall]

Not forgotten I am not forgotten God knows my name I am not forgotten.

[Robert Evans]

I am not forgotten I am not.

[Sarah Marshall]

Forgotten God knows my name he knows my name. There you go.

[Robert Evans]

See?

[Sarah Marshall]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Who wouldn't want to get down to that with Peter Thiel and a bunch of venture capital guys.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thanks for that. The thing is like, if the, if I met like some, I don't know, 15 year old Bible camp goer who was like, I love this song. I would be like, good for you.

[Robert Evans]

I don't care.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, yeah. But that, it's like so directly about this idea of like being rescued from being one of the downtrodden. And it's like you're the one who's treading on people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Everyone knows your name. You're one of the most famous people in the world. Like, you're all wealthy and powerful.

[Sarah Marshall]

You've got buildings with your name on it.

[Robert Evans]

You have everything that you've ever wanted.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. You don't need God. You are God in society as we have it set up, you know?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I also love that they're like, this music is just so bumping. It'll trick people into going to church.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's not gonna seem like Christian music at all. It's like, it's tricky.

[Robert Evans]

I want you, the audience to imagine you're at this birthday party. This guy is laying down what will. We'll call it a beat. Right. And people are dancing as well as you'd expect a bunch of tech elites to dance. And then while this is all going on, Peter Thiel gets up spontaneously and in Michelle's words, quote, gave a 55 minute lecture on forgiveness and miracles.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, no, no.

[Robert Evans]

God.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's like in succession when you're like, why do these people keep throwing parties? They're so bad at parties. Just stop having them.

[Robert Evans]

Is this even a part?

[Sarah Marshall]

You're evil.

[Robert Evans]

That's abuse to me. That's like torture. Like, the CIA didn't do that shit back during the.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, at the very least, it's that timeshare thing, you know, where you just have to attend a short sales pitch.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And I'm imagining too, like the dawning realization, like, oh, wow, Peter's talking. I thought we were all dancing. Okay. He's probably just doing a little quick toast. No, no, not doing a toast.

[Sarah Marshall]

I actually have to go to the bathroom. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I need to get a drink, maybe do some caviar bumps. I don't know. Michelle stated we were blown away. A lot of people were looking like he had tin heads. Like, what are you talking about? And I'll believe that. I'll believe that being the response to this.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So she says the reaction was mixed. Some of her Christian friends were angry that she'd put a non seminary trained guy up and had him give a sermon that, like, this is heretical. He doesn't know what he's talking about. This is certainly not Christianity that he's ranting about. It's kind of weird that you did this to all of us, but she said some other Christian friends of hers were like, you just tricked over 200 people into going to church. And that's good. We like it. We think that's great. And so this is the origin of the Act 17 collective.

[Sarah Marshall]

Anytime a boring guy forces you to listen to him for an hour, that is Kirchhoff.

[Robert Evans]

That's church. Yes. This podcast has often been church.

[Sarah Marshall]

Running into someone you kind of know, Church, church.

[Robert Evans]

That's a kind of church. Getting an Uber driver who just immediately starts talking for the entire drive about, like, his weird philosophical beliefs. That's a kind of church, you know. Thank you, Dale, for informing me about the dangers of vaccines. You know, I wouldn't have known without that ride.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, that's a big one. God. The important thing is that Peter Thiel has the freedom to express himself, which God knows he hasn't had access to in society before.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. Our culture has really cracked down on Peter Thiel's ability to express his beliefs to the world. And. Yeah. So the purpose of the Acts 17 collective is specifically to trick San Franciscans, who Michelle describes as one of the most unchurched cities in America, into going to church and becoming Christians. Right. That's what this group exists to do.

[Sarah Marshall]

They have Unitarianism. That's enough.

[Robert Evans]

Right? Unitarians are nice and not bigots. That's kind of the whole point. And these people want to be assholes, right?

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, I see.

[Robert Evans]

That's key because one of the most prominent members of the Act 17 collective is Gary Tan, who is the CEO of Y Combinator, which is a tech startup incubator. He's hosted several Act 17 events in his home, which is a former church, including one with former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, about the holy shift across life, AI leadership and faith. And for an idea of some of the other things Gary Tan is into, I'm gonna quote from a 2024 article in the New Republic by Gilderon, which is writing about a Twitter rant that Tan went on January of 2024 posting on X formerly Twitter, Tan wished death upon a majority of the San Francisco board of Superv Fuck Chan, Peskin, Preston Walton, Melgar, Ronan, Sapphy, Chan as a label and motherfucking crew wrote Tan name checking Severin Progressive supervisors in a hyper cringey attempt to adapt Tupac Shakur's hit him up to his drunken rants, die slow, motherfuckers. For good measure, he posted a photo of his personal liquor cabinet. Its inscription, gary Tan, SF social media troll, Twitter menace on his liquor cabinet. Man.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, it's not like anyone in local office in San Francisco has ever been famously assassinated by a crazy guy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, that did really piss people off.

[Sarah Marshall]

For that reason.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

God.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Very godly behavior.

[Robert Evans]

Super Godly. Super Godly. Now, another godly thing Tan did was fund the recall campaign against progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin. He also promised to wipe out supervisors who expressed worries about the safety of driverless taxis. Telling them, your days are numbered.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, if you use death threats all the time, it doesn't mean anything.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly. And it's very funny to be like, you think these are unsafe? I'll kill you. And then, like, three months later, a cruise taxi pins a pedestrian and drags her across the pavement, which leads to cruise losing its operating permit and receiving a $1.5 million fine.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Although. Which I'm sure they could afford.

[Robert Evans]

I'm sure. But maybe they weren't super safe.

[Sarah Marshall]

Gary, driverless cars don't kill people. I kill people.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. Jerry Tan does.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Tan had delete his tweets threatening city supervisors, as you brought up, due to the Harvey Milk of it. All. Right. Because a bunch of them received death threats after he threatened to kill them. Jesus Christ. Because he has fans who are, you know, assholes.

[Sarah Marshall]

Jesus is like, leave me out of this one.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Gary put out a statement directed by a crisis PR firm and said, I am sorry for my words and regret my poor decision. Tan is one of a chunk of wealthy reactionaries using their money to try to change progressive San Francisco into something of a haven for far right plutocrats. He's a big network state guide like Peter Thiel. And the fact that the city's already very friendly to these guys doesn't matter because again. And you know, it's really the thing Gerard picked up on, which is that once people have everything they need, they're still unhappy. And because that unhappiness fundamentally can't be dealt with in the ways that they try to like the things that they think will make them happy simply don't. They just find someone to be angry at. They need a scapegoat. You know, that's. And for Jerry Tan, it's the progressives in San Francisco. That's why Jerry's unhappy.

[Sarah Marshall]

And what they don't realize is as a secret to happiness, is small achievable goals in a sort of vague general progression. So, you know, you're like, I want to get better at baking. I want to make a buche de noel for Christmas. I'm gonna spend three months developing my buche de noel skills. But instead, because they have no patience, they just want to destroy democracy. Because that feels like it would be faster. I don't know. I might. I. Maybe it is.

[Robert Evans]

Well, I think it's just because for these guys, there's so little that they can really say. There's nothing above them. Yeah, there's no. They have all of the money. There's no one who can tell them what to do. So the only thing theoretically above them is the state, and so is the government. And so they define. And honestly, most of the government is in their pocket. Like, as a general rule, lawmakers are not anti Silicon Valley billionaires. So instead they pick, like, the thing they can't control, which is the small number of people who get elected on progressive agendas trying to fix problems. And those are the people who don't. Because those are the only people in politics who aren't going to pretend to respect you, to love you. Right. Because they're kind of fundamentally in opposition to guys like you. And so you have to. That's. That's who's responsible for all of the problems. That's who does everything wrong. That's why I'm unhappy.

[Sarah Marshall]

Because someone out there doesn't like me or someone out there doesn't make my life marginally harder.

[Robert Evans]

Someone out there disrespect me. I mean, it's the reason why so many famous people lost their minds as soon as they got access to Twitter. Right. Is like being confronted with the fact that people dislike you and disrespect you, and that's just life. Maybe you could be a better person.

[Sarah Marshall]

But, like, you just normally don't hear about it in detail, you know? And so having the ability to reach for that knowledge, it is kind of a fascinating, I don't know, experiment in terms of what would happen if people suddenly became telepathic. Because in a way, people did. Especially Joyce Carol Oates.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean, it's the same reason why so many people high up in our media class, like the folks who write for the columns for the New York Times, consider wokeism and cancel culture a bigger problem than any of the things that are actually going to kill them. Because, like, it's this. No people. I went to Harvard or Yale or whatever. And my family name is this. And I have this fancy job and people are calling me an idiot. That shouldn't be allowed. That's gotta be illegal, that. They're calling me a dipshit for my dipshit opinions.

[Sarah Marshall]

And it's like they were calling you an idiot before. You just didn't know about it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you couldn't see it and people weren't sharing it a hundred thousand times. Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Anyway, they're a bunch of very healthy people, these billionaires. They're thriving. They're doing great.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, they're doing great. And they have now formed Act 17 because they want to establish a theocracy that makes it illegal to not like them or respect them. Right. That's the gist of the Act 17 collective, in my opinion. And obviously, as I noted, they were inspired by a rant Peter Thiel gave at a birthday party about Christianity. And so it's only fitting that they would host a four part lecture series by him about the Antichrist. During the first of these lectures, Michelle Stevens, the founder of the Collective, introduced Peter on September 15 by calling him one of the great Christians of our time, as well as one of the great capitalists. Oh, okay, sure. Those two things seem like they should go together. We're gonna start with the most detailed information I've got, which is the almost word for word notes on Lecture 1, titled Knowledge Shall Be Increased. Now, the attendee who published his notes on this lecture was the head of protocol research at a software company called Succinct. And his name is Kshitji Kulkarni. And from what I can tell, Kulkarni is a fan of teal. I don't think he posted these notes as like a work of undercover reporting. I think he was just super enthusiastic and kind of ignored that the event itself warned people not to share and spread what they heard inside. Like, folks weren't supposed to record this and stuff.

[Sarah Marshall]

He was like, he's just modest. It's so great. People are gonna want to know.

[Robert Evans]

People need to read this. Kulkarni was banned from listening to other lectures, but his notes are, as far as I can tell from other reviews that include quotes from Peter Thiel pretty close to one to one. So Thiel opens his lecture with a quote from the Book of Daniel, but thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. Priest. And this is like talking about the end of days, right?

[Sarah Marshall]

But thou, o Daniel, shut up.

[Robert Evans]

Shut up. Yeah, shut up. Peter Thiel interprets this as Daniel, who he describes as a biblical historian, predicting that knowledge would increase vastly towards the end of time. And quote, as knowledge increased, apocalyptic fears would mount, leaving room for a tyrant to rise. Now, there's a lot that's wrong with these few sentences. And, like, first, I don't really. That's not the only thing.

[Sarah Marshall]

I think he got that from the Omen.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, right. That's not really what Daniel's saying. That, like, an increase in knowledge will increase apocalyptic fears, which will let a tyrant. That's not how the Antichrist comes to power.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, that's a lot to get from the word increase.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you're reading a lot in there.

[Sarah Marshall]

And he's like, and that tyrant is me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You'll be surprised at who he thinks that tyrant is. Sarah, I'm excited for that reveal. That's gonna be really fun for you.

[Sarah Marshall]

Sandra Lee is my guess.

[Robert Evans]

No, it's weirder than that.

[Sarah Marshall]

Former de facto first lady of New York, Sandra Lee. Just like to mention that. Nope.

[Robert Evans]

Although she's probably on his list, I'll give you that. But yeah. Okay, we'll get to that. So the other thing that Peter says here that's really questionable is he describes Daniel as a historian. In fact, he describes Daniel as the first historian. Right. As, like, the first person to really think of history in a modern way. That's very silly, and it's kind of worth noting. Biblical scholars debate ferociously whether or not Daniel was writing reliable accounts of history, whether or not he was effectively trying to write a history. Right. Because there's the two broad interpretations of, like, how the Book of Daniel was written. Is one is the author Daniel had these experiences with he and his friends and chronicled them. Right. That he's, like, writing an account of things that he saw and did, and he's including in their genuine prophecies that he made that were fulfilled in some cases centuries later. Right. That's the traditional interpretation of the Book of Daniel. Right. Modern biblical historians have pointed out that there's a lot of evidence that suggests that the author of the Book of Daniel was someone who would have been alive centuries after the actual biblical Daniel and that the Book of Daniel couldn't have been written contemporaneously. Right. In other words, like, this is more of, like, a work of historical fiction than historical fact is kind of like one of the arguments. The real Daniel is supposed to have been a member of the Judean nobility who was taken to Babylon during the Babylonian captivity and became popular popular at Nebuchadnezzar's court. He eventually became a dream interpreter and a prophet. And again up until like the 19th century it was widely agreed that this historical guy wrote the book of Daniel and filled it with prophecies he had at the time that were proven right later. Now there's a good write up on the biblical hermeneutic stack exchange with citations which summarizes the modern critical argument about Daniel. Quote, the Book of Daniel is replete with historical inaccuracies regarding the Babylonian and Persian periods, indicating it was written quite some time after those eras. Between this point the independent nature of the court tales, the person of Daniel appears to be a literary fabrication, not a historical figure and hence not the author of the book. Davies, who's a biblical scholar, suggests that this Daniel character may not have been a well known figure in Jewish culture before the book was completed. And Collins is one scholar to suggest the very name Daniel was chosen for the anonymous Jewish sage of the folklore out of the inspiration from the ancient sage Daniel mentioned by Ezekiel. An ugaritic text texts. Right. So the likeliest and the thing widely believed by biblical scholars today is that this because of some very fundamental historical inaccuracies in the Book of Daniel, this was written later and Daniel was never meant to be a real person. Like the name was taken by an ancient sage.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. The same way that Bunicula wasn't actually written by a dog.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly, exactly. Well, there's a lot of scholarly debate about that.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, that's true. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But you know, I'm a believer.

[Sarah Marshall]

It feels like it's to me kind of the marker of a good historian to understand that people in the past also enjoyed using literary devices, you know.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And that there's also this. It's weird to me how despite how much some people who are religious emphasize the importance of faith, there's this idea that like. Well, but no, if it's not literally Daniel that wrote this about his literal life, then that would be saying that the Bible doesn't have value. And it's like, well, why not?

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, sometimes it gets a little frilly, you know, it's a work of literature. Let them have their literary devices.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It doesn't bother people with other kinds of literature that it's not literally true that Aragorn, son of Arathorn isn't a real historical figure. People have still changed their lives as a result of those books, you know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

But I don't know, maybe they just don't have that much faith. And I guess Peter doesn't because again, he always describes Daniel as absolutely the guy who wrote the Book of Daniel. And as a historian, as a real historian. And you know he's real. Cause he made predictions about the future that happened. And again, historians will say, well, because they happened before the person in the.

[Sarah Marshall]

Book in the future.

[Robert Evans]

It's like if you could write a historical fiction about a guy who's a prophet and include a bunch of shit about World War II in your book. Set in 1910, that doesn't mean you prophesied World War II. You're just looking, you're just writing fiction. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Wouldn't it be great if some guy saw that coming? Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know. And just any kind of nostalgia media, like that 70s show where they're like, oh, kids, stop playing with the lawn darts. Isn't it funny that we know now what that's about? How many kids don't kill where this is set? Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, that's exactly what's going on in the Book of Daniel. And speaking of lawn darts, this podcast is sponsored entirely by lawn darts. Lawn darts. Aren't there too many kids in the world?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, the Love Canal didn't get enough of them.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

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[Robert Evans]

All I know is what I've been.

[Sarah Marshall]

Told and that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Sarah Marshall]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Robert Evans]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Robert Evans]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Sheryl McCollum]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go go in order to find someone to blame.

[Robert Evans]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcast.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place. It's a way of life. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving the these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

In 1997 in Belgium, 37 female body parts placed in 15 trash bags were found at dump sites with evocative names like the Path of Worry, Dump Road and Fear Creek. Discoveries of Saturday Investigators made a new.

[Robert Evans]

Discovery yesterday afternoon of the torso of a woman.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

Investigators believe it is the work of a serial killer. Despite a sprawling investigation, including assistance from the American FBI, the murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence and new suspects.

[Robert Evans]

We felt like we were in the presence of someone who was going to the grave with nightmarish secrets from Tenderfoot.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

TV and iHeart podcasts. This is Le Manstre Season 2, the Butcher of Moss. Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

We're back. We're thinking about all the things that used to kill kids back before we decided to make the world safe. And yeah, now things are good. It's a safe world for children.

[Sarah Marshall]

Things are perfect now. Yeah. No complaints.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That's why so many schools have metal detectors. Great stuff. So I don't have. When it comes to the biblical scholarship, was the book of Daniel written by. I mean, I'm pretty convinced that it was written later. And Daniel is a historical fiction and amalgam of different people and whatnot. But, you know, there's arguments scholars will make either way. What's interesting to me is that Thiel doesn't reference these arguments at all. He doesn't even mention them. Which it could just mean that he has a strong biblical literalism stance and he disagrees with those takes. But the fact that he doesn't mention them at all, I kind of wonder if. If he just doesn't know because he doesn't actually, like, read curiously about stuff like this. Yeah. I could believe that he doesn't really care about scholarship on the Bible. He reads it and takes whatever is useful to him out of it and has no interest in what anyone else has said about it.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, and this feels like he's doing his impression of a smart person. And I feel like a lot of people's smart person impression is like, I read the Bible and I figured out what it's about without the benefit of ever reading anything one else's thoughts about it ever. And it's like, that's not what intelligence is about. Intelligence doesn't mean that you never listen to anyone else for your whole life.

[Robert Evans]

No. No. Nor is it like, well, I assume the English translation of this has all of the context that's useful in understanding it historically. Right.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

There's no need to, like, look back at the different ways that this is. Different things have been interpreted, different translations. Like, there's no value in any of that. They got it right with the King James version. That's the official version now. God said, so this one I found.

[Sarah Marshall]

In the hotel is gonna take me home. Yeah. And I feel like what people maybe, who I don't know, look down on scholarship as a pursuit, don't really realize about it, maybe. And maybe disdain it because they understand this kind of collaborative quality to it. Is that anything you figure out in an academic setting or really like any kind of real pursuit of learning and research is you're standing on the shoulders of everyone else who's thought about it and worked on it in the past, and you have an awareness that you're only doing an extra little millimeter of progressing an idea.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And that's also something a guy like Peter Thiel can't accept. Like the collaborative nature of. Through which actual knowledge is built is fundamentally. That's why all these guys are so bullish on AI is it's abhorrent to them that other people have thought thoughts that they haven't thought, or that they didn't think first or that they might not understand. You know, it's this. A healthy person understands. There's things that are beyond me. Even if I'm very smart, I'm not smart in every area. You know, I think I'm certain that, like, Stephen Hawking wouldn't have, like, gotten angry if somebody had tried to explain to him how like, oh, yeah, your fridge is broken, Stephen. And this is what's wrong. Because I doubt Stephen Hawking knew much about how refrigerators worked. Right. And I'm sure he was humble enough to be like, well, no, I need to get a repair guy.

[Sarah Marshall]

I don't know. This is what happened on EastEnders for the past 10 years.

[Robert Evans]

Sure. Or this is what. This verse of the Bible, how it was translated a thousand years ago. And so it might mean something different. Actually. Intelligent people have a degree of humility in terms of the things they don't know. And I think to a guy like Peter Thiel, the idea that there might be anything important that he doesn't know is. Is deeply offensive. And I think that's the Silicon Valley ideology in a nutshell. Which is why, like, no, all that matters is what I know and what I can have this robot summarize. It can do everything else. Cause other kinds of knowledge than the ones I have and other kinds of skill aren't real knowledge or skill. Cause I don't have them. That's my interpretation of Peter Thiel. You know, yours may vary.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, I guess like kind of toddler, like anger at anything that eludes your grasp. So you have to kind of shrink the world to fit your own worldview.

[Robert Evans]

And that's what he's doing with the Bible here. Because it's important to Peter that Daniel is a real prophet and a real historian because he interprets Daniel 12:4, which I quoted earlier, as a prophecy. Now, this is the fact, the idea that, like, oh, what he's saying is that knowledge increases, which leads to us expecting an apocalypse, and that creates room for a tyrant. That's not really how the Bible foresees the Antichrist rising, you know, but apocalyptic fears have been with us as long as civilization. Right. Like, it's not a thing that Starts with Christendom, and it's not a thing that starts with Daniel. Right. The Book of Daniel didn't invent apocalyptic beliefs, and it's one of those. You'll sometimes hear it claim that prior to the year 1000, Christendom was convulsed. That, like the last millennium, there were a bunch of specific fears that the world was going to end then. And this is actually not really accurate. But it's not accurate because people didn't really agree what year it was on a wide scale back then. However, as Peter Steinfels wrote in a 1999 article for the New York Times. So were there religious terrors and overwrought expectations of the final judgment in the year 999? Absolutely. And also in the years 899, 1199, 1299, you name it, one might as well turn the question around and ask, how could it have been otherwise? Right. In other words, it wasn't so much that people were obsessed with the year 1000, it's that they have always. People did not widely agree on what year it was at all times in the past, but people have always expected the end of the world was around the corner no matter what year they thought it was going to happen. That's just natural human nature. Right.

[Sarah Marshall]

It just makes sense. Well, and also, I mean, you know, not to. This is just me kind of guessing, but I feel like if you look at human history, there are plenty of civilizations that have ended right. Or that have come very close to it through, you know, plague or being built next to a volcano or massive floods or whatever else. And so it feels like they.

[Robert Evans]

This.

[Sarah Marshall]

This idea of destruction that will eventually come for everyone.

[Robert Evans]

Sure.

[Sarah Marshall]

Is just something that you would develop as an idea based on what it feels like to exist as a human being.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that makes complete sense. And, like, it is this. Like, you can't. How can you. How could somebody live through, like, the. The Black Death and be in, like, a City where 75% of the population dies? Like, that is an apocalypse that you've lived through. Just like, I mean, fuck, if you lived in Berlin in 1945, you're living through an apocalypse or Hiroshima, you know, like, that's an apocalypse. What else would you call that we create?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, humans create a lot of them or witness a lot of them. And I do feel like, post pandemic, I have this feeling of, like, all right, we could have another of these. I don't know. Like, that's not unprecedented anymore.

[Robert Evans]

So what's next, honestly, might be Nice. We all got a couple of weeks off last time, you know. Sure.

[Sarah Marshall]

Before we descended into.

[Robert Evans]

Before things got a lot worse.

[Sarah Marshall]

More fascism. For several years, we had a couple of weeks where things were really killed. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Really got to catch up on Netflix. Yeah. Got to rewatch some good TV shows. Yeah. So in that article, Steinfels goes on to quote Bernard McGinn, who's a scholar of medieval religion from the University of Chicago, who said medieval folk lived in a more or less constant state of apocalyptic expectation. And if that sounds kind of chillingly familiar to you, it's because we haven't changed, really. We're the same as people back then, and we expect the world to end just like they did, in some different ways, you know, and our tummies hurt.

[Sarah Marshall]

For different reasons, and sometimes the same.

[Robert Evans]

Some of them the same. Yeah. And obviously there's different theories as to why do people always think the world is going to end? You know, you can. That's a lot of ink has been spilled on that topic. But I think it boils down to two factors, and neither of which really involves an increase in knowledge like Peter is obsessed with. I think the two big factors are, number one, the apocalypse makes for good entertainment. People are interested in the idea of the world ending. And number two, it's less scary to imagine the world ending than to imagine yourself dying and the world going on, which is what will happen. Right. To everybody. And especially for a guy like Peter Thiel.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, right.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Sarah Marshall]

And especially if you're, you know, an egomaniac who no one is restraining any longer. You're like, look, I. Everyone has to go out with me ultimately, somehow.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, my God. I. I am certain that he would prefer a nuclear holocaust to himself dying alone while the world continues. Right. He would prefer his last years be in a bunker, God willing, you know?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I just hope those bunkers ain't deep enough or the security. Their security guards will take him out. I'm sure they haven't figured out the shock collars well enough. Now, that said, I will acknowledge one thing that Peter says that I agree with is that I think apocalyptic fears have in the past and do today provide space for a tyrant to rise. You know, and one of the things that I think. I don't think Peter realizes, but is clear to me studying his beliefs about the Antichrist, is that he justifies his yearning for a tyrant, his desire to end democracy and replace it with a dictatorship. He justifies that as the only way to stop the Antichrist and the end of the world. Which is deeply anti Christian. Because Peter's whole idea, he says he's a Christian. He says, I am a believer that the Antichrist will come and bring about the end of days. But I also think it can be stopped. And that's a good thing. Which is like not the religion, my dude.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

You can't stop the Antichrist, isn't it?

[Sarah Marshall]

Don't you kind of have to just go through the whole thing?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's key. It's pretty important.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right. It's like the last, you know, the final conflict of the movie. You can't just cut that scene out. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And that's important for you to understand is that Peter's belief is not the standard Christian apocalyptic belief that you've heard even from like weirdo fundamentalists, you know, who believe in the Rapture. Peter's is all of that, except. But we can stop the bad stuff if we put the right dictator in today.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's actually amazing because he's made himself the main character of the Bible, which is.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's cool.

[Sarah Marshall]

I can't think of another person who's managed to do that. They usually stick with the characters that are in there.

[Robert Evans]

Jesus did. You know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. And like, you know, and people, you know, we're very familiar with people using Jesus as a proxy for their own desires. But to actually write self insert Bible fan fiction.

[Robert Evans]

It's stunning.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, it is. It's stunning.

[Robert Evans]

It's really some impressive stuff. And it's very funny. We're barely into Peter's like the first episode of Peter's speech. So I'm gonna read for you now. It started with him quoting that passage from the book of Daniel. Here's the second paragraph of his speech. In late modernity, such worries of the Apocalypse are unfashionable. And the Antichrist is a forgotten figure. And I'm sorry I lied. We couldn't get through the whole paragraph. Cause that first sentence like what world are you living in, man? I know the Antichrist is a forgotten figure.

[Sarah Marshall]

Where have you heard of the Antichrist? Peter Thiel. It was probably growing up watching the Omens starring Gregory Peck just like everyone else did.

[Robert Evans]

Have you talked to a person? Yeah. And this is a load bearing belief of his that churches don't talk about the apocalypse of the Antichrist anymore. What are you talking about? Are you. How do you think this. And just to add some polling data here. In 2013, the Public Policy Polling conducted a series of a survey on conspiratorial beliefs among American voters. 13% of respondents in 2013 believe Barack Obama was the Antichrist. Another 13 were unsure. 73% stated they didn't think Obama was the Antichrist, but all of them were aware of the concept of the Antichrist, period.

[Sarah Marshall]

I mean, this isn't new. Yeah, it's. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And it's.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's Satan's kid. You know, it's really.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's little Nicky.

[Robert Evans]

It's his. You know, look, if Satan is Francis Ford Coppola, the Antichrist is Nicolas Cage, who also would be a good pick to play the Antichrist. I'm just saying.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, my God. Yes. That has to have happened in 1994. And we forgot about it. It better have.

[Robert Evans]

It just skipped us by. I watched him play a surfer recently. Not a great movie.

[Sarah Marshall]

Wow.

[Robert Evans]

Not a great movie. Sorry, guys.

[Sarah Marshall]

I appreciate that. Nicolas Cage will apparently continue say no. You know, they're just like, will you be in this really inappropriate role? And he's like, yes.

[Robert Evans]

He's also an Australian in that. And they just explain it by being like, oh, we moved to America, California, when I was young. It's like, I don't. You still don't really sound Australian to me. Nicolas Cage.

[Sarah Marshall]

All right, Mel Gibson.

[Robert Evans]

But also, I will watch you do anything for roughly 90 minutes. So I guess I'm the fool here.

[Sarah Marshall]

And often an additional 30.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, many cases more than that. So I'm gonna actually read another paragraph. Peter said this time you'll get the whole paragraph, but it's just as insane. And so, like, hold your questions till the end, Sarah, but I know you're going to immediately have them. Our universities tell us that fears of the apocalypse are irrational and that the world is simply getting better. And yet our news tells us otherwise. We are worried about existential risks from AI bioweapons and nuclear war. How can we understand our apocalyptic time? And like, what universities are you. You think college professors are telling all their kids the world is always getting better and that's what. Ha. Like, who? Where? What are you basing this on? What college classes?

[Sarah Marshall]

Maybe he read Candide and he was like, so that's what they do in college.

[Robert Evans]

That's what professors must feel all the time.

[Sarah Marshall]

Especially in college. You spend four years with people saying, everything's fine, don't worry about it. Don't even think about it. It's great.

[Robert Evans]

Well, that's what's so weird to me about this is that, like, Peter hates universities in the standard right wing way, so I'm not surprised that he's critical of professors. But the standard Right wing critique of professors in the university isn't they think the world's getting better.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right?

[Robert Evans]

It's that, like, all of these leftist academics are telling everyone capitalism is fucked up and the climate change is cut. It's the opposite of that. That's such a weird thing for you to say. Being you, Peter, it feels like kind.

[Sarah Marshall]

Of classic freshman comp writing where you're like, I'm gonna invent a problem that doesn't exist in order to justify the importance of my position. And it's like, all right, you just made that up, but whatever, fine, keep going.

[Robert Evans]

And it's like, yeah, like, I get that you're creating strawmen, but like, you're creating conflicting strawmen. Like your strawmen aren't internally consistent. Which is kind of weird, right? Anyway, after this, Peter goes on to state that the Apocalypse is not a fixed date on a calendar. And he briefly summarizes the hilarious history of people trying to predict the end of days. Then he writes, still, if the day and the hour remain hidden, perhaps we may at least suspect the century. Now, I would argue this is just as delusional as trying to predict the day of the Apocalypse, but it is much smarter from a gambler's point of view. And Peter Thiel is a degenerate gambler. Right? Like you got a lot of, of space to be wrong if you're just like, oh, it'll happen sometime in the 21st century. Right? Like, that is the smart play.

[Sarah Marshall]

You'll be dead before people know you're totally wrong. Yeah, absolutely. Which is ideal.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now, next he tells his audience that if we are to take the Antichrist seriously. And again, for Peter, the Antichrist and the Apocalypse are both synonyms. We have to ask four questions. These four questions are, what is the Antichrist's relationship to Armageddon? When will he arrive? What is his relationship to Christ? And who is the Antichrist? Now, Peter's selective reading of Scripture concludes that the Antichrist is the final antagonist before the revelation of Christ and Armageddon. The Beast of the sea heading a world government. He will come after many forerunners and will deceive the faithful by appearing more Christian than Christ. Now for that last question. Who is the Antichrist? Peter notes that the Antichrist, depending on who you listen to, could be a single person or a system or a type that repeats across history. Right. And next he has a digression where he claims that David from the Bible was the first real historian because he foresaw a one time sequence of world empires, whereas Classical historians, like Thucydides saw only cycles, quote, Athens versus Sparta, Germany versus Britain and China versus America were one and the same. They were just steps in an eternal recurrence. And I know there's a lot that's wrong there. We'll get back to the Antichrist stuff. But I have to correct Peter's talking about history because this is not fair to Thucydides or to classical thought. And nothing he's saying here is like accurate historiography. Right. Classical thinkers did talk about the cyclical nature of history, like, Thucydides talked about that, but he wasn't saying that history is trapped in these, like, cycles of, like, it's the same thing happening over and over again. He was making the same observation modern people do looking at history, which is that, like, oh, people make the same mistakes a lot, huh? Like, there's a lot of similarities in history that rhyme because we keep fucking up in similar ways.

[Sarah Marshall]

Right?

[Robert Evans]

I'm gonna. Here's a quote from Thucydides himself just to make that point. If my work is judged useful by any who shall wish to have a clear view both of the events which have happened and those which will someday, according to the human condition, happen again in such and such ways, it will suffice for me. So Thucydides is saying my work is a success if it leads people to understand the human condition and the patterns that we go through as people. Right. Like the patterns in history as a result of the human condition. That's a very, like, modern thing, really, in a lot of ways, and I think is actually comports pretty well with modern historiography, which is like, the exact same things don't repeat, but people make similar choices historically in similar situations, and that's why you study history. I actually think Thucydides is saying something timeless here, and Peter is saying that. No, no, no, this guy is. This is a classical person who's trapped with, like, a very limited view of history that's fundamentally wrong because he doesn't believe history can progress, you know, which is not what Thucydides is saying. He's making a point about human nature.

[Sarah Marshall]

But he's got to create another meaningless straw man in order to make this theoretical point.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yes. In part because Daniel has to be the first real historian, you know, because.

[Sarah Marshall]

Historians predict things that haven't happened yet.

[Robert Evans]

Right? That's what being a historian is. Robert.

[Sarah Marshall]

Robert, my question is, do we have any from your. From the source, do they say, like, how the audience is reacting to this, like, 55 minute thing.

[Robert Evans]

They seemed engrossed. From the reports I've heard, like, mostly interested people kept showing up. I don't know, I don't have the audio, so I can't hear, like, what the reaction was. Was there a lot of applause? Was it all people being polite to Peter because they work in his VC fund? These are the unknowns, you know, to me. So I can't answer that question accurately, Sophie. But it's a good question. So Peter claimed his justification, his explanation for why Daniel was the first real historian is that Daniel was the first historian to realize that world empires would all fall in succession, leading ultimately to the end of the world and the coming of God's kingdom. Now, Daniel, I mean, he made a. That's kind of what he predicted, but not in a way that's accurate to modern history, because this is critical. Sarah. Daniel prophesied four earthly kingdoms rising and falling and succession. And then after Vose, four kingdoms rise and fall. We'll get the end of days and God's eternal kingdom. Right. And the first, we know what the kingdoms were. The first was Babylon, which did indeed rise and fall. The second was Persia. The third was Greece. Some of what Daniel wrote is often seen as him having predicted Alexander the Great. Although again, it was written after Alexander's time. Probably, right? Probably. And then the fourth kingdom that rose and fall was probably Rome. Right. That's what Daniel was prophesying. Now, if you're a history now, right, you might be saying at this point, I feel like there's been a lot of empires since the Roman Empire fell.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. It feels the Ottoman Empire springs to mind.

[Robert Evans]

Sure. That's a good British Empire.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, That's a big one.

[Robert Evans]

The American Empire, you know.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yep. Falling as we speak.

[Robert Evans]

Obviously. The Canadian Empire, the most powerful and evil of them all.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The seed of global Satanism, according to Michelle remembers. So there you go.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. And anyway, Peter's stance seems to be that, like, Daniel was right, but that. And again, Daniel is literally the guy who wrote the book of Daniel and literally a historian. But also the four kingdoms thing was figurative. Right. He wasn't literally talking about the actual historical empires he was talking about.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's figurative when it helps my argument.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Which is the only way. Cause like, again, he missed a lot of history after the Roman Empire in between that and the Apocalypse. And as a result, I might suggest that, like, well, Daniel clearly didn't foresee anything past the Roman Empire in terms of empires rising and falling. Maybe Thucydides way Of looking at history. You know, seeing patterns of human behavior and seeing how they influence historic events rather than trying to predict specific events. Maybe that's a more productive way to look at history. Maybe Thucydides was a better historian than Daniel.

[Sarah Marshall]

No, the correct way to look at history is self. Insert fan fiction. We've been over this.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. That's right.

[Sarah Marshall]

Make yourself the most important character in history. Why bother studying anything if you can't be the main character of it, right?

[Robert Evans]

I've always felt that way. Anyway, so thank you for, like, reinforcing my belief system here.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Anyway, in his next paragraph, Peter continues to be dizzyingly wrong. From 1750 to the early 1900s, technology accelerated at a pace that defies comprehension. In the 20th century, lifespans doubled. We moved faster physically. Steam engines led to automobiles and jet airplanes. In the 21st century, technology only means information technology. Progress in all other fields has halted. The question naturally arises, is the singularity in the past or in the future? Now?

[Sarah Marshall]

He doesn't know what singularity means.

[Robert Evans]

No, he doesn't. And he doesn't know or anything. This is a very. If all you care about is like, like the consumer tech industry, I understand how your attitude could be. Nothing is progressing aside from information technology. Smartphones aren't really improving anymore. Tablets are kind of laptops. All of these things that used to be wildly different every year are only kind of a little bit different now. With every new innovation, progress has stopped. If you only look at technology and like, gadgets a guy keeps in his living room or their pockets. I get how you might say that. And clearly that's how Peter Thiel thinks about technology, because he's a terminal narcissist, right? Who can only see progress through the lens of the parts of the tech industry he makes money on. But the idea that, like all other fields of scientific endeavor have stalled in the last couple of decades is insane nonsense. I mean, for example, MRNA vaccine technology advanced rapidly. Recent history. Right, right. That doesn't count to Peter. For some reason.

[Sarah Marshall]

What does it matter if something advances? If you can't make exponential profits off of it, who cares?

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Yep. And that's clearly what's going on here. I don't even know. Like, should I. Like, I have. I had a rant in here about, like, car tech, like, automobile safety technology. Just as, like, a point of how wrong he is because, like, it's Matt, like, since the 1980s, there's a little bit of debate about this, but anti lock brakes became normal in the 1980s and kind of after that you've started getting an increasing a variety of what are called advanced driver assistance systems or adas. This includes everything from collision warnings to automated emergency braking and electronic stability control, lane assist, all that kinds of stuff. And electronic stability control or ESC systems alone have been shown to reduce single vehicle fatal crash fatality chances by between like 40 and 56%. There's a 2017 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that shows that like some of these, like, like rear braking systems have reduced rear end collisions by 27%. Like the data overall suggests that like automated emergency braking with combined with a warning reduces rear end crashes by between 50 and 56%. And altogether newer cars have something like a 50% lower fatality risk in crashes than cars built in the late 50s. This is a staggering degree of improvement and a lot of it's occurred in the last like 20 years. Again during this period of time where Peter's like, nothing's getting better. Well, a lot is. It's just not what you care about. Like, yeah, we have kind of reached the apex of what a screen can do. Probably like you can't get it.

[Sarah Marshall]

That's fine. There's other things, cancers to research. You know, we're still making headway in other areas. It's fine.

[Robert Evans]

It's so weird to be like, well TVs are as good as they're going to get. All the progress is halted now.

[Sarah Marshall]

There's nothing else, so we might as well give up, I guess. Yeah, I'm ready for the apocalypse if my TV's not gonna keep improving. Yeah, we can't make the images any smoother.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And it's just really telling that like Peter's attitude is like only information technology is still advancing. And it's like, yeah. Cause that's the only technology you're looking at. Right. You don't care about car Safet, care about any of these other fields.

[Sarah Marshall]

Well, if he's not paying attention to it, it doesn't exist. You know, it's like when a baby drops something.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And there's a very funny at this point in his write up that he made of Peter's speech called Carney, the guy taking the notes includes a graph. And I don't know, I think that Peter's presentation had a graph like this. I don't know that maybe, but it's so funny. Sarah, look at this beautiful thing. There's two graphs. One is labeled in the package and one is labeled in the future. And the one that says in the Past shows the line basically going an S curve, but like it's going rapidly up. Knowledge on the X axis, time on the Y axis, or did I fuck up the axes? And then it's showing knowledge going up massively over time and then plateauing suddenly. And then the one labeled in the future shows knowledge at a steady rate until it shotguns up rapidly over time. I guess that's Peter predicting that knowledge will.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. Can we see the raw data for these?

[Robert Evans]

What is the data? What is knowledge based on? How are we defining knowledge in the future when.

[Sarah Marshall]

How do we know? Why do we have a chart of the future? It's because he's a true historian, like Daniel, who wrote the book of Daniel. Duh.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I love fake graphs. And this is a beautiful fake graph. To me. It's perfect. I don't even know what you're trying to argue other than like, AI will increase the rate of knowledge. Maybe it looks like that's kind of what he's trying to say, but he's arguing certainly that right now we're stuck. Like science is stuck. You know, and this is like the core of everything Peter believes and like, why he is so supportive of radical political change is that he thinks it's death for the human race, that science is stuck. And as a spoiler, the Antichrist is all of the anti science pieces. People who want to stop AI research, who want to stop drilling for fossil fuels. Like, who want to. Like that. That is his. His doom loop, right? Peter says, quote, we are running a red queen's race, working harder, running faster, yet standing still. Wages have stagnated, health is plateauing, and optimism is fading. Nixon declared a war on cancer in 1971, promising victory by the bicentennial in 1976. No president today would dare declare a war on Alzheimer's. And like, I mean, yeah, man. Cause we didn't beat cancer in 1976. Right?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, Nixon was very brave. Hey, if he hadn't got. If he hadn't resigned, maybe he would have cured cancer.

[Robert Evans]

Sure. It's like, I don't know, maybe the fact that this was a. Didn't work last time is why presidents don't say shit like that anymore. Cause it's like dumb. It's like, dummy. It's a stupid thing to do.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's a grandiose and over the top thing to say. And, and I get that it's personally disappointing to you that the presidents don't act more megalomaniacal, but.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it is also the idea that like, oh, wow, it's fun that he recognizes regular people, their wages are standing still. Like, things like quality of life increases have plateaued and things aren't getting better at the rate they used to. And yet my wealth as a billionaire has increased massively while, like, regular wages are stagnant. Rich people like me, the top 1% of the top 1% are getting a lot more. Hmm. Wonder if those are connected. I wonder if maybe all of the benefits that should be spread out throughout society in order to do things like increase life expectancy and increase average wealth and like, ensure people are able to retire and all this stuff that translates to quality of life. I wonder if the fact that all that money is going to me has anything to do with this stagnation. Nah.

[Sarah Marshall]

No. Antichrist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. In his next paragraph, Peter gets to the core of why he's so angry at science and academia. Science, once proud, promised radical life extension. Today, the closest we come to mastery over death is legalized euthanasia.

[Sarah Marshall]

What?

[Robert Evans]

And I. Yeah, no, Peter, that's not true.

[Sarah Marshall]

He just hasn't. I don't think anyone has given him feedback on this joke.

[Robert Evans]

No. And it's like, yeah, this is very clearly a man without an editor, for sure.

[Sarah Marshall]

He needs a producer. He needs a single person to say.

[Robert Evans]

No, sir, I feel like science never promised radical life. He probably read like an article in, like, People where someone who wasn't a scientist talked about radical or a grifter talked about radical, and you bought it. Cause you're not that smart. Maybe that's who promised radical life. I think some conmen promised you radical life extension. And as you age and none of the nonsense you're doing really works the way it's supposed to, you realize you've been conned and you're blaming science as opposed to the grifters that you listened to and gave a lot of money. I think maybe that's what's going on here.

[Sarah Marshall]

And blaming science for your magical thinking not working as well as it used to. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And also, just like the closest we come to mastery over death is legalized euthanas. Again, like, fucking. The most recent vaccine technology leaps and like, life expectancies have increased in a lot of ways for a lot of specific illnesses. There are a lot of new medicines that didn't exist 10 years ago, 20 years ago, that exist now.

[Sarah Marshall]

And like, absolutely, we have gene modification technology.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

You know, yeah. Like, I realize euthanasia is exciting, but come on.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. There's a ton of medical improvements and even breakthroughs. Just none of them mean that you'll live forever. Because that's not possible, Peter.

[Sarah Marshall]

But basically he's like, science is in the ditch and we might as well all kill ourselves. But wait, there's more.

[Robert Evans]

But wait, there's more. It's like looking at the aerospace field and being like, there's been no progress in the last 30 years because we haven't developed faster than light travel because.

[Sarah Marshall]

I didn't see it on tv. So I assume it didn't happen.

[Robert Evans]

Right. But, like, planes are a lot safer. Like, plane crashes are a lot rarer. Like, isn't that count as an improvement? No. Fuck you. We don't have warp speed. I'm angry. Yeah. Anyway, we'll talk some more about Peter Thiel and what he believes. And specifically we're gonna talk about who he thinks the Antichrist might be. And part two. But this is part one. It ran a little long. But thank you, Sarah, for indulging me.

[Sarah Marshall]

Thank you. This has been a horrifying journey.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. How do you feel about Peter? He seems smart.

[Sarah Marshall]

I feel like he's a tiny little baby and I can't wait to see him become even tinier before my very eyes next time.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Robert, who is your Antichrist?

[Robert Evans]

Robert, who do I think the Antichrist is? Honestly, like, Peter Thiel's not a bad pick. If you're kind of going though, with the more traditional view of, like, it needs to be somebody who's like, popular, who's like, widely beloved, you know, by people who's able to like, get a large following together. I feel like Mr. Beast. I feel like Mr. Beast. Very probable Antichrist.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah, I can see it.

[Robert Evans]

There's nothing behind his eyes. We can all agree on that, right?

[Sarah Marshall]

Yeah. That black eyes. Like a doll's eyes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, doll's eyes. And I'm glad that you brought up Jaws because I do think that the solution to Mr. Beast is the same as the solution to the shark and Jaws.

[Sarah Marshall]

Yep. Make him bite into an oxygen tank.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I'm gonna crowdfund a shitty boat. Like, not a good boat. Like a fucked up looking boat that I've been living on for a while.

[Sarah Marshall]

It's named after the thing that almost ate you when you were younger or. No, it's called the Orca. I guess it's named after the only thing that can eat the thing that almost ate you when you were younger.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's gonna be great. Anyway, if you haven't watched the original Jaws. Go listen to Jaws. Plug your pluggable, Sarah. Yeah.

[Sarah Marshall]

Go listen to the devil. You know it's out right now from CBC Podcasts. It's my new miniseries about the Satanic panic and all of the truly wonderful people who got caught up in it. And I was so happy to get to talk to you today about something that scares me so much more than any depiction of the devil. And I cannot wait to resume. Yay.

[Robert Evans]

All right, everyone, part one is done. Go away for a while. Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit.

[Sarah Marshall]

Our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out.

[Robert Evans]

On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Sarah Marshall]

Podcasts behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube.

[Robert Evans]

New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Maggie Freeling]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Robert Evans]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Sheryl McCollum]

I'm Sheryl McCollum, host of the podcast Zone 7. Zone 7 ain't a place, it's a way of life. Now this ain't just any old podcast, honey. We're going to be talking to family members of victims, detectives, prosecutors and some nationally recognized experts that I have called on over the years to help me work these difficult cases. I've worked hundreds of cold cases you've heard of and thousands you haven't. We started this podcast to teach the importance of teamwork in solving these crazy crimes. Come join us in learning from detectives, prosecutors, authors, canine handlers, forensic experts, and most importantly, victims, family members. Come be a of part part of my Zone 7 while building yours. Listen to Zone 7 with Cheryl McCollum on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

[Tenderfoot TV Narrator]

A new true crime podcast from Tenderfoot tv. In the city of Malls in Belgium, women began to go missing. It was only after their dismembered remains began turning up in various places that residents realized a sadistic serial killer was lurking among them. The murders have never been solved. Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence. Le Monstre Season 2 is available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sarah Marshall]

I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that.

[Turning River Road Narrator]

Meant for my heart. Podcasts and Rococo Punch this is the Turning River Road. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to the Turning river road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sarah Marshall]

This is an I Heart podcast.