Demiurge

Has anybody heard of it? I'm really interested in learning more about this dead belief.

Gnostism means divine knowledge, where we are sinned for not knowing the truth as opposed to original sin of Adam and Eve.

They believe that the true god created Aeons, they're just divine creatures or something, one of them Sophia created a child without the true god's consent. She created it with herself without a counterpart(opposite sex perhaps) and therefore the creature was deformed. Sophia knew this and casted it to another realm. The child was called the Demiurge, there's many variations to the name. The Demiurge was alone in the world and believed that it was the only being the supreme being. It created the angels and earth and humans. And us as humans mistaken that he is the true god. A god that created us humans which are also flawed to do evil.

In Gnostics, Jesus apparently reveals this knowlege to us. There is a fifth gospel known as the Nag Hammadi Libary. An incomplete copy of it was excavated in the 70's.

Because the belief greatly opposed all other religions by saying that the God people are worshipping now is a deformed evil god. Gnostism was hightly unpopular and i guess anyone that even mentioned about was killed.

The movie the Matrix has Gnostics overtones...

It would be a fun discussion, anyone else in here know about Gnostics?

SecretMethod70

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Gnosticism are not one in the same, but perhaps Gnostics believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls were divinely inspired. That I don't know.

To the Gnostics, Jesus was the "Redeemer God" where God was the "Creator God." God was thus inherently bad and Jesus inherently good.

Not much else I know about it though.

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iccky

The Nag Hammadi Library was actually a collection of 52 different manuscriptswritten in coptic, though they are translations of works that were probablly in greek originally (part of Plato's Republic is in it). The biggest part of it was the Gospel of Thomas, which was known before but never in such a complete form.

The Gospel of Thomas is not a gospel in same way as the four canonical gospels. Instead of presenting a narrative of the life of Jesus, it is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus, some of which are also found in the canonical gospels. It is known as a Gnostic gospel because the first verse reads:

All this is from Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman. I have a book about gnosticism around here somewhere and can post more about it later if i get the time.

sexymama

I recently read "The Jesus Mysteries" which talks a lot about gnostic beliefs. What I got from it is that the level of Christianity that most people experience is the literal level. Gnostics take it to a higher plain with a much deeper meaning. Unfortunately I returned the book to the friends who lent it to me or I'd share more. I highly recommend it, tho.

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QuasiMojo

A really good novel that talks about the subject of gnosis is
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick

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SecretMethod70

I know very little about Gnosticism but nonetheless, I find it disturbing the idea of suggesting a fiction novel as a source for information about a subject...it's bad enough people are ignoring the fact that The DaVinci Code is purely a work of fiction, no need to insult other religions the same way.

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"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

QuasiMojo

Secret Method-

What thee Hell are you talking about? I think that you are more than a little out of line for suggesting that I am insulting someones religion for offering the title of a novel that deals with this interesting subject.
I suppose if someone wanted to learn more about Christianity you wouldn't want the Bible to be referred to. (yes, there are some who would consider THAT to be a work of fiction.

Your attack on my post, good sir, is unwarranted and I would appreciate an immediate retraction!

/righteous

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Martel

There are many different schools of Gnostic thought, but the basic idea boils down to the notion that salvation is obtained not through good works or believing in Jesus, but gaining certain knowledge. Generally this would be the knowledge that we are perfect spiritual beings trapped in an imperfect material world. Gnosticism relies heavily on personal mystical experience and revelation of God. Philip K. Dick had such personal mystical experiences in his life and later incorporated them into some of his works, such as Valis and Radio Free Albemuth (I've not read the Transmigration).

While the beliefs accompanying Gnosticism can range from semi-Christian to way-out, the core of it is always anamnesis, or the un-forgetting of our true nature.

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SecretMethod70

Sorry, I guess my wording was harsher than I intended it to be. However, the Bible, even if some consider it a work of fiction, is a different circumstance than the one you suggested.

The Bible is not considered a work of fiction by those who believe in it and therefore is a completely justifiable suggestion regarding information about Christianity. However, fictional books by Philip K. Dick, last I checked, were not part of Gnostic sacred scripture Thus, the comparison is invalid. If I'm wrong, and Gnostics have held the writings of Philip K. Dick to be sacred, or at least consider his writings to be truly representative of Gnosticism as a whole, then please correct me and I'll gladly recant my opinion.

Nonetheless, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that YOU were insulting religions per se, only that I'm noticing a disturbing trend in which fictional works are being taken as fact regarding religion, much like history is rewritten many times simply by multiple embellished movies on a topic. This is something that is not uncommon.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

QuasiMojo

You are right SecretMethod and I imagined that you would respond in such a fashion.Martel the Rookie responds in much the way I Would

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scott2162

Here are two pretty good links for anyone looking for some historical background <p>

http://reluctant-messenger.com/misc.htm <p>
http://www.paganlibrary.com/editoria...ic_gospels.php