What are these entities?

Gnostic Christian

Active Member
Messages
772
So, you're not the type of gnostic that believes in the demiurge, archons and reincarnation right? If so, what is your view of the origin of our world and the problem of evil?

The origin of the world is irrelevant to me, and like most major religions, I believe in evolution.

As to the problem of evil. I have none. Be we created by a god or nature, evil is built into our evolution and the seeking of the fittest.

I wrote the following to try to explain my view. Try to see the evil we do to each other as a small evil within the larger good of our ongoing evolution.

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Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?

And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by putting forward their free will argument and placing all the blame on mankind.

That usually sounds like ----God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy. Such statements simply avoid God's culpability as the author and creator of human nature.

Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all do evil/sin by nature then, the evil/sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not do evil/sin. Can we then help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?

Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil and sin is all human generated and in this sense, I agree with Christians, but for completely different reasons. Evil is mankind’s responsibility and not some imaginary God’s. Free will is something that can only be taken. Free will cannot be given not even by a God unless it has been forcibly withheld.

Much has been written to explain evil and sin but I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.

First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created. Without intent to do evil, no act should be called evil.

In secular courts, this is called mens rea. Latin for an evil mind or intent and without it, the court will not find someone guilty even if they know that they are the perpetrator of the act.

Evil then is only human to human when they know they are doing evil and intend harm.

As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.

Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil, at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, you should see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us. Wherever it came from, God or nature, without evolution we would go extinct. We must do good and evil.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.

This link speak to theistic evolution.


If theistic evolution is true, then the myth of Eden should be read as a myth and there is not really any original sin.

Doing evil then is actually forced on us by evolution and the need to survive. Our default position is to cooperate or to do good. I offer this clip as proof of this. You will note that we default to good as it is better for survival.


Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?

And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Regards
DL
 

Gnostic Christian

Active Member
Messages
772
Sorry, I'm just interested in this. I have some questions to you, besides the ones I did about the demiurge, etc. I made a sigil magick ritual yesterday asking for truth. I had a dream in wich I saw your username. Gnostic christian. Anyways, my other questions are:
  1. Do you believe in abraxas?
  2. Do you believe in magick?
  3. You said that you don't believe myths literally, do you have a jungian or archetypal approach to myths?

I would trust in your sigil magick ritual, only because I am near phobic about saying only what I think is the truth.

I have no belief in anything supernatural or magic.

Like Joseph Campbel, I think all our myths are what he called Heros of 1,000 Faces.

This makes sense from the POV of us as evolving creatures who should all seek to be the fittest.

Heros are who we try to emulate, as they basically rule the word, as the fittest humans.

This is older and, to me, wiser thinking as express by this scholar. The last link is Gnostic Christian thinking. You might have missed it above.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental efforts that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

What is God?

Further.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.


Regards
DL
 

TimeFlipper

Senior Member
Messages
13,705
Wanting to have people think intelligently of the gods we have created and have the moral believers recognize that our mainstream genocidal god is an evil god.

Regards
DL

You have the right to express your opinions....Even though some of your own threads display manic rantings, that even cross over to other members threads...Do you really believe that our members are lower in the intellectual abilities that only "you" believe has a right to have? :ROFLMAO:..
 

Gnostic Christian

Active Member
Messages
772
You have the right to express your opinions....Even though some of your own threads display manic rantings, that even cross over to other members threads...Do you really believe that our members are lower in the intellectual abilities that only "you" believe has a right to have? :ROFLMAO:..

What a whiny little [deleted].

Shoves your unqualified accusations up where you do your thinking.

Regards
DL
 
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