Philosophy With NMA Posters: Gnosticism

[BigBoss]

Anyone hear of this? My cousins been reading/getting into it. Basically it teaches that the god that everyone is worshiping today is actually the Devil. The Devil, or "God" created the world and universe, including us to harvest the pain we intake from this lifetime which supposedly gives him power. The "real" God is in an entirely different realm, and supposedly wants nothing to do with this world since it was created by the Devil. Basically people, when they die, will go back to the Devil so he can harvest the pain we experienced from our lifetime, and then we are reincarnated into another body to so he can do it all over again. This will keep happening again and again until we "liberate ourselves", which means completely detaching ourselves from this world, not caring for anyone or anything (including your family, wife, and kids, since technically they are all creations of the Devil and are just living for the purpose to be harvested/tortured after they die), and not worshiping God (the God of any of the religions of the world), but instead worshiping the "true" God.

 

[AskWazzup]

I'm pretty sure you've got something mixed up here, or your cousin did, or he is reading some kind of a wacky branch of gnosticism.

In any case, this seems like it's in the ballpark of sect worshiping. When someone doesn't have a perspective and experience to lean upon, he reaches for radical, different things that promise something exciting, but something that doesn't really have any substance, it's all bubbles and sparkling. The novelty, i think, wears off pretty quickly.

Better tell your cousin to take a book of philosophy history, read it, pick a philosopher that he likes, then read him. After that, if he still has those wacky thoughts, well, maybe there is some substance to the whole thing (in my opinion not a good idea to abandon the pillars that hold up our civilization).

 

[BigBoss]

Wasn't saying there is anything wrong with Gnosticism, I'm just looking for the views and opinions of "NMAers" (not sure what the plural word is for us).

This is, effectively in a sense what my cousin described to me.

The belief is basically that God didn't create the world, or our bodies (he created our souls, but not bodies), and our entire world/life is an illusion to give the "Devil" power.

 

[Korin]

I think he should abandon religion entirely and pursue an exploration of various philosophies and sciences (read about quantum physics - watch some Neil deGrasse Tyson lectures). That being said, as long as his religion doesn't hurt anyone, no harm done... but if he's going to abandon his loved ones on some quest to 'free' himself from the devil, I'd suggest maybe he should seek some earnest counseling.

 

[BigBoss]

At first it sounded like a cult to me, but when I researched it on the net, apparently this religion is pretty old, going all the way back to Peter.

I'm more interested in the Baha'i Faith, which preaches unity, and Zoroastrianism.

 

[AskWazzup]

Well i wasn't saying anything about gnosticism too (i don't really care all that much about it, or other religious beliefs for that matter), but from what i remember from my phylosophy classes and from a quick glance at wikipedia, the part about not caring for anyone or anything is not from gnosticism. I probably falsly thought that your cousin will from now on be a douche to all people and not care for them because of his new found religious beliefs.

As for what i think.. Well, as i see religion as a kind of primal (primitive) state of reasoning i think any kind of diety worshiping is bullshit, with the execption when people are actually trying to figure it out, asking questions, raising hypothesis - like Saint Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas. Otherwise, it's just some dude in a robe, telling you to believe something for the hell (no pun intended) of it.

 

[Korin]

I'm not a huge fan of any kind of religion, though I do find a number of religions have interesting or beneficial tenets and philosophies. Ultimately what bothers me most about them however is that they are based around things that either don't exist or never happened, making the foundation itself a lie. Though that being said, if people believe it, then all the more power to them. The other problem I have with religion in general is the amount of conflict it appears to cause. And I don't mean wars and the kind of stuff that goes on overseas... I mean just internally or even with people close to you. I've seen too many people racked with guilt of "sin" and the conflict of what their religion presents as being ideal, as they feel like failures for never reaching some impossible watermark for how they think they should be living (when they're really just normal people, like everyone else). I've also seen people go full-on, balls-to-the-walls crazy with their religion and become fanatical unreasonable zealots. I think most of the time these people themselves don't even believe what they're into but their way to deal with this is some kind of reaction formation or maybe they have some sort of mental disorder. On the other end of the spectrum I've known a lot of 'luke warm' people that are mostly ambivalent about their own religion yet adhering to it has shackled them from ever exploring themselves or alternative philosophies.

The best and simplest religious philosophy I have encountered for me comes from Christianity and can be condensed into "Love your neighbour as yourself". Just be a more loving and less bitter/hateful person. Strive to be happy and live a life that you won't regret. Invest in loving (yourself and others) or learning to love/respect yourself and other people. You can spend your entire life on those things alone and I think in the bible Jesus had said that's essentially Christianity in a nutshell.

 

[valcik]

The Devil, or "God" created the world and universe, including us to harvest the pain we intake from this lifetime which supposedly gives him power.

Accusing the mighty Satan of creating humans just to make them suffer sounds lame. He'd denied this!

 

[DarkCorp]

Religion by itself is fine by me, but the whole organised thing is the problem. Granted I am no expert but from what I have gotten from both protestantism, islam, catholicism, etc, is that ones relationship with god is PERSONAL. That means ones ability to enter heaven is directly related to ones personal choices and not based on how many times one goes to church or confesses or prays, etc.

Also, one problem with organised religion, as with other things organised, means it creates a 'us vs them' mentality. Its ironic that religion, something which is supposed to unite us instead drives us apart. Also, its just too fucking vague. Combine that with every single religion telling us every other religion is not the 'true' path, its a recipe for disaster. Lastly, in the same vein, every religion also happens to warn us about 'false prophets', I mean how the fuck am I suppposed to decide which religion is the right one when I am inundated with constant accusations of his or her prophet and its teachings are wrong.

What really sucks is that religion tries to take credit for something thats really honestly, common fucking sense. How the 'golden rule', got co-opted by religion is a mystery as its seems to be a universal truth. If you don't want to get punched in the balls randomly, don't fucking do it to someone else. Its so fucking simple that even a young kid can grasp it if properly taught. Everything that I have seen from organised religion in general can be chalked up to common fucking sense.

 

[Sander]

At first it sounded like a cult to me, but when I researched it on the net, apparently this religion is pretty old, going all the way back to Peter.

This doesn't actually the version your cousin encountered is not a cult. Maybe there's a local cult leader using this old-ass (and nearly extinct) religion for his cult, and backing it up with "hey look this is really old, guys".

 

[zegh8578]

Yeah, all cults will claim to be really old, simply because "I came up with it two weeks ago" is a really weak seller, when it comes to religion, spirituality, such stuff - it has to be ancient for it to be credible.

Association is easy, because religions are always connected. Look at "wicca", the modern version is indeed quite modern, popping up in the early 1900s, and being popularized much later - but ask a wiccan, and the religion is thousands and thousands and thousands of years old. Fuck, it's millions of years old! Because they can associate what they want - they can say "nono, in the stone-age they believed what we believe, so our religion begun in the stone age. Hell monkeys share some of our beliefs, so it begun in the late Oligocene!"

Either way, what Korin said. Anyone should rather learn about real things, then put their own philosophy together (which isn't all that difficult: Life is nice, death sucks, don't piss in people's mouths, etc.). If he has to pick a religion, then all is well as long as that religion doesn't begin to divide humanity into the worthy vs unworthy, shit like that. Which most religions will inevitably do.

 

[BonusWaffle]

As i understand it gnosticism is just an offshoot of the fake religion templars "followed" to prepare themselves for faking conversion to islam if they were captured.

 

[UniversalWolf]

The Devil, or "God" created the world and universe, including us to harvest the pain we intake from this lifetime which supposedly gives him power. The "real" God is in an entirely different realm, and supposedly wants nothing to do with this world since it was created by the Devil.

What you're talking about sounds like The Demiurge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

I would say it's an idea born from philosophy and appropriated by the gnostics as an unprovable article of faith from which to draw all sorts of equally unprovable conclusions.