1) It's a dualist philosophy
2) Direct communication with God- no intercession by priest required
3) Pro-choice, vegetarian, total separation of Church from State
4) Not torturing and killing everyone who doesn't agree with you.
Read anything by Elaine Pagels, she is the foremost authority.
You might also enjoy books by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, their books are fun. I respect Elaine more highly though.
Also, here is a good site:
http://www.alexandriangnostic.org/
There are many "brands" of Gnosticism. One aspect that is common to all since it comes from the definition is that there is a body of knowledge not known to most people that the "Gnostic's" those who have knowledge, are aware of while others remain ignorant.
Many forms of early gnosticism believed that only the "spirit" was pure and that all material things were defiled.
That belief lead to several heresies such as claims that the Lord Jesus only "appeared" to be a man but was really a spirit. Another heresy was that since the material was already defiled then it did not matter what one did with their body. Sexual immorality was no big deal because all material things were already defiled and impure.
Another heresy was that this material universe was not created by a good God but by an adversary since God could never create something that was defiled.
Gnosticism is about spiritual levels, mysticism and mythological nonsense. Gnosticism is one of the original movements of sanity. There are hundreds of movements of sanityTyhese days that don't agree, and when xtianity started,there were many movements that did not agree. Some things never change.
It's central ideas were that the material world was something the spiritually enlightened need not concern themselves with too much, and that salvation was to be obtained through possession of a secret knowledge, again only available to the spirituality enlightened.
In that respect it reassembled the mystery religions more than it did Christianity.
there are several different forms of gnosticism, each attributed and developed by an early christian thinker. so there is no one official underlying tradition of gnosticism. really, it is supposed to be thought of on an individual basis, but some thinkers developed systems that were so popular they were adopted by tons of followers. because there is no basic gnosticism, there are no "basic concepts". but the most popular idea was that there are actually two divinities: one good, and one bad. and the battle between caused the world. Gnosis is knowledge, of a particular kind. it is something like mystic or occult, hidden and not common to many. it is privileged divine knowledge. an adept gnostic would behave more like a prophet than like a regular christian
Gnosticism today means believing that you have absolute knowledge of something; in this case, God. The gnostic Christians were the earliest form of Christianity. They had beliefs very similar to Buddhism about the material world being a false world, one that you needed to ascend above to the world of the spiritual by not valuing the material. They believed a false god, the Demiurge, had created the physical world to trap and enslave our souls. The true God was the God of the spiritual, and you needed to purge yourself of attachments to the material world. They lived simple, ascetic lives, and were way ahead of their time in treating all of their members as equals regardless of gender or race. Then Paul came and the rest is history.
What is Gnosticism basic concepts and how does it differ fron Christianity?
