Is Gnosticism going to overtake atheism as the new fedora...

Do you think platonism and gnosticism are mutually exclusive choices? How about christianity and platonism? Christianity and gnosticism?

>platonism and gnosticism are mutually exclusive
Not particularly.
I'm just pointing out that a fair number of "Gnostic" groups had sympathetic, though not quite Platonic (remember for Plato, Demiurge is essential beneficent) concepts of this thing.

>demiurge? more like dindunuffinurge
nice pleb view. Enjoy your enslavement . Protip: Everything good in the world as outlined would have existed without the demiurge. it's the bad stuff im the would that's his fault.

And this was actually the point of my gripe here: , meaning most of the people who claim to speak with any kind of weight on the subject (i.e. /fringe/ enthusiasts who think they live in the matrix while archons poke them with feels) seem to only know reductionist memes and don't seem to know much about the texts or doctrines of the various Gnostic sects.

Here's one now:

Actually I know quite about about Gnostic doctrines. You just suck the demiruge's cock because you're a satanist edgelord occutlfag.

Eastern Orthodoxy is the new fedora.
>muh based Putin, conservative values, no pozzed Pope!
Gnostics and other fringe idiots are just stupid contrarians that will never reach the mainstream.

>he thinks I'm a satanist
Okiedokie, mate.

Yeah some did, but when they did it was clearly derived from a platonic understanding. Valentinus was brought up in Alexandria with a hellenic education and definitely studied platonism, if not on its own then at least through syncretism. He wasn't an old school hardline gnostic.

Give me one good reason why I should give a shit what Valentinus says when gnostic scriptures themselves call the demiruge a wicked abortion of a being?

>being mainstream is something to aspire to.

>He wasn't an old school hardline gnostic.
And who would be considered 'hardline'?

Well, the "older school" we get the less I see that distinguishes the texts from normative Christianity.

I mean, he or his close associates probably wrote Gospel of Truth, but whatever.

OP asked what the new fedora was. Fedoras are people who think they're a rebellious new movement but are really just a massive circlejerk of edgy teens and adults with teenage minds.

I dunno, probably the late dualist anti-material Sethites or Qayinites from the reply chains but I don't wanna speak for the man.

The ones who lived in fringe areas and wrote apocrypha, not academics who wanted to reform systems like Valentinus or Marcion.

Yea I was looking for names or labels like what provided

What is a Fedora?

So, we've seen the term fedora bandied about here frequently, but what exactly does the term entail?

We can be sure that the term has expanded past its origins as an appeal to style meant to shame atheists into silence, as it's used quite frequently in subjects not even remotely related to religion (art for instance). So we must look at the deeper traits of the idea, the basic patterns of behavior that were being mocked. Because although it was used to mock atheists in general, it did so by evoking a very specific stereotype of them; this being most observable in that iconic quote about being enlightened by one's own intelligence.

I look at the term, and I see within it a commentary on a deeper, and more pervasive pattern common among social awkward young men (though perhaps not exclusive to them). The sorts who have little social success and consider themselves to be above-average in their own intelligence. This behavior can be observed in a sort of "matter-of-fact," "common-sense," evaluation of things that refuses to consider the deeper, and ephemeral natures of things, and automatically considers a different perspective than their own to be borne of idiocy. The "fedora" has in their mind done all the growing they need to do, has shit figured out, and is now set to fix the rest of the world.

We see this among some atheists, in which they refuse to accept that the reasons for belief people experience feel very real to them and are not just wishful thinking or stupidity.

>I mean, he or his close associates probably wrote Gospel of Truth, but whatever.
Goodbye ape. I knew thee well.

Sloterdijk's distinction between libertine and ascetic Gnosis is illuminating: "The amoral style leads to a homeopathic ascetic: this weakens the Evil of sin, in that they are committed thoughtfully and ironically, as if by quota: the Gnostic embraces the sin and experiences thereby a critical decay in his own body, finally to climb out of the gutter fully burnt out. — The world is a pornographic purgatory, from which to filter the immaculate Pneumata. The abstaining style, in contrast, applies allopathic methods against the sickness of the World: against the poisons of the cosmos it administers immediate flight from the world as an antidote. Civil disobedience against the lower body, general strike against the astral works, bathings in tears, fasting of the heart."

>Sloterdijk's distinction between libertine and ascetic Gnosis is illuminating:
"""libertine"""" gnostics was a meme by Christians to slander them. They didn't exist.

Abjectly wrong.

What's less known is that even the Gnostics were accusing each other of practicing this sort of thing: Pistis Sophia curses, even into the outer darkness, in the name of Christ, those who eat of a lentil dish made with semen and menstrual blood. Two Egyptian testimonies appear in the 3-4th C. that continue this motif, probably in the vein of Phibionite festive meals. The Book of Jesu condemns similar practices. Oddly, though someone then in turn accuses the Barbeloites (who consider the text Pistis Sophia as a core component of their faith, the one that condemns sexual practices) of “obscene rites.

See: Rudolph's "Gnosis: Nature and History of Gnosticism". p 244 through the end of the chapter.

At the beginning of the 3rd C. Clement of Alexandria condemns the Carpocratians for their rites which he describes as excuses to indulge in gluttony and lust. A little while later Celsus accuses Origen of doing this shit, and he quickly points the finger at the Ophites. What's less known is that even the Gnostics were accusing each other of practicing this sort of thing: ..[section I already posted]...Epiphanius (died. 403) makes this claim in Panarion 26.

A lot of people like to paint the Gnostics writ large as this highly puritanical sort of ascetic group. The fact remains that SOMEONE out there was practicing sexual rites

The idea of the sacred wedding exist in mainstream Christianity (nuns as brides of Christ, monks and priest and husbands to Mary) and the first part of your recommendation has no distinctly libertine aspects. As for the other groups which supposedly ingested semen and menstrual fluid, what exactly about that is libertine? It's symbolic and ritualistic, sure. Sexual. But libertine?

>But libertine?
Next time you're in polite company describe how you harvest and implement the Eucharist and see how people react.

I don't see a problem. Most regular folks do.

Anyhow, educate yourselves.

mega.nz/#F!xYpWSZIA!AIJmBr-RrBJeUdGwjt1b3A
^Here's my Gnostic link. Again, the hands down flat out almost indisputably BEST academic intro to the subject is Kurt Rudolph's "Gnosis: Nature and History of Gnosticism."

Educate yourselves, because you won't get educated from memes, or this guy:

I'll retract SLIGHTLY. But the the question definitely remains what constituents libertine and how much of it was even real vs misunderstandings. After all, libertine may implies the purpose is sexual pleasure as an end in itself. I guess it's kind of vague, like all language.

>Educate yourselves, because you won't get educated from memes, or this guy: (You)
You haven't demonstrated anything.

I handed out 71 books including the full Nag Hamadi library, but I'm sure we just all just listen to you.

The fact that we have extant records of Gnostics accusing each other demonstrates that it's more than a baseless smear propagated by a hostile outside force.

But what exactly makes those sex rites libertine? They aren't libertine in nature. Sexual yes, but sexual ≠ libertine.

I mean if you wanna gripe about Sloterdijk's choice of description take it up with him; I already said I agree with you here: >I don't see a problem. Most regular folks do.

Nah. At least on Veeky Forums that would be Orthodox Christianity/ Traditional Catholicism.

Did the cat manage to get out?

>Giving a new interpretation to old concepts is wrong because the primary texts says x is so and therefore must remain so forever and ever.

>You can't call yourself Gnostic and give new interpretation to Gnostic philosophy if you haven't studied all he original texts

>Who is Swedenborg?
>What is Ariosophy?
>What is New Age?
>What is Anthroposophy?
>Who is William Blake?

It's historically incorrect to assume the primacy of the basic texts, then judge harshly everyone who creates an original exegesis out of their doctrines or from other sources. Part of history is studying the evolution of beliefs through the centuries and understanding that, due to social and cultural and political metamorphoses, old interpretations may not suit the new realities and are thus in need of a reinterpretation. Calling /fringe/ retarded for a new rendition of the concept of the Demiurge is the sign of a traditionalist (a current out of vogue since the
nineties) mind influenced by fascist thinking and obsessed with concepts of purity.

For people interested in the evolution of Gnostic ideas in the West:

1) R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff - Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times

2)Wouter J. Hanegraaff - New Age Religion and Western Culture: Western Esotericism in The Mirror of Secular Thought (For the New Age Connection)

>Sethites

The current academic term is Sethians.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethianism

>Qayinites

Reminder that this a English board about history. Use academically accepted definitions (Cainite) instead of Hebrew Hybrids taken from a fringe British cult worshipping semen filled jars as the incarnation of a deity, otherwise user have no way to check information and contribute to the discussion.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cainites

Fascism and purity are good things. But at the same time, Fascism itself was very influenced by Western Estotericism. The new stuff, not just the old.

Cats hair makes their body seem bigger than it really it. That cat can probably, hopefully fit out of there if it fit in there.

>talks about fringe as if it's good
>insults people concerned with purity (coherence?) of concepts
later in same post
>concerns itself with the academically pure terminology
>causally insults fringe group as being semen filled jar worshipers
What did you mean by this, besides that you are an imbalanced brainlet?

Evangelical Christians and Pentecostals are the new Gnostics, with their wacky beliefs like the rapture, speaking in tongues, muh personal relationship with jebus, snake-handling, etc.

head fits, cat fits

Evangelical Christians and Pentecostals are theologically the opposite of Gnostics.

It is true, materialism is failing in big ways. The fine-tuning of the parameters of the constants of nature, the hard problem of consciousness (soul explains it), abiogenesis (problem of Chirality, God did it) and human evolution (fine-tuned by God).
I think the early Gnostics were half-right. Christianity is mystical but the demiurge is a misconception they possess about the will of God.

For my beliefs on mysticism look here :

gnostics had more refined aestethics and creativity I daresay

I'm very deeply sorry I'm most used to typing out the transliteration for Cain?

No, I'm not concerned at all with purity, I'm concerned that people actually study extant historical groups and texts instead of just making shit up because someone on /pol/ said "HAHAHA retarded Jews worship the devil". But if wanting people to actually study this shit is Fascist, gimme a black shirt.

"No."

Well some of those "hardcore" groups mentioned have a doctrine of evil that's pretty close to some KJVonly and Calvinist concepts of "Oh, the world is incredibly dangerous and sin hides in all things, even if they seem innocuous".

I'd agree with this.