Gnostic Perspectives

[joey_downunder]

RE your gnostic experiences: do you believe your experiences are the same as what some charismatic christians describe or are they more like what christian mystics describe e.g. Saint John of the Cross? Or are they something completely different?

Your comment about Paul's teachings: yes he did belong to a specific Jewish group Philippians 3:1-11

Do you believe that Paul taught early christians churches the doctrine set out clearly in the Gospels and his letters to those particular churches, and then taught another inner group who were somehow "advanced" enough to learn "the real truth" i.e. a theology very different to what Paul clearly set out in the Book of Romans?

 

[Soulgazer]

RE your gnostic experiences: do you believe your experiences are the same as what some charismatic christians describe or are they more like what christian mystics describe e.g. Saint John of the Cross? Or are they something completely different?

Your comment about Paul's teachings: yes he did belong to a specific Jewish group Philippians 3:1-11

Do you believe that Paul taught early christians churches the doctrine set out clearly in the Gospels and his letters to those particular churches, and then taught another inner group who were somehow "advanced" enough to learn "the real truth" i.e. a theology very different to what Paul clearly set out in the Book of Romans?

My experience is my own, and is what it is.

The theology you speak of has been made to look different on the second century catholic end; Don't forget, Marcion used only the letters of Paul, which were initially rejected by the proto-orthodox as Marcionite fiction. Although Marcionite and Gnostic theology differ, they are close cousins. "Gnostic" or early pre-catholic theology is pretty consistent across the board, both Jew and Gentile. A demiergic "god of this world", and a True God who was previously unknown or misunderstood until Jesus. The demiurgic teachings are very Hebrew, and come from their zorastrian roots, which predated Judaism by several centuries. The old testament or Torah, was only four or five centuries old at the time of Christ, and represented a fairly new understanding....an understanding that enslaved the average citizen. Judaism of the first century, is not the Judaism of today. It was Islam on steroids, and it was not united in it's teachings. Overall, the "Gnostic" teachings are not that different than the teachings you are used to, whatever old testament teachings are used are filtered through Jesus first, to make sure they match His nature. Thus the accounts of "God" asking for violent acts are rejected as "Yaldoboath", or man made fiction.
Then thre is the problem of the Oral Torah, for which the Written Torah was merely a mnemonic device, the Oral Torah lost when the Priests were killed when Israel was sacked in 70AD, which ensured the death of classic Judaism forever. The Talmud, was an early middle ages attempt to reconstruct the Oral Torah from legend, but any honest student of Judaism will question it's accuracy. Temple Judaism was becoming but a poor memory when the Gospels were written as evinced by the back seat the Sadducee were relegated to, the Sadducee being the ruling class, and not the pharisee as mistakenly reported.

 

[Soulgazer]

By Robert Wood

Thomas’ Blind Belief

“29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”” – Gospel of John 20
This is a classic, well known passage which anyone with a passing familiarity of Christianity will probably know. You have Jesus supposedly condemning Thomas for believing in the resurrection because he had to see Jesus and then gives his blessing to others for believing for not seeing him. This verse is the mantra for blind faith and unquestioning loyalty right? Only if you ignore that the other apostles in this Gospel also had to see to believe as well. They did not just take Mary’s claim on faith. They went out to see what she had told them. So then, why is Thomas being condemned here for supposedly doing the same thing the other apostles did?
Thomas is interesting in that he did do something different from the other apostles. He gave a string of conditions defining what would make him believe that Jesus resurrected, all based on what he had previously seen of Jesus. He would not believe that this being they had seen was Jesus unless this being matched with his previous understanding of Jesus. This would be akin to someone saying, “I will not believe in evolution unless I see an animal evolve right in front of me.”
Thomas was not looking for a resurrected Jesus, but a Jesus that conformed to his previous understanding. “Because you have seen me, you have believed.” Jesus reveals himself in a way that Thomas could understand within the conditions that he had set forth. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” To some, this may appear to be a justification for blind belief but again this ignores that the other apostles also had to believe to see. What seems to be apparent at this point is that interpreting this passage as a justification for blind belief does not work. The word “believe” comes from the word “pisteuō” which not only translates as “believe” but also means “justified trust”. In the context of the passage “without seeing” means either it is something that one was incapable of actively seeing, such as a mental or psychological process; or it could mean something that could only be seen by not having biases.
So I am lead to believe that this quote could be read as the following, “Thomas you believe in me because you have seen the end result (or “I conform to your biases&#8221. Blessed are those who believe in internal processes (or “without biases&#8221.” While I am personally partial to the first interpretation, I am more inclined to accept the second interpretation in parentheses due to the sight/blindness duality frequently stressed throughout this particular gospel. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, heals the blind so they may see, says parables about seeing, etc. In this particular passage, he is now addressing a blindness that gives the illusion of sight, biases, in whatever form they take.
Church tradition, which I will freely admit I am skeptical of, teaches that Thomas was a doctor, meaning he was a very intelligent man. If this is true, then it would not only be consistent with the message of this passage, but also correlates with an article that a friend recently sent me, “The Science of Why We Do Not Believe Science”. To summarize this article, or rather, to share what I gained from reading it. While we are quite capable of reasoning information, most of us are prone to rationalizing information which does not fit into our biases. What shocked me even more as I read this article is that those who are more intelligent, are more prone to rationalizing conflicting information. To illustrate this, let us re-examine the case of the person demanding to see an animal evolve. This means that if the hypothetical person demanding for proof is intelligent, then one of two things will happen upon presenting a case study showing evolution in action, such as a species of bacteria replicating into a new species of bacteria. In the first, and least likely, case this person accepts the information as it presented and will readjust his/her world view to accommodate for the new information. In the second case, the one most likely, this person will rationalize why this is not proof of evolution or why the results are faulty/wrong. While it may seem at first glance stupid, this person is actually being quite intelligent. This person’s fault is the “blind faith” in the world view of evolution being a lie, and is performing the “rational” course of action when confronted with information that conflicts with what this person believes to be true and possibly lacking the skill to properly test the information this person is presented
Thomas, in this passage, was blind with biases. He had expectations of what the risen Christ “had” to be like and would not believe in a risen Christ unless those conditions were met. When Christ did presented himself in a way that was not in conflict with his biases, he was able to believe that the person in front of him was Christ. Christ then uses Thomas as an example of the dangers of biases. Blessed are those who can let go of biases, for they will be able to see truth for it is.
“Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness.” – Gospel of Philip

 

[Soulgazer]

By JVP

False Prophecies

"Prophet" Harold Camping

Really, though, it was all kinds of hilarious when you first heard it, the world ending on May 21, 2011. “Gee, better put the date into the ol’ iPhone calendar,” etc. “Haha, those crazy (choose one: Christians/American Protestants/Fundies), let’s hope they do get sucked up into Heaven so we don’t have to deal with them. THOSE GUYS ARE JERKS!” But I started thinking about it, thinking about all of the people who actually believe in the obviously ridiculous premise that a bunch of people will be sucked up into the sky tomorrow and the rest of us will fight it out here and then get dropped into a good, old-fashioned lake of fire. And I thought, man, it must really be nice to believe in something that fiercely, with such earnest sincerity that you give up everything for an ideal (which, by the bye, is the basic gist of a lot of what Jesus actually said you should do). It would take a pretty strong will to be able to do that. Even if I think the idea is absurd, I can’t imagine ever having that kind of moxie.
And then I thought, not all of these people can be “stupid” or “ignoramuses.” They believe some weird stuff which is a little more easily proven false than the average weird stuff. But, how many people do I know who believe that politicians have the best interest of the public in mind? How many believe that some bread and wine turn into God on Sunday? How many believe that something remarkable will happen in December of 2012? How many believe that the world *will* end as described in the Bible, but we just don’t know when it will happen? How many believed that enormous banks would assist them with low-interest mortgages? How many of these ideas are equally absurd on the face of things, and how many people would be willing to give up so much because of them? Really, the fool isn’t the one who gives up everything for her beliefs. The fool is the one who believes without being willing to make any kind of investment in that belief.
For the people duped– however unwittingly– by Mr. Camping, who is likely quite sincere, this isn’t a farce, it’s a tragedy. Although many will likely remain in the fold, and although Mr. Camping may ‘recalculate,’ or declare that the Rapture is postponed due to the faith of his followers, there are a good many people who will be devastated on Sunday. Not only will they have lost their fortunes and friends and worldly things, they will have lost their faith, the core of their beings. These people are in no way deserving of ridicule, any more than those who lost their houses, jobs, fortunes and families due to the predatory lending crisis and the subsequent economic downturn. In both cases, people put their faith in something larger, and in both cases, became the victims. That’s not funny, it’s sad.