The only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian. True or false?

Started by Greatest I am, April 06, 2018, 11:41:28 AM

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SGOS

Quote from: trdsf on April 06, 2018, 01:16:32 PM
Provisionally, though, I'm going to say false, but for this reason: a good Christian is, in my view, a good person who attributes their own innate goodness to the god they believe in rather than giving themselves their own due for doing good. 
Two of my closest friends are a Christian married couple, who are simply wonderfully thoughtful and kind.  In addition, they take or give no credit for their kindness to themselves or to a deity, and least not publicly around me.  The subject has never come up.  It's just who they seem to be.  As such, they are atypical of most Christians I know, and I think of them as what Christians like to claim about themselves, even when their default state is to spew hatred and contempt.  I'm talking about both the ends of the extreme, obviously.

On the other hand, "Gnostic Christian" is probably better defined by looking the word gnostic up in a dictionary, rather than through videos and discussion.  I don't think "gnostic" has anything to do with the inner goodness of a person, be they theist or atheist.  It's a whole different discussion.

Mike Cl

Quote from: SGOS on April 09, 2018, 09:34:43 AM
Two of my closest friends are a Christian married couple, who are simply wonderfully thoughtful and kind.  In addition, they take or give no credit for their kindness to themselves or to a deity, and least not publicly around me.  The subject has never come up.  It's just who they seem to be.  As such, they are atypical of most Christians I know, and I think of them as what Christians like to claim about themselves, even when their default state is to spew hatred and contempt.  I'm talking about both the ends of the extreme, obviously.

On the other hand, "Gnostic Christian" is probably better defined by looking the word gnostic up in a dictionary, rather than through videos and discussion.  I don't think "gnostic" has anything to do with the inner goodness of a person, be they theist or atheist.  It's a whole different discussion.
That is sort of how I view 'gnostic'--the dictionary is a good place to start.  And I don't see that the word 'gnostic' carries with it any indication of a person's 'morals' or ethics. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Greatest I am

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 08, 2018, 04:19:42 PM
Thanks for the reply.  I seem to remember than Paul did not believe in a corporal Jesus, but a spiritual one; one that lived in heaven.  And I seem to recall that a couple of authors that wrote about Paul labeled him such.  In any case, his Jesus does not match up all that well with the other NT authors.  As for you brand of 'Gnostic', I am not all that familiar with it---and I must confess that I did not view any of your clips.

The Gnostic Christian view is that heaven is here and now to those with the insight to see it.

Here is how we said it.

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

This is actually irrefutable at an intellectual level given entropy and our past history.

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

The best end for natures is here and now and the best end for the imaginary Gods would also be a heaven here and now which is the promise when God returns.

To me, that return would foul heaven as I see the mainstream Gods as quite immoral.

Regards
DL


Mike Cl

Quote from: Greatest I am on April 09, 2018, 11:09:02 AM
The Gnostic Christian view is that heaven is here and now to those with the insight to see it.

Regards
DL
Unity says much the same thing in that when the Christ Mind or Christ Consciousness is achieved, we are in heaven.  Heaven and hell, then, are states of mind and Unity strives to give one tools to achieve the best state of mind we can;  a positive state of mind.  One does not need to be a gnostic christian to understand that that is a good thing.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Greatest I am

Quote from: Baruch on April 08, 2018, 07:42:18 PM
G-d is always a verb, regardless of which verb you use.  A name is a noun.

Webster's disagrees with you on that. They class it as a noun, and the vast majority use it that way.

Even most Jews disagree with you buddy. That is why they and you write G-d.

Why would/do you do that if it is just a verb. A verb is an action.

Tell us what you are doing when you G-d.

I do not know how to G-d and might enjoy it if it involves using certain body parts. ;-)

Regards
DL


Mike Cl

Quote from: Greatest I am on April 09, 2018, 11:09:02 AM
The Gnostic Christian view is that heaven is here and now to those with the insight to see it.

Here is how we said it.

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

This is actually irrefutable at an intellectual level given entropy and our past history.
Regards
DL
Jesus of the bible is a fiction--he never lived and therefore could not have spoken.  The entire bible is a metaphor and as such this passage simply states that the better you know yourself and your environment the better able you are to make positive choices for yourself.  The less you know yourself, the more impoverished (lacking of knowledge) your decisions will be.  Charles Fillmore wrote the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary in which he provides what he thinks all the metaphors of the bible (actually, the entire bible) are and how they pertain to everyday life.  It's an interesting read.  One does not need religion, or spirituality to figure this out.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Greatest I am

Quote from: SGOS on April 09, 2018, 09:34:43 AM
Two of my closest friends are a Christian married couple, who are simply wonderfully thoughtful and kind.  In addition, they take or give no credit for their kindness to themselves or to a deity, and least not publicly around me.  The subject has never come up.  It's just who they seem to be.  As such, they are atypical of most Christians I know, and I think of them as what Christians like to claim about themselves, even when their default state is to spew hatred and contempt.  I'm talking about both the ends of the extreme, obviously.

On the other hand, "Gnostic Christian" is probably better defined by looking the word gnostic up in a dictionary, rather than through videos and discussion.  I don't think "gnostic" has anything to do with the inner goodness of a person, be they theist or atheist.  It's a whole different discussion.

I kind of partially agree with this.

All Gnosis does is gain you access to your full brain and what Jung and Freud called their Father Complex. basically that is where we store our basic instincts.

If one recognizes his true instincts though, he will note that doing good by cooperation instead of  competition, which is evil as it creates a victim, he might recognize that cooperation is the best survival technique and make himself less evil and more good.

Regards
DL
 

Greatest I am

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 09, 2018, 11:04:58 AM
That is sort of how I view 'gnostic'--the dictionary is a good place to start.  And I don't see that the word 'gnostic' carries with it any indication of a person's 'morals' or ethics. 

I agree with the caveat I put in the post just above.

Here is how some Gnostic Christians including myself describe Gnosis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9QI3nlinYQ

Regards
DL

Greatest I am

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 09, 2018, 11:17:25 AM
Unity says much the same thing in that when the Christ Mind or Christ Consciousness is achieved, we are in heaven.  Heaven and hell, then, are states of mind and Unity strives to give one tools to achieve the best state of mind we can;  a positive state of mind.  One does not need to be a gnostic christian to understand that that is a good thing.

No argument there buddy.

Regards
DL

Mike Cl

Quote from: Greatest I am on April 09, 2018, 11:09:02 AM


Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

The best end for natures is here and now and the best end for the imaginary Gods would also be a heaven here and now which is the promise when God returns.

Regards
DL
Don't agree with any of that.  The Green Bay Packers won the first Super Bowl--in hindsight that could be seen as not being possible to be any other way.  But, actually, the Oakland Raiders could have scored more points and won the game.  It was not a pre-ordained event.  In fact, nothing is pre-ordained--every event could have happened another way.  Nothing in this universe, or the universe itself, was 'created' by another a force other than happenstance and the right materials in the right amounts--it's all math.  There is no supernatural power that 'created' any of what we now have.  There is no 'best end' for nature.  Nature cares nothing for any end, good or bad.  If there is any 'best' it is only in our individual judgments that that is so.  In other words, it is we and we alone who give a purpose or meaning (or not) to life, our lives or the universe and all that is within.  I don't need any religious or spiritual person to tell me what those purposes are or should be.  I end up making up my own mind.  God is not needed--which is why god is a creation of humankind and not the other way around.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Greatest I am

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 09, 2018, 11:24:33 AM
Jesus of the bible is a fiction--he never lived and therefore could not have spoken. 

No argument as I said the same in the O.P.'s link.

I see the bible as a consolidation of many older traditions. That is why you can make the bible and all the fictional characters say almost anything.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 09, 2018, 11:38:34 AM
Don't agree with any of that.  The Green Bay Packers won the first Super Bowl--in hindsight that could be seen as not being possible to be any other way.  But, actually, the Oakland Raiders could have scored more points and won the game.  It was not a pre-ordained event.  In fact, nothing is pre-ordained--every event could have happened another way.  Nothing in this universe, or the universe itself, was 'created' by another a force other than happenstance and the right materials in the right amounts--it's all math.  There is no supernatural power that 'created' any of what we now have.  There is no 'best end' for nature.  Nature cares nothing for any end, good or bad.  If there is any 'best' it is only in our individual judgments that that is so.  In other words, it is we and we alone who give a purpose or meaning (or not) to life, our lives or the universe and all that is within.  I don't need any religious or spiritual person to tell me what those purposes are or should be.  I end up making up my own mind.  God is not needed--which is why god is a creation of humankind and not the other way around.

I agree that no creator God exists.

That does not take away from the fact that "Once one dismisses The rest of all possible worlds One finds that this is The best of all possible worlds!"

This is irrefutable given our history and the anthropic principle.

If you can refute that statement somehow, I am willing to read your argument.

Regards
DL


Baruch

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 09, 2018, 11:17:25 AM
Unity says much the same thing in that when the Christ Mind or Christ Consciousness is achieved, we are in heaven.  Heaven and hell, then, are states of mind and Unity strives to give one tools to achieve the best state of mind we can;  a positive state of mind.  One does not need to be a gnostic christian to understand that that is a good thing.

One can be good, with or without metaphysics.  What I doubt is "good".  It seems to be relative, not absolute.  It is better for me to not kill someone, usually ... than to kill them ... for example.  But better from who's perspective?  If I am hired as hit-man, it isn't good from the POV of the employer, and if I do kill someone, it usually isn't good from the perspective of the victim.  Since meaning and therefore "good" are relative, isn't "good" meaningless .. just a jargon for virtue signaling?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Quote from: Greatest I am on April 09, 2018, 12:03:58 PM
I agree that no creator God exists.

That does not take away from the fact that "Once one dismisses The rest of all possible worlds One finds that this is The best of all possible worlds!"

This is irrefutable given our history and the anthropic principle.

If you can refute that statement somehow, I am willing to read your argument.

Regards
DL
I have always had problems with the anthropic principle, in all but its weakest form.  I think the most we can say is that since we exist, we should not be surprised that we live in a part of a universe that can support our kind of life.  Even that's tautological since we're a product of the universe, and therefore necessarily a product of its structure, laws and contents.  Certainly I think cosmologists John Barrow and Frank Tipler go much too far in positing that we are somehow inherent in the universe, that something like us must arise eventually.  I don't have much more patience for John Wheeler's idea that we're necessary in order to have something to observe and therefore collapse quantum mechanical wave functions into events.

Fundamentally, we can only look at the conditions of the universe and conclude that we are merely possible.  This just happens to be a universe in which we happened.  If we hadn't, we wouldn't be here to remark upon it.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Unbeliever

Quote from: Greatest I am on April 09, 2018, 11:09:02 AM
Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

The best end for natures is here and now and the best end for the imaginary Gods would also be a heaven here and now which is the promise when God returns.

Candide was written as a satire to make fun of the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds, so it wasn't being put forward as a serious concept. In fact, I'm pretty sure we don't live in the best of all possible worlds, since I can imagine worlds much better than this.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman