What does Veeky Forums think of Gnosticism?

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The things I have to assume for Christianity to be true.

1) God exists.
2) God has a personality.
3) God created humankind with a purpose in mind.
4) God's purpose for humanity was to let it sin indefinitely so that he could father himself as a human to undergo a sacrifice during a highly political situation in Roman Occupied Judea 2000 years ago so that he could absolve everyone of their sins, become resurrected, and ascend to heaven in a huge PR stunt that nobody remembered right and everyone continued to argue about for 300 years until a bunch of bishops at Nicea decided what was canon and what wasn't like it's a god damn anime.
5) If I don't believe in Christ, for some reason belief is important, by sins won't be absolved and I will be sent to God's personal torture chamber lorded over by God's personal fuckup Beelzebub who rebelled once upon a time.

Why should I assume any of these things, let alone all of them?

Why should I disregard the similarly urgent claims I from, say, Muslims?

Because while it might be true it failed to elaborate why. It merely presented opinion as fact

So you would rather be a being of spirit from the moment of your creation? Being trapped by whatever your will chooses to do in your first instant of existence for all eternity? Correct me if I'm wrong.

In Gnosticism you are a spirit. But you have forgotten who you are. You entered this world as an infant knowing nothing, you need to relearn everything and discover your real identity, not the one given to you, not the identity of the material world but your spiritual identity.

If you don't do this you will die without being born.

I'm really not an expert or anything, but Satan wasn't God's fuckup. Satan fucked himself up by, in the first instant of his existence, willing to rebel against God and desiring God's power. But, according to the Christian doctrine I heard, because Satan was made of purely spirit what he willed in his first moment of existence became his will for the rest of his existence.

God is all knowing. He created Satan despite knowing he would rebel.

In the Gnostic system the Old Testament is a different entity from the true God. He's the Demiurge. He'd like you to think he's all knowing, all powerful, and good. But he actually a created being and can only create material things. That's why he's the Demi (half) urge (maker) he made your body but not your soul.

In most interpretations the snake in Eden is working for the higher, better God. He gives Adam and Eve the Gnosis necessary for their salvation.

Jesus is identified not as the son of the malevelent Demiurge but as his enemy, he is the son of a much higher God.

Why can't said much higher god save us then?

Christian Gnosticism may have had a point if Jesus didn't specifically say "the God Moses spoke to is my father."

OT God and NT God are so drastically different.

Why would True God let demiurge trap us?

because you´re supposed to work your brains and soul and evolve

One of the slanders against them in antiquity was they ate spoonfuls of lentils mixed with semen/menstruation blood.

Like a communion of proving how the material world didn't matter.

Buddhists have a doctrine about eating dried turds too.

He did. He sent messengers giving the necessary Gnosis to save yourself. Jesus, many prophets, and even non-religious people like Plato managed to figure out a few things. Salvation is through knowledge, you need to relearn who you are and where you came from.

The higher spiritual realms are made of pure "thought" so without the right knowledge you wouldn't be able to exist there. You'd just evaporate and drift apart. Imagine if your material body was completely gone and you were in a world with nothing material. Without proper self-knowledge you would not be able to function.

That picture is sickening.

Ok so the physical body is good because it allows for our spirit to evolve?

I think most gnostics would agree
some indulged in sex, others where strictly ascetic

Shame on the Jewish publisher who thought that image was funny

But that makes no sense, if they believed the physical body was good as it served a purpose for the soul, then why would they demonize the demiurge who created the body?

It's the tool you need to work with. But you need to master it, there are many impulses in it which can hinder you. Also do not become too attached to it because it will die but the soul lasts forever and you must be ready for that.

Here's the way the divine works. At the very top of the heirachy is the One, the supreme God. He is completely perfect and completely immaterial. You know how in Indiana Jones people that got too close to God died? That's what can happen. Even the other divine entities only can view him from a distance.

There are other divines, some are more pure than others. Heaven is divided into different planes based on purity. All beings, including the divine ones, are working to become better, wiser, more pure, closer to the One.

So you need to develop yourself to save yourself. Some divine beings can help you develop but you still need to self-develop. We begin life at level 0, a the lowest plane, completly undeveloped.

The demiurge was not demonized by all gnostic groups, just recognized and respected as a tribal deity but not worshipped. It was a pragmatic attitude. Valentinus said something like "in this world but not of this world"

How do the gnostics say you self-develop? I realize this is a really big issue so just a place to start reading would be great.

It's a step closer to the Truth. Not enough but still better than yhwh and his deceptions. Make you wonder why they were exterminated.

Doesn't the full, real quote say "but there are gods" at the end?

Plato
Hermetic Writings
Gospel of Thomas

if you want a more secular version look at Jung's Seven Sermons to the Dead.

You start with creativity. Gnostics encouraged followers to write. Some gnostic sects resembled literary groups.

Probably why the pic has "re-interpretation of Marcus Aurelius" at the bottom

Didn't find one with it in my native language, so dunno.

There is a big flaw to the gnostic doctrine (or what is understood of it). That is the material world is evil because of yaldabaoth/yhwh. So what they say is, develop your abilities to get out of this prison (i.e. transition from 3D to 4D).
While we are well in jail, with the abrahamic god as jailer, he did not create 3D. Just enslaved us. So matter is not inherently evil (nothing is).