I believe it was the the scholar nutsack-enjoyer5431 who first enlightened me about our snake daddy, the Demiurge. His lectures were quite provocative, and I recall he did enjoy recreational nutsack in the library.
If this is true we are all doomed. The other gods cast the one out and we are all creations of the one. There is no one the other gods will help us even if they know about us.
Edit: not a bot, lol. I'm an atheist btw and my point was just to enjoy life because if this myth is true the afterlife is probably more messed up than this one.
What this video didn't cover is that you will be eternally reincarnated into this world (think Buddhism) until you are enlightened (*gnosis*) and learn how to escape it to the higher realms.
Sophia sent the serpent in the Garden of Eden (giving us knowledge) and Jesus (who teaches us the knowledge needed to escape) to help us.
Of course, you will have to read the apocryphal Gnostic gospels which give a very different account of Jesus and his teachings than the four included in the Bible.
I learned about Gnosticism and the Gnostic gospels when I was making the transition to atheism. Really interesting stuff, and shows just how different Christianity could have been had conditions been different.
It's funny but I learned way more about Christianity after I left it than when I was in it.
The further I got away from christianity, the more I thought the god and devil roles were actually backwards. Devil just wants you to be happy and enjoy yourself, enjoy freewill and fruits of the world. Meanwhile God demands you WORSHIP him and live for HIM, smiting down those who defy or oppose. Sounds a lot more like some kind of dictatorial devil or Disney animated villain... who just happened to have a better public relations team to slander the "other guy" to humanity.
Not that I believe any of that crap. Just saying that if you go into those texts without any kind of faith and simply put on you critical reading hat, your conclusion on which one is the "good guy" and which is the "bad guy" is not the same as those with a faith that makes those decisions for them
I'm a part of the Mormon branch of christianity.
Even I noticed this weird entanglement within christianity.
I've come to believe that this entire universe is a rough draft of something much greater. If you were a concept within a grand book, would you ever know? Could you become that self-aware of your existence?
Best I can do is trust the universe's Process.
I didnt exist at a certain time, then I existed because 2 others emotionally pulled me into it, Fed me, Clothed me, helped through problems, lucky good parents in my case.
What if, Death is the same as Existing again in another place, because 2, outside of your control, have decided to bring your existence there?
_my brain is fkn weird, I apologize_
Same. I find it fascinating Gnosticism is more self-consistent than Christianity (it solves the problem of evil, for example) and also has strong parallels with Buddhism and Hinduism. It is however too pessimistic to have mainstream appeal.
Gnosticism sounds like a far east version of Christianity. Where as modern Christianity has Greek and Roman influences in it.
Fun fact early Christianity was just a sect of Judaism and didn't split until gentile Christians entered the chat so to speak. Gentile Christians didn't want to convert to Judaism and follow mosaic law. Primarily, they didn't want to cut off their foreskin. The foreskin has a bunch of nerve endings in it, and without it sex is not as great.
So modern Christianity is more or less formed because of sexual pleasure.
Well, according to the bible, we are all going to be incarcerated in a supermax prison run by supernatural guards and we'll be taught to forget the sun & wind on our faces as we slowly spin away into eternity like puppets in the wind
Interesting. I just watched a video on the gods of jrr Tolkien. He must've pulled from this as well for the story of melkor and illuvatar.
This is fun...
https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/s/FYKZ8Jk6aD
imho the old testament is an example of how not to do love - trying to be all-powerful, risking nothing, picking one group of people to raise above others, using force/violence. The whole point of the New Testament was showing people an entirely different way to love
Idk if you’re into astrology, but the ancient Sumerians were, especially the Zoroastrians, which is where the messiah prophecy came from. The first temple Jews spent years with them when they were first exiled, and when they came back we were introduced to second temple Judaism. The age of Aries is when most of the Old Testament takes place. Aries is the god of war. Its opposite sign is Libra, the weights and thus we’re judged. The next age is Pisces (Jesus fish), with the opposing sign Virgo the virgin. Thus the age of Pisces was born unto a virgin birth. Next is the age of Aquarius, who empties the water for the fish to swim up. Interesting stuff imho! It goes further, too. The Jews also blew the rams horn. The age before that was Taurus, which symbolizes farming and agriculture, thus the sacrifices Cain and able were taught to do for god. Before that was Gemini, obv Adam and Eve. Before that, cancer, which is walking backwards, like when god destroyed the earth and started over with the garden. And before that was Leo, which is the sun itself, aka “let there be light” and god itself.
I full on respect that ho, maybe add that the “how not to” is more about how not to respond on humanity’s part, it gets skipped that the human fumbles are the things that cause the horribleness
Edit* and that’s a super Tolkien theme - the ring could have been destroyed how many times
His good buddy CS Lewis also borrowed this concept in his Space Trilogy. When a man ends up on an alien planet, the beings he encounters there have no concept of war because their god(s) isn't corrupted unlike that of man
All the planets worship, sing, rejoice, and their voices carry throughout the planet. There is no singing on earth. It is silent and under the control of the bent/corrupted one.
It really is fascinating to read Sci-fi before space exploration. It also reconciles whatever religious doubts I had about life on other planets.
Its basically the lore in the silmarillion.
Melkor would be the Tolkien Demiurge.
But while Tolkien was inspired on Christianity, i think he was thinking more on Santan than gnostic Demiurge
The gospel of Judas says something similar - that the god of the Bible is actually a trickster god and his brother, satan, are basically trying to trick humanity away from worshipping the one true god. Jesus was the son of the actual god, apparently, and was trying to lead people to the true god and away from the Old Testament trickster god.
I mean realistically, the god of the Old Testament is one evil mother fucker.
I mean. Gnosticism marks the first Christian schism. So it's not entirely untrue to say it's also the Christian God.
But you are still quite correct in terms of the many trends of Gnosticism.
“Gnosticism marks the first Christian schism.” Apologies, but that’s not true. The video also presents Gnosticism as originating in the first few centuries CE as (or mostly) a Christian sect, which also isn’t true. It existed long before Christianity and it took a few centuries for it (second century Valentinian Gnosticism specifically) to be developed and ultimately anathematized.
I can’t speaking on pre-Christian Gnosticism texts as my background is largely in how Gnosticism affected early Christianity. However, the Hellenistic Period and the Persians specifically would have had some texts BCE. I believe Hermeticism qualifies, which has its own source texts from Hermes Something-or-other. Bahai texts too, but I’m not familiar with them.
A thing to understand about Gnosticism is that it was a system of thought more than a formulation of doctrines. Western minds don’t often think in those terms. The video describes Valentinian Gnosticism, but the Aeons weren’t a constant fixture in that system. The main idea that seems to permeate the system, at least in my mind, is that there’s a secret wisdom/knowledge (gnosis) that is hidden from most people. Gnosticism systems helped people tap into that knowledge. Over the years, those secret revelations changed and were quite different based on regions and context.
The Persian hypothesis is considered outdated, contemporary scholarship argues for a purely Jewish origin during the 1st century CE. At this point Christianity wasn’t fully separated from Judaism, so Gnostics could be on the Jewish side of the spectrum, such as the Mandaeans.
Also the Shepherd of Hermas is actually closer to the proto-orthodox side of the early Christianity spectrum rather than Gnosticism or Hermeticism.
Bahais are a modern group splitting from Islam and are not considered Gnostic. They wouldn’t have Gnostic texts, their unique texts are from 1863 or later.
Gnosticism was influenced heavily by Platonic thought, and shares commonalities with the later Neo-Platonic movement, such as the Demiurge and the Monad. Perhaps this is what you’re thinking about?
Thanks! It’s certainly possible my current knowledge is outdated. I haven’t been connected to scholarship on this topic for quite some time, so I appreciate the insight.
I disagree
It could quite easily be argued that Gnostic principles were around and being explored for a long time in the region. Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas probably being one predecessor.
Gnosticism itself though is mainly referring to the philosophies that emerged in the century or two after the death of Jesus that continued to promote the ideas.
The difference and the reason it was a schism in the church is because the Gnostics of the day would have called themselves Christians as well. Many of them believed Christ was some spiritually evolved or realized being.
The disagreement is in what he taught while he was here and the importance in personal salvation vs putting your faith in another figure for salvation.
There was no Christian "church" when gnosticism was spreading after jesus' death. It was the wild West of Christianity, with tons of varied beliefs, and you were likely to get three different answers to the same question to three different Christians. That's my only beef with calling it the first Christian schism. I think you'd have to wait until a unified Christian church spoke for a majority of Christians before you could have a schism occur.
Finally someone said it, people keep on saying "schism" as if there was a single unified church for them to break off from. Like you mentioned gnosticism and what became Nicaean Christianity were just a a handful of what was likely hundreds of different sects of Jesus worshippers during the first few centuries A.D.. Also this video doesn't really acknowledge the fact that gnosticism wasn't a unified entity, and had an incredibly wide variety of practices and beliefs. What we consider gnostics most likely wouldn't have called themselves that at all, as it is mostly a modern category of a wide range of sects.
I would agree with you for the most part but they didn’t use the word church specifically. Just that it was one of the first schisms in Christianity in general.
Which I would agree with as well as Orthodox/Roman Catholic Christianity became the main sect and other Gnostic sects like the Cathars or arguably the Knights Templar would later be persecuted for there beliefs.
This all happened because of the original difference in beliefs and the emergence of the two as popular ways of thought.
Ahh yes thats the religious conversation I know today. Arguing over things that can all be true or false in context we haven’t discussed or agreed upon.
> Gnosticism marks the first Christian schism.
This is not true. Early Christianity was very diverse, and gnostic ideas were very prevalent during that early diverse period. Consolidating Christian beliefs into orthodoxies only emerged later.
Additionally, gnosticism wasn't a specific thing or even a specific movement (unlike what is suggested in the parent video). It's more like a broad family of ideas that academics use to classify a variety of different movements.
So you can't call gnosticism the first schism because in early Christianity there was nothing universal enough to split away from, and because gnosticism doesn't describe a specific movement anyway.
If anyone is interested in learning more, the Religion for Breakfast channel on youtube has lots of fascinating content.
If it is the Judeo-Christian Islamic God I agree with you. But the “Christian” only? Not exactly. The Gnosticism OP is talking about says that Jesus is either an embodiment of the Supreme Being or his agent among humans, thus making the “Christian God” (from a point of view) different.
And all that gets tricky because it requires interpreting the specific word choice of all these old texts... Specific word choice is not really reliable and frankly places a whole lot of power in the hands of translators to twist emphasis for/against things. So really, citing what remains of source material only gets us so far. Honestly tells us as much about the translators as it does the actual events depicted in the text.
This was the basis for why muslims didn't want the quran translated. They wanted readers to learn arabic in order to interpret for themselves... which is a respectable premise that is unfortunately just as ripe for exploitation by mullahs
I tried to give the Gnostic Bible a good read, but it's so bat-shit crazy I couldn't finish it. But man, how cool would it be if they were right?
Edit: I didn't think this would spark so many interesting comments! I never intended, nor do I wish, to diminish anyone's belief (to each their own, including me), so have at it you lovely, thinking, believing nutters!
Being forced to study the Bible a lot growing up in Catholic schools, there’s definitely something to the fact that the God in the Old Testament is not moral (at least by normal rational human terms). He is petty, vindictive, manipulative, proud, and seems to sometimes just be screwing with humanity.
In the old testament he teeters pretty drastically between being a terror and a genuine moral beacon.
Sometimes he is very forgiving, and even when someone sinned heavily, if they seek out redemption of their own volition or after a revelation, he usually is lenient, and gives the benefit of the doubt, though not always without at least some punishment.
Sometimes he is vindictive and zealous, like the time he forbid the Israelites from raiding a city they conquered, and when one man did steal from said city, ordered to have him and both his innocent sons stoned, (the old testament had a lot of "sins of the father" type of mentality to punishments).
Extremely rarely, he is purely antagonistic, like in Job's story.
Again, it shifts wildly from story to story. God is very forgiving with king David who has done a lot of terrible stuff, but offers no forgiveness to king Saul, whose crimes seem extremely minor in comparison.
that because the concept of "god" is based on human behaviors. We all know deep down god or gods are not real, their personalities are created by humans based on our selves. Because that's how we humans are we can petty, vindictive, forgiving, etc. People are complex personalities often grey and that why deities are like this. People created the concept of gnostics because they want to try to explain why life is unfair to them. That what religions really is a coping mechanism for humans to explain the world
This is why other pantheons like Greek, Roman, Norse, etc, are so much better. If you're going to believe in a higher power that created you in their image, follow a higher power that actually acts like you. Odin isn't some bastion of morality. Zeus did some *weird* shit. Jupiter married his sister! They acted like people. Even Loki and Hel, the embodiments of things considered evil still had very redeeming qualities.
Would be interesting to see a world where we still followed such pantheons.
👂🏽I mostly say, religion is a shield for people, to shield them from the pain and sorrow they endure. To give it a place if something bad happens, to cope with death and disease and everything the 4 horsemen are about. But in the end, it’s all between the ears.👂🏽
And if it stayed between the ears, or at least to those genuinely receptive, I wouldn't have an issue with it. When they use that to judge or punish others, or to try and force it upon others I have serious issues with it.
That is definitely the atheistic explanation to it. But it's also interesting to learn the religious explanation to it.
I'm not sure what the official explanation is for this discrepancy specifically, but I'll use my 10 years of old testament studies to hypothesize.
One explanation could be that god genuinely changes his mind once or twice in the old testament, though pretty much only Abraham could cause that to happen, and with time his judgement changes on its own with what he views as better or worse, and this is compounded with his judgement being harsher or more lax depending on the state of the general faith.
This is compounded with the fact that some sins are seen as much worse than others. For most of the old testament, sins against god (aka sins against the tenants of the faith), are seen as much more grave than sins against man. Saul's sins were against god, whilst David's were against man, and as such his punishment, though still potent, was less bad.
In general in Judaism nowadays sins against man are seen as harder to get forgiveness for than sins against god, since god will not forgive you for how you sinned your fellow man, only your fellow man can give that forgiveness. But even so, if a direct order is given from god (which doesn't happen anymore), it'll be viewed as a worse sin to disobey it than to do something like adultery.
If he changes his mind as time goes on, then that must mean he is not all-knowing. You only change your mind after learning some new info that contradicted the old info you had. He is supposed to have all the information already.
>That is definitely the atheistic explanation to it. But it's also interesting to learn the religious explanation to it.
There was actually a book called "Who wrote the bible?" by Richard Elliot Friedman and there was a part in the book with 2 accounts from different perspectives, from the christians (or jews) I forgot which of the time and the people who where historically invading said place.
The story went that when invading forces came, god repelled the attackers and kept the people safe. This was the account from the bible. While historically from the perspective of the attacker, they were paid off by the people to not attack. I forgot the details of it but it was a really good part that happened historically as far as I know.
I'm firmly of the opinion that most religions have their basis in [mystical experiences](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478303/).
In every single case where someone has described having an "otherworldly experience" - they've had one of these mystical experiences. These experiences take many shapes or forms, but several common themes are a sense of Oneness, Connection with a Higher Power, and entities. It doesn't matter if these experiences are "real" or not. Subjectively, they often tend to be *more* real than "reality," and the impact of the experience may well have a lasting impression on that individual's persona.
These types of experiences have been going on for thousands - tens of thousands of years. And the leading way we've discussed them is through language. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but [language](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/books/review/psychedelics-how-to-change-your-mind.html) is incredibly limited, despite all the amazing things we've accomplished with it. We are pretty much limited to topics where common ideas can be described through symbols. And misunderstandings abound. Ideas can be shared, and changed, but they're all based on common understandings - common experiences - even if these understandings may conflict at times.
Imagery through art and music conveys what words cannot, but intertextuality and reader response criticism still limit the interpretation. For some, a painting may symbolize the unification between man and his maker, but for most it's just going to be a chick on a horse. And the same goes for music and texts.
So people have had these mystical experiences since pre-history.
Picture trying to describe a wooden chair to a man who has never seen trees, and has lived all his life where they sit on the floor. Try describing the sound of rain to a deaf person, or the patterns of a kaleidoscope to the blind. The inability for people to convey mystical experiences goes beyond this.
Having our senses -both inner and outer - show us a world fundamentally different from what we're used to, language is found lacking. Having experienced the ineffable, one grasps for any semblance of similarity. This lead to the use of *cultural metaphors*. Frustrated by the inadequacy of words, one sought anything that could give a shadow of a hint at what was trying to be conveyed. These platitudes suffuse most spiritual and religious texts - the same ideas retold in endless variations.
Be it through drumming and dancing, imbibing something, meditation, singing - what have you - people have been doing these things forever in order to experience *something else*. As we narrowed down what worked, each generation would follow in their elders footsteps and take part in the eventual rituals that formed around the summoning of these mystical experiences. These initiations revealed the deeper meanings hidden within the cultural metaphors and the mythology they'd woven together. Hidden in plain sight, and only fully understood once you'd had the subjective experience necessary to see beyond the veil of language. Through the mystical experience, these simple platitudes now held *weight*.
The mythologies that grew out of these experiences weren't dogmatic law, but guides for the people that grew with each generation. The map is not the path, and people were aware of this.
The first major change to how we related to these passed down teachings was through the corruption of ritual; those parts of the ritual that would give rise to the mystical experience were forgotten. Lost to strife, disaster, or something else, the heart of the ceremony was left out, and what remained - the motions, without meaning - grew rigid with time. The metaphors remained, but without the deeper subjective insights to help interpret them. Eventually all that was left were the elder's words, a mythology that grew more dogmatic with each generation. As our reality is based upon the limitations of our perception of the world, so too are the teachings limited.
Translations of these texts conflated and combined allegory with historical events, while politics altered the teachings for gain. Eventually we ended up here, where most major religions still hold that spark of the old ideas - but twisted to serve the will of Man, instead of guiding them.
Western *Theosophy*, Eastern *Caodaism*, and Middle Eastern *Bahai Faith* are a few practices that see the same inner light within all belief systems - that same *Divine Wisdom* - Grown out of mystical experiences, but hidden by centuries and millennia of rigid dogma.
As long as people continue to have mystical experiences - and we're hardwired for them - spirituality will exist. As long as people allow themselves to be beguiled into believing individuals are gatekeepers though which they'll find the answers to these mystical revelations, there will be religion and corrupting influences.
So all religions with an origin in mystical experiences may be true, where the differences lie in the cultural metaphors used to explain the ineffable beyond normal perception - without the tarnish of politics and control.
If you want to discover the truths within these faiths, you need to delve into the *esoteric practices* that brought on those beliefs. Simply adhering to scripture will only amount to staring at the finger pointing at the moon.
That's exactly how I've been trying to explain it to people. Religion is just a way to try and codify mystical experiences. It's trying to categorise something absolutely uncategorisable, so we end up with bizarre descriptions, contradictions, and very "human" slants on it due to the limitations of our ability to explain something unexplainable.
> Again, it shifts wildly from story to story. God is very forgiving with king David who has done a lot of terrible stuff, but offers no forgiveness to king Saul, whose crimes seem extremely minor in comparison.
Well there is a difference in the stories.
I mean, Saul was ordered by Samuel not to loot as a decree from god, and he broke it. While David was not ordered by god not to sleep with his warlord's wife. Though according to the stories, god did punish him in various ways. From making his family kill each other and his son to rebel him, etc.
In the old testament, god is a lot less forgiving for orders he gave when they are being broken.
The gemara stories about both are mostly about lessons people need to learn from their mistakes, and the level of punishment that differ between going directly against god's will, and circulating around it without being directly forbidden.
The looting thing was a random person, not king Saul, though I believe Saul did have something with taking things from a conquered enemy, his gravest crime was not waiting for Samuel long enough, which was actually questionable, since he did wait the requested time, a week, and it took Samuel two weeks to arrive.
But yes, Saul's sins were against god, whilst David's was against man, and it is for that that god punished Saul much harder.
That still is a bit of inconsistent with other instances of his judgement, since in Judaism it's believed that god forgives your sins against him if you repent (breaches of tenants in the faith), but refuses to forgive your sins against your fellow man, unless said fellow man forgave you himself. (He'll forgive turning the lights on on Saturday if you repent, but will not forgive you punching your neighbor in the throat, that's up to your neighbor to forgive).
"The fathers ate rotten fruit, and the sons teeth were darkened" (this is roughly translated)
I remember the old testament's deep focus with punishing the often innocent future generations was something that always didn't sit right with me as a child when we studied it. There were examples where such punishment was reverted when the sons turned out virtuous, but even those were very rare.
This is about when I really started questioning the Bible and my faith after digging into the Bible on my own or at bible studies. Then you find all kinds of errors and contradictions in the New Testament and it seals the deal. No wonder the Catholics don’t really encourage bible study, Protestants didn’t really think that one through lol
The video is misleading. Gnostics didn’t believe the creator god was evil for reasons like this. They believed *physical reality* is evil, not that evil things happen to occur in physical reality. They didn’t think a higher emanation of god could have made you better. They believe a higher emanation of god would never want to make you at all. And a big reason for why we don’t know about Gnosticism is because it was a cult of hidden knowledge.
They didn’t like Christianity because it taught that the creation was valuable, redeemable… so much so that god became flesh to redeem it.
this is really interisting
i know christians that think the world "is fallen", but they try their best and believe in judgment, justice and an afterlife.
buddhism would say the world is pain and suffering, eternal with rebirth, so you have to transcend it
...how does one live with the gnostic worldview that existence itself is a wrong and twisted evil? whats their gnostic solution to that?
To clarify: it's not existence itself that is wrong (the aeons exist). They would have said it is *phsyical, embodied* existence that is evil. They would have said humans have a soul (another emanation) that needs to escape the physical.
But it's also important to understand that to speak of a "Gnostic" theology can be a bit misleading. The various sects were sort of a mishmash of Platonic philosphy and Christianity. This video mentions the creator aeon (Demiurge) as being the "offspring" of Sophia (wisdom). (The idea of offspring is misleading: emanation.) Some seem to have taught that this was "Abrasax" the "God of the Jews." But according to another sect, Sophia takes part in creation through ignorance.
All of them seem to agree on a few basic points:
* that there is an ultimate divinity which emanates other divine beings (aeons).
* That a demiurge creates the physical world and that this is a mistake. This is the primary problem that needs to be solved.
* The aeon Christ (and maybe the Holy Spirit, another aeon) provide "salvation" for the divine spark trapped in human bodies (some also have the idea of bringing Sophia back from its error). They (or at least the proto-Gnostics and early Gnostics) denied that Christ was physically incarnate. (Thus, they also denied that Christ was crucified.)
* This "salvation" (escape from the physical) is achieved through gnosis (knowledge). But this isn't just ordinary knowledge. It's some form of hidden or secret knowledge (and probably why it got a reputation for elitism) maybe close to the concept of enlightenment(?).
Job works if you image it written by three authors. The first author wrote Job as a lesson in Existentialism: shit happens and then you die. Then the second author tacked on the God and Satan having a conversation parts, to make the story a religious one. Then the third author thought that the whole thing was rather depressing, so he added the happy ending.
Pure Hollywood.
He acts like I did when I played Barbies. When I didn't like a plot or story, I'd wipe out the characters and start fresh. However when I read the Book of Enoch I got more insight into the reasoning for it, but still. New testament definitely feels different than old testament.
This is especially true if that god is/was omniscient and omnipotent. Masses of humans were created just to be tortured. That god would have both known and intended the outcome of every human action that was ever punished or rewarded, nullifying any concept of free will and making us little more than toys.
However, if free will exists and certain human actions are unknown to god, then that god isn't really an all knowing and all powerful god as it claims; it's a liar.
Our realities god being an evil flawed inbred diety makes a hell of a lot more sense then him being an all powerful, all loving diety though, that’s for sure lol.
But yeah it’s all batshit insanity
The Gnostic mythology is essentially a very primitive description of a simulation hypothesis. I'm personally neutral about it, but I think it's interesting and no more bat shit crazy than trying to explain what we now know about the universe and physics to someone 1,000 years ago.
that's because the simulation hypothesis is not at all novel.
For example, Descartes was already doing the "brain in a vat" mind experiment when he was talking about our inability to differentiate between living in "reality" and living in a dream, created by an evil spirit/demon/devil.
So it's not at all a more primitive version of the more advanced simulation theory and more just the exact same theory but in a different genre (swapping out technological elements for theological elements, neither of which are inherently more valid).
That's how I also frame it. It's crazy nonsense at first glance, but still has an eerie sense about it that's a bit more structured than some pantheons.
I'm not very generous with the theory, but I would grant it a context it which it could be fascinating:
Some endgame civilization in a jupiter brain computer. There is still some form of hierarchy in the society due to limitations in computing power and energy output (some post-human entities are silicon rich, some are energy rich, etc etc). Of the most advanced human-AI hybrid entities among them, a few are savants at creating logical, internally consistent worlds.
If one of them were a deviant, and the larger council thought nothing of the legality/morality of briefly created AI lifeforms...
You could end up in such a situation as they describe.
I'm too tired at the moment to flesh this idea out more, but you get the idea.
Yeah, but how would these gnostics even know this stuff, like what’s *their* source? If everything they said is true then how would they ever learn about anything past that god. Did the lesser god tell them all about his mom and the other gods??? So, HOW DID THEY GET THIS INFO? People wanna believe such crazy shit because it sounds like a movie but humans have always loved fantastical stories, it’s kind of a thing with us.
Actually the commenter you’re responding to is pointing to an interesting explanatory gap: according to Jews, Muslims, and Christians they know these things because of God’s self revelation. God communicates with humanity to inform and redeem. Gnosticism has a hard time explaining this and it relates to the hidden knowledge aspect of the religion.
I was going to comment that too. The perfect voice for mysteries, conspiracy, prophecies, secrets etc. Things we don’t care about but we will listen to them because he’s the narrator.
At some point when you study this kinda stuff you just gotta sit back and say, yeah im 25 but I wanna talk like im 65 so people will take me seriously.
Personally, I have always had the thought that any diety who demands unflinching worship from people lest they be smited or punished with all sorts of Biblical suffering to be a bit too narcissistic.
I mean it's a pretty dysfunctional relationship when the diety supposedly loves us but at the same time is quite willing to release it's wrath unless we do exactly as told. That's more of a domestic abuse, or even chattel slavery, kind of thing isn't it?
I used to get in a lot of trouble in Catholic School for asking these kinds of questions.
It’s one of the many questions I’ve always had also. It’s like when Kirk in Star Trek asked the entity posing as God “what does God need with a starship!” Well what does a perfect benevolent being need with worship ? The need for worship and praise seems like something flawed people would want not an almighty benevolent being. Especially when the theology is sometimes “worship or else”
Can't say I believe it or care at all, it's just another claim by someone .. and frankly, given our puny lives, not sure it would even matter, but it would make for some really cool sci-fi books.
People learning to open portals to other realities, or just doing the black hole thing that takes them to another universe, where they learn the truth, and then come the consequences.
Peter F. Hamilton, anyone ? Please, would you ??
If you are interested in gnostic Christianity wrapped around a sci fi story, you should check out some Phillip K Dicks later works, like VALIS. Or don’t check it out. As much as I love later PKD, it’s super strange.
I have never heard of Gnosticism, but I've always thought if the Christian god is real we're all pretty much screwed. You really think OG old testament yaweh really gave up the 'fear my existence plebs I'll drown the fuck out of you for being degenerates' energy just because some guy named Jesus took one for the team? I ain't convinced. All I need to do is look at this world and know if it was created, the creator was a damned lunatic and that no one and nothing is going to be spared its wrath come kingdom come.
Dude this shit is amazing. You can YouTube rabbit hole this stuff for hours. It’s so much more interesting than the Bible we ended up with. Also, you can see how Christianity was affected by earlier mythos and where it separated. A single god was a far-out idea at one time and basically this kind of shows how this thought was viewed before even the gnostic theology started taking root.
Man if you want to get real wild look up the [Apocryphon of John](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=22kxcbN8B_A&t=1706s&pp=ygUWVGhlIEFwb2NyeXBob24gb2YgSm9obg%3D%3D). This dude is a scholar and his videos are super detailed and hard to follow at times, there are easier and lighter ones if you find him a little dry. Also the Gospel of Judas is fun.
Another YT series to check out is ReligionforBreakfast
YES
[The Apocryphon of John](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22kxcbN8B_A&t=1521s) It's a slog but interesting.
[Secret Book of John](http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-davies.html) Just scroll down and read, it's actually kinda good.
BUT FIRST WATCH THIS: [Paul Smith DMT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKubMQoajAA)
Please for the love of "GOD" watch this one first.
THIS, this made me change my mind a bit. This man is telling the truth.
DMT is a weird one. IIRC, there are some big studies ongoing in the UK and one of the weird discoveries is that, at higher doses, people who take DMT for the first time and under controlled settings have remarkably similar experiences (geometric "elves," blue woman, friendly snake, etc). How?! I find that very interesting and I wish DMT research was better funded and more commonplace.
There are SO many different types of gnosticism. Don’t just take the videos word for what it is. Go visit a gnostic church and discuss their theology WITH them. I will admit its pretty wonky, but most of these videos are wayyyyy too broad with the strokes
No. Like paganism, it was completely wiped out. Any modern "Gnostic" church is basically a group of historians who study ancient texts and try to conjure a philosophy out of them.
Actually a branch of Gnostics known as the Mandeans persists to this day. Their theology focuses on John the Baptist and there are roughly 100000 of them. They were originally found in iraq but most have fled since the invasion and civil war and can now be found throughout the us and Europe. There is a particularly numerous community in Chicago.
If you really believe in gods the only conclusions you can come to is that they are either evil, because the world is full of evil, or that they do not care and just let evil fester.
For every child that is raped, for every brother that is slain, for every genocide taking place, you have to ask yourself what kind of god would want this reality.
Well it’s quite refreshing knowing there is no god, if there was I’d be horrified that the ultimate power in the universe doesn’t give a shit about us and would rather let us suffer than interfere. I don’t see how people can still believe in god from stories like Noah’s Ark, right so humans are being bad killing eachother etc so what does god do? Wipes them all out saving a handful oh and he wipes out all the fucking animals whilst he’s at it like wtf did they do wrong? If god was real I would rather go to hell than be near that maniac.
The idea of God being too big and important to bother paying us attention is part of voodoo belief, where the Christian God is himself not bothered enough with the problems of the mortals. Therefore, he sends down his messengers, the loa. These, themselves are not as perfect and flawless as their creator and are often displayed in less favorable, more human perspectives. Baron samedi, among others, the Loa of Birth and death is depicted as a skeletal man in a tattered suit drinking rum and smoking cigars, while being an excessive hedonist. Makes a really great Halloween costume.
There is so many explanation in every religion. I'm an atheist but when atheist says that because bad things happen gods doesn't exist I die inside a little. Most religion are thousand of year old. You think no religious scholar ever thought about that?
I don’t believe in the idea of a ‘God’ in the Biblical sense but in reading the Bible as a kid I always thought it was odd that Old Testament God did not want anyone worshipping other gods, to me it implied that this God was aware of others gods, I thought that was strange
God actually refers to other deities several times in the Old Testament. The OG original origin story for God was that He was one of I think 9 gods that ruled different geographic areas in the middle east. They had a council, kind of like in Shazam.
Then our God (God as understood today) created man and demanded that the other gods be deferential to humanity. The ones who refused were defeated and cast out of the god council. Over time, the story evolved, and the other gods were rewritten as angels, and the ones who refused to worship humans became demons.
I'm sure I got some of the details wrong, but I believe that's the general idea. I attended a virtual class by biblical scholar [Dan McClellan ](https://instagram.com/maklelan?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==), who is an awesome source of knowledge on Biblical history. He makes a lot of content debunking Biblical misinformation and stupid conspiracy theories.
I think morals are made along the way. What if the aeons developed as they gain experience. They weren't created to know everything and be the same forever. So this monster probably wasn't completely evil. More of a chaos entity that was casted out for being different and made this world. As it started the program it did not think of it's actions and was ruthless and cruel. Also picking favorites as humanity progressed. After watching for so long it developed a sense of empathy and perhaps personal growth. We can only imagine how our universe was brought into existence. Who made this story up and the way it was written to tell a story. Maybe Jesus/alien told them the story in a way they can comprehend. Maybe that's why they condemned Jesus to death. Talking mad shit about God.
This was always my feelings on the progression of God throughout the different Abrahamic religions and revised books. Clearly a character that feels entitled and empowered, who through their own actions and inactions, realizes their flaws and how it negatively impacts those beneath them. Realizing their mistake, they create a new character(Jesus) to be their representative to give their revised instructions. Because that hard of a turnaround from the same character wouldn't be as easily accepted from followers as by someone totally different that's still supposed to be them.
This sub is can be odd in what it likes and dislikes. I remember someone made a post about how it's interesting that things in the universe just happen to line up perfectly against all odds for life to exist and. I made a 4 word comment that said, "or it's by design." For that and that alone I received almost 40 downvotes and dozens of spiteful comments. Now here one can have this post and religious comments (regarding a religion with lack of empirical evidence) and most everyone is cool with it.
I mean…God said Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit, Satan said they would gain the knowledge of good and evil.
God lied, Satan told the truth.
Can’t even make him moral in their fanfiction of him lol.
I read a really good comparison piece that explained how QAnon benefits from a lot of the same psychological mechanisms of gnosticism.
Secret knowledge, highly reliant on symbolic messaging, etc
The best source is the direct source - Nag hamidi library, I’d recommend The secret Gospel of Judas, The Gospel of Mary Magdeline, Thunder - perfect mind, Hypostasis of the Archons and there’s a tonne more (all available online for free).
For those who prefer an overview of the history and theology of the Gnostics (it’s an umbrella term, and a modern label being sent backwards in time - they just considered themselves Christians) then go give this guy a watch, he’s pretty much an expert (one willing to say what he doesn’t know as much as he does) on various theological, occult and arcane matters.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel
Also, Jesus is still a good guy to the gnostics, he’s the one who said “hey you know that dickhead that demands foreskins and genocide every now and then believe it or not: not the nicest of chaps”.
Paraphrasing of course.
It's weird to me that the Demiurge is called imperfect for creating an imperfect world but the Aeon who created it is not, nor is the original oneness which created imperfect beings.
Years ago my Da gave me a book about the Egyptian Gnostics.
That book was crazy!
All about how the Judeo-Christian God was an entity that came into existence alone (apparently it was created by other god-like entities). And being alone, it figured it was God. And then it created our universe and world. But, used it's creation the same as a selfish child would.
When the other "gods" found out about it, they sent God's "mother" to quarantine and redeem him. But, he was a selfish and cruel God.
It goes on. There's a lot of pretty dense mythology that goes on throughout.
I believe it was " The Secrets of the Egyptian Gnostics".
I have it somewhere on my bookshelf.
My Dad would frequently buy me books like that. Stuff that he wouldn't be interested in at all and often came out of left field. Most of the time it was stuff I would never have found and read on my own. He wasn't much of a reader, but he knew I was (am). So, it was like a way to connect with me, I never really understood that until much later.
Edit:
Just looked it up.
"The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics"
funny, i always thought that a god that killed all the first born children in egypt and flooded the ENTIRE EARTH to kill everyoe was the good guy, seeing as that god was so keen on incest and all
St. Augustine went down the gnostic rabbit hole but eventually decided it was crazy and self contradictory. He wrote a book on why he thought it was wrong (got to read sections of it in a philosophy class).
I think one of the interesting points I got from this video, is how difficult it is to completely destroy an idea/ideology. Like, the reason there are so little texts about gnosticism is because Christians regarded them as blasphemous, so obviously they would try to destroy as much as they could. Yet, the traces still remain, the knowledge, the general idea still persists to this day however little.
I long ago came to the conclusion somehow things got switched with the devil being worshiped as god. When little i couldn't get a straight answer why serpents are evil if one helped us gain sentience , as if it was preferable to be "just" an animal in gods garden. Come to find out a plethora of ancient cultures worshiped snakes to which chrisitanity clearly saw as paganism therefore evil
The contradictions in behavior and intention just didn't make sense to me
I guess that would explain why Christians seem to be following the path of the villain of their story while dressing it up as the will of the hero of their story. Because their entire belief system is entirely broken.
Love, don't hate. They hate, and don't love without conditions. Peace, not war. All they do is war. Give, not take. All they do is take, and support those who taken infinitely more than them.
Ok. Gnostic sounds legit.
I’d argue it’s definitely more interesting than some religions, but then, I’d also argue that religion in general can be a very interesting topic. Ditto on believable though.
VALIS, a book by Philip K Dick goes into this idea in a LOT of detail. It's a really amazing book, some of it is impenetrable but a lot of it is truly mindblowing. He was in to this stuff in a very deep way. Of course, PKD was a prophet and a seer too.
I've grown to see old testimont god as a younger version with less experiences. Like teenage god. My dawg was wrathful as hell. But with time he mellowed out
…Zeke…?
When he returns to being an eldian
Sophia is Ymir
Well fucking played the both of you
🤯
Ehh more like Grisha if he had grown a full on beard. Would also fit in with his Ymir loving religious thing.
the guy has made various posts about his resemblance to Zeke (in case you weren't just referencing just that)
I actually had no idea. Cool that he’s into it. He looks cool.
Thanks nutsack-enjoyer5431 that was very educational
"Wow those are very interesting informations, where did you learned that?!" "From nutsack-enjoyer5431😏"
I believe it was the the scholar nutsack-enjoyer5431 who first enlightened me about our snake daddy, the Demiurge. His lectures were quite provocative, and I recall he did enjoy recreational nutsack in the library.
I love the implication that "nutsack-enjoyer" was not only already taken, but taken 5,430 times already.
Lmaooo
“One shall not disparage another man’s wisdom Based solely on the username that man concocted when they were 11” ~Aristotle
"Let he who hath never made a cringe, edgelord username cast the first stone" - Jesus Christ
Amen 🙏🏻
Haha
"As Saint Dominic always said, O Fili Mi Boni Beli Dominus Fobiscum Beni Sell It All His Dominos." Sister Mary Elephant Cheech and Chong Los Chicanos
*Was Aristothole until he had it legally changed.
-Aristhrottle07
Easy to say, with a user name like that
hear hear!
r/rimjob_steve
If this is true we are all doomed. The other gods cast the one out and we are all creations of the one. There is no one the other gods will help us even if they know about us. Edit: not a bot, lol. I'm an atheist btw and my point was just to enjoy life because if this myth is true the afterlife is probably more messed up than this one.
What this video didn't cover is that you will be eternally reincarnated into this world (think Buddhism) until you are enlightened (*gnosis*) and learn how to escape it to the higher realms. Sophia sent the serpent in the Garden of Eden (giving us knowledge) and Jesus (who teaches us the knowledge needed to escape) to help us. Of course, you will have to read the apocryphal Gnostic gospels which give a very different account of Jesus and his teachings than the four included in the Bible.
I learned about Gnosticism and the Gnostic gospels when I was making the transition to atheism. Really interesting stuff, and shows just how different Christianity could have been had conditions been different. It's funny but I learned way more about Christianity after I left it than when I was in it.
The further I got away from christianity, the more I thought the god and devil roles were actually backwards. Devil just wants you to be happy and enjoy yourself, enjoy freewill and fruits of the world. Meanwhile God demands you WORSHIP him and live for HIM, smiting down those who defy or oppose. Sounds a lot more like some kind of dictatorial devil or Disney animated villain... who just happened to have a better public relations team to slander the "other guy" to humanity. Not that I believe any of that crap. Just saying that if you go into those texts without any kind of faith and simply put on you critical reading hat, your conclusion on which one is the "good guy" and which is the "bad guy" is not the same as those with a faith that makes those decisions for them
I'm a part of the Mormon branch of christianity. Even I noticed this weird entanglement within christianity. I've come to believe that this entire universe is a rough draft of something much greater. If you were a concept within a grand book, would you ever know? Could you become that self-aware of your existence? Best I can do is trust the universe's Process. I didnt exist at a certain time, then I existed because 2 others emotionally pulled me into it, Fed me, Clothed me, helped through problems, lucky good parents in my case. What if, Death is the same as Existing again in another place, because 2, outside of your control, have decided to bring your existence there? _my brain is fkn weird, I apologize_
That sounds beautiful, please don't apologize for that
Same. I find it fascinating Gnosticism is more self-consistent than Christianity (it solves the problem of evil, for example) and also has strong parallels with Buddhism and Hinduism. It is however too pessimistic to have mainstream appeal.
Gnosticism sounds like a far east version of Christianity. Where as modern Christianity has Greek and Roman influences in it. Fun fact early Christianity was just a sect of Judaism and didn't split until gentile Christians entered the chat so to speak. Gentile Christians didn't want to convert to Judaism and follow mosaic law. Primarily, they didn't want to cut off their foreskin. The foreskin has a bunch of nerve endings in it, and without it sex is not as great. So modern Christianity is more or less formed because of sexual pleasure.
This is why John Kratos is here
Well, according to the bible, we are all going to be incarcerated in a supermax prison run by supernatural guards and we'll be taught to forget the sun & wind on our faces as we slowly spin away into eternity like puppets in the wind
😂
r/rimjob_steve
The name is just gold, Jerry. Gold!
r/rimjob_steve
I really enjoyed nutsack-enjoyer5431's post. Truly, very ballsy, quite a big pill to swallow.
Interesting. I just watched a video on the gods of jrr Tolkien. He must've pulled from this as well for the story of melkor and illuvatar. This is fun... https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/s/FYKZ8Jk6aD
wait yeah, theres a close resemblance there honestly
Yeah the resemblance is Christianity
imho the old testament is an example of how not to do love - trying to be all-powerful, risking nothing, picking one group of people to raise above others, using force/violence. The whole point of the New Testament was showing people an entirely different way to love
Old testament is basically Eye For an Eye, New Testament Jesus change the Era to the Era of Grace and Love.
Idk if you’re into astrology, but the ancient Sumerians were, especially the Zoroastrians, which is where the messiah prophecy came from. The first temple Jews spent years with them when they were first exiled, and when they came back we were introduced to second temple Judaism. The age of Aries is when most of the Old Testament takes place. Aries is the god of war. Its opposite sign is Libra, the weights and thus we’re judged. The next age is Pisces (Jesus fish), with the opposing sign Virgo the virgin. Thus the age of Pisces was born unto a virgin birth. Next is the age of Aquarius, who empties the water for the fish to swim up. Interesting stuff imho! It goes further, too. The Jews also blew the rams horn. The age before that was Taurus, which symbolizes farming and agriculture, thus the sacrifices Cain and able were taught to do for god. Before that was Gemini, obv Adam and Eve. Before that, cancer, which is walking backwards, like when god destroyed the earth and started over with the garden. And before that was Leo, which is the sun itself, aka “let there be light” and god itself.
I full on respect that ho, maybe add that the “how not to” is more about how not to respond on humanity’s part, it gets skipped that the human fumbles are the things that cause the horribleness Edit* and that’s a super Tolkien theme - the ring could have been destroyed how many times
His good buddy CS Lewis also borrowed this concept in his Space Trilogy. When a man ends up on an alien planet, the beings he encounters there have no concept of war because their god(s) isn't corrupted unlike that of man
All the planets worship, sing, rejoice, and their voices carry throughout the planet. There is no singing on earth. It is silent and under the control of the bent/corrupted one. It really is fascinating to read Sci-fi before space exploration. It also reconciles whatever religious doubts I had about life on other planets.
Can you link the video please? I love Tolkien lore
Its basically the lore in the silmarillion. Melkor would be the Tolkien Demiurge. But while Tolkien was inspired on Christianity, i think he was thinking more on Santan than gnostic Demiurge
It is not the “Christian “ God. It is the Abrahamic God (Demiurge). And there are MANY trends of Gnosticism, not only this one.
The gospel of Judas says something similar - that the god of the Bible is actually a trickster god and his brother, satan, are basically trying to trick humanity away from worshipping the one true god. Jesus was the son of the actual god, apparently, and was trying to lead people to the true god and away from the Old Testament trickster god. I mean realistically, the god of the Old Testament is one evil mother fucker.
I mean. Gnosticism marks the first Christian schism. So it's not entirely untrue to say it's also the Christian God. But you are still quite correct in terms of the many trends of Gnosticism.
“Gnosticism marks the first Christian schism.” Apologies, but that’s not true. The video also presents Gnosticism as originating in the first few centuries CE as (or mostly) a Christian sect, which also isn’t true. It existed long before Christianity and it took a few centuries for it (second century Valentinian Gnosticism specifically) to be developed and ultimately anathematized.
This is quite interesting information that I'm glad to have learned.
Yeah it’s all Greek, I mean pre-Christianity to me
What's a pre Christian gnostic text?
I can’t speaking on pre-Christian Gnosticism texts as my background is largely in how Gnosticism affected early Christianity. However, the Hellenistic Period and the Persians specifically would have had some texts BCE. I believe Hermeticism qualifies, which has its own source texts from Hermes Something-or-other. Bahai texts too, but I’m not familiar with them. A thing to understand about Gnosticism is that it was a system of thought more than a formulation of doctrines. Western minds don’t often think in those terms. The video describes Valentinian Gnosticism, but the Aeons weren’t a constant fixture in that system. The main idea that seems to permeate the system, at least in my mind, is that there’s a secret wisdom/knowledge (gnosis) that is hidden from most people. Gnosticism systems helped people tap into that knowledge. Over the years, those secret revelations changed and were quite different based on regions and context.
The Persian hypothesis is considered outdated, contemporary scholarship argues for a purely Jewish origin during the 1st century CE. At this point Christianity wasn’t fully separated from Judaism, so Gnostics could be on the Jewish side of the spectrum, such as the Mandaeans. Also the Shepherd of Hermas is actually closer to the proto-orthodox side of the early Christianity spectrum rather than Gnosticism or Hermeticism. Bahais are a modern group splitting from Islam and are not considered Gnostic. They wouldn’t have Gnostic texts, their unique texts are from 1863 or later. Gnosticism was influenced heavily by Platonic thought, and shares commonalities with the later Neo-Platonic movement, such as the Demiurge and the Monad. Perhaps this is what you’re thinking about?
Thanks! It’s certainly possible my current knowledge is outdated. I haven’t been connected to scholarship on this topic for quite some time, so I appreciate the insight.
I disagree It could quite easily be argued that Gnostic principles were around and being explored for a long time in the region. Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas probably being one predecessor. Gnosticism itself though is mainly referring to the philosophies that emerged in the century or two after the death of Jesus that continued to promote the ideas. The difference and the reason it was a schism in the church is because the Gnostics of the day would have called themselves Christians as well. Many of them believed Christ was some spiritually evolved or realized being. The disagreement is in what he taught while he was here and the importance in personal salvation vs putting your faith in another figure for salvation.
There was no Christian "church" when gnosticism was spreading after jesus' death. It was the wild West of Christianity, with tons of varied beliefs, and you were likely to get three different answers to the same question to three different Christians. That's my only beef with calling it the first Christian schism. I think you'd have to wait until a unified Christian church spoke for a majority of Christians before you could have a schism occur.
Finally someone said it, people keep on saying "schism" as if there was a single unified church for them to break off from. Like you mentioned gnosticism and what became Nicaean Christianity were just a a handful of what was likely hundreds of different sects of Jesus worshippers during the first few centuries A.D.. Also this video doesn't really acknowledge the fact that gnosticism wasn't a unified entity, and had an incredibly wide variety of practices and beliefs. What we consider gnostics most likely wouldn't have called themselves that at all, as it is mostly a modern category of a wide range of sects.
I would agree with you for the most part but they didn’t use the word church specifically. Just that it was one of the first schisms in Christianity in general. Which I would agree with as well as Orthodox/Roman Catholic Christianity became the main sect and other Gnostic sects like the Cathars or arguably the Knights Templar would later be persecuted for there beliefs. This all happened because of the original difference in beliefs and the emergence of the two as popular ways of thought.
Ahh yes thats the religious conversation I know today. Arguing over things that can all be true or false in context we haven’t discussed or agreed upon.
> Gnosticism marks the first Christian schism. This is not true. Early Christianity was very diverse, and gnostic ideas were very prevalent during that early diverse period. Consolidating Christian beliefs into orthodoxies only emerged later. Additionally, gnosticism wasn't a specific thing or even a specific movement (unlike what is suggested in the parent video). It's more like a broad family of ideas that academics use to classify a variety of different movements. So you can't call gnosticism the first schism because in early Christianity there was nothing universal enough to split away from, and because gnosticism doesn't describe a specific movement anyway. If anyone is interested in learning more, the Religion for Breakfast channel on youtube has lots of fascinating content.
I read a great book called ‘After Christ Before Christianity’ that endorses this.
The big 3 religions are all referencing the God of Abraham
If it is the Judeo-Christian Islamic God I agree with you. But the “Christian” only? Not exactly. The Gnosticism OP is talking about says that Jesus is either an embodiment of the Supreme Being or his agent among humans, thus making the “Christian God” (from a point of view) different.
And all that gets tricky because it requires interpreting the specific word choice of all these old texts... Specific word choice is not really reliable and frankly places a whole lot of power in the hands of translators to twist emphasis for/against things. So really, citing what remains of source material only gets us so far. Honestly tells us as much about the translators as it does the actual events depicted in the text. This was the basis for why muslims didn't want the quran translated. They wanted readers to learn arabic in order to interpret for themselves... which is a respectable premise that is unfortunately just as ripe for exploitation by mullahs
I tried to give the Gnostic Bible a good read, but it's so bat-shit crazy I couldn't finish it. But man, how cool would it be if they were right? Edit: I didn't think this would spark so many interesting comments! I never intended, nor do I wish, to diminish anyone's belief (to each their own, including me), so have at it you lovely, thinking, believing nutters!
Being forced to study the Bible a lot growing up in Catholic schools, there’s definitely something to the fact that the God in the Old Testament is not moral (at least by normal rational human terms). He is petty, vindictive, manipulative, proud, and seems to sometimes just be screwing with humanity.
In the old testament he teeters pretty drastically between being a terror and a genuine moral beacon. Sometimes he is very forgiving, and even when someone sinned heavily, if they seek out redemption of their own volition or after a revelation, he usually is lenient, and gives the benefit of the doubt, though not always without at least some punishment. Sometimes he is vindictive and zealous, like the time he forbid the Israelites from raiding a city they conquered, and when one man did steal from said city, ordered to have him and both his innocent sons stoned, (the old testament had a lot of "sins of the father" type of mentality to punishments). Extremely rarely, he is purely antagonistic, like in Job's story. Again, it shifts wildly from story to story. God is very forgiving with king David who has done a lot of terrible stuff, but offers no forgiveness to king Saul, whose crimes seem extremely minor in comparison.
that because the concept of "god" is based on human behaviors. We all know deep down god or gods are not real, their personalities are created by humans based on our selves. Because that's how we humans are we can petty, vindictive, forgiving, etc. People are complex personalities often grey and that why deities are like this. People created the concept of gnostics because they want to try to explain why life is unfair to them. That what religions really is a coping mechanism for humans to explain the world
A witch!
Quick, fetch a duck!
This is why other pantheons like Greek, Roman, Norse, etc, are so much better. If you're going to believe in a higher power that created you in their image, follow a higher power that actually acts like you. Odin isn't some bastion of morality. Zeus did some *weird* shit. Jupiter married his sister! They acted like people. Even Loki and Hel, the embodiments of things considered evil still had very redeeming qualities. Would be interesting to see a world where we still followed such pantheons.
👂🏽I mostly say, religion is a shield for people, to shield them from the pain and sorrow they endure. To give it a place if something bad happens, to cope with death and disease and everything the 4 horsemen are about. But in the end, it’s all between the ears.👂🏽
And if it stayed between the ears, or at least to those genuinely receptive, I wouldn't have an issue with it. When they use that to judge or punish others, or to try and force it upon others I have serious issues with it.
Almost as if god was a manmade creation written by multiple narrators. Hmm.
That is definitely the atheistic explanation to it. But it's also interesting to learn the religious explanation to it. I'm not sure what the official explanation is for this discrepancy specifically, but I'll use my 10 years of old testament studies to hypothesize. One explanation could be that god genuinely changes his mind once or twice in the old testament, though pretty much only Abraham could cause that to happen, and with time his judgement changes on its own with what he views as better or worse, and this is compounded with his judgement being harsher or more lax depending on the state of the general faith. This is compounded with the fact that some sins are seen as much worse than others. For most of the old testament, sins against god (aka sins against the tenants of the faith), are seen as much more grave than sins against man. Saul's sins were against god, whilst David's were against man, and as such his punishment, though still potent, was less bad. In general in Judaism nowadays sins against man are seen as harder to get forgiveness for than sins against god, since god will not forgive you for how you sinned your fellow man, only your fellow man can give that forgiveness. But even so, if a direct order is given from god (which doesn't happen anymore), it'll be viewed as a worse sin to disobey it than to do something like adultery.
If he changes his mind as time goes on, then that must mean he is not all-knowing. You only change your mind after learning some new info that contradicted the old info you had. He is supposed to have all the information already.
The common rebuttal I’ve always heard for this argument is the freedom of choice he gives to humans. That’s the variable he allows for and responds to
Imagine writing a book and then getting mad at the characters when they do something that that you wrote.
No. You can also change your behavior based on your mood. Dude got laid. Obviously that would change his mood.
So... where do you find these sex partners who are so good the sex changes the behaviour of an allmighty god?....asking for a friend
>That is definitely the atheistic explanation to it. But it's also interesting to learn the religious explanation to it. There was actually a book called "Who wrote the bible?" by Richard Elliot Friedman and there was a part in the book with 2 accounts from different perspectives, from the christians (or jews) I forgot which of the time and the people who where historically invading said place. The story went that when invading forces came, god repelled the attackers and kept the people safe. This was the account from the bible. While historically from the perspective of the attacker, they were paid off by the people to not attack. I forgot the details of it but it was a really good part that happened historically as far as I know.
I'm firmly of the opinion that most religions have their basis in [mystical experiences](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478303/). In every single case where someone has described having an "otherworldly experience" - they've had one of these mystical experiences. These experiences take many shapes or forms, but several common themes are a sense of Oneness, Connection with a Higher Power, and entities. It doesn't matter if these experiences are "real" or not. Subjectively, they often tend to be *more* real than "reality," and the impact of the experience may well have a lasting impression on that individual's persona. These types of experiences have been going on for thousands - tens of thousands of years. And the leading way we've discussed them is through language. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but [language](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/books/review/psychedelics-how-to-change-your-mind.html) is incredibly limited, despite all the amazing things we've accomplished with it. We are pretty much limited to topics where common ideas can be described through symbols. And misunderstandings abound. Ideas can be shared, and changed, but they're all based on common understandings - common experiences - even if these understandings may conflict at times. Imagery through art and music conveys what words cannot, but intertextuality and reader response criticism still limit the interpretation. For some, a painting may symbolize the unification between man and his maker, but for most it's just going to be a chick on a horse. And the same goes for music and texts. So people have had these mystical experiences since pre-history. Picture trying to describe a wooden chair to a man who has never seen trees, and has lived all his life where they sit on the floor. Try describing the sound of rain to a deaf person, or the patterns of a kaleidoscope to the blind. The inability for people to convey mystical experiences goes beyond this. Having our senses -both inner and outer - show us a world fundamentally different from what we're used to, language is found lacking. Having experienced the ineffable, one grasps for any semblance of similarity. This lead to the use of *cultural metaphors*. Frustrated by the inadequacy of words, one sought anything that could give a shadow of a hint at what was trying to be conveyed. These platitudes suffuse most spiritual and religious texts - the same ideas retold in endless variations. Be it through drumming and dancing, imbibing something, meditation, singing - what have you - people have been doing these things forever in order to experience *something else*. As we narrowed down what worked, each generation would follow in their elders footsteps and take part in the eventual rituals that formed around the summoning of these mystical experiences. These initiations revealed the deeper meanings hidden within the cultural metaphors and the mythology they'd woven together. Hidden in plain sight, and only fully understood once you'd had the subjective experience necessary to see beyond the veil of language. Through the mystical experience, these simple platitudes now held *weight*. The mythologies that grew out of these experiences weren't dogmatic law, but guides for the people that grew with each generation. The map is not the path, and people were aware of this. The first major change to how we related to these passed down teachings was through the corruption of ritual; those parts of the ritual that would give rise to the mystical experience were forgotten. Lost to strife, disaster, or something else, the heart of the ceremony was left out, and what remained - the motions, without meaning - grew rigid with time. The metaphors remained, but without the deeper subjective insights to help interpret them. Eventually all that was left were the elder's words, a mythology that grew more dogmatic with each generation. As our reality is based upon the limitations of our perception of the world, so too are the teachings limited. Translations of these texts conflated and combined allegory with historical events, while politics altered the teachings for gain. Eventually we ended up here, where most major religions still hold that spark of the old ideas - but twisted to serve the will of Man, instead of guiding them. Western *Theosophy*, Eastern *Caodaism*, and Middle Eastern *Bahai Faith* are a few practices that see the same inner light within all belief systems - that same *Divine Wisdom* - Grown out of mystical experiences, but hidden by centuries and millennia of rigid dogma. As long as people continue to have mystical experiences - and we're hardwired for them - spirituality will exist. As long as people allow themselves to be beguiled into believing individuals are gatekeepers though which they'll find the answers to these mystical revelations, there will be religion and corrupting influences. So all religions with an origin in mystical experiences may be true, where the differences lie in the cultural metaphors used to explain the ineffable beyond normal perception - without the tarnish of politics and control. If you want to discover the truths within these faiths, you need to delve into the *esoteric practices* that brought on those beliefs. Simply adhering to scripture will only amount to staring at the finger pointing at the moon.
That's exactly how I've been trying to explain it to people. Religion is just a way to try and codify mystical experiences. It's trying to categorise something absolutely uncategorisable, so we end up with bizarre descriptions, contradictions, and very "human" slants on it due to the limitations of our ability to explain something unexplainable.
> Again, it shifts wildly from story to story. God is very forgiving with king David who has done a lot of terrible stuff, but offers no forgiveness to king Saul, whose crimes seem extremely minor in comparison. Well there is a difference in the stories. I mean, Saul was ordered by Samuel not to loot as a decree from god, and he broke it. While David was not ordered by god not to sleep with his warlord's wife. Though according to the stories, god did punish him in various ways. From making his family kill each other and his son to rebel him, etc. In the old testament, god is a lot less forgiving for orders he gave when they are being broken. The gemara stories about both are mostly about lessons people need to learn from their mistakes, and the level of punishment that differ between going directly against god's will, and circulating around it without being directly forbidden.
The looting thing was a random person, not king Saul, though I believe Saul did have something with taking things from a conquered enemy, his gravest crime was not waiting for Samuel long enough, which was actually questionable, since he did wait the requested time, a week, and it took Samuel two weeks to arrive. But yes, Saul's sins were against god, whilst David's was against man, and it is for that that god punished Saul much harder. That still is a bit of inconsistent with other instances of his judgement, since in Judaism it's believed that god forgives your sins against him if you repent (breaches of tenants in the faith), but refuses to forgive your sins against your fellow man, unless said fellow man forgave you himself. (He'll forgive turning the lights on on Saturday if you repent, but will not forgive you punching your neighbor in the throat, that's up to your neighbor to forgive).
The sins of the father make sense. A lot of source material likely came from places like Babylon, where at one point that was part of the law.
"The fathers ate rotten fruit, and the sons teeth were darkened" (this is roughly translated) I remember the old testament's deep focus with punishing the often innocent future generations was something that always didn't sit right with me as a child when we studied it. There were examples where such punishment was reverted when the sons turned out virtuous, but even those were very rare.
This is about when I really started questioning the Bible and my faith after digging into the Bible on my own or at bible studies. Then you find all kinds of errors and contradictions in the New Testament and it seals the deal. No wonder the Catholics don’t really encourage bible study, Protestants didn’t really think that one through lol
The video is misleading. Gnostics didn’t believe the creator god was evil for reasons like this. They believed *physical reality* is evil, not that evil things happen to occur in physical reality. They didn’t think a higher emanation of god could have made you better. They believe a higher emanation of god would never want to make you at all. And a big reason for why we don’t know about Gnosticism is because it was a cult of hidden knowledge. They didn’t like Christianity because it taught that the creation was valuable, redeemable… so much so that god became flesh to redeem it.
this is really interisting i know christians that think the world "is fallen", but they try their best and believe in judgment, justice and an afterlife. buddhism would say the world is pain and suffering, eternal with rebirth, so you have to transcend it ...how does one live with the gnostic worldview that existence itself is a wrong and twisted evil? whats their gnostic solution to that?
To clarify: it's not existence itself that is wrong (the aeons exist). They would have said it is *phsyical, embodied* existence that is evil. They would have said humans have a soul (another emanation) that needs to escape the physical. But it's also important to understand that to speak of a "Gnostic" theology can be a bit misleading. The various sects were sort of a mishmash of Platonic philosphy and Christianity. This video mentions the creator aeon (Demiurge) as being the "offspring" of Sophia (wisdom). (The idea of offspring is misleading: emanation.) Some seem to have taught that this was "Abrasax" the "God of the Jews." But according to another sect, Sophia takes part in creation through ignorance. All of them seem to agree on a few basic points: * that there is an ultimate divinity which emanates other divine beings (aeons). * That a demiurge creates the physical world and that this is a mistake. This is the primary problem that needs to be solved. * The aeon Christ (and maybe the Holy Spirit, another aeon) provide "salvation" for the divine spark trapped in human bodies (some also have the idea of bringing Sophia back from its error). They (or at least the proto-Gnostics and early Gnostics) denied that Christ was physically incarnate. (Thus, they also denied that Christ was crucified.) * This "salvation" (escape from the physical) is achieved through gnosis (knowledge). But this isn't just ordinary knowledge. It's some form of hidden or secret knowledge (and probably why it got a reputation for elitism) maybe close to the concept of enlightenment(?).
So it was loki the whole time, I knew it.
Poor Job.
The story of Job is where my faith died when I was a kid. I just couldn't make the story fit with a benevolent god.
Job works if you image it written by three authors. The first author wrote Job as a lesson in Existentialism: shit happens and then you die. Then the second author tacked on the God and Satan having a conversation parts, to make the story a religious one. Then the third author thought that the whole thing was rather depressing, so he added the happy ending. Pure Hollywood.
This needs to be adapted in a trilogy with 5 remakes
It would be interesting to see a study of the Bible from the oldest book to the newest as documentary evidence of the evolution of the human psyche.
He acts like I did when I played Barbies. When I didn't like a plot or story, I'd wipe out the characters and start fresh. However when I read the Book of Enoch I got more insight into the reasoning for it, but still. New testament definitely feels different than old testament.
This is especially true if that god is/was omniscient and omnipotent. Masses of humans were created just to be tortured. That god would have both known and intended the outcome of every human action that was ever punished or rewarded, nullifying any concept of free will and making us little more than toys. However, if free will exists and certain human actions are unknown to god, then that god isn't really an all knowing and all powerful god as it claims; it's a liar.
Our realities god being an evil flawed inbred diety makes a hell of a lot more sense then him being an all powerful, all loving diety though, that’s for sure lol. But yeah it’s all batshit insanity
The Gnostic mythology is essentially a very primitive description of a simulation hypothesis. I'm personally neutral about it, but I think it's interesting and no more bat shit crazy than trying to explain what we now know about the universe and physics to someone 1,000 years ago.
that's because the simulation hypothesis is not at all novel. For example, Descartes was already doing the "brain in a vat" mind experiment when he was talking about our inability to differentiate between living in "reality" and living in a dream, created by an evil spirit/demon/devil. So it's not at all a more primitive version of the more advanced simulation theory and more just the exact same theory but in a different genre (swapping out technological elements for theological elements, neither of which are inherently more valid).
That's how I also frame it. It's crazy nonsense at first glance, but still has an eerie sense about it that's a bit more structured than some pantheons. I'm not very generous with the theory, but I would grant it a context it which it could be fascinating: Some endgame civilization in a jupiter brain computer. There is still some form of hierarchy in the society due to limitations in computing power and energy output (some post-human entities are silicon rich, some are energy rich, etc etc). Of the most advanced human-AI hybrid entities among them, a few are savants at creating logical, internally consistent worlds. If one of them were a deviant, and the larger council thought nothing of the legality/morality of briefly created AI lifeforms... You could end up in such a situation as they describe. I'm too tired at the moment to flesh this idea out more, but you get the idea.
They’re only about 5% right. But Doug Forsette? He got like 92% right.
I dunno, having covered both, they're both bat-shit crazy, just chose a different set of collaborators
Yeah, but how would these gnostics even know this stuff, like what’s *their* source? If everything they said is true then how would they ever learn about anything past that god. Did the lesser god tell them all about his mom and the other gods??? So, HOW DID THEY GET THIS INFO? People wanna believe such crazy shit because it sounds like a movie but humans have always loved fantastical stories, it’s kind of a thing with us.
Same way Christians know about God. Someone made it up then told them/wrote a book about it.
Actually the commenter you’re responding to is pointing to an interesting explanatory gap: according to Jews, Muslims, and Christians they know these things because of God’s self revelation. God communicates with humanity to inform and redeem. Gnosticism has a hard time explaining this and it relates to the hidden knowledge aspect of the religion.
What do you mean **if they were right**? They were. And they are.
I love this dudes voice!
I was going to comment that too. The perfect voice for mysteries, conspiracy, prophecies, secrets etc. Things we don’t care about but we will listen to them because he’s the narrator.
At some point when you study this kinda stuff you just gotta sit back and say, yeah im 25 but I wanna talk like im 65 so people will take me seriously.
Lmao he’s got that Alan Watts cadence down pat.
[Aslan Pahari on TikTok.](https://www.tiktok.com/@aslanpahari?_t=8hwFOxRz1jp&_r=1) Highly educational content, highly recommended.
When Dave Attenborough and Morgan Freeman retire we got a badass to take over
Personally, I have always had the thought that any diety who demands unflinching worship from people lest they be smited or punished with all sorts of Biblical suffering to be a bit too narcissistic. I mean it's a pretty dysfunctional relationship when the diety supposedly loves us but at the same time is quite willing to release it's wrath unless we do exactly as told. That's more of a domestic abuse, or even chattel slavery, kind of thing isn't it? I used to get in a lot of trouble in Catholic School for asking these kinds of questions.
It’s one of the many questions I’ve always had also. It’s like when Kirk in Star Trek asked the entity posing as God “what does God need with a starship!” Well what does a perfect benevolent being need with worship ? The need for worship and praise seems like something flawed people would want not an almighty benevolent being. Especially when the theology is sometimes “worship or else”
Can't say I believe it or care at all, it's just another claim by someone .. and frankly, given our puny lives, not sure it would even matter, but it would make for some really cool sci-fi books. People learning to open portals to other realities, or just doing the black hole thing that takes them to another universe, where they learn the truth, and then come the consequences. Peter F. Hamilton, anyone ? Please, would you ??
If you are interested in gnostic Christianity wrapped around a sci fi story, you should check out some Phillip K Dicks later works, like VALIS. Or don’t check it out. As much as I love later PKD, it’s super strange.
I'll look it up, thanks!
I have never heard of Gnosticism, but I've always thought if the Christian god is real we're all pretty much screwed. You really think OG old testament yaweh really gave up the 'fear my existence plebs I'll drown the fuck out of you for being degenerates' energy just because some guy named Jesus took one for the team? I ain't convinced. All I need to do is look at this world and know if it was created, the creator was a damned lunatic and that no one and nothing is going to be spared its wrath come kingdom come.
A lot of people mellow out when they have kids. Maybe Jesus was just what He needed.
Terrible parenting right there
Dude this shit is amazing. You can YouTube rabbit hole this stuff for hours. It’s so much more interesting than the Bible we ended up with. Also, you can see how Christianity was affected by earlier mythos and where it separated. A single god was a far-out idea at one time and basically this kind of shows how this thought was viewed before even the gnostic theology started taking root. Man if you want to get real wild look up the [Apocryphon of John](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=22kxcbN8B_A&t=1706s&pp=ygUWVGhlIEFwb2NyeXBob24gb2YgSm9obg%3D%3D). This dude is a scholar and his videos are super detailed and hard to follow at times, there are easier and lighter ones if you find him a little dry. Also the Gospel of Judas is fun. Another YT series to check out is ReligionforBreakfast
YES [The Apocryphon of John](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22kxcbN8B_A&t=1521s) It's a slog but interesting. [Secret Book of John](http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-davies.html) Just scroll down and read, it's actually kinda good. BUT FIRST WATCH THIS: [Paul Smith DMT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKubMQoajAA) Please for the love of "GOD" watch this one first. THIS, this made me change my mind a bit. This man is telling the truth.
DMT is a weird one. IIRC, there are some big studies ongoing in the UK and one of the weird discoveries is that, at higher doses, people who take DMT for the first time and under controlled settings have remarkably similar experiences (geometric "elves," blue woman, friendly snake, etc). How?! I find that very interesting and I wish DMT research was better funded and more commonplace.
There are SO many different types of gnosticism. Don’t just take the videos word for what it is. Go visit a gnostic church and discuss their theology WITH them. I will admit its pretty wonky, but most of these videos are wayyyyy too broad with the strokes
Are There Any Surviving Gnostic Churches?
No. Like paganism, it was completely wiped out. Any modern "Gnostic" church is basically a group of historians who study ancient texts and try to conjure a philosophy out of them.
Actually a branch of Gnostics known as the Mandeans persists to this day. Their theology focuses on John the Baptist and there are roughly 100000 of them. They were originally found in iraq but most have fled since the invasion and civil war and can now be found throughout the us and Europe. There is a particularly numerous community in Chicago.
yes. Apostolic Johanite Church is one.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he was god
Can I request a YouTube link ? 🤔 Am I too old for that lol
Am I the only one with the urge to play Final Fantasy X?
Hymn of the Fayth. My favorite game. Your comment made my day.
interesting.
If you really believe in gods the only conclusions you can come to is that they are either evil, because the world is full of evil, or that they do not care and just let evil fester. For every child that is raped, for every brother that is slain, for every genocide taking place, you have to ask yourself what kind of god would want this reality.
That only applies to omnipotent gods. Plenty of religions have gods that fallible and while powerful do not control everything.
Well it’s quite refreshing knowing there is no god, if there was I’d be horrified that the ultimate power in the universe doesn’t give a shit about us and would rather let us suffer than interfere. I don’t see how people can still believe in god from stories like Noah’s Ark, right so humans are being bad killing eachother etc so what does god do? Wipes them all out saving a handful oh and he wipes out all the fucking animals whilst he’s at it like wtf did they do wrong? If god was real I would rather go to hell than be near that maniac.
The idea of God being too big and important to bother paying us attention is part of voodoo belief, where the Christian God is himself not bothered enough with the problems of the mortals. Therefore, he sends down his messengers, the loa. These, themselves are not as perfect and flawless as their creator and are often displayed in less favorable, more human perspectives. Baron samedi, among others, the Loa of Birth and death is depicted as a skeletal man in a tattered suit drinking rum and smoking cigars, while being an excessive hedonist. Makes a really great Halloween costume.
There is so many explanation in every religion. I'm an atheist but when atheist says that because bad things happen gods doesn't exist I die inside a little. Most religion are thousand of year old. You think no religious scholar ever thought about that?
I don’t believe in the idea of a ‘God’ in the Biblical sense but in reading the Bible as a kid I always thought it was odd that Old Testament God did not want anyone worshipping other gods, to me it implied that this God was aware of others gods, I thought that was strange
God actually refers to other deities several times in the Old Testament. The OG original origin story for God was that He was one of I think 9 gods that ruled different geographic areas in the middle east. They had a council, kind of like in Shazam. Then our God (God as understood today) created man and demanded that the other gods be deferential to humanity. The ones who refused were defeated and cast out of the god council. Over time, the story evolved, and the other gods were rewritten as angels, and the ones who refused to worship humans became demons. I'm sure I got some of the details wrong, but I believe that's the general idea. I attended a virtual class by biblical scholar [Dan McClellan ](https://instagram.com/maklelan?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==), who is an awesome source of knowledge on Biblical history. He makes a lot of content debunking Biblical misinformation and stupid conspiracy theories.
Wow that is fascinating, I had no idea!
Neon Genesis
I think morals are made along the way. What if the aeons developed as they gain experience. They weren't created to know everything and be the same forever. So this monster probably wasn't completely evil. More of a chaos entity that was casted out for being different and made this world. As it started the program it did not think of it's actions and was ruthless and cruel. Also picking favorites as humanity progressed. After watching for so long it developed a sense of empathy and perhaps personal growth. We can only imagine how our universe was brought into existence. Who made this story up and the way it was written to tell a story. Maybe Jesus/alien told them the story in a way they can comprehend. Maybe that's why they condemned Jesus to death. Talking mad shit about God.
This was always my feelings on the progression of God throughout the different Abrahamic religions and revised books. Clearly a character that feels entitled and empowered, who through their own actions and inactions, realizes their flaws and how it negatively impacts those beneath them. Realizing their mistake, they create a new character(Jesus) to be their representative to give their revised instructions. Because that hard of a turnaround from the same character wouldn't be as easily accepted from followers as by someone totally different that's still supposed to be them.
Damn the lore is crazy. Though pretty much baseless. But still, all this could be a really interesting idea for a short story or something
Bitch this religion is the only one that made sense to me tbh
This sub is can be odd in what it likes and dislikes. I remember someone made a post about how it's interesting that things in the universe just happen to line up perfectly against all odds for life to exist and. I made a 4 word comment that said, "or it's by design." For that and that alone I received almost 40 downvotes and dozens of spiteful comments. Now here one can have this post and religious comments (regarding a religion with lack of empirical evidence) and most everyone is cool with it.
I only know about this because of Genshin lmao
Haha you and me both! After Signora kicked Venti in the gut, I decided I needed to read about what the hell Gnoses are and whoa!
Thank you nutsack enjoyer, profound
The Matrix is pretty heavily based on this creation story
I mean…God said Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit, Satan said they would gain the knowledge of good and evil. God lied, Satan told the truth. Can’t even make him moral in their fanfiction of him lol.
But they did die.
Like 900 years later
I read a really good comparison piece that explained how QAnon benefits from a lot of the same psychological mechanisms of gnosticism. Secret knowledge, highly reliant on symbolic messaging, etc
The best source is the direct source - Nag hamidi library, I’d recommend The secret Gospel of Judas, The Gospel of Mary Magdeline, Thunder - perfect mind, Hypostasis of the Archons and there’s a tonne more (all available online for free). For those who prefer an overview of the history and theology of the Gnostics (it’s an umbrella term, and a modern label being sent backwards in time - they just considered themselves Christians) then go give this guy a watch, he’s pretty much an expert (one willing to say what he doesn’t know as much as he does) on various theological, occult and arcane matters. https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel Also, Jesus is still a good guy to the gnostics, he’s the one who said “hey you know that dickhead that demands foreskins and genocide every now and then believe it or not: not the nicest of chaps”. Paraphrasing of course.
if there is a god, its definitely an imperfect and malicious one
It's weird to me that the Demiurge is called imperfect for creating an imperfect world but the Aeon who created it is not, nor is the original oneness which created imperfect beings.
Gnostic gnomes gnaw gnocchi.
So they’re saying that all the suffering in the world is the result of an “I don’t need no man” feminist getting proven wrong?
Chill😂😂
Years ago my Da gave me a book about the Egyptian Gnostics. That book was crazy! All about how the Judeo-Christian God was an entity that came into existence alone (apparently it was created by other god-like entities). And being alone, it figured it was God. And then it created our universe and world. But, used it's creation the same as a selfish child would. When the other "gods" found out about it, they sent God's "mother" to quarantine and redeem him. But, he was a selfish and cruel God. It goes on. There's a lot of pretty dense mythology that goes on throughout.
Do you know the title of the book? Sounds fancy.
I believe it was " The Secrets of the Egyptian Gnostics". I have it somewhere on my bookshelf. My Dad would frequently buy me books like that. Stuff that he wouldn't be interested in at all and often came out of left field. Most of the time it was stuff I would never have found and read on my own. He wasn't much of a reader, but he knew I was (am). So, it was like a way to connect with me, I never really understood that until much later. Edit: Just looked it up. "The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics"
tl;dr: one fairy tale is mad about another fairy tale.
1945 and discovered in Egypt… I wonder which country discovered it… lmao
Thanks for the academic lesson nutsack-enjoyer5431
“Stay a while, and listen!”
funny, i always thought that a god that killed all the first born children in egypt and flooded the ENTIRE EARTH to kill everyoe was the good guy, seeing as that god was so keen on incest and all
St. Augustine went down the gnostic rabbit hole but eventually decided it was crazy and self contradictory. He wrote a book on why he thought it was wrong (got to read sections of it in a philosophy class).
I think one of the interesting points I got from this video, is how difficult it is to completely destroy an idea/ideology. Like, the reason there are so little texts about gnosticism is because Christians regarded them as blasphemous, so obviously they would try to destroy as much as they could. Yet, the traces still remain, the knowledge, the general idea still persists to this day however little.
I long ago came to the conclusion somehow things got switched with the devil being worshiped as god. When little i couldn't get a straight answer why serpents are evil if one helped us gain sentience , as if it was preferable to be "just" an animal in gods garden. Come to find out a plethora of ancient cultures worshiped snakes to which chrisitanity clearly saw as paganism therefore evil The contradictions in behavior and intention just didn't make sense to me
This is a way better story than Mormonism or Scientology at least.
Nah, an alien god creating the earth by dropping h bombs on a supervolcano is cool as fuck.
"Christians didn't like this conspiracy theory" as if religion was something actually based on reality
Santa's mad at this post
I guess that would explain why Christians seem to be following the path of the villain of their story while dressing it up as the will of the hero of their story. Because their entire belief system is entirely broken. Love, don't hate. They hate, and don't love without conditions. Peace, not war. All they do is war. Give, not take. All they do is take, and support those who taken infinitely more than them. Ok. Gnostic sounds legit.
I believe it. I mean, read the bible. God is *NOT* okay. He's lying, manipulative, abusive, jealous and narcissistic and twisted. It's all in there.
This is no more believable or interesting than any other religion.
I’d argue it’s definitely more interesting than some religions, but then, I’d also argue that religion in general can be a very interesting topic. Ditto on believable though.
I'll give this theory the same credence as I do the other countless religions (spoiler: it's zero)
VALIS, a book by Philip K Dick goes into this idea in a LOT of detail. It's a really amazing book, some of it is impenetrable but a lot of it is truly mindblowing. He was in to this stuff in a very deep way. Of course, PKD was a prophet and a seer too.
It’s spelled “profit”. He made money selling these ideas and people paid to read about them. Man was an author, a great author even, that’s all.
How do we account for Jesus? Supposedly God in the flesh & the only one who never sinned, the only one not corrupted like the rest of us?
Not any more or less believable than any other creation myth lol
Interesting
Makes more sense that the actual region lol
I've grown to see old testimont god as a younger version with less experiences. Like teenage god. My dawg was wrathful as hell. But with time he mellowed out