Christianity is the heresy of Gnosticism

I think basically more like if god was an aborted god foetus.

Those aren't very early texts, though. And as someone else said, the earliest Christian writings we do have indicate that early Christians weren't Gnostics. Hell, the texts themselves all give you clues to that, as the Gnostic texts all contain sections justifying their own existence and correctness in comparison to mainstream Christianity; for example, by claiming that they contain secret knowledge that Jesus gave to someone and everyone else didn't know about.

how old is gnosticism and how do you know

>I don't know but it sounds interesting

Gnosticism is basically proto-Christianity. That's all.

I take it you aren't familiar with chrisians pulling things out of their asses?

But you are right.

>the earliest Christian writings we do have indicate that early Christians weren't Gnostics

Like "god" speaking about himself in plural in the genesis, amirite?

I'm going to just leave this here:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism

Almost as if they believe that institutionalised Christianity fucked up its original message.

The kingdom of heaven is within you.

>we don't need authority
>life sucks and we should abandon this flawed world
>church gets butthurt
>kills every single cathar

Religion of peace, huh?

But you're wrong, user!
There were even jewish gnostic sects.

The criteria of there actually have been a Jebus sounds important to me or the many imconsistencies the gospels have between eachother and with general history.
Im an antitheist so i might not be the person to ask since i oppose gnosticism and christianity. They're both young inventions by people who still dont have more knowledge of existence than we have. Gnosticism is for people afraid to actually bet in Pascals wager after they've rejected the many mainstream religions. It's like saying "im never going to cross a street, because i might get run over by a car." There are better ways you can use all those calories your body burns to think about those subjects, like playing WoW or whatever you fags play these days.

You do know that Moses is based off Akhenaten and Jesus off Siddharta Gautama aka da Buddha?
There probably was a Jewish priest during the Jewish revolts in Roman Palestine. This figure might have been a keyfigure and thus they made a cultfollowing out of him expressed in the comment of Josephus in which he mockingly mentioned the worship of this figure, but nothing about any miracles.
In this period the followers mixed his life with many jewish and mostly overseen parts of the then immensly popular tale of the Buddha (the fasting tale is a complete rip-off).
Somewhere the Romans adopted and altered this tale. The jews were a torn in the Romans eye since the revolt and now they have a tale in which they murdered their beloved messiah. A win-win situation.
Sadly the gospels dont even have the prefect of Palestine in that time right making it the same type of stories ad the OT.

He looks like a snake with a lions head
It really doesn't that wacky and you give no reason as to why it is.
You fools have no knowledge on the subject. Probably Jews considering you buy the "Jesus was a Jew" meme. St.Paul himself uses gnostic terminology. Proto-Gnostic sects existed before Christianity and Jesus's teachings are not Jewish even in the NT, let alone in the gnostic text or the Dead Sea scrolls (which themselves are gnostic) Jesus could very well have been in a group like the Essenes btw.

>You do know that Moses is based off Akhenaten and Jesus off Siddharta Gautama aka da Buddha?
Not only is that not true but an actual religion existed for centuries (Manichaeism) which combined Christianity and Buddhism.

>the many imconsistencies the gospels have between eachother and with general history
That's just silly. Go tell 4 people the same story or even ask 4 people who've lived through the same event and see if you get the same story told back to you. PRO-TIP: You won't. That doesn't mean you didn't tell them the story or the event didn't happen altogether. It's just the way it was perceived and/or developed for that person to tell the story.
>antitheist
What? Why? Are you sure? Do you oppose all theology or just the abrahamic faiths or monotheism or polytheism or pantheism or just christian theology? Are you one of those who just opposes that organized religion has had bad things done in its name therefore without it bad things never would have been done? I mean, I can probably accept it if you're one of those who believes God does not possess wisdom, holiness, and love, even if I disagree with you.
>They're both young inventions by people who still dont have more knowledge of existence than we have.
Um...okay but it's not like they came out of nowhere. They're just a next development in the thought of God. Like, are you anti-science because someone posits a theory that sounds strange or weird to you? I'm very confused.
>Gnosticism is for people afraid to actually bet in Pascals wager after they've rejected the many mainstream religions. It's like saying "im never going to cross a street, because i might get run over by a car." There are better ways you can use all those calories your body burns to think about those subjects, like playing WoW or whatever you fags play these days.
Okay, now I'm not sure you have any idea what you're talking about. Pascal's wager says we're all gambling. Either you believe in something or you don't. Gnostics, even if they believe in something different, believe in something.

>Semitic squabbles
>& Humanities

Christianity is Linkin Park
Gnostic Christianity is Iron Maiden

>Okay, now I'm not sure you have any idea what you're talking about. Pascal's wager says we're all gambling. Either you believe in something or you don't. Gnostics, even if they believe in something different, believe in something.
Perhaps he's getting Gnosticism mixed up with agnosticism.

The fact that manchurism e ists is irrelevant to the point that Chridtianity is plagariasm.
There are mwaning teachings and stories from the buddhist canon in the younger like the story of being tempted by a devil while fasting and many individual sentences.
The answer to the question if buddhism could have influenced the greegs and romans and thus the empire is yes, because buddhism has been there since 400 bc creating artforms called grecco-buddhism.

>Go tell 4 people the same story or even ask 4 people who've lived through the same event

Now you're a priori assuming that the gospels are eye withness accounts which everyone would disagree on seeing as how they were written decades after the initial events and not even by the "eye whitnesses".

>antitheist
It's information obtained by studying the many religions and the history of the areas in which they found their origin.
The latter is important and overseen by most people because they think that the historical truth is in their book, but researching history proves otherwise (show me historical facts that prove that the Bible is truth, you can't).
Thus, i am against religion.
It is a waste of time.

>Um...okay but it's not like they came out of nowhere. They're just a next development in the thought of God.

The Egyptians used religion to have people build pyramids, so from that time everybody knew the benefit of having a god to represent you. Not sure how this fits in your gods plan.
And have you ever read upon how the Hindu religion spread to India and how it manifested there? I honestly doubt that you'll be making that statement again after you've read it and Hinduism was brought to India by the Middle Easterners whom centuries later founded Abrahamism. Honestly, if god exists, it would be so disgracefull to say that this was all in its plan.

> Like, are you anti-science because someone posits a theory that sounds strange or weird to you? I'm very confused.

Science and religion work different.
In religion you're supposed to believe without knowing facts.
In science, we only have to accept facts.
Sometimes scientists disagree agree, not about the data, but mostly about the conclusions drawn from the data.
Yes, i dislike the fact that long term alcoholabuse causes liverdamage, but that doesn't makes me anti-science

Incorrect. Types of Gnosticism existed before Christianity but were mostly strange, contained branches of Judaism.
Christian-based gnosticism emerged several decades after the start of the Christian church, as evidenced by the fact that many of the prominent Gnostic church founders were themselves excommunicated from the early Christian communities. The Valentinians, Nestorians, and Marcionites were all gnostic sects that either split or were excommunicated from the proto-orthodox church.
Also many prominent Gnostic themes (like docetism) didn't emerge until the 2nd or 3rd centuries.
The Nag Hamadi texts show this, as they were written during this time period, a century after the composition of the synoptics. Most prominently, the Gnostic "Gospel of the Lord," or the Marcion gospel, was an edited version of Luke.

Most people who enter gnosticism come from the Christian faith.
We know it's so.
I used to be a Christian and i was very open towards the many religions and i'm pretty sure most are.
So my point still stands.
And when someone has accepted the metaphysics (was going to use a harsher word here) of one religion he becomes more succeptible to the metaphysics of other religions.
Seekings patterns and similarities between them and ending up saying what you said, something along the lines that god's wisdom travels everywhere.
Which again, clearly means that the person has no knowledge of how the religions actually got started.
So, if one would reject one religion, he has already finished Pascal's wager, because rejecting one is equal to rejecting all, because they all work the same and have the same amount of proof.
We have as many proof for Jesus as we have that Zeus lived on mt Olympia 4000 years ago.
Same goes for Moses, there are no records of him and the Egyptians made notes about everything and everything that happened in egypt was seen by the world, so the Mesopotamians and the Nubians would have been the first to write about the events, had they happened, just like they did when they wrote about the pharaoh Akhenaten and Ramesses II.
So it is not like we can't find evidence, it's just that the evidence does not exist.

No, i know what gnosticism is, National Geographic had a good documentary about it.
But instead that most people drop religion all together, they decide to religionhop.
Why? Because their brain has already been wired to accept the concept of god and the many inconsistencies such a beliefsystem (the dogmas) have with reality.
The next step would be to drop those religions and refert to agnosticism, to which my analogy also applies.

>No, i know what gnosticism is, National Geographic had a good documentary about it.
You should study it beyond a documentary before making judgement. read some books.
>We have as many proof for Jesus as we have that Zeus lived on mt Olympia 4000 years ago.
>Same goes for Moses, there are no records of him and the Egyptians made notes about everything and everything that happened in egypt was seen by the world, so the Mesopotamians and the Nubians would have been the first to write about the events, had they happened, just like they did when they wrote about the pharaoh Akhenaten and Ramesses II.

This already demonstrates a fundamental differentiation about the metaphysics of Gnosticism vs Christianity which is almost ironic. Gnosticism doesn't place importance in the historization of mythological figures such as Moses. It wouldn't be important whether he existed or not. Same with eschatology. What matters in Gnosticism is the eschatology of your soul, not the eschatology of the world.

Mean for

>You should study it beyond a documentary before making judgement. read some books.

You should watch the documentary before making a judgement about it.
No, the basics and the origins of the religion were properly adressed, so reading more about it would not contribute to my goals.

>This already demonstrates a fundamental differentiation about the metaphysics of Gnosticism vs Christianity which is almost ironic. Gnosticism doesn't believe in historization of mythological figures such as Moses (whom they don't respect anyway). It isn't important whether they existed or not.

But they do believe in a general organizing principle outside of the realm of physics.
And why would they use the anti-god?
Because they still sought for answers in the bible, but decided that not yahwe, but the satan was the true god.
So it still finds its origin in a faulty book.
And if something (like the bible) is 99% wrong all the time it might not be worth investigating it at all (Bayesian exeption of the genetic fallacy)

It still falls back to being afraid of letting go of the tales past despite knowing better.
Do you believe that you have a soul that rules your body or do you know that you are just a conscious being who is being kept aware by having his senses stimulated all the time?
If you lived pre-1800 many would have chosen answer 1, but we now know that the answer is 2.

Meant for

Isn't Gnosticism just an offshoot of Plato? Seems obvious why those influences would be around in the days of Christ.

>Isn't Gnosticism just an offshoot of Plato?
No. Gnosticism has platonic concepts (along with most other religions) but it isn't an offshoot.

No, they started with Jesus' disciples, but then went their own way denying that Jesus is God come down from heaven in the flesh.

They've been lost ever since.

>Because they still sought for answers in the bible
There wasn't even an organized bible during the era of Gnosticism. A Gnostic was the fist to put together a new testament canon, actually.

>A national geographic documentary answered everything about Gnosticism.
C'mon man. I'm not even gonna call you a name or be mad but we both know that isn't true. I probably saw the same documentary and it wouldn't have done it enough justice to base all judgements upon it. It seems more that you're afraid to find out something that might conflict with your worldview. This is the quintessential book on Gnosticism. At least give it a try. goodreads.com/book/show/789185.Gnosis

The Bible is comprised out of the OT and the NT and the Gnostics used both.
The Bible might have been compiled later, but they still used the same stories as a basis and made different conclusions.

>A national geographic documentary answered everything about Gnosticism.

Is this what i said or did i say that the documentary gave adequate information for me?

> It seems more that you're afraid to find out something that might conflict with your worldview.

People who have said this to me:
Young Earth Creationists
Flat Earthers
And now you.

Every religon has reasonable concepts that seem plausible and reasonable (like Daoism), but that does not make the religion true.
And the fact that Gnosticism is derived from the Abrahamic texts and not from anything else, like the works of Pythagoras or Thales means that we can and should first determine if those Abrahamic texts are true.
And they are not, so what will you get when you derive a philosophy from a faulty text?
A faulty philosophy.

It's like the Jehova Withnesses who claim that the protestants and the Catholics have interpreted the Bible wrong and that Michael is the actual Jesus.
This is truth to them, but one first has to ask if the text they are basing their conclusion on is actually true and it again isn't.

So there is no reason for me to deepen myself into Gnosticism, because the extensive research i have done in history and theology and by combining the two for my research has led me to the conlusion that none of the religious texts are even worthy to investigate.
It's like how the Bible has more than 5 errors regarding the origin of the Earth on the first page, why then bother to pretend that the book has anything to do with a god? It should become very clear that the book was written by people who were trying to make sense out of the world and its history.

>Christianity is Linkin Park

We have come full circle.

>The Bible might have been compiled later, but they still used the same stories as a basis and made different conclusions.
No they don't. Most Gnostic scriptures have been rejected from the Bible
>And the fact that Gnosticism is derived from the Abrahamic texts and not from anything else, like the works of Pythagoras or Thales means that we can and should first determine if those Abrahamic texts are true.
Gnostic religions are just as much derived from Eastern mystery cults and Hellenistic philosophy.
>It's like how the Bible has more than 5 errors regarding the origin of the Earth on the first page, why then bother to pretend that the book has anything to do with a god?
Since I don't subscribe to sola scriptura I really don't care if religious scriptures from any major spirituality has 5 errors or 500. To me scriptures aren't infallible. I care about how I can apply that text to my life and my understanding.

The Gnostic gospels came out in the second century. The gospels Christians use, came out in the first century.

actually the difference may be barely 40 years

Okay... my statement is still true...

Why do people act like a couple decades is a big deal? People are alive today who've experienced WW1.

>No they don't. Most Gnostic scriptures have been rejected from the Bible

So are they or aren't they derived from the Abrahamic faith, as i claimed?
If so my point still stands

>Gnostic religions are just as much derived from Eastern mystery cults and Hellenistic philosophy.

Quite a bit of a stretch to compare Gnosticism with the works of Pythagoras and Thales.

>Since I don't subscribe to sola scriptura I really don't care if religious scriptures from any major spirituality

Sweet and since i don't subscribe to faith based ideologies i don't care if the scriptures have anything i can apply to my life, especially when i can find the same advices in many other works that take themself far less serious.

>To me scriptures aren't infallible. I care about how I can apply that text to my life and my understanding.

It is good that you know that they aren't infallible, because that's pretty important when deciding to follow a religion.
The question still stands in what one believes, because you say that you take them for guidance, but you clearly believe in souls, god and whatelse and that goes beyond "I care about how I can apply that text to my life and my understanding".

So again, i'm not against using the books as works of literature, but to use them as faithbooks is something i'd advise against, because that energy could have been used to achieve far greater things.

The problem is that the gnostic gospels came out like 40 years later than the other gospels, and the gnostic gospels are so different from the other gospels which were pretty much on the same page.

>The problem is that the gnostic gospels came out like 40 years later than the other gospels
40 years is nothing. A good writer can publish books for much longer.
>and the gnostic gospels are so different from the other gospels
Paul himself uses gnostic terminology and Proto-Gnosticism existed before Christianity. It really came about during the Hellenistic era.

I understand that 40 years is nothing, but when you put it with the fact that the gnostic gospels were so much different than the other gospels, it seems like the gnostic gospels are less reliable.

And maybe it's true that Paul used gnostic terminology, but he didn't make the claim that the god of the old testament was evil, or that the serpent in the garden was the one who became Christ.

Gnosticism is Neo-Platoism with a Jewish face. Christianity is the reverse

You really understand neither.

>that the serpent in the garden was the one who became Christ.
Gnostic believe the serpent was eve, actually. Christ is an aeon.

>gnostics made Plotinus so mad for fucking his Neo-Platonism up with Dermuige that he wrote an entire essay shitting on them for thinking the creator of the world is shit

Was being cheeky senpai but Gnostics have more in common with Neo-platoists than Christians. And more interested to use Jewish mythos to preach Neo-platoist ideas

>Gnosticism is Neo-Platoism

yeah, kinda

> with a Jewish face

Nope. More like with a Christian face

>Autist complains about the source of the gnostic texts

Texts for gnostics are a myth and little else, you don't understand.

>Gnostic believe the serpent was eve
>Christ is an aeon.
Sethianism and Valentinianism certainly do not represent all forms of Gnosticism.
Catharism, Marcionism and Paulicianism for example do not hold any such beliefs.

...

>Now you're a priori assuming that the gospels are eye withness accounts which everyone would disagree on seeing as how they were written decades after the initial events and not even by the "eye whitnesses".
You call reasoning that an event took place because people tell stories of the event and it was written down and people fought and died over it to be a priori assumption? Are you dense or just intentionally obtuse? Something can't have ever existed or have taken place because you yourself weren't there to empirically observe it yourself? What backward wannabe intellectual logic is that?

So you deny America exists? That the founding fathers exist? Or whatever country you're from exists? Do you deny you had a great grandfather? Was your grandfather lying to you? Or can you theoretically deduce that because you have a father who had a grandfather and they each told you stories about the one that came before, is it a reasonable assumption that you had a great grandfather? Is that, too, a priori assumption?

>It's information obtained by studying the many religions and the history of the areas in which they found their origin.
>(show me historical facts that prove that the Bible is truth, you can't).
So it's fedora tier memery? Got it. See above. People died over this stuff, man. Do you honestly believe all of that was just made up? Or are you next gonna tip your fedora that there is nothing you believe in so strongly that you'd die over? Would you consider dying to protect your family a worthy cause? Would you consider that a waste of time? If yes, just kill yourself right now.

The rest of this retarded comment you're just talking out your ass.

Gnosticism isn't even Christian. Its comparative religion for esoteric mystics who take eschatology very seriously. There are gnostics in every faith. Christian gnosticism is just the most notorious.

youtube.com/watch?v=KjLl0DjGZUg

>but we now know that the answer is 2.
lol. Shut the fuck up you retarded faggot.

>Gnostic believe the serpent was eve, actually

No, there are many varied beliefs.

I believe the serpent is probably the christ.

Buddhists got massacred by the Hindu's en masse, does this mean that the Hindu faith is true? Wrong analogy.
Hindus are being massacred by the muslims en masse, but does that make their religions true?
Deathtolls have nothing to do with the legiticamy of a claim dunce.
Perhaps i'm dense, but you make no sense.

Now, you're asking me how i determine truth, but you forgot that i also showed how i don't and you stating the gospels as truth is an a priori assumption, because you have no evidence for your claim.
Do you at least agree that the gospels were written decades after the events and not even by the ones to whom the books are being credited?

The rest of your comment just exists out of bad analogies, man. You should take some pointers from Jesus for that one.

>So it's fedora tier memery? Got it. See above. People died over this stuff, man. Do you honestly believe all of that was just made up? Or are you next gonna tip your fedora that there is nothing you believe in so strongly that you'd die over? Would you consider dying to protect your family a worthy cause? Would you consider that a waste of time? If yes, just kill yourself right now.

>The rest of this retarded comment you're just talking out your ass.

So we should disregard fact, because some idiots want to die for their retarded religion? No, i got you.
You'd fare well during the crusades trying to die for your religion while you're just protecting and grabbing land for whatever fucktard was the emperor in that era.
Fools like you are the reason that religion stays around like a bad weed.

Your classification: ISIS

I had high hopes for you, but now i'm baka tbqh famalang

In tetms of the majority Christfag ffs.
Sorry that you're such a special snowflake

Religion stays arround because people have experiences, retard.

Christianity is Justin Bieber
Gnostic Christianity is Ludwig van Beethoven

Christianity is capeshit
Gnostic Christianity is kino

I understand gnostics have different beliefs but is "Christ as the serpent" backed up by anything? I'm not saying it is or isn't.

To expand upon this, you should only draw conclusions based on the messengers of light and experience. Not feels. Experience and sacred text triumph over feels.

No, religion stays around, because people are so indoctrinated that they regard natural events is supernatural.
Like drafts becoming being touched by ghosts and angels.
Hearing voices or Tourettes being speaking in tongues or receiving instruction from angels.

We've all had a gamingmarathon after which we were sort of disconnected from the world, now imagine having a 20 year marathon of going to the church, reading scriptures, close rleigious circles, religious family etc etc.
What do you think being in such an environment does to a person?

The experiences are phenomenon that are perfectly explainable without religion.
Like how some dumbass priests preached that a blood moon was the sign of the Apocalypse or a woman who killed a baby, because an angel told her so or walking in the street with the wind in your back and finding 10 bucks, so it feels as if the wind pushed you to the 10 bucks.
Perfectly explainable scenarios without god, so it's not the experiences, but the mengtal connections these people have with it that makes them rlate those instances to rleigion, because they have been told that that's were everything good and unexpected or unknown comes from.

If those people had never heard about angels, they wouldn't attribute these circumstances to them and that is a fact.
So it's not the experience, but the indoctrination.

Good try tho spoken like a true apologist WLC follower

It's backed up by the pope, who claimed that Jesus turned into the serpent on the cross.

Gnosticism/Catholicism is a great way to go to hell. You get to feel all superior and then, bam! Hellfire.

>Nothing supernatural exists. Because I say so.

I hope you're trolling.
I said that the experiences you guys claim as supernatural have been proven to be natural.
I even gave examples, but you don't need facts right?
You have faith and that is worth much more than stupid old facts........ retard

>I said that the experiences you guys claim as supernatural have been proven to be natural.
They haven't though. You've established a strawman. No one has proven "all as of yet non-quantifiable phenomena involves natural causes." This, plus you choose to focus on more outlandish claims. Gnosis through meditation is just about proven, as are chakras.

No, now you're subjecthopping.
Meditation is not a supernatural phenomena and meditation itself doesn't has its origins in religion.
Meditation was a common practice amongst the people of the Indus Valley long before Hinduism.
The reason it found its way to Greece was because Buddhists had been present in Greece as early as 400BCE. There even statues of the Buddha in thr Greek artstyle in Greece. This artstyle is called Grecco Buddhism and you can find it on Wiki.
And i have yet to find peer to peer reviewed scientific papers (not facebookposts kek) that agree that chakras exist.

But i can agree that not all phenomena that are supernatural have been disproven, because there is a nutcase making a new one up for attention everyday, but you have to agree that more than 75% (at the very least) of those supernstural phenomena from the iron age to now have been proven to be mere natural phenomena.
I shouldn't have used absolutes only rleigious people use those

>he experiences you guys claim as supernatural have been proven to be natural

Of course user, we have an epidemy of schizoprhenics

>The reason it found its way to Greece was because Buddhists had been present in Greece

Ye, and the reason I experienced henosic gnosis WITHOUT meditation is because of mental illness, amirite?

Just like every other experience where something supernatural witnessed becomes mental illness.

KYS retard

In all fairness it pretty much does. Buddhism is a more refined truth than Hinduism and Hinduism is leagues closer to the truth than the most militant and least mystical of the Abrahamic faiths.

The claim the poster made was the Christianity must have been true, because people have died for it.
Deathtolls are not a indicator of truth and that was my point.
Or are you willing to say that just because someone died for a belief that that belief must be true?

I'm agreeing. The truth has always been more persecuted than comfortable lies.

Each circumstance needs to be adressed seperately, use your brain ffs.
You mentioned meditation and i told you that meditation has nothing to do with religion and i assume that you now agree, because you have not refuted that point, but went on to "henosic gnosis without meditation".
No many people have the realisation that they are a part of the cosmos, ffs, because we ARE a part of the cosmos, it's entree level biology and physics and has nothing to do with a deity.

So, did you have the xperience before or after you got aqcuinted with gnosticism?
Because that would explain why you're trying to relate it to your religion.

I guess that's why religous parties tend to murder everybody who goes against them.

>I experienced henosic gnosis WITHOUT meditation

Greentext

>all those implications