Thanks, Bob. You’ve said it every bit as well as or better than I could. GB does not appear to want to believe that we believe what we say that we believe.
I don’t know what to say, GB. I don’t believe the inferior doctrines you seem to want me to believe so that you can come to the rescue and set me straight by telling me to believe certain “other and different” things that I in fact already, as a Christian, believe, and have told you I believe. What’s more, pretty much everyone else here also believes these things that you apparently want to convert us to believing. You seem to think you know my beliefs better than I know them. Don’t you find that a bit patronizing? Is it because you see me as a poor weak woman of feeble brain who needs to be rescued from the delusion that she already believes certain things that you want to teach her?
Surely there must be more to your gnosticism than what you’ve said here. Surely there are more controversial beliefs you’re not putting forth yet – beliefs that would require a lot more persuasion to get people to accept. We already accept the things you’ve said. What else do you want to “teach” us to believe?
One of your more controversial beliefs is that NONE of our Christian scriptures are literally true. That I do not believe, and I see no reason to believe it just because you say it’s so. It offers me no benefits that I can see.
Perhaps you want to add the feminine to the Godhead? I have a fairly strong suspicion that the Holy Spirit is more feminine than masculine, and in this group I doubt that’s terribly controversial. (That is IF one can ascribe either sex to the Godhead with any coherence.)
Maybe you feel that our whole belief system is based on an imaginary God with an imaginary Son and an imaginary Holy Spirit who’s no different in kind from humans (aside from being imaginary) because humans invented all gods. You perhaps (for some reason) feel it is beneficial to humans to believe in a God they know to be fully human because created by humans. In fact, less than a human because imaginary. Or perhaps more than any single human because a sort of Jungian collective creation? (But nevertheless, still a product of our collective imaginations?)
I believe it is tradition for gnostics to believe that the material world is in some way evil or inferior or a thing to be risen above. Do you believe this? I actually don’t. I think the material world is a highly useful construct, a thing of beauty, and that it will always be maintained as an environment in which to interact, though I suspect we will no longer be as constrained by it as we currently are.
The Gnostic Gospels were written much later (according to historians) than the four gospels included in (as far as I know) all traditional, orthodox, catholic, and protestant canons, which are much earlier and closer to the source, and have fared much better in survivorship partially due to the many copies which were made. However wonderful the GGs might have been, the truth is that many words and even whole passages have had to be supplied by translators. This, and the late date of their making, not to mention the highly mythical quality of their stories, somewhat undermines their credibility as eye-witness accounts. But then that doesn’t matter anyway, does it, as you apparently don’t believe any of it really, historically, literally happened.
In addition, I’ve been led to believe (perhaps falsely?) that gnostics believe the things done in the body don’t matter because the physical body is irredeemably corrupt, and sexual indiscretions, immoderate consumption of drink, drugs, etc, and other such things as many would call sin, could hardly make things worse. I’m not sure how far one can go with this. Does it extend to deception? Stealing? Maybe even to violent acts? I don’t know how far it goes, and I doubt it does extend to violence, but perhaps you could clarify.
It’s been my understanding that historically, gnostics have relied on superior mystical knowledge in order to rise above the physical realm. You’ve already told me that gnostics are by nature universalistic. I’m sure that YOU are universalistic since you say so, and that the gnostics you know are as well, but I’m not sure that’s a historical gnostic position. Perhaps modern-day gnostics are building their own belief system, or seeing the old beliefs in different ways? Nothing wrong with that. I’m just not sure I believe that it’s always been that way.
So . . . I think maybe there’s more to your gnosticism than you’re letting on. There must be something about it that’s different from what the majority of us here on EU believe, or you wouldn’t keep trying to “convert” us – since we already believe in most of the things you keep accusing us of NOT believing, and we already disbelieve most of the things you accuse us of wrongly believing. So what is it? Aside from the “everything is myth” bit, what’s the hard stuff?
Apologies for being blunt.
