[seanalltogether]

I grew up in a pretty religious household and my parents fully believed that Armageddon would happen in our lifetime. It wasn't until I was older that I realized there were a lot of American Christians that secretly held this belief, and that it has a meaningful influence on how voters want American politicians to deal with Israel and the Middle East in general.

[graemep]

It depends on the religion in the religious household. Its common among American evangelicals, but (unless American Catholics are very different from Catholics in the rest of the world) its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them.

Why is Thiel, whose parents were American evangelical and whose own beliefs are described as "heterodox", trying to sell this in Catholic packaging outside the US?

[frm88]

I feel, his phrasing may come over as Catholic, but that is neglecting his history. His defining years as a child he lived in Swapokmund, today's Namibia, where a swastika flag was raised in celebration of Hitler's birthday.

Swakopmund was known for its continued glorification of Nazism after World War II, including the celebration of Hitler's birthday and "Heil Hitler" Nazi salutes given by residents.[13][14] In 1976, The New York Times quoted a German working in a Swakopmund hotel who described the city as "more German than Germany".[14] As of the 1980s, Nazi paraphernalia was available to buy in shops.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swakopmund

His parents moved to the US when it became clear that with the opening the uranium mine the influx of black people was unavoidable.

His current ramblings are only the latest change in his views. There's a very good history of Peter Thiel video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAeTKyY3LB4

To answer your question: I think his lectures being held in the backyard of the Vatican is a deliberate provocation. He is a philosophy student, after all and forcing the Angelicum and others to publicly deny involvement may be his goal.

[torben-friis]

>its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them.

I'll do you one further, as someone from a deeply catholic country: Considering the triggering of Armaggedon in daily politics is seen as batshit crazy.

[sklargh]

American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter...or any. There are substantial differences between Catholics who seek out Jesuit parishes and those who seek out the Tridentine Mass and people who are just achieving physical presence and thinking about kickoff at 5:00 PM Sunday Mass to fulfill obligation and get out ASAP (no choir please, keep that sermon snappy). All of these are spiritually valid approaches imho.

[torben-friis]

The same is true here, yes. You'll see widely different stances and practical approaches to topics like immigration, premarital sex, and so on. Some people are strict, some people self define as catholic but only see church during weddings and funerals.

Putting effort in triggering the end of the world is nowhere on the spectrum though. I think if you told a priest you're pushing for that he would be seriously alarmed, like calling the police alarmed if you hold power.

[lo_zamoyski]

> American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter

No, but as a general rule, Catholics don’t and have never fretted about the end times the way all sorts of Protestant sects have, historically. Which is curious given Matthew 24:36 and all the hullabaloo Protestants make about being “scriptural”. And perhaps more importantly, because it has authority on such matters, Church teaching makes no claims about when the end of the world will occur and it never has, because it cannot.

[trollbridge]

It remains a fact, though, that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach these things about Armageddon.

[itsthecourier]

there was a Catholic reason for this, the Fatima Sheppards. there was an "apparition" of Virgin Mary and some "Prophecies" that were really imprinted on all Catholics over 50 years old. pretty much anti-russian propaganda. they silently pedal back from them in the last 25 years. but last time I visited sn important catholic monument internationally, most of the people in the bus knew about them, how they talk about the end of the world but never realized the Vatican already made them public all and it was a sham.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Secrets_of_F%C3%A1tima

also end of the world prophecies are a Catholic meme

my favorite is Pope Sylvester II in 1000 AD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...

[rich_sasha]

> pretty much anti-russian propaganda

Russia bit of the prophecies:

> [...] If my requests are [not] heeded, Russia [...] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.

I'm not sure it is fair to call it propaganda when it is bang on the money. Even the Holy Father bit checks out, seeing how John Paul II narrowly survived a KGB-sponsored assassination attempt.

[rainworld]

Those who triumphed over “Russia” (also a tell) had anything but immaculate hearts.

> The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.

Rings a bell. Errors are spreading but “Russian” they are not.

> The date of the attempted assassination, 13 May 1981, was the 64th anniversary of the first apparition of the Virgin Mary to the children at Fátima.

Do I have to spell it out.

[trollbridge]

It is not even a universal belief among evangelicals. The denomination/overall group Peter Hegseth is part of (conservative Reformed Christianity) expressly teaches against this, or even makes fun of it.

I would venture that it is less than half of Christians who believe in this idea at all. It does seem to be the domain of wild eyed TV evangelists though.

[gambiting]

I grew up in a religious household as a Roman Catholic, in an extremely religious country(Poland) and I've never heard anyone talk about apocalypse as something that might happen soon or well...ever. From my point of view, the "christianity" that American Evangelicals practice is almost unrecognizable as having the same base with the religion I grew up with. Like the core tennets of Jesus have been twisted and warped to serve a very narrow political agenda. That's not to say Roman Catholics don't use religion for politics, but Evangelism is just.....next level?

[kubb]

Well, even European Evangelicals are vastly different from their American counterparts. There's no megachurches, prosperity gospel, televangelism, and the religion is not as strongly intertwined with politics.

[dep_b]

Poland is quite intertwined.

But Catholicism has its own government, which prevents individual catholic countries to veer off too much.

[kubb]

Poland isn't Evangelical.

[wl]

Blame William Miller for American Evangelicalism's preoccupation with the end times.

[dep_b]

It’s almost like they reject the parts of the bible featuring Christ, and only cling on to the Old Testament and the parts after Christ as their guide.

In lack of a better word, that sounds more like anti-Cristian

[JKCalhoun]

Growing up I was exposed to Baptists and Evangelicals that talked about the coming "Rapture". It has always felt like a wild revenge fantasy for the "faithful". A kind of, "Oh, you'll see soon enough, then you'll be sorry!"

[kubb]

Out of curiosity, what grounds their belief that it's going to happen soon? Why not in a thousand years? As far as I know, there is no mention of the exact date in the Bible.

[wl]

The land of Israel has been a vassal state or part of another state or empire for most of recorded history. Israel becoming an independent state in 1948 ties in with messianic prophesy.

[sicher]

No, but even the first christians believed they were living in the end times. It's been believed for 2000 years.

[kubb]

For the first Christians, it made sense. But gradually, as it didn't happen, people adjusted their expectations.

[UncleMeat]

New Apostolic Reformationists believe that there are increasing number of "new apostles" who are receiving messages from God, which they see as evidence of the end times.

It is also common among these folks to believe that the end times don't just happen and that instead it is our responsibility to create the circumstances that enable the end times. This can either mean creating a state of instability and violence or creating a worldwide christian theocracy that lasts for 1000 years. Both involve massive upheavals of global systems.

[rich_sasha]

My favourite bit of Biblical trivia. Consider this passage from the Revelation of St John: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%208%... describing, perhaps, events leading to the end of the world:

> The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

"Wormwood", a type of bitter plant, translates to Russian as "Chernobyl", and Ukrainian "Chornobyl": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl > Etymology

[kubb]

Sure, but this description doesn't correspond to what happened in Chernobyl, and none of the other trumpets have corresponding events.

So do the Evangelicals believe that Chernobyl disaster triggered the apocalypse, and that it has been happening ever since? I don't think so.

[rich_sasha]

Yes, you would have to extend some poetic license.

This was a bit of ad lib, the US branch of Christianity follows it's own logic and sadly I cannot answer the serious question.

I'm pretty sure there were some bits in the Bible about loving thy enemy and turning the other cheek. But maybe I misremember.

[dmurray]

It's a Pascal's wager. If you're convinced Armageddon is going to happen at some point, then you should do all you can to prepare for it happening in your lifetime. And that approach is explicitly encouraged in the Bible: "You do not know the day or hour", etc.

[kubb]

Right "you do not know the day or the hour", not "you know that the day will be sometime between 2026 and 2076". I understand being prepared and whatnot. I don't understand the certainty of the date. Even the Bible says that it's unknown.

[user3939382]

Not only is there no date, it explicitly says the time and date is not known to us.

[krapp]

The closest we have to a "date" is Jesus claiming the current generation wouldn't pass away before the end times arrived, which obviously didn't happen. So even the "Son of God" got it wrong.

[user3939382]

Wow thousands of years of theology all got it wrong, including Thomas Aquinas and some of the smartest people who ever lived. If only they had your brilliant HN thesis they could have saved so much time and understood so much more.

[krapp]

Owwie looks like I'm going to need some lotion for that sick burn.

[user3939382]

Better to get used to the burning sensation

[wyldfire]

The same self-centeredness that drove man to think that Earth was the center of its Universe.

See also: bean soup / "what about me?*

[seanalltogether]

I believe it was related to both Israel gaining statehood after WW2, and the panic of nuclear disaster leading up to the end of the Cold War. It feels like a idea that really took root in the minds of evangelical Baby Boomers and early GenXers, but likely has lost all meaning to millenials.

[_DeadFred_]

I see/hear way more end times doomerism/blow it all up/end it all from my secular friends than I have ever heard Armageddon talk from Christians, but I don't live in the south.

[breppp]

That belief is very common in secular settings. Marx and current day offshoots believed in a war that will bring redemption and utopia, other complete atheists believe in the inevitable environmental disaster (not whether it is happening but the belief that it cannot be prevented or fixed)

[amanaplanacanal]

Also similar is a belief in the AI singularity.

[orwin]

To be clear, Marx believed in the 'march of progress', basically that the constant struggle between classes during the middle age as well as the scientific revolution killed feudal society to give birth to capitalism (which is a very reductionist view of what happened, because the knowledge we had on feudal society then was _extremely_ skewed, but for the time it wasn't that crazy), and that the struggle between the capital class and the worker class will kill capitalism to create socialism (which isn't what is called socialism in Europe right now, it is closer to what European call communism), which is the last step before communism (basically a state of nature where everything goes so well you don't need the state. An ordered anarchy where everyone works for themselves and the society, without coercion from other people or entity). He use violent term (struggle), but never talked about a violent war or revolution, on the opposite, he took the French revolution as an example to avoid if I remember correctly (it has been more than a decade now. I'm old as fuck).

Some of his offshot do believe in a necessary war though. Leninism and Stalinism are the most famous one. Some of them take the US revolution as an example to follow.

[surgical_fire]

I think there's an extra layer of crazy there.

So, you (not you, a generic you) believe that Armageddon is happening in your lifetime, and the event is the literal moment when God will pour his Holy Wrath against unrepentant sinners in a final judgement as the world wraps up... And you, deeply religious as you are, will obviously go to Heaven, while all the annoying people you rightly hate will go to Hell, to be punished for eternity.

Considering this, is it not obvious that this hypothetical person would wish for Armageddon already? I mean, for you it is the final prize.

I believe these people don't want a future. They want the end.