Gnostic Christianity’s hidden in plain sight secret. We must

Gnostic Christianity’s hidden in plain sight secret. We must do evil.

Given evolution and evil, is the Gnostic Christian myth more intelligent than the Christian myth?
The Gnostic Christian myth explains evil quite nicely as compared to what Christianity has produced.

Doing evil must have conscious volition. In law, they call that idea, mens rea. It is the cornerstone of secular and religious law and shows guilt and the knowledge that one is doing evil to another. When present, that is the only time sin can be applied to mankind.

Gnostic Christians posit an evil God, Yahweh, because of his creation of the evolutionary system in place. This system forces us to do evil to others when we win competitions. We must compete to survive and thrive. We must do evil and that is why we see Yahweh as evil. In a more modern sense, not so much evil as a necessary evil. In the Gnostic Christian view, this allows hope that there is another God above Yahweh that might have a better system that excludes that evil. Yahweh then is just our idea of a system we do not like for it’s evils, and we actually hope to be wrong in our evaluation of reality.

Do you recognize that you must do evil to survive and that the Gnostic Christian myth is a better way to explain evil than the Christian myth does?

Regards
DL

Note: when you ask ‘do you recognize X’
yes, it is in the form of a question, however it is presenting as certain that X is the case. It includes a statement of what YOU CONSIDER TO BE A STATEMENT OF FACT.
At least have the honesty to take responsibility for what you are doing: presenting deductive proofs and presenting facts.
Not ‘merely asking questions’.

I did present facts. Perhaps you did not notice.

The fact is you have to compete.

Regards
DL

I’m only peripherally aware of Gnostic beliefs, but I’ve never heard the ‘evil God’ idea in the little I’ve read of their doctrine. Is this a modern aberration or something that’s been attached to Gnostic Christianity from the beginning?

But Christian doctrine seems to suggest that not all, perhaps not even very much, of the evil we produce is consciously done. “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” I suspect psychology supports orthodoxy, we’re well known for creating subconscious excuses/reasons for the evil we commit. The fact that we create excuses suggests knowledge on subconscious levels of right-wrong differences that are largely blocked from full consciousness.

Most competition to survive and thrive–depending of course on how this would be defined–can be done without committing evil, again depending on how evil is defined. This proposition is questionable if not problematic.

A religion that posits an evil God but hopes that a better God exists–but calls itself “Christian”–sounds pretty screwed up, frankly. Doesn’t this just mean you’re an agnostic?

No. This doesn’t get past the logical stage to even make it to theology. I suggest that goods and evils are effects, not causes. Good derives from the true (truth is logically higher and prior to good according to at least Aquinas, maybe others) and evil from the false. Each possesses a dynamic that produces its effects. The power of truth is of organization, union, harmony, perfection [goods]. That of falsity is disorganization, opposition, discord, chaos [evils]. Left unchecked by truth, the false would run a course toward implosion, decimation and eternal death. If seems to follow that the idea of a primarily evil God and universe is incoherent. The Christian Universalist position–that existents are fragmentally falsified in a primarily true universe seems much more coherent. Well, it’s my position, anyway until the rest of Christian Universalists come to recognize it as a predominantly superior doctrine.

Gnostic Christianity is a Universalist creed. We have tied equality to righteousness.

gnosis.org/library/ephip.htm

" I suggest that goods and evils are effects,"

I agree and person to person evil is an effect of competition as it creates a victim or loser to the competition.

“Good derives from the true (truth is logically higher and prior to good according to at least Aquinas, maybe others) and evil from the false.”

Yet evil is produced for the loser knowing the truth of his losing a competition. No?

Regards
DL

Okay, I read the bit on righteousness. What was said about God in that piece is that He’s a giver, but you characterize Him as evil. Where in Gnostic literature is God deemed evil?

You’re difficult to follow. On the one hand, you say,

…yet posted this in the op…

I took this to mean you are referring to yourself and others who hold the same [Gnostic Christian] beliefs as you. Is this incorrect? Were you speaking of Gnostic Christians in third person, from outside this sphere of belief?

Atheists and Agnostics commonly call themselves ‘free thinkers’, I suspect it gives them a much needed sense of superiority. Plus, you throw the term “Gnostic” around a lot, but post views more in tune with the anti-theists. What are you really GIA?

He calls himself a Gnostic Christian but he’s actually an atheist.

I am a man with what I think is a decent moral sense, born of my criminal mind and delinquent attitude, who does not mind taking the heat for calling out the immoral mainstream religions.

Both Christianity and Islam, slave holding ideologies, have basically developed into intolerant, homophobic and misogynous religions. Both religions have grown themselves by the sword instead of good deeds and continue with their immoral ways in spite of secular law showing them the moral ways.

Jesus said we would know his people by their works and deeds. That means Jesus would not recognize Christians and Muslims as his people, and neither do I. Jesus would call Christianity and Islam abominations.

Gnostic Christians did in the past, and I am proudly continuing that tradition and honest irrefutable evaluation based on morality.

topdocumentaryfilms.com/theft-values/

youtube.com/watch?v=ZxoxPapPxXk

Regards
DL

Not yet. You might wonder why you throw an insult at me. Bully ass hole.

Atheists are getting closer to what a Gnostic Christian thinks like as they are forming atheist churches.

They are getting brighter over time and might catch up to our best of all ideologies.

Regards
DL

What insult?

You have written that all gods are myths.

That technically makes you an atheist. Straight forward conclusion which comes directly from the definition of the word.

So what are you upset about, exactly?

If you didn’t write it, then I must have you confused with someone else and I apologize.

There are a lot of different gnostics. If you think, however, that Yahweh is the demiurge, then you generally think there is a God behind that false God. I have some sympathy for that beliefs system, given the state of things here on earth. So perhaps he means that the gods in the other religions are myths. But he has no need to be coy.

If I wanted to call myself an atheist, I would. I am a Gnostic Christian, in part, because I define the word God as they did and am a perpetual seeker of that God.

I also believe that that search needs churches and although atheists are now creating atheist churches, they are not yet at the Gnostic Christian level or mind set. Most atheists do not yet recognize the tribal nature of man and how it is assuaged by the fellowship that a church gives individuals.

Atheists tend to let the harm that organized religions do override their view of the bigger system. Not all of course, but most at this point in time. We will have to see if atheists can get their act together or not.

My above post and reaction was a bit knee jerk. Apologies. I should have taken the time to correct you in a more civil way.

Regards
DL

Thanks, and true to a large extent.

All the supernatural God are man made. In Gnostic Christian tradition, we are all sons of God.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

We have traditionally followed this teaching above from one of the Jesus archetypes that we see in scriptures.

youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbes … r_embedded

In the early days, the word God was defined as unknowable and unfathomable and nameless. God was defined more as
the best rules and laws that people could come up with. Gnostic Christians, as esoteric ecumenists, use that definition and since everyone has their own opinion on these rules, we call God I am and mean ourselves.

All hell broke loose when some foolish religions became idol worshiping cults, like Christianity and Islam.

bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

youtube.com/watch?v=oR02cia … =PLCBF574D

Explaining Gnostic Christianity is not an easy task and there is a lot of confusion and most people do not want to take the time to get the ideology.

I am also not likely the best teacher.

Regards
DL

So do you believe in the existence of a God or not?

(a non-supernatural God of course and besides calling yourself God)

This statement is the one that stand out. All the supernatural Gods. (?) In the Gnosticism’s I am aware the are other supernatural beings. The mother of the Demiurge and/or the creator. The adjective ‘supernatural’ is a really confused term in most discussions, but the creator is generally beyond nature even if it encompasses it also. If your God is not supernatural, that is beyond nature, then that God is immanent. But that causes problems in any system with a Demiurge since than that God would be created by the Demiurge since THIS which we live in is the Demiurge’s creation. So you might want to go into what you mean by supernatural and I think Phyllo’s request to know if you are a theist is a pretty straightforward request.

As far as I can discern, there are no supernatural Gods.

I think more like the intelligent ancients did before the mainstream religions like Christianity and Islam became idol worshipers and began killing for their imaginary Gods.

This link is a good explanation of that intelligent way of thinking.

bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Regards
DL

I answered him just above. Please have a look.

This short link shows the thinking behind my view that all the supernatural Gods are man made.

youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1PDxeUynA

As to the demiurge, you have to remember that our myths were written to enhance the discussions debates for seeking the best laws and rules to live by, which is basically how modern Gnostic Christians define God since the original meaning has been corrupted by the idol worshipers.

Our myths did enhance the seeking of God, when all people knew that all that was written of God was myth and not reality.

The link I put in the previous response to our friend phylio speaks to this.

Regards
DL

So you believe in a God whose nature is as she explained in the video.

That wasn’t difficult at all. I don’t know why you couldn’t just say so in the first place.

Yes. I believe as the more intelligent ancients thought.

I tend to speak to whatever the post I am looking at says.

I do admit to a poor memory of prior posts.

Regards
DL

I’ll check out the video another time. The phrase supernatural God is redundant. If there is a type of entity that is not supernatural, it is not a god, let alone God.
I hear Karen Armstrong - who does not sound like a gnostic to me - is saying that we anthropomorphize God and shouldn’t. This does not mean that God is not supernatural. Again in the gnosticism’s I’ve read God tends to be transcendent, which is beyond nature.

You earlier said something about God being in the rules for best realtions or ethical bahavior or something. 1) that’s not gnostic 2) there is no need to use the word God. Unless you mean that that is where we can come in contact with an otherwise not directly accessible God. That could be gnostic. But you still have a supernatural entity then.