i hate this piece of shit so fucking much but i cant do anything against himi wont make it out
It's not real schizo
>>23625224its real to me, it just makes too much sesne
>>23625222
>>23625222there's no such thing as the demiurge. STOP blaspheming. "archons"? "pleroma"? do you people hear yourselves?
>>23625241based kek
>>23625250>there's no such thing as the demiurge. STOP blaspheming. "archons"? "pleroma"? do you people hear yourselves?t. archon
W A K E U PAKEUP
>>23625233>>23625222Theoretical knowledge of the divine can only come after metanoia and on the road to deification. Train the spirit to resist the flesh, make the body a temple to the Holy Spirit, learn to resist the demons of depression, wrath, gluttony, lust, etc. Only then will one even be ready for illumination.The problem with many seekers on "the Way" (what the ancient Christians called their faith) is that they have a very modern focus on theoria without praxis. They think the believing the right set of intellectual propositions is what is important. Nay, praxis comes first. Practical reason, which is directed to the Good, and aesthetic reason, which are directed to the Beautiful, lead the way in turning the soul, in Metanoia. The tyranny of theoretical reason, Truth made master of the Good rather than a co-equal transcedental property of being qua being, gives you modernity.So, an ancient Gnostic, who for the most part existed side by side in Alexandrian churches with the "orthodox," would agree with their orthodox brothers that metanoia begins with prayer, fasts, the disciplining of the flesh, and acts of love, not with special gnosis attained by the bare affirmation of propositions.>>23625233Evil is a privation in much of Gnosticism as well. The cosmology and mythos is different but the metaphysics of evil remains the same.
>>23625250Unironically more coherent and solves the abrahomo problem of evil (pagans did it before tho).
>>23625267And bear in mind that the Internet tends to focus on the most fringe groups of "Gnostics." The lable is in some ways as broad as "Protestant." Yet whatever Mormons, Lutherans, the Amish, Unitarian Universalists, JWs, and Charismatics share, they are all very different. Likewise, most Gnostics didn't buy into the Sethian cosmology. They were, as a whole, very committed to the New Testament, and we find ancient Gnostic exegesis on I Corinthians, John, etc.Which is why I would say start with these foundational texts, for the Gnostics themselves embraced them and they give lie to some of the later fantastical myth making. Plato and Plotinus would be useful too, along with the great Christian Neoplatonists, e.g. pic related.
>>23625278It doesn't solve the problem of evil. It makes the Monad/Entirety into something that emanates in ignorance, it emanates like a toddler wetting the bed or one domino knocking over an other. Since it creates evil through the Demiurge (via Sophia) it is essentially either ignorant or what it does or callously indifferent. Either way, it is less than fully perfect and is determined by what it is not to the extent it is indifferent to it.Plotinus' view of the One or what would become the mainline Christian view is far more coherent. God is transcendent and transcends its own limits, eternally willing Itself in perfect freedom and love. For man to be a finite copy of God, a "moving image or eternity," man must learn to transcend his own nature in the pursuit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True (e.g. St. Anselm) and attain to perfect freedom. Such a self-determing capacity to transcend the self in drawing near to the Good required the Fall.Note that Eve is tempted by the Serpent with the promise that she shall "become like God." But this is the very promise of Christ, theosis. God becomes man and suffers eternal humiliation and death at the hands of man that we might be saved. Nietzsche was right, he had just affirmed Christianity. God was indeed born of man. God is dead and we have killed him. But Nietzsche forgot the last proposition, "He is risen."
>>23625309Tbh, just cut out mumbo jumbo about monads and sophias and just say that the creator god is evil or flawed or asshole and you are good to go. Essentially, pagan explanation works. Mistake of pagans was the sacrifice and divinations, which are easily disproven, while abrahomos falter on the problem of evil.
if i ever see this nigga irl imma sock him in the fucking face
>>23625250because cherubs and nephilims are less stupid, perhaps?
Modern gnosticism is just another attempt to make your version of christianity a cool secret society, and circumvent theological problems by autistically mythologising and humanising deity. Fundamentally there is no difference to scientology and mormonism.
>>23625449>Fundamentally there is no difference to scientology and mormonism.Fundamentally there is as precepts of scientology and mormonism are intricately crafted to allow for efficient dosh-making and infiltration into elites.
>>23625222I constantly repeat to myself 'this world was created by evil genius' it helps me to get through the day one day at the time. Tbqh.Captcha:WWYD
>>23625388yes, their existence is well attested to. gnosticism is just something a bunch Platonist nerds pulled out of their asses.
>>23625265Gnosticism says that we are not meant to live
>>23625265not the work of the demiurge. the demiurge created the mountains and trees. we made pavements and smokestacksourselves.
>>23625222What, you dón't like sunflowers?
>>23625982Ah Sunflower, weary of time
>>23625222The best way to offend the demiurge is to be happy
>>23625222you do realize the demiurge isnt a person, its one of your subconscious archetypes in fact, the (You) you identify with more is at this moment closer to Demi than to the restwhich is the whole point
>>23625998Yep, crying is appropriate there when you realise the huge mass of pointlessly suffering animal life throughout that landscape. These memes ironically reveal the exact stunning superficiality and head-in-the-sand attitude you would expect from an npc.
>>23625309you're reacting to valentinus, not mani or marcion. I'd like to see Plotinus' response to Marcion's concept of retroactive grace.
>>23626435Negative utilitarianism of the type that says "we must reduce the suffering of wild insects & fish" is the stunningly superficial attitude here
>>23626435it proves how easily these people are deceived by appearances. the pretty skin conceals a horrid depth. imagine getting your theodicy from a screensaver kek.
>>23626463gnostics want to escape nature, not reform it. for all its faults, the idiot cycle of nature is preferable to civilization and its sausage-fingered interventionism. but escape is preferable to both
>>23625998Is the world, then, a rareeshow? These things are certainly beautiful to look at, but to be them is something quite different.
>>23626464There is no other world without the logic of coming to be and passing, pleasure and pain, good and evil, birth and death...>>23626469There is no escape. Embrace and surrender to the cycle.>>23626473Only orthodox/catholic theology adequately addresses the question of how strange it is to exist at all.
Or maybe we are suffering because we live in a materialistic universe and participate in the evolutionary arms race.
>>23626520>There is no escape. Embrace and surrender to the cycle.No.
This thread is a fucking mess. What is wrong with you people?
>>23626469>gnostics want to escape nature,>>23626520>There is no escape. Embrace and surrender to the cycle.False dichotomy, nature does entail suffering, and man's consciousness/knowledge of good and evil in particular entails suffering too (Genesis 3:17)But Isaiah promises us that in the end, the leopard shall lie down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6)The gnostic conceit is that "matter" is to blame. The exile from Eden would be more apt. I think of the CS Lewis quote: "God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it."
>>23626551cs lewis lol. not even orthodox theodicies have an answer for non-human suffering. the christian conceit is that the moral failure of one human or a tribe of humans is to blame for the corruption of an entire universe. how does adam's sin entail thermodynamics and the nucleosynthesis of stars? from which we derive life and predation? buffoonery. wake up, guy. get serious. wake up
When did gnosticism become reddit?
>>23626574You're being stunningly superficial again. How do you know how insects & fish feel about their suffering? You don't, you're projecting your own moral consciousness onto it. And therein lies your answer. Gnosticism is irredeemably trooned
>>23626584their evident signs of distress. their will to live. what a silly non-person you are>le tranniesget help
>>23626580around 2017
>>23626591Distress and flourishing are two sides of the same coin, but you have to obfuscate that. Their will to live? Yes, they don't seem to want to go extinct, do they? Animal life affirms its suffering, they're not exactly antinatalist, except pandas in captivity... I don't know what point you thought that made
>>23626610the point that nature is bathed in suffering and cortisol. why do faggots like you get so evasive about this? answer the question, retard: how does adam's sin rewrite the laws of physics so that stars emit the energy we extract from our food?
>>23626625I'm not evading anything. Knowledge of good & evil causes you, as a rational creature, to project your moral ideas onto nonrational creatures. You're literally arguing that the world is corrupt with suffering, as seen through your own eyes, you're casting judgment on natural processes and condemning them. It's very clearly your own hangups at work here. It's actually a great demonstration of what I am talking about.
>>23625222The demiurge rapes me every night when I go to sleep anyone know cure to stopping this? HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>23626644>evil is in le eye of le beholder, broit's just the same pilpul from you faggots, over and over and over. i must have had this exact conversation with at least three dozen separate people on this site, each with their own unique life histories, backgrounds, genes, nationality, but the same goy script. the depth of american conditioning is staggering. get some leeches to suck the prolactin and corn oils out of your blood you fucking faggot
>>23626649If you were still in an Edenic existence maybe you wouldn't be so upset right now
>>23626662levy?
>>23626662if you could answer these questions truthfully and sincerely from the position of love that your own cuckold religion exhorts you to have, then i might be open to your views. but you won't do that, because we both know you're a born-again tradlarper. i probably have more books on christianity on my shelf than you do is the sad thing.
>>23626673Genesis is a rupture within reality itself such that it defies the linear notion of time within this universe and one might say Eden is a lost archetypal realm to which this one nevertheless yearns and grows toward the light thereof having begun the healing of its self inflicted wounds through the miraculous incarnation of the Christ and ever present and originary work of the holy spirit (present in all religions, yes [but that even includes the Jews and Torah or whathaveyou -- in fact, part of the miracle of Christ is that he fulfills all myth, gentile and jewish alike, he is the embodiment of logos, which led to a profound reinvigoration of philosophy worldwide when this revelation was explored by his followers, also giving us a immanent metric of the transcendent good thereby. He became man so that we might become God.]) But you seem like one of those redditors who says "I'd prefer hell/the pit/non-existence to a flawed God" which methinks is one of those arguments which self contradicts like antinatalism.
>>23625222Why would a purely malevolent God create a world with such beauty? Maybe he's just a little ignorant or imperfect and he just needs a little help or something.
>>23625233It's called Satan, made by god. Christianity has no issues and performans 0 gymnastics explaining the source of evil
>>23627009It's a few standard deviations of IQ above the usual dreck that passes for an answer on this board, but it doesn't work for me because of omnipotence. Might as well bite the bullet and go full Gnosticism, "the Fall was a rupture in some primordial reality" is Valentinianism without a demiurge.
>>23626551good poast
>>23627009H.L. if this is you, you have done a grave disservice to yourself by not writing this kind of work and instead presenting yourself in the public sphere as an ironic halfwitif this is someone else, disregard the above, nicely written
>>23627018the beauty in this world is probably like a shitty 2000s flip phone camera photo compared to the aeonic realms
>>23625267>>23625283I love the Eastern Orthodox theology. I have to pick up the Philokalia again one day, I got into a little bit of it in college when I was interested in studying religions and enjoying the massive selection of literature in the school library, but being busy with classwork made me drop it eventually. Thanks for the insights and guidance, anon. Other book by William Harmless also looks very interesting.
