/lit/ - Literature

>>14753369
The Panarion of Epiphanius

The incels of 180 AD.

>>14753369
The reason is kind of obvious, and it's the same reason that Hindus and Buddhists think reincarnation sucks: their lives were utterly miserable.

>Nag Hammadi
>reading the claims against gnosticism and thinking it sounds good
They were pretty successful in destroying most of the texts, but luckily gnostics have remained.

>>14754806
Have you people actually read the gnostic texts? Most of them are abysmal and read like schizo fanfiction.

Here is the (to my knowledge) full collection of texts available in translation for free online. This even includes the weird ones and the not-so-good ones.

http://www.gnosis.org/library.html
>>14754815
I have, yes. I came to gnosticism through syncretism of Christianity and Pure Land Buddhism, though, so they weren't what convinced me initially. I don't see what's wrong with them. There are some weird ones, sure, but you have to remember that there were some pretty weird texts in the original Biblical canon as well that were culled by the church. I personally like the Gnostic Gospels quite a bit.

Same goes for all theists

>>14753369
Chaldean _____

>>14753369
I mean part of the problem here is that so much is lost and also Gnosticism isn't a singular movement but rather an umbrella-term, but essentially the early Gnostic schools, much like early Christianity in general, had a decidely Jewish character based on what little we know of them, in particular Gnosticism was influenced heavily by Hellenic Judaism and two things basically led them to this conclusion:

1) First, their reading of Greek Philosophy, particularly the works of Plato and in later iterations of Plotinus

2) After the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by Titus, the Jews were somewhat understandably, especially in the context of their greater history, disappointed in their God. Many branches of Judaism that appeared around the time began to explore the concept of their being a greater, but more distant God who is the primal source of all, and a lesser but malevolent creator God, who is also the God of the Jews. This largely contributed to Gnostic ideas on the subject.

It also has to do of course with the Gnostic conception of matter as inherently inferior and degenerate, even one might say because of how removed from God it is as being "evil." The Demiurge is the answer to not only the existence of a clearly inferior and evil material world, but also in general to the notion that is often posed in regards to Christianity of "If there is a God, why is there evil?"