Author Topic: Gnosticism  (Read 1249 times)

SirGalahad

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #15 on: August 14, 2022, 02:44:12 am »


I don't find it entirely convincing, but nevertheless, it always warms my heart to see (Gnostic) nobility cut across denominational lines.

guest78

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2022, 01:18:03 am »
Just listened to it the first time earlier, very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

guest78

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Re: Drafting up a Jamia
« Reply #17 on: November 29, 2022, 11:50:38 am »
Interesting commentary from the Gnostic Quran Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx0Uyk9mQmz6P1HRreDt0HX8ri8N_KBnQF

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It is very funny for me to see how Salafis try to blame Paul(ra) on one side and prove the inconsistency of the 4 gospels on the other, using as an argument the Pauline schools, which used the tradition of single gospel. The very fact that the Qur'anic material is much closer in nature to the Pauline tradition of the eastern church, namely the Simonians, the Paulitians, the Marcionites, and the Manichaeans, makes the Salafist exertions very troublesome. Therefore, their "Dawa" scene is very careful to address these topics, because if Islam in its embryonic form is a continuation of the single gospel tradition, two main questions are bound to be asked: "Why the hell then is the homeland of Islam Saudi Arabia and not Mesopotamia, where these schools were still alive in the 7th century?" And most importantly, "Why the hell is Sunni Islam so different from these schools?" And here we begin to think about the main thing, what if Islam underwent the same Judaization procedure as Christianity? As you can imagine, these questions are disastrous for the Salafi Frankenstein.


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I’m of the opinion that if the Bible was so easily corrupted, then there’s nothing stopping such a thing from happening to the Quran as well. But I think that the only thing that people who are suspicious of certain aspects of the Bible and Quran can do at this point, is wait for the messiah to return with the true Word. I’ve tried to read and make sense of and recontextualize the narratives in both the Bible and Quran myself, and I never get very far. There’s just too much uncertainty

Another thing to consider: How often do the world’s greatest prophets tone down what they say, or refrain from saying it entirely, out of pragmatism? It goes without saying that the more idealistic one’s goals and beliefs, the harder it becomes to disseminate those ideas among a largely average population that could only hope to live up to the lofty standards of nobility that these figures abided by. This could easily be reflected in the kinds of stuff that ended up making it into the Bible and Quran, and even the things that DIDN’T make it in
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Which Pauline schools are you referring to? The various Gnostic heresies were not a continuation of St Paul's tradition or Gospel.

Do you mean Gnostics that claimed to accept some of Paul's epistles while rejecting the Gospels?

The Paulicians (Παυλικιανοί) were so named by the Orthodox, but not after the Apostle Paul.

That aside, there is a good point here about the single Gospel Gnostics and Islam.

I think you should touch upon the monotheistic Arabs mentioned by Sozomen in the 5th century, as these appeared to be heavily Judaisized, possibly by such influences as the Himyarites in the Arab world.

The Jews had various divisions, ranging from Gnostic Baptists to the Rabbinical tradition.

Could Islam not be a product of a number of sources, Jewish mainstream and Gnostic?

See also: https://trueleft.createaforum.com/ancient-world/catharism-the-'good-christians'/

rp

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #18 on: February 13, 2023, 07:49:14 am »
Hindu seer Puri Shankaracharya claims Jesus was a Hindu and he lived in India for 10 years:


This is a better narrative than the retarded "Abrahamic vs Dharmic" false dichotomy.

90sRetroFan

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #19 on: February 13, 2023, 06:07:29 pm »
I have always believed in this theory about Jesus' missing years:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-12-25-1994359065-story.html

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"Jesus Lived in India."

In a nutshell, he proposes that the son of Joseph and Mary traveled to India when young, imbibed the Buddhist philosophy and world view at the feet of Buddhist monks, then returned to propagate his findings among his people in Palestine.
...
Ritual baptism and monastic asceticism are among its exports. According to Mr. Kersten, even Jesus' parable of the widow's mite, cited in the Gospel according to St. Mark, seems to be a reworking of an older Buddhist story.

Another work of Mr. Kersten, to be published in English next March, enumerates the parallels between the teachings of Jesus and Siddhartha Gautama, the Indian prince and ascetic who founded Buddhism.

Mr. Kersten contends that Jesus' original message was hijacked by the Apostle Paul, who introduced new elements, including misogyny and the concept that Christ's death absolved others of their sins.

Even if Jesus never went to India in person, he was probably still familiar with Buddhism:

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/188153

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Historical accounts aside, many textual analyses indicate striking similarities between what was said by Jesus and by Buddha and between the prophetic legend of Jesus and ancient Buddhist texts. The conclusion is that, although not identifying himself as a Buddhist for good reasons, Jesus spoke like a Buddhist. The similarities are so striking that, even if no historical evidence existed, we can suspect that Jesus studied Buddhist teachings and that the prophecy and legend of Jesus was derived from Buddhist stories.
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During Jesus' time, Judea was a Roman dominion and most of the trade was Roman. Being the wealthiest empire of the time, Rome sent tons of gold-minted sesterces eastward for goods from India and other places. Most of this trade came over the Mediterranean and through Judea, making Jerusalem a cosmopolitan shipping center. Because of trade alone, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism were well known to the people in Judea.

Additionally, Asoka had sent missionaries to Egypt, which is another commonly proposed location where Jesus spent his missing years, so it would have been possible for Jesus to have studied Buddhism there also.

"retarded "Abrahamic vs Dharmic" false dichotomy."

Exactly. Judaism should be grouped with Vedism.

rp

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2023, 02:29:37 am »
"Exactly. Judaism should be grouped with Vedism."

I agree. Our enemies, however, call this stuff "Aryan":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Vedic_religion#Indo-Aryan_Vedic_religion
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Aspects of the historical Vedic religion survived into modern times. The Nambudiri Brahmins continue the ancient Śrauta rituals. The complex Vedic rituals of Śrauta continue to be practiced in Kerala and coastal Andhra.[63] The Kalash people residing in northwest Pakistan also continue to practice a form of ancient Hinduism.[61][g]

https://twitter.com/arya_amsha/status/1558770205098012672
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It seems that the Nambutiris were the only sect of Brahmins that never really joined a Vedantic Sampradaya en masse and remained Orthodox Srotriyas following Purva Mimamsa and the old Arya religion of the Vedic sacrifices. They seem to be Shaivite leaning in personal worship.

« Last Edit: February 14, 2023, 02:36:11 am by rp »

SirGalahad

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Re: Rightists getting leftism wrong
« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2023, 01:00:10 am »


The premise behind the video (National Socialism was Gnostic) isn’t exactly unflattering to our camp, but he takes that premise and mixes it in a massive vat of misinformation. A few gems in the video include:

1. He conflates Gnosticism as being in the same camp as Hermeticists and general occultists

2. He frames Gnostics as this hidden cabal pulling the strings of society as a lesser known and followed, even secretive sect, when the reason it’s lesser known and even lesser followed, is “because of its personal excellence” as Savitri Devi would say. Speaking of which….

3. He uses “gnosis” being commonly translated as “hidden knowledge” as evidence that gnostics are this secret society, when “gnosis” is only hidden in the sense that you have to actually WORK for it. If we follow his own logic, then what he’s saying would apply equally to Buddhism, and its relationship with the concept of enlightenment. Although considering his personal beliefs, I’m sure he’d be against Buddhist teachings as well. We Gnostics are MORE than happy to proselytize, and we’d be even happier if everyone on Earth were Gnostic

4. He claims that John predicted the future through divine revelation, and that this is proof that he was Gnostic. Completely ignoring the fact that predicting the future in the manner that he’s discussing is just what humans tend to do, especially if they’re religious. That’s not unique to, or characteristic of Gnosticism in any way, shape or form

5. Gnosticism is supposedly a parasite that infects other religions, even though you could completely ignore Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other mainstream religion and still have Gnosticism come out on the other end equally as coherent. Regardless of our beliefs on the Gnostic nature of Christianity or Islam or (the non-Gnostic nature of) Judaism, specific prophets are completely irrelevant to Gnosticism’s legitimacy. I would have no qualms at all with Gnostics who wish to separate themselves from other religions or prophets entirely and emphasize its independence, at least on a purely religious basis

5. He claims that Gnosticism requires its followers to self-censor themselves from opposing views, because they’ve already arrived at the Truth. Ignoring the fact that this is a general human tendency to block out opposing views and not a specifically Gnostic one, this is false for very obvious reasons. Gnostics are just as capable of being well versed in general religion and philosophy. And if I were self-censoring myself, then I wouldn’t have wasted over 45 minutes of my time watching his video. The misinformation in this video is so dense that if I were self-censoring, I would have stopped watching 10 minutes in

6. In one of his most baffling statements of all, he claims that the Puritans were Gnostics. Yes, THE Puritans

This video really needs to be watched all the way through. This little comment I’ve posted here, does not do it justice. And this video is currently sitting at over 150,000 views, with many commenters accepting it uncritically, or at the very least not critically enough. This video is a great example of epistemic violence, in my opinion

90sRetroFan

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #22 on: May 16, 2023, 03:02:03 am »
"1. He conflates Gnosticism as being in the same camp as Hermeticists and general occultists"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism#Philosophy

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peculiar to the Hermetic view of the divinity is that it is both the all (Greek: to pan) and the creator of the all: all created things pre-exist in God,[36] and God is the nature of the cosmos (being both the substance from which it proceeds and the governing principle which orders it),[37] yet the things themselves and the cosmos were all created by God. Thus, God ('the All') creates itself,[38] and is both transcendent (as the creator of the cosmos) and immanent (as the created cosmos).[36] These ideas are closely related to the cosmo-theological views of the Stoics.[39]

This is ultra-monism, completely different from the dualism of Gnosticism. Unsurprisingly, it is also anthropocentric:

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Man carefully observed the creation of nous and received from God man's authority over all creation.

It gets worse:

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One must create, one must do something positive in one's life, because God is a generative power. Not creating anything leaves a person "sterile" (i.e., unable to accomplish anything).[61]

From here we might as well go straight back to:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/progressive-yahwism/

The impression I have received over the years is that only non-anthropocentrists have any hope of understanding Gnosticism properly (whether or not they agree with it). Anthropocentrists (including the Wikipedia editors on the Gnosticism page) always screw up before they even begin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

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Divine elements "fall" into the material realm, and are locked within human beings.
...
humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine origins of humanity.
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The demiurge is responsible for the creation of humankind; trapping elements of the pleroma stolen from Sophia inside human bodies.
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A mythical story developed about the descent of a heavenly creature to reveal the Divine world as the true home of human beings.
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God was awaiting a chance to destroy it and start over, thereby helping humanity to escape its corrupt bodies and locations by fleeing into celestial ones.[220]

« Last Edit: May 16, 2023, 03:05:15 am by 90sRetroFan »

2ThaSun

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #23 on: May 16, 2023, 07:00:14 pm »
The only thing I took of value from Hermeticism is that heat is not the opposite of cold, but a varying degree of it. In the material realm many things we see as opposites are usually just varying degrees of the same thing, vibration. Light is a varying degree of dark and vice-versa. When it comes to morals, ethics, and God, Gnosticism is far superior to Hermeticism. Hermeticism has some good explanations in regards to how the material realm operates I would say when it speaks of things in the material realm not being opposites but varying degrees of atomic vibration.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2023, 10:44:03 pm by 2ThaSun »

express your power

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Re: Right-left (Judeo-)Christian divergence
« Reply #24 on: December 10, 2023, 08:30:41 pm »
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-And the great triple-powered Authades - the third triple-powered one who is in the thirteenth aeon, who had been disobedient - had not emanated all that was purified of his inner power, nor had he given what was purified of his light at the time when the archons had given their purification, and he had wished to be lord over the whole thirteenth aeon and those beneath it.


-Because he did not remember to show mercy; and
he pursued a poor man and a wretched one, and he persecuted
one who was affiicted, to kill him.



-For this reason God will destroy thee completely. He
will uproot thee; and he will draw thee from thy dwelling,
and he will pluck out thy root and cast it outside of those
that are living.

-And the 24 emanations will see what has happened to thee, 0 lion-faced power, and they will fear and they will not be disobedient, but they will give what is purified of their light.

-may their name be removed from the thirteenth aeon; indeed rather may his name be taken away from that place for ever.


It's imperative that one radiates out ones inner power. If one decides to keep it within oneself and behave in dishonest, indirect, and sneaky ways like jewry does then one may face the death.

ThreeBodyProblem

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #25 on: December 14, 2023, 12:50:07 am »
Forgive the Sci-Fi but I felt this video was particularly relevant to Gnosticism:

The Lurker and The Original Universe | Three Body Problem Series
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The Three-Body Problem series is one of the best trilogies of science fiction books that I’ve read in recent years, but in this video, we will be discussing its spinoff, Redemption of Time. Redemption of Time was written by Baoshu, and continues the storyline of the Three-Body Problem universe. It mainly follows the character Tianming, the only character in the original series to ever make direct contact with the Trisolarans. Redemption of Time describes his time among the Trisolarans and how he was visited by a powerful entity that gave him knowledge about the nature of the universe. In this video, we will mainly discuss the nature of the original universe and how it began to collapse. In Redemption of Time we learned that the original, 10-dimensional universe before it began to collapse was constructed upon energy exchange between photons, it was a universe of light.


Manichaeism definitely comes to mind for myself when speaking of a "universe of light". The collapse of the 10th dimensional consciousness and the fracturing of said consciousness into multiple individual consciousness reminds me of the light falling from the God-Head and becoming trapped and enslaved in the material realm by the devil, or "Lurker", as the devil is referred to in the Three Body Problem series. 

Comment to the above video:

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@Quinn'sIdeas: I think what you are attempting to describe whilst using the Tanakh\Old Testament to do so actually makes more sense from a purely Gnostic perspective. Here would be a very simple example of what I am trying to explain: The 10 dimensional being could be called Allah, or the God-Head. This would mean that the Lurker is Yahweh, the creator of the material realm and planet earth. (Yahweh is often referred to as "the foolish one" and the devil in Gnosticism). This would then mean that Lucifer, also known as "the morning star" even in the "Holy Bible", is an angel of Allah, or the God-Head, and is waging war against Yahweh in service to Allah by trying to destroy Yahweh and return all the fractured pieces of God's consciousness to the God-Head, or the 10th dimensional consciousness. Gnosticism is dualistic, meaning it believes in a God of the material realm, and a God of the spiritual realm. In Gnostic beliefs the God of the material realm is often known as the devil. When you speak of a 10th dimension my mind automatically relates it to the God of the spirit realm. The splitting of God consciousness into multiple individual consciousness that then become enslaved by the devil\Lurker in the material realm just screams Gnosticism to me. Lest we forget the story of the Tower of Babylon from the Old Testament, which is basically a myth about pre-historic humanity attempting to build a tower to reach the heavens and challenge Yahweh's supremacy over the material realm, in which Yahweh panicked and intentionally caused confusion among the humans so that they would stop building the tower. (Catharism makes a lot of sense in relation to the above also).



90sRetroFan

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #26 on: December 14, 2023, 02:10:47 am »

SirGalahad

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #27 on: December 15, 2023, 11:41:28 pm »
@90sRetroFan That was a good one. I was kind of thrown for a loop at the end, because I was prepared to analyze the movie through a purely Gnostic lense, and the surface meaning ended up being about something entirely different instead. Not that the message they were intending to get across was a bad one though. And there’s definitely a Gnostic substrate to the movie. I also liked that you as the viewer and the main character both start out knowing absolutely nothing and being incredibly confused, and then you slowly piece it all together and get a greater understanding of what’s going on. It kind of reiterates the journey to gnosis/enlightenment

@ThreeBodyProblem I’m not much of a sci-fi person either, but I’m interested in the book, since it seems to be one of the few things from China that has broken the cultural barrier somewhat in recent years. You almost never hear people talking about books or shows or movies or games from China. But I’ve heard avid readers in the English speaking world talk about the Three Body Problem and say that it was good. A part of me wants to wait till I fully understand Chinese to get into it, but it’ll probably be a very long while before I’m easily reading sci-fi books of all things in Chinese. So maybe I should just read the English translation like everyone else, and then eventually get back to the original version when I’m more advanced
« Last Edit: December 15, 2023, 11:52:00 pm by SirGalahad »

90sRetroFan

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #28 on: December 16, 2023, 02:58:24 pm »
"You almost never hear people talking about books or shows or movies or games from China."

Have you made any progress with the subtitling?

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/volunteer/new-website-thegrail-quest/msg21214/#msg21214

There are many more dramas we could potentially do if you can pick up the pace.

SirGalahad

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Re: Gnosticism
« Reply #29 on: December 16, 2023, 03:58:19 pm »
I should be able to get something done, now that it’s winter break. Lately, I’ve been dealing with and juggling a lot, including my Chinese studies, so that’s why it got pushed to the back burner. I also have access to a laptop now, so continuing should be much more convenient. Before, I had a PC but no monitor, so I had to do it in my bedroom on the floor in front of my TV