The problem with Gnosticism is: we all suffer from it

Great Debates
1

At the tail end of Why would God sacrifice Himself to Himself, Spirus Mundi opens up a whole new can of coke. I hope he won’t mind me redacting him here. I am by inclination a redactor; it’s what we do.

This whole argument is built upon sand. The same argument can be made to explain that the non-perception of God is due to a flaw in a person phenomenological data.

The koinos cosmos exists. Reality is real in so much as it is shared. The “objective model” of which Spiritus speaks, however, does not exist, as he merely arbitrarily throws out any evidence contrary to his lowest reality.

The Christian God has never been seriously thought of to exist in some physical place, contrary to earlier pagan superstitions. He doesn’t live on some mountain top like the Gods of Olympus. Note that in the Western World the planets and costellations retain their pagan names. The perception of God is a lucky event for some, and there are others whose failure to escape the trappings of the lowest reality who can not perceive him. And some of them complain that they can not build some tool out of matter which will demonstate to them conclusively that something beyond matter exists, but such an idea is vain to begin with. And the only tool they do have, a consciousness which defies their mundane explanations anyway, they refuse to use.

Knowing God exists is insufficient however. Understanding how such a God would function in relation to the koinos cosmos, is another matter, and one which deep down I am still unclear on.

If, for example, reality is only apparently real, human cares and toils are pointless. People should live however they want and should have faith in providence from the divine. And who wouldn’t want to live without the cares and toils of the mundane world?

If reality is real, then it is fleeting, and the previous conclusion holds, but then there is a difficulty in faith in providence – and our human freedom is seemingly negated. Life in a real reality even with a God becomes an arduous test in which a rational being would mostly not want to cause harm to their fellow man also trapped in this same mundane world, God merely providing the actual grace to continue in freedom if man can accept it.

Somehow trapped between these views, various deists, myself included, end up stuck with cares and toils of the world anyway. Yet, we must be wary, perhaps, of the fact that the gig will be over at some random point in the future either way.

Enough food for thought?

2

why is Gnosticism suffering? or, why is Gnosticism something we would suffer from?
perhaps, as some Gnostics believed, the serpant in the garden of Eden was the true God, and that we, in turn, were actually created by “the Devil”. Enlightenment (arguably, a deep understanding) comes from knowledge.

Noble Truth #1 = Life is suffering. But, there is a path to end that suffering.

I’m not a Buddahist, but I think you nailed it there at the end: we don’t know where we go when we die, but it’s only a matter of time.

3

jmullaney—Well, it’s hard to argue with a point that, by your own admission, can be equally effective for either side of the debate.

But i think some clarification is necessary on your point that “The Christian God has never been seriously thought of to exist in some physical place, contrary to earlier pagan superstitions.”

Consider the story of Doubting Thomas in the Gospel of John. As the story was explained to me in the class I took on the New Testament (semi-disclaimer; I aced the class but who knows if what I learned is “true”), John threw that story in as a salvo against the Gnostics, who thought that the resurrected Jesus existed on the “superior” spiritual plane.
By having Thomas actually poke his finger into Jesus’ festering wound (and then having Jesus ask for a bite to eat), John was attempting to demonstrate that there is ONLY one world (ie “this” world, “the physical” world, etc.) and that Jesus (and, by association, God) is the ruler of that Kingdom (as opposed to the Satan-rules-matter, God-rules-spirit school of thought).

In other words, though the Christian God has never been seriously thought to exist in a SPECIFIC physical place (ie Mt. Olympus), it is inaccurate to imply that Christianity has always put God in the equivalent of Plato’s World of Forms.

4

Before we go any further, I’d like to point out it was Freyr who asked about using a time machine, not Polycarp.

5

There is another good biblical example of God’s Kingdom being located squarely in the physical plane–Jesus’ suggestion that (paraphrasing here):

“if your eye causes you to sin, you should gouge it out, and if your hand causes you to sin, you should cut it off, for it is better to enter the Kingdom of God maimed than to sin and burn in the fires of Gehenna etc.”

This quote supports a non-dualist (aGnostic?) interpretation for several reasons.

(1) Jesus places the origin of sin in the flesh. On the surface, this point seems contrary to my argument, but I submit that the opposite is true.
(a) If the physical body were just an illusionary husk, it would be strange to blame it for misdeeds. A truly dualist worldview demands accountability from the spirit for being deceived by the “false” world; it does not blame the false world for the spirit’s deception.
(b) There is no mention of a “spirit” or “soul” in the passage, nor even an allusion to it. Though Jesus mentions body parts that could potentially be “bad flesh,” there is no reason to believe that anything but the flesh would carry out the deed of self-mutilation—in other words, it takes a “good” hand (and arm, and “heart,” etc.) to cut off a “bad” hand. The course of action Jesus recommends here seems akin to an animal chewing off its leg to get out of a trap—no spiritual plane need be involved.
[Some would counter that the apparent “good” flesh is but an agent of the truly good spirit, but then we are back to point (a)—if flesh is a neutral agent, it is not evil. And if flesh is a servant of satan by nature, how can it ever be made to serve God?]

(2) “It is better to enter the Kingdom of God maimed”… This one is the clincher, I think. If the body is just a husk we drop when we die, there is no reason to believe we’d carry our bodily injuries with us to heaven. But Jesus clearly lays out the choices: go to heaven with a missing appendage or go to hell intact.
I’d wager this passage and others like it are the reason Catholics have never been into cremation. The actual reanimation of the physical body upon Christ’s return (kind of one-upping the Egyptians here) is serious business—one wouldn’t want to be (forgive me, please) left in the dust.
It is also interesting to note the possibility that heaven was not a place Jesus thought you needed to die to go to (thus absolving him of the weird night-of-the-living-dead thing). You have to wonder, also, about how allegorical he was being; he may literally have meant “Get your balls cut off if it’s the only way you can quit fornicating; then you’ll be at peace with God.” People were a lot harder-core back then…

6

Bick
1 I don’t see the point of your arguement.

2 I think that by entering he means entering. He doesen’t mean living in heaven, just the path there you will be maimed. And you can get into heaven without dying, one prophet is taken up into heaven on flaming things. My memory is a bit sketchy, but I think his name was Elijha.

7

I have read this thread over and over again and cannot, for the life of me, figure out what on earth is all this verbiage and mental masturbation about.

So, let’s reduce the whole complicated thing to a simple question for jmullaney. Of course, I could spend hours to go through all the 2347 posts of jmullaney, and try to figure out where he stands on the following simple question. But life is short, and I hope he or his audience can either give a simple answer, or turn my question into a debate that may hijack the OP’s post.

So, here is the question for jmullaney and his fellow-debaters:
On a scale of 1 to 10, let’s assume:

1 = The concept of God is a bunch of man-made superstitious gobligub.
10 = There is a God that created man, and those who cannot see it or understand it are wearing blinders.
5 = Not sure about the two extremes above.

So, where are you jmullaney in the scale of 1 to 10?

8

jmullaney - The January 29, 2001 issue of Newsweek carried an article entitled “Searching for God Within”. (unfortunately, you have to have their on-line subscription to view the entire article or I would post a link) In short, the article says that in a transcendental state, certain brain activity occurs that isn’t typically present in normal states.
Would you consider this evidence of a “physical plane”?
Just curious.

a side note: In my post above I was simply trying to say that I’m not convinced that knowing more about a particular subject, or speculating about it (which is really all we can do), causes suffering as the title of this thread insinuates. Re-reading it, I don’t think I made that clear.

FTR I am a solid 7.

9

Asmodean: The point I’m trying to make is clearer in the context of the “Why would God sacrfice himself” debate, but this is it: Spiritus Mundi posited that man’s plaement of God(s) has shifted, through history, from the physical plane to a metaphysical plane. jmullaney claimed that Christianity had never been a physical-plane religion. I dispute that claim.

Also, I understand that certain individuals in the Bible got into heaven without dying (Moses too, I think), but that’s not what I meant. I meant that, as the Rev. Belinda Carlyle so aptly put it, “Heaven is a Place on Earth.”

One Cell: your scale needs either a bit of simplification or a whole lot more complication. I think God exists, but I don’t think he “created man” per se; just set the wheels in motion. I’m not sure where that would fit on a 1-to-10 scale.

10

God is the void between you, me and everyone else. What many need to know is, does the void really exist? Can I know it? Can I feel it? Can I leverage it? Is more better? Is more free?

11

Brian:

You say : “God is the void between you, me and everyone else. What many need to know is, does the void really exist?”

Q1: What % of people who believe in God agree with you that “God is the void between you, me and everyone else”. Cite please.

Q2: Assuming 51% of God-believers agree with you that “God is the void between you, me and everyone else”, do you have to make them doubt their belief by adding “does the void really exist?”. What kind of convoluted response is this? Please re-assure me that I am not in a company of morons in this forum. Please explain thyself. For a guy who has posted 467 messages to this forum, you must have something articulate to say. Please enlighten us.

12

I am amazed that anyone could be confused about that, but it seems necessary that I clarify.

  1. If your statement is correct, then your faith is likewise built upon sand.

  2. If I read your OP correctly, you have misread my post. Nothing in it purports to be an “argument” for or against the existence of god(s).

  1. I cannot think of a single element of reality that is universally “shared”. Perhaps you can provide some concrete examples of how shared perception creates reality.

  2. The objective model exists in exactly the manner that the spiritual model, the koinos model, the nihilistic model, et al exist. The question of whether an objective reality exists is, of course, open. I find it agreeable to proceed as if it does. You, apparently, find it agreeable to proceed as if it does not. You also apparently believe that your view is absolutely correct. That is a presumption I do not share.

  3. I am curious as to how you arrive at a consensual reality from a beginning of “no objective referent”, though. It seems that such an approach slips rather quickly into solipsism. With what, exactly, is one forming a consensus if no objective referents exist?

On its face, this seems a serious insult, but I suspect that you are misapplying the term “evidence”. I also suspect that the brush you tar me with colors your own position quite thoroughly, but I will await your clarification before responding in detail.

I think this passage clearly demonstrates that I both understood and accurately represented your position.

  1. There is a nice thread running right now concerning the nature of consciousness. If you would post your meaningful explanation of consciouisness there I am sure it would be appreciated. I have yet to see an argument for non-material consciousness that extends much beyond, “it’s an expression of spirit/soul”. This, of course, is no more satisfying than “it’s an expression of matter”. I await your illumination of this mystery with great anticipation.

  2. Your claim that anyone who fails to share your perception of reality is refusing to use their consciousness is frankly offensive. Had I declared that people of faith were refuse to use their reason I would have been equally offensive. And equally wrong.

13

Heck. Sorry – some redactor I am. Thanks for correcting my mistake.

BickByro – I must say that I overspoke in the OP. When I said “Christianity” I meant “post-Jesus Christianity” i.e. Acts 1 through present.

God’s kingdom is another matter.

We must be mindful that Jesus puts this in an “if-then” conditional. We might postulate that Jesus was countering the argument that sin is due not to a spiritual defect, but to an inherent sinful nature that is due to being a spirit in the physical world. If that is a person’s excuse, he’s found a solution which undermines the validity of the excuse to being with.

That is an excellent point! That has never occurred to me before.

But he doesn’t say heaven – he says the Kingdom of God. In the world but not of the world, as they say. Surely the implication of many Biblcal verses is that the kingdom is a kingdom on earth.

14

Spiritus Mundi: I, for one, never thought you were a gnostic, and I don’t think jumullaney did either, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

jmullaney: You, on the other hand, appear to have some gnostic tendencies…

You seem to have conceded that Jesus’ true message was lost/distorted shortly after his death with your “post-Jesus Christianity” clarification. And though I wouldn’t argue with that, I feel obliged to point out that NONE of the Gospels were written until at least 20 years after Jesus’ death (in the case of John, the most blatantly anti-gnostic, some believe it was more like 60 years). So even in post-Jesus Christianity, gnosticism was not necessarily the rule.

As for the if-then statement—am I correct to say you postulate that Jesus was trying to argue against those who might say to him, wearily, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”?

Conceivable, I suppose, but if the flesh were really “inherent[ly] sinful,” as you say, the self-mutilation Jesus describes would quickly degenerate into a disgusting kind of whack-a-mole. Jacking off with your right hand? Cut it off. Oh, you switched to the left hand? Cut that off too. All right, enough with the “elbow grease,” buddy! We’re takin’ both arms off this time! Oh my God! I didn’t KNOW people could bend that way!, etc.

As for the difference between God’s Kingdom and heaven—this is always a tricky issue.

In a sense, the whole friggin’ universe is God’s Kingdom, but this doesn’t seem to be what Jesus was talking about in the passage, for how can you enter that which you cannot escape?

You, on the other hand, suggest an “in the world but not of the world” interpretation, but that’s pretty much exactly what I said Jesus meant! The difference is, I’m guessing, you also believe Jesus thought there was yet a THIRD Kingdom of God, one that was neither the physical universe nor the enlightened-plane-within-that-physical-universe but rather one that exists only on a metaphysical plane and only after one dies. Right?

Again, I was quoting the passage from memory, so I can’t give you a cite, but I’m almost positive that Jesus contrasts the Kingdom of God with Fiery Gehenna there. Since Gehenna is commonly understood to mean Hell, I can’t help but assume the Kingdom of God means Heaven. It only makes sense.

15

In all respect to Joel, I don’t think even he could could go through all his own posts and figure out where he stands.

16

I’m uncertain about the necessity of an opinion poll here, and I’m not sure why you need a scale of 10 when you have only presented 3 mutually exclusive statements.

But, let me list a larger set of possible propositions on God:

  1. There is no God (or Gods – but just to apply Brother William of Ockham’s Razor to keep this short and simple).
  2. There is a God, but God is inherently unknowable.
  3. There is a God, and everyone knows it, thus people who claim otherwise are lying.
  4. There is a God, and everyone knows it, but people who have a misunderstand of what “God” means don’t realize it.
  5. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God is arbitrary regarding who he reveals himself to.
  6. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, but God uses an inherently unknowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to.
  7. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, but those who follow this standard disagree on account of cultural differences regarding the meaning of “God.”
  8. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, and anyone who follows this standard will come to the exact same conclusions about God regardless of cultural background.
  9. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, but those who follow this standard disagree on account of cultural differences regarding the meaning of “God,” and this standard is entirely one of faith.
  10. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, and anyone who follows this standard will come to the exact same conclusions about God regardless of cultural background, and this standard is entirely one of faith.
  11. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, but those who follow this standard disagree on account of cultural differences regarding the meaning of “God,” and this standard is one entirely of works.
  12. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, and anyone who follows this standard will come to the exact same conclusions about God regardless of cultural background, and this standard is entirely one of works.
  13. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, but those who follow this standard disagree on account of cultural differences regarding the meaning of “God,” and this standard is one entirely of works and faith.
  14. There is a God, and some know this and some don’t, and God uses a knowable standard regarding who he reveals himself to, and anyone who follows this standard will come to the exact same conclusions about God regardless of cultural background, and this standard is entirely one of works and faith.

Perhaps we could roll on further from strict deism into Christianity by adding further possibilities regarding what faith or what works are required for revelation.

We might also want to draw a negative version of this scale as to why, if there is no God, people persist in claiming there is one. I would suggest Brian Bunnyhurt could make quite a go of it.

On this list, though I respect those of differing opinions, I find #13 most defensible, especially in light of Christian teaching.

17

According to the catechism http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/fifth.html#PERSONS, “The Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body.” We are created as body and spirit from conception, and after death our spirit awaits reunion with our risen bodies at the end of time. It’s not exactly a reanimation of the body (which has after all decayed) but a transformation into a glorified body. In the case of Mary, her “original” body was not allowed to undergo corruption and was assumed into heaven at her death. Jesus rose from the dead but His body became a glorified one, tangible to Thomas but transformed.

Sorry for the tangent…

18

I wasn’t positing or asserting God, merely acknowledging that people hope he exists for whatever reasons, when it is more logical to me to hope he doesn’t exist–a positive sign of hope and confidence in humanity as opposed to self-negation. If he exists, it is more likely we are a lab experiment, sort of like mice injected with chemicals in our labs everyday. (God must hate mice).

Why do people suppose ONE god? Because there is only one void. What is this void? It represents all inability, all lack of confidence, all despair and doubt and loneliness and bad haircuts, like a teddy-bear during a housefire. Most everyone I know dresses this void up nicely and pretends that the void is a classy date to others instead of an escort.

Of course, this is nothing compared to the void between other religions. Like I said, there is only one void, we can’t have competing voids, because it is only a void afterall and they must be one and the same or else it wouldn’t be a void–how dare they mock our mutual void!

19

OK jmullaney, now we know that on a scale of 1 to 10 you are at 9.9999913. Your items 2 to 14 all fall between 9.9999902 through 9.9999914. Only your item 1 falls somewhere near 1 on the scale of 1 to 10.

Please note the famous quote from Tyron Mannda which says: “Certainty is that state of ignorance which has yet to recognize itself”. Those who identify with this statement are somewhere around 5 on the scale of 1 to 10.

Also note that human beings are currently living in year 2001 AD. We have a lot of brain evolution coming to reach the year 2,000,001 AD when we could re-examine your “defensible” point # 13. (and that is if we have nothing better to do in year 2,000,001 when the star Sun will be approaching its disintegration point as all stars eventually do).

As for your statement : ** We might also want to draw a negative version of this scale as to why, if there is no God, people persist in claiming there is one.**, I can only answer: If fairy tales are not real and there is no Sata Clause, why do people persist in claiming there is one.

20

gigi]: I wonder how recent that catechism is in origin, honestly. I suspect it is fairly recent.

And I’m still not sure how transformed Jesus’ body was—he sits down for a meal in John 21:13.

But in any case, the “body-and-spirit unity” you mention is proof enough that Christianity has not always had the antagonistic attitude toward the flesh that jmullaney would have us believe with this talk of the “inherent sinful nature” of the “material world.”