If a person prays to a God whom he considers omnipotent, omniscient, and perfect in every regard, he will inevitably see himself by contrast as powerless, ignorant, flawed and sinful. He has stripped himself of his own nobility and worth and projected it onto this remote, inhuman God, so far above the level of humanity as to be unknowable and unreachable. A person on his knees to this God is profoundly unhappy, wracked with self-loathing. He has created a means to torture himself. Whenever he contemplates this God, he cannot help simultaneously contemplating how far he falls short. He sees himself as despicable. Does such a person have a healthy attitude to life? Is he contented, optimistic, self-confident, eager to take on every challenge life throws at him? Or is he mired in negativity? He can?t save himself, he thinks, only God can save him. His is an Alienated Soul.
Now imagine that this person realizes that God is not external but internal. All the qualities he so admires and reveres in God are actually within him, albeit deeply buried. If he can get in touch with his inner divinity, his life will be transformed. Instead of crawling around the world on his hands and knees, terrified of his infinitely distant perfect God, he will stride around confidently and powerfully?a God in his own right. A majestic human being. A credit to humanity. He will experience the ecstasy of self-actualization and self-realization. His alienation from himself will be at an end.
@mannersnER'sSiid not describe what Gnosticism is by what is written there I am basically asking a question and it has nothing to do with it. Also I am not an atheist, gnostic, or a religious one. I am just myself.
@Not a Meme No sadly it is not. No credit should be given to me. I got it from this site:
http://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk
Check it out if you want.
Many people doesn't even bother looking because of the word conspiracy in it but don't be deceived.
...If I am to assume you speak verily, then yes.
You have gone through the trouble of telling me.
But, to be completely honest, intellectually, there is no absolute metaphysical certainty outside of mathematics - outside of the realm of the abstract.
I cannot know anything, as the young lady said.
I know Gnosticism. I've read and studied all the Gnostic Gospels, including the Gospel of Judah. Everyone is free to believe/not believe whatever they like, main thing is to read something before dismissing it.
Yes, i know a *bit* about Gnosticism. i have read rather extensively about it (G. R. S. Mead's *Fragments Of A Forgotten Faith* -- about 20 years ago, already...
http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/fff/index.htm
*The Gnostic Religion* by Hans Jonas, a couple times -- a number of other books i won't bother listing... everything in *The Nag Hammadi Library* read at least twice,
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html
favorite tract ates read from a half a dozen to a dozen times... scads of stuff on-line... John L. Lash's website it especially commendable.. as a *modern* -- revisionary -- Gnostic...
http://www.metahistory.org/
as is Tau Malachi's Sophian nosies & the Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene...
My Question is -- do *you* know Gnosticism? Because the 2 paragraphs giving your personal *nosies* are *not* "Gnosticism"! They're basically New Age thinking (which is *fine* -- but you cannot *accurately* call it Gnosticism).
Ancient Gnosticism, in all its varieties, were mainly religions *of* alienated souls! If *you* knew Gnosticism, you would *know* that! They felt they were aliens on this world -- separated from the distant Higher Aeons, from the Pleroma of the Heights... & that the "God" of Judaism & conventional Christianity (& this would include the Allah of Islam, tho Islam appeared on the historical scene *later* than these ancient Gnostics) was an *impostor* god, a "fallen" entity, believed to be ignorant by some, insane by others, and a fool by still other Gnostics. They definitely felt *very* alienated from a world that *that* "God" created, & felt *trapped* in a kind of "prison of the flesh" here. The way that entrapment came about, they *explained* in Gospels like "The Apocryphon of John" & "The Hypostasis of the Archons".
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html
"Their chief is blind; because of his power and his ignorance and his arrogance he said, with his power, 'It is I who am God; there is none apart from me.' When he said this, he sinned against the entirety."
"The rulers laid plans and said, 'Come, let us create a man that will be soil from the earth.'"
The Ultimate Unknown Father had *no* contact with this world -- either *outside* you in this world or *inside* you. He'd had *nothing* to do with the creation of this world, absolutely *nothing* to do with the creation of *you* -- or your soul! And by those Gnostic teachings, each of us is definitely *not* that Ultimate Unknown God! By some of those spiritual teachings our spiritual essence is a light*spark of Sophia (a *goddess* -- *not* a male god) -- a *lower* aeon who "fell" -- to be *rescued* by Christ.
To claim you *are* God is simply to have fallen prey to the *insanity* of the "God" of this world (Ialdabaoth/ Samael/ Saklas -- also known as Allah/ Jehovah/ Yahweh & Satan).
You have to understand that the word "Gnosticism" -- at this point in time, is a broadly-encompassing word (often very *sloppily* used -- especially by under-informed atheists who think you can be a "Gnostic Atheist"! -- a total contradiction in terms) that covers a range of probably at least 50 *different* religions, once one includes contemporary Gnostic groups.
If you *really* know Gnosticism, you *should* be able to tell me the *differences* between the beliefs of the Valentinian Gnostics, the Caropcratian Gnostics, the Simonian Gnostics, the Hermetic Gnostics, the Basilidean Gnostics & the Sethians for *starters*!
What you're *teaching* is fine! But only those who are basically *ignorant* of Gnosticism will believe it *is* Gnosticism! Then *you're* responsible -- as a teacher -- for having *misinformed* them.
i suggest you call it the "New Age" teaching it really *is* -- or relate it to the Hindu teaching that Atman and Brahman are One, which is magnificently expressed in the Upanishads.
Do you know Gnosticism?
