| Julius Caesar was the first historical Roman deified as a god, and Augustus promoted himself as a son of god, partly or mostly for political reasons. Christ denied the prevailing notion of the day that Julius Caesar is a god (and Augustus is a son of god). Therefore, he is an anti-establishment, and an atheist or unbeliever in the political realm. Thiel refers to this as 'political atheism'. In his last sentence, he mentioned that libertarianism is related to 'political atheism', which was Christ's view of the political order of the day. The commonality I make out of his reasoning is that both Christianity in those days and current-day libertarianism are anti-establishment. A very interesting shift in frame of reference. And you can point out that, politically, some Christian beliefs have in practice become part of the establishment today, which sort of contradicts his point. What do you think? Please correct me if I'm wrong. My scant knowledge of the Roman era is mostly from Crash Course [1] (highly recommended for learning in an entertaining way, and I believe most of the contents are good too) and a bit from Wikipedia [2]. [1] https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/crash-course1/cr... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Deification |
Jesus wasn't anti-establishment: "give to Caesar what is Caesar's".
Political atheist is not a great term. But I guess the Jesus of the Bible is a "political atheist" to the extent that he doesn't think rulers necessarily have God's approval. Jesus started life as a refugee from a king that wanted to murder him. But that is not a new thought. After all, the pharoah (allegedly a god) refused to release the Israelites even after Moses told him God's will and performed miracles to prove it.
Interestingly, the contemporaries of Jesus were expecting him to reassert the political (and probably military) might of Israel in his role as Messiah. In the Bible, there is a lot of confusion around him and his teachings sprouting from the meme that he was a divine political savior, not a primarily spiritual one.
When Jesus rejected that notion (riding into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a regal horse, submitting to execution, etc.), he took a particularly apolitical stance: that politics aren't as important as loving God, loving neighbors, and living in the spirit of God's laws.
Jesus was a fan of quoting the canon scriptures of his time. Something he surely read and agreed with is: "In the Lord's hand the king's heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him."
...which implies that politics and rulers aren't a particularly big deal compared to pleasing God.