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Respectful Question to Gnostics

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
EDIT: I found an answer to that last question, so I would like to ask a couple more:

What are your views on Jesus, the resurrection, etc.
What happens to you, and others after death?
What are some good reads?
 
Last edited:

watoca

Member
My views of Jesus is that he is the True and only begotten Son of God. This would truly mean in the spiritual sense. His resurrection was Spiritual, since the body will dust away here. What happensto you depends on your life: if you've obtained true Gnosis and the Way of It you will be able to go home to heaven. If not you are reincarnated to try again, but as all things your soul can be degraded and you will eventually stay here and perish with all Evil. Start easy; say Elaine Pagels books on Gnosticisim
 

Shuddhasattva

Well-Known Member
What are your views on Jesus,

God incarnate, though no more than you or I.

the resurrection, etc.

didn't happen because he didn't die on the cross.

What happens to you, and others after death?
personality ripped or washed away by the winds of the intermediary void leaving a core of self-awareness to transmigrate

What are some good reads?
apocryphon of john
 

Shiranui117

Pronounced Shee-ra-noo-ee
Premium Member
I particularly like the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas. Marvin Meyer's
"The Nag Hammadi Scriptures" has a lot of other good stuff.
 

biased

Active Member
I see Jesus as a messenger in the sense that Baha'i use the word who taught monotheism. I think that while he may have been born a Jew that he ultimately spoke of a God above YHWH. I see YHWH of the Old Testament as a jealous God (I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents..(Exodus 20:4-5)) who sanctioned slavery (When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. (Exodus 21:2)) and genocide (Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***.(1 Samuel 15:3)) compared to Jesus's teachings on pacifism (Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9), You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also (Matthew 5:38-39) and But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. (Luke 6:27-28)).

I think Marcion was on the right track. I also don't think it's necessary to solely focus on Jesus. I think there are many other valid spiritual texts (Upanishads, Tao Te Ching, Gnostic gospels) and teachers such as Mani, Siddhartha, Adi Shankara and Lao Tzu who were just as enlightened as Jesus.

I see the resurrection as a focus as beside the point. It seems like a distraction to me.

As for the afterlife, I believe in the transmigration of the soul (reincarnation). I think that once we die if the person is not spiritually purified or spiritually ignorant then the body is discarded and the soul takes on another body until one breaks the cycle of samsara (birth and death) through attaining what the Siddhartha called "Enlightenment", a certain awareness.
 

watoca

Member
I also believe in reincarnation, and many different good teachers. This is probably because man can be stubbornly one-sighted, and so god gave each culture and race people who could truly walk the way. America is a melting pot and we are freer to explore life without igniting the law of Yaldaboath and the dishonor of our Birth parents.
 

Shermana

Heretic
The Pistis Sophia and other works explicitly confirm Reincarnation, including being born as an animal as a possibiity. I highly recommend that work to see what the earliest "Gnostics" may have believed, and it's highly Jewish, it's my favorite "Gnostic" work.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
I am not a Gnostic, despite my Avatar/alias, but nevertheless, I'd recommend reading Apocryphon of John and the Gospel of Thomas.
 

Halcyon

Lord of the Badgers
The Pistis Sophia and other works explicitly confirm Reincarnation, including being born as an animal as a possibiity. I highly recommend that work to see what the earliest "Gnostics" may have believed, and it's highly Jewish, it's my favorite "Gnostic" work.
It's also exceptionally hard work to read.
 

Bob Dixon

>implying
It's also exceptionally hard work to read.

This, too, is true.
Personally, I can't decide if it's completely meaningless or simply too deep for me. I'm leaning towards too deep for me, but it really can be quite an impenetrable text.
 

Shermana

Heretic
This, too, is true.
Personally, I can't decide if it's completely meaningless or simply too deep for me. I'm leaning towards too deep for me, but it really can be quite an impenetrable text.

I should make a whole thread on Pistis Sophia, it's far from meaningless, but it is most certainly deep. What I like most perhaps about it is that it demonstrates the Jewish origins of such "Gnostic" movements. It is most certainly not in the same league of the idea that the OT God was the false god Yaldaboath or that the OT itself is full of lies.
 

Bob Dixon

>implying
I should make a whole thread on Pistis Sophia, it's far from meaningless, but it is most certainly deep. What I like most perhaps about it is that it demonstrates the Jewish origins of such "Gnostic" movements. It is most certainly not in the same league of the idea that the OT God was the false god Yaldaboath or that the OT itself is full of lies.

You should make that thread, then. I'd be interested.
 

Heart0501

New Member
Jesus came to Earth to show us the Path to Heaven. His whole life is symbolic of the Path... such as riding the donkey into Jerusalem signify one has to be able to control the mind(donkey). His death on the cross (sacrifice for humanity as in rid of the 7 sins(egos) and resurrection(alive again and go to Heaven).

When one dies and still have sins(egos), one goes to Hell to get cleansed. There one has to go through punishment and suffering. After some times, Mother Nature will cleanse off the egos. Once cleansed, one will free the trapped Essence and start life cycles again.

Pistis Sophia is very good as Sherman suggested. Another one is The Nag Hamadhi Library
 

frangipani

Member
Premium Member
God is the Pre Existent One, outside his sphere of conscious is nothing. He is the energy of all that exists. He cannot look outside Himself to another because there is no other outside of Him. It is within Him that we exist. We through Christ, that is the knowledge of the truth (gnosis) gain insight into Him. We look outside ourselves to find this truth, we find it and invite it in. Therefore we gain our strength, sense of purpose from outside of ourselves through Him and He inturn gains stimulation from within Himself through those of us who have found Him through Christ and let Him in, therefore we seek externally and take on His truth internally, He seeks internally because there is nothing external to Him for those who have found this truth and we find unity with Him and He finds unity with us and we are all of one spirit. Those without this encompassing gift of internal and external spiritualism are without and once their spirits are freed from the matter world through the death of the temporary body are found in the void having placed themselves there because they in their lifetime did not find the truth behind the illusion of the matter world. Since everything is within Him, He was and is before us and since there is nothing outside of Him and all that exists is within Him, He is greater than us He is Omnipotent.
 

graalbaum

Triple Sun
EDIT: I found an answer to that last question, so I would like to ask a couple more:

What are your views on Jesus, the resurrection, etc.
What happens to you, and others after death?
What are some good reads?

1The Christ is the unification of all opposites

2There is no such thing as death

3on Gnosticism?

mani, the angel and the column of glory,

Sophia by caitlin matthews,

Gnosis on the silk road,

I enjoyed all the Leloup books I've read, philip, The Sacred Embrace of Jesus and Mary etc.....

Gnosis: The Mysteries and Christianity: An Anthology of Essene, Gnostic and Christian Writing,

plus others mentioned already....
 
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