Can anyone explain to me what Gnosticism is?

Essentially it's the idea that through muh super-secret knowledge you can be achieve "gnosis" which is the meaning of life. They borrow from a (((diverse))) collection of other religions such as Islam and Rabinical Judaism. It's basically a losely defined choose your own religion game for people who wanted to be "open-minded" kind of like freemasonry. I recommend you check out Neoplatonism instead tbh.

Stop spreading the poz, faggot.

I cant help it you christ cuck faggots got everything wrong

Islam didnt exist until after gnosticism was pretty much eradicated by the romans.

Stop bumping slide thread

gnosticism is basically a heresy that believes the father of Jesus Christ to be evil and the devil named satan to be good

and of course both of those are lies, and the opposite of both are true; God is good and satan is evil

It's all about seeing the world for what it really is. Having that associative mentality to things perceivable in order to think about things like "god" and the "ocean" (so to speak).

It's about finding some practical knowledge in the directly perceivable and attaching it to the imperceptible.

It's not, it's about seeing the universe as a fire.

No it isnt.

Muslim Wizards are called Sufis
Jewish Wizards are called Kabbalists
Christian Wizards are called Gnostics

They are all very powerful and scary

All of which are actually meme magicians as well.
Meme wizardry and religious wizardry go hand in hand, though the religious tends to be more focused on god and creation.

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"Gnosticism" is a catch-all term for many different schools of syncretic thought both pre-Christianity and post-Christianity. Our modern sources for these come mostly from Christian authors during the time period, namely Irenaeus' Adversus Haereses and Hipploytus' Elenchos, although fractions of original works exist such as the Nag Hammadi texts. Manichaeism is also usually classified as a type.

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Moloch worshippers fuck, kill, and eat children. Do not confuse them with gnostics.

Canaanites are not Jews.

In fact Judaism may be more related to zoroastrianism.

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>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeon_(Gnosticism)

The memes mutated user. But the over-encompassing thought about the image of god is similar.

Not it's dualistic cosmogony, jews are monists. Satan (the spirit of Adversary) is an integrated facet of Yahweh.

Found (((one)))!

gnostic here

wrong

kind of

Gnostic Christianity follows the teachings of the apocryphal gospels and gospels of nag-hammadi. It teaches through esoteric analogy that there is a metaphorical hierarchy of gods. also the popular gnostic belief is that the generally is accepted Christian god is the aforementioned Yaldebaoth or basically the devil, this is why 'Christians' hate them so much. It's advocated in the nag-hammadi that gnostics spurn this god and look to the concepts of Sabaoth which reflects foresight and illumination and Sophia Pistis which reflects ascendence and freedom. Basically the same canon as your average jew wizard but different conclusion drawn.

Probably worth mentioning that Jesus is arguably considered to be the son/messenger/whatever of Sabaoth in this canon. Sabaoth is the repentant of the archons of Yaldebaoth. The 7 archons are the guys the Yazidis worship

Christianity is the only remaining "Abrahamic faith" after the end of Judaism in 70 AD. "Rabbinic Judaism" is worship of the demon Moloch; Islam is worship of the demon Astaroth.

Gnosticism is an individual path for the mystic, not a system of faith for the masses.

Pick one, there is no between

Either you haven't read the scriptures or you're trying really hard to be retarded.

christianity is not all about going to church and reading bible you know

Until the 1500s nobody was actually allowed to even read the bible except for the Vatican-controlled priests.

Forgot to comment on that paragraph.

It's almost like looking at these concepts as a structural imperative of everything. The philosophical impact (?) of not only the concepts but the existence of these imperatives in our universe.
Well I think that's what it is, I dunno, I just started to dig into this.

Be gentle, I've barely dug into this, but have become fascinated recently.
What we're talking about is easy to experience, hard to convey and communicate.
Oh I see. So God is distinct from satan in gnosticism?

I find that interesting. Differential to that hierarchy is more hierarchy. But it becomes infinite yet fathomable.
I find it incredible that from this "abyss" they somehow could construe a hierarchy.
Maybe I haven't dug into my thoughts enough and the construction of this enemaanima mundi.

Then why was it translated into Slavonic?

any member of the hierarchy higher than yaldebaoth is not related to the abyss. Apart from kind of Sabaoth.
It's hard to describe what the 'abyss' is however. It'd take more characters than I have and even then I probably couldn't phrase it as well as it is written here: gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html
If you have a spare half hour and care it's worth a read.

Gnosticism isn't syncretic in the slightest. In terms of pre-christian basis it did develop from Essene doctrine and does make references in some scripture to the book of Enoch but that's about it.

It's a load of whiny faggotry which was discredited and purged for a reason.

The worlds bad because of the Demiurge, which is bad because a Goddess named Sophia wasn't prefect yet these too forces were still created by and Omnipotent Godhead.

This is obviously philosophically lazy bullshit, claiming that the world is shit in their proto-libtard opinion because of others besides God. In normal Christian theology Lucifer and the fall of man are intended and predetermined. God wanted it to happen and set it up so it would inevitably happen. God is good for man at the end of all things not some pussy niceguy. Strife exists as part of the design, it is not a flaw within it. Evil exists to define good just as black defines white, one is meaningless without the other. Without context nothing has any value. All Gnostism does is create a series of Lucifers under different names to kick the can down the road and defer responsibility for the way the world is, forgetting that as long as their cosmology includes an omnipotent force the buck must stop at his desk.

TLDR: only those who had an innate predisposition toward the same bullshit we see in modernism and liberalism would buy into this philosophically inconsistent shit because "muh feels" trumps everything else to them.

Death to liberals(whether they express the behavior or not), death to utopia, death to the weak. Let use pray for an eternity of war, and let us spread that war across the stars until all creation is an altar upon which the blood of sacrifice never dries. An eternity of glory fighting for ourselves and those we care about awaits. Life without suffering is death. ALL HAIL STRIFE!

you have no fucking idea what you are talking about

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I didn't say it was religiously syncretic, only it's theory which is irrefutable.

How is it's theory syncretic?

We're on a prison planet.

How is the Nag Hammadi library containing sections from Plato and the Corpus Hermeticum not syncretic?

OP since all I can see on here is very vague comments and just extremely uninformed lowly intelligent posts I am going to give you some advice. If you want to find out about something and don't know anything about it asking Holla Forums is one of the worst things you can do. You will just distort your conceptions of it with a bunch of uneducated morons who can't seperate anthropology or religious study from their political ideology and persecuted egos. What you want to do, and what I would hope people are smart enough to realise, is search it, get some books on it, virtually all gnostic texts and writings are public domain and free to find, there are 1000s of blogs and youtube channels/podcasts who directly talk about this on a deep level. The Nag Hammadi scriptures are a very enlightening read in themselves and really open your mind a lot to what early Christianity was like and alternative interpretations to it which coincide more with the sociological and philosophical contexts of the time. A great introduction, which is short but written very well with a great input, is Elain Pagels' "The Gnostic Gospels". Another really great documentary sereis I know which goes into the entire history of Gnosticism, from the early christian era to the Cathars, to the de Medicis and Rennaisence period, to Carl Jung and the modern era is called "Gnostics: The Divinity of Man." It is a 4 parter and very concisive whilst also reenacting many great speeches that have taking place throughout history regarding it, something I think should be done a lot more. Anyway you can find that on YouTube, if you are interested and really want to find the truth on the matter don't ask Holla Forums user, you might get some good pieces from a few but all in all you are doing yourself a disservice by relying on it to tell you what Gnosticism is.

the Nag Hammadi is simply a compilation of texts that were deemed helpful to prospective followers. They aren't at all considered the word of god. Also CH was compiled well after the NH. Bible is still the holy book, though only the original Aramaic and it's immediate translations. Though I do see your point, it'd be like saying Christianity itself was syncretic because Christ made references and used quotes from the books of Enoch and Job.

Seconded

Historically, Gnosticism seems to be a syncretic output of Essene Judaism, Egyptian Mystery Cults, Christianity and Pagan Neo-Platonism.

But the important point about Gnosticism is this: If God is good and all power then why does Evil/Suffering exist?
The Gnostic answer is that the God that created us is a false God, and that reality he created is a false one.
Therefore, evil and suffering, are illusions as well.
The Gnostic's version of heaven is the Pleroma, which is called the Fullness (because nothing exists outside of God). In contrast, the false reality of the world is the Matrix, an illusion that is both part and not part of reality depending on how you look at it.
A vidya game, for example, is an illusion, but it is also part of our reality. The goal of Gnosticism is to wake the spark from that Neet reality and to embrace the actual reality of the Pleroma.

A very interesting thing to take into account is how much this resonates with the eastern spiritual tradition in buddhism and daoism. Extending on from that Gnosis is at the core of this and is not simply reliant on mystic and Platonic philosophy. Gnosis is a spiritual revelation which one experiences when gaining knowledge of the heart (in Greek: Gnosis). It is incredibly deep and quite relative, something which is also part of the Gnostic interpretation, the belief is not static, it evolves and is everlasting, all in all no one can truly teach you what Gnosticism is, however the hope being is that through recollecting this information and philosophy that you ignite Gnosis within yourself, that is the unnameable and untranslatable pure ecstasy in which you have escaped from the grasp of the material world and gained insight into God. Even this though does it no justice, truly, the only way to KNOW Gnosis is to experience it. However, looking at it from an academic perspective is also incredibly interesting and deep.

Actually we're the prisoners and the guards.
The situation is odd.

Youtube documentaries are sometimes the best thing about the internet.
Saves you from doing so much reading, though it's not exactly "100% foolproof"

Also discussion about it encourages intrigue and questioning, plus it may inspire imaginative thought. Sometimes when people talk shit, they find gold.

Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the skull throne

Christ's ideas were indeed very syncretic. He seemed to pull his thoughts from all schools of thought.
In fact some would argue that all religion is syncretic. It never properly detached itself from it's prehistoric origins.

Your analogy is a bit of a stretch, Enoch and Job weren't exactly divorced from his setting, culture or milieu. Can you explain how CH and the Dialogues are directly related to Gnosticism? The fact that they considered it worthy of preservation alongside their other holy texts speaks volumes to the degree they were held in esteem.

She is a libtard par excellence

What if God's a masochist?

most 'gnostics' are these days, its a meme from Jung and PK Dick

If you've stared at the moon and felt mocked by it, you've probably experienced gnosis.
If you've nearly drowned, you've probably experienced gnosis.

There are plenty of answers to the "If God is good and all power then why does Evil/Suffering exist?"

A couple of others I like are 'God is insane' and 'God is a Nietzschean'

That's because modern Gnostic movements is associated with the Sew Age Movement, which ruins all non-Abrahamic religions it touches.

The actual Gnostic texts are actually quite hierarchical and ascetic.

What if god liked to play games?
What if we're the perpetual masturbation?

I'm not sure why Plato is in the NH, maybe someone left a copy nearby. As for the CH assuming you're referring the emerald tablets shit. They're included not because the faith is based of them but because aspects of the CH mirror the faith. The same with Enoch and Job. Though yeah, that analogy was off.

Just as soon as you can explain search engines.

I personally have never bothered to look into the political opinions of her all of her points are backed up very well and she writes in a clear manner. Personally I find it degrading to be like "she's a liberal" and then by default refute all her work and points. Such attitudes are intellectually dishonest and quite frankly moronic. Can you show me exactly what Elaine Pagels has said in her book which is not justified or backed up? Or can you only talk shit and not actually think beyond the manufactured left/right dichotomy? People should notice that the people making educated points make a case at least to some level whilst then there is the typical mentally defunct morons who just say "Jew" "Left" "Shill" over and over to themselves whilst circumventing every point made. Some of us aren't so braindead and aren't incapable of thinking that all it takes is some user to label something liberal and we go away from it. No people are starting to become more awake and not just take some idiots word for granted. How about you apply some reason? Are you capable of that? Is logic and rationality outside your bounds? I feel sorry for anyone who is so duped and regressed that all it takes for them to not apply themselves to something is an user calling shill. Some want to spread knowledge and information, all people like you want to do is put walls up around everyone and everything because you are so easily triggered and sensitive to anything resembling opposition to your beliefs.

It should be noted that it was not all of Plato's work which was found at the Nag Hammadi rather it was an excerpt which resonated with Gnostic beliefs. Much study has been done in the comparisons of Platonic philosophy and gnosticism or even Christianity in itself is seen as a religious extension of Plato's work. Aside from that it shows that these people were engaged in the height of philosophical endevour of the time and that they found Plato's work so important that they went to great efforts to preserve it.

Where do you think you are?

We need to hope he finds auto erotic asphyxiation

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Now that's a terrifying thought.

And what if Evil does not exist ? And instead we abstract our wrong decisions towards ourself (that are already planned by God) as an universal allegory called "Evil" but does not have any meaning without the context of us.

huge if true

fuck wrong name
forget it.

Look at my ID user. I'm one of the guys here that takes Gnosticism seriously.
I also joined the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Believe me, I take these things seriously.
So trust me when I say that libtards have infiltrated these orgs and spread their bullshit.
I respect guys like Stefan Hoeller but nothing changes the fact that Pagels, despite all her work, is a libtard with an agenda.

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