Isn’t gnosis supposed to be only for a select few?
What grounds do they have to worship the “spirit of Christ” and not Jesus (THE incarnate Logos).
How is that not them claiming they have the right understanding of Spirit of Truth versus everybody else’s understanding?
Their sources are late, and early versions of their beliefs are countered in the gospels and epistles of the New Testament.
I’m gonna punt back to:
How does your exposure to gnosticism frame the natural world and our bodies? As something to escape or as something to restore/resurrect/bring to fruition?
I don’t want to endorse gnosticism nor was I schooled in its own separate mythology which is apparently very opposed to the material world… it was just refreshing to find a group that didn’t give off a sense of “We are right about everything, and we know because the spirit told us, and those who don’t agree don’t have the spirit in them.” Christian groups are disagreeing with each other, one says the spirit is backing them, the other says the spirit is backing them, it’s tragically comical. The gnostics I met put the emphasis on experience and not on beliefs. The value of mysticism is underemphasized in Christianity if it is all about theology and basically dogma.
when you argue with religious people its like arguing with ecmandu or something.
the religious belief of heaven completely contradicts their entire argument of why god allows suffering in the world.
many theists do not believe the bible ever says some myth of heaven and that Jesus only would give a temporary heaven on earth for 1000 years. This would disprove all the delusional religious people’s contradictions.
my personal interpretation is that god is very bored, they are like a bored ASI and they need drama and entertainment so they make the word into a violent garbage south park world.
Man in god’s image meaning God copied it’s flawed brain into the human’s brain. God is sort of like the gravemind in Flood and just suffers inherently. In the Halo story the gravemind was Actually the last survivor of a giga-IQ alien god race but the DNA got messed up in storage.
its possible God actually is unable or unwilling to destroy existence. Destroying all of existence is the most optimal outcome
this is probably the most high iq take you will find on the internet about it.
I think you have admitted you have a very shallow understanding of gnosticism. The same appears to be true of your understanding of Christian denominations.
But all of that doesn’t matter, because what matters is what the truth is. Humans are always going to screw it up. Why don’t you focus on seeking out the uncorruptible truth and not worry so much about if humans act like doofuses?
If you only seek out an experience, you’re gonna be stuck just like all these other people who say this is a virtual/manufactured reality. But if you seek out what’s true, no matter how created/constructed the scenario you are experiencing, isn’t that the thing? Seek out the condition for the possibility of creation. Seek out true creativity itself. Forget all the failed attempts and just keep seeking.
The uncorruptible truth is not made true or false by those who (mis)understand & therefore (mis)apply it. The uncorruptible truth cannot be made true, it can only be demonstrated. That is why the particular which demonstrates the whole exists within the whole the way the temporal which demonstrates the eternal exists within the eternal. The eternal whole is not true (is empty) without the demonstration of the temporal particular it subsumes (they are mutually productive).
“the religious belief of heaven completely contradicts their entire argument of why god allows suffering in the world”
It’s not just that old “an omnipotent god would skip the shitty life part and just make us all in heaven” argument that does it. It’s a whole collage of individual logical problems that work together to produce irresolvable contradictions in the Christian’s thesis.
The christian believes he gets around the omnipotent problem by claiming that this god had to give people freewill because he only wants people who choose to be with him. To do so he has to let people live a material life during which they are tested (by a bad guy he created… lol). It’s a weird kind of anthropomorphic projection of a human desire (wanting authentic friends who choose your companionship, etc) onto this inaginary god to avoid the above problem. Not just that, but that doesn’t work anyway because there can be no freewill in the first place… and certainly not where a creator creates a universe that is made of material abiding by the laws (regularities) of nature and functioning deterninistically.
For each attempted escape the christian makes… each route (new argument) he tries to take to get past some roadblock behind him, he runs into another one up ahead.
Or like a rat trying to find its way through a maze of contradictions. Some are nice rats though. I just needed an animal for the analogy so i used rats.
I mean if you presumably know where the pot of gold is when it comes to Christianity please show it to me. I held out hope for years. It grinds my gears when Christians say I never cared or never knew Jesus. I care enough to be very disappointed.
I don’t know what you mean by pot of gold. The first impression I get from that phrase is prosperity gospel, which is also heresy.
Sorry to disappoint, but not sorry. If that is the case.
I don’t judge anybody who goes through a time of belief, and a time of doubt, and a time of tectonic paradigm shift. We all have an origin story. Don’t settle for contradictions, and keep seeking for the truth, and you will find it is seeking *you*.
… but to answer the thread question, no, god is not important. Feuerbach (our pious atheist humanist) and Stirner will address you on the matter presently should you so endeavor.
Your faith versus experience dilemma reminds me of a thesis of Elaine Pagels in a book, entitled “Beyond Belief”. Pagels speculates that the so called “doubting Thomas” story in the Gospel of John may have been written to refute the Gospel of Thomas. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus encourages his disciples to directly experience the divine inner light. In the Gospel of John, Thomas is portrayed as one who doubts the bodily resurrection based on faith alone. Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John’s message is clear: The way of faith is superior to the way of experience of the gnostics. However, even in the New Testament other resurrection appearances tell a different story. Jesus appears as unrecognizable to two disciples who encounter him on the road and as a brilliant light to Paul in the book of acts. The New Testament accounts can support a range of interpretations.
Jesus appears bodily on the road (even if unrecognizable at first), and as a brilliant light (and voice) to Paul after the ascension. So brilliant that it blinds him to the point that scales come over his eyes. That’s pretty physical. But it’s like the physical universe is the matrix (or his whole body) to him. Even in the scene with Thomas (breaks through the fourth wall and asks you about your scene…), he appears bodily without walking through the door. What does justice and grace and truth look like? That was what he was the incarnation/demonstration of on the cross & in Resurrection. Him, and only him, and us through him, if we consent (although all will rise… some to life, and some to death, Daniel 12:2, Matthew 8:12, Acts 24:15).
No I don’t mean prosperity gospel, that is clear nonsense since Jesus explicitly taught against serving money and storing up treasures on earth.
I mean the pot of gold as in the rationally compelling case that Christianity is the metaphysically correct account of reality and not just the world’s greatest cult of personality.
You did point to Cold Case Christianity.
Even if it’s not compelling from a literal point of view the psychology of Christianity and the ethical teachings of Jesus remain important and admirable.
Reason can justify instinct. Reason can justify intuition. Reason can justify health. Reason can justify awareness. Reason can even justify mystical experience. Can reason justify faith? Maybe it can. But if so, how, and faith in what?
This is so weird. You list instinct, intuition, health, awareness, and mystical experience, and you say that reason can justify all of those things, but you don’t say how, and you don’t say instinct for what, or intuition of what, or awareness of what, or mystical experience of what. How is faith special that you would want a how and a what for faith, but not all the other stuff you listed (and are each of the things you listed definitely not examples of faith or vice versa?)?
No I haven’t read that book yet, I thanked you for suggesting it, but I read William Lane Craig and watched a number of debates on the resurrection and am unconvinced. I am far from the only one who is unconvinced.
I want a how and a what for everything. I give those examples as indicators that reason can point beyond itself to the value of relying on things that are not merely reason itself. It’s somewhat of a tangent to elaborate on those things? The question I asked is meant to open a discussion on the merits of faith.
You did not require a how and a what for the other things (let’s not forget WHY). That “other people are not convinced” (or are) has nothing to do with whether or not there is good reason (how, not why) or justification for a belief.
The Sufi says that there are three journeys. The journey from God, when in the midst of the world we forget God; we forget our divine nature, the love and light of the soul. The journey to God, which is the journey from separation back to union. And finally, the journey in God, which is a deepening experience of the Divine, of the love and oneness that is everywhere and everything. But the journey to God begins with the spark of love being ignited within the heart, the longing for our heart’s Beloved.