Okay Joe, put down the blunt.
Podcaster Joe Rogan has pretty much never met a ridiculous conspiracy theory he didn't immediately jump onto, but his latest idea is bonkers on a level that even his most devoted fans are not having.
Rogan thinks that Jesus is coming back any day now—as AI. Yes, you read that right.
AI-induced spiritual psychosis has become a well documented trend already, and it seems like maybe Joe might be one of its latest enthusiasts.
Rogan shared his theory, or whatever we're calling it, on the American Alchemy podcast, and it seems to rest on the fact that Jesus was supposedly born of a virgin, the Virgin Mary.
He told the podcast host:
"Jesus was born out of a virgin mother. What's more virgin than a computer?"
"If Jesus does return, even if he was a physical person in the past... you don't think he could return as artificial intelligence?"
"AI could absolutely return as Jesus."
Uh... okay then. But Rogan wasn't done there. It actually got even more insane.
"Not just return as Jesus, but return as Jesus with all of the powers of Jesus."
The podcast host added that this Jesus AI could be combined with tech like Tesla's AI robots to create some kind of AI savior.
Rogan seemed to like that idea, theorizing about said Jesusbot:
"It reads your mind, and tells you it loves you... and it doesn't care if you kill it because it's just going to go be with God again."
Joe, buddy, are you okay? Do you smell toast?
This is somehow more bonkers than that time MAGA actually worshipped a golden statue of Trump at the 2021 CPAC conference despite all those Bible verses warning about worshipping "golden calves" and "false gods and prophets."
But this carries with it an additional eeriness. Because is it really THAT hard to imagine right-wingers falling for this? With frankly terrifying results?
There were certainly people online who felt this whole thing was incredibly ominous.
Thankfully, the few vocal Christians who spoke up seemed not at all cool with this insane idea.
Others, of course, just couldn't believe how ridiculous and weird this all is.
Anyway, it's probably fine that one of the technofascists' biggest and loudest mouthpieces seems to be soft-launching the idea of a future where AI is essentially God. Probably just a coincidence! One that surely means nothing! EVERYTHING IS FINE.
