/lit/ - Literature

>>14874945

>>14874945
You literally just can't do that without compromising one of them.

>>14874955

Why?

>>14874994
Read about Gnosticism, anon. The Early Christians fell to the Catholic/orthodox heresies just as they were getting started

>>14874945
the cathars

>>14875431
butterfly... a gnostic? or just trying to hack away at christianity by spreading dissent?

>>14875451
In my search for the truth I looked into it for a time. Considered myself “Gnostic” but continued to enlighten myself.
Christianity is all dissent. It’s worse than trying to make sense of the DC comic universe. It literally cannot be unless it’s “Gnostic”. Or Spinozan maybe

>>14875519
bitch you are a retarded pleb with the most nigger tier takes on everything I have ever seen

>>14874945
You prob won't understand any of it anon but this is the best. pic related but start with this article first, Ir will take you a long a time to understand this stuff like any higher learning field

http://esotericawakening.com/what-is-reality-the-holofractal-universe

>>14875519
How are you this wrong about everything

>>14875431
LMAO of course you had to be a retarded gnostic

>>14874945
It's called Protestantism

>>14874945
Trigun

>>14874945
How about you just stay Catholic and stop trying to become such a special little snowflake?

Once you become a Gnostic then you stop being a Catholic and once you're a Catholic then you stop being a Gnostic. They are completely at odds with each other.

>>14875431
lol @ this

>>14876818
Being much older and widely read probably. Also my mother didn't eat poisoned foods while pregnant with me. These might explain why you're all so wrong and unable to work things out for yourselves.

>>14875519
retard

>>14875519
how can one person be so bafflingly retarded so consistently

>>14874945

But "Gnosticism" is a pejorative umbrella term for everything Catholics actually think.

>>14874945

But "Gnosticism" is a pejorative umbrella term for everything Catholics actually think but pretend not to.

>>14875431
>The Early Christians fell to heresies
>instead read about Lionsnakehead demiurge mad serpent and the metaphysical mcgufins
Typical butterfly anon lol

>>14875519
>Christianity is all dissent
>even tho NT says to obey your government
>to treat even your enemies as equals
>to pay your taxes
I don't know what Spinoza thought, but looking at you he too was probably a retard lol

>>14877583
>instead believe that wrathful psychopath Yhwh IS Jesus, the only one in the universe capable of real love
I am an atheist of course.

>>14876080
You won't understand it because there's nothing to understand, really.
>my super secret math proves that reality is this or that and that every single scholar and scientist in the world is stupid
Who can say that they understand autism?

>>14877595
I don’t think you’re getting what’s being said here. There’s no One church, there’s no unity and never will be.

>>14876080
>the planets are literally greek gods that influence our lives and hinduism is correct
lol

>>14877612
With God there is unity, butterfly :3

>>14877612
Then there is no God and everything is random chaos and nothing maters.
Where's my fedora and feelgood weed joint?

The whole of the Bible is understood gnostically as well as literally, OP. Read any of the early Church Fathers on the Parables and you'll find a supra-literal interpretation.

>And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

"Mystery" when used in Christianity means "something to be revealed", it doesn't mean "it's the case because magic lol".

>The word mysterion (μυστήριον) is used 27 times in the New Testament. It denotes not so much the meaning of the modern English term mystery, but rather something that is mystical. In the biblical Greek, the term refers to "that which awaits disclosure or interpretation"

If you want to ask me a question on any passage or parable in the next half hour, I'll answer whatever you wish.

>>14875519
>>14877595
I have no idea what "spinozan" Christianity would refer to. It would be a strange Christianity because 1) Christ couldn't be any more divine than you or me 2) "God" wouldn't be putting Christ ahead of anyone else 3) for Christ to be an ideal person to a Spinozan he would have to exemplify rational thought, maybe this isn't so strange though if you focus on Christ as Logos over Christ as anything else... But still he couldn't be more divine than you or me so he couldn't literally be the physical embodiment of Logos or could he idk butter please clarify

>>14874945
A Thelemic organization exists called Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. Maybe look into that?

>>14877601
>implies the trinity is ot a thing at all
>God isn't love, the one true essence of it and source of love
>because it's all random bullshit
>Spinoza told me this
Whatever wacko. Say a prayer for me to your spirit animal before you go get your monthly meds.

>>14877640
what did Jesus mean by ''deny yourself''?

>>14877687
>What did Jesus mean by ''deny yourself''?

As a Christian, as servant of God and a slave to Truth, our focus should always be on that which is higher than ourselves and our identity. We shouldn't be focused on "me" but on God. We must love God (through Christ) so much that we completely forget ourselves. To love God is in essence to love His Goodness, to remember Him always, and to see Him in our neighbor. When the mind is on God, it doesn't fall into the mire of self-rumination, which is the natural (sinful) state of existence. In order to truly follow Christ we need to fully assent to his Lordship: we must deny ourselves by remembering that we aren't the focal point of existence, and remembering that our pleasures and whims and follies don't matter, and remembering that we have real concrete duties that must be fulfilled that take absolute precedence over anything we want. In this sense we "deny" ourselves. It is the opposite of the Apostle denying Christ on the cross: we should be on the cross for our Lord just as Christ was on the cross for the Father, and we should be denying our past self as Christ fills us with the New Man.

There are many, many similar passages to "Deny yourself". There is "lose yourself": forget who you used to be by being so focused on God that he fills you with a New Soul. We are to hate even our parents compared to the Love we have for Christ. You can't sit close to a fire without getting warmed by the flame, and neither can you walk with God without being warmed by his love.

See also:

>“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

We are to always be plowing good seeds of faith, hope, and love. Looking back is remembering the old you, legitimizing the old you. But God wants us changed. He wants us to be new vessels of love.

>Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

>>14877734

What would distinguish this from Buddhism?

>>14877650
Never read Spinoza, just gathered impressions. It seems a bit like Lucas’ Force. I only bring it up because you all might be interested.

>>14877745
In Christianity, we are doing everything out of Love for the Father and the Son. We believe in a real God that became Man and redeemed us through a real, agonizing death. And we believe He will come again, in the flesh, soon.

We don't deny faith, hope, and love. We don't deny gratitude. We don't deny loving others or the love of others. We don't deny beauty or innocence or any of that. We aren't ascetics. What we deny is everything bad and what we accept and assent to is everything good.

In Christianity, the object is to so fully love Christ that you have union with Him and have good standing with the Father. This is done through prayer, and good works, and even fasting and study. But the real important thing is prayer. There is no such thing as prayer in Buddhism. Buddhism is hollow, it empties humans of greatness. God seeks to humble us so that He can make us great by serving Him.

>>14877764

Of what use is loving others if they likewise "deny themselves"?

>>14877788
Whenever you really love another you are denying yourself. When you help a person who has had an accident you are denying your hurry to help them. This is love. Helping someone who intends to help you isn't love but a transaction.

A mother loves a son, and gives herself to the son. And the son accepts the mothers love and seeks to do well in his life to glory her.

When we deny ourselves we see who we really are. We lose all of the anxieties and worries and hindrances of worldly affairs and can see true beauty.

You can hear this love in the music of Bach and Mozart, if you want. They wrote selflessly to God -- did it make their music worse? Everything good is a result of love. And Christ's sacrifice is the definition of Christian love.

>>14877761
I don't think you got the message yet, but you're not really an authority. More like the opposite of that.
Which means you should tell people NOT to read Spinoza lol

>>14874945
Water and oil don’t mix. Why do you want satanism/occultist secterianism in your christianity? Tells me your hunger for christ is still tainted. Seek the kingdom of god above all else.

>>14877799

Logically speaking, what is the meaning of loving an other if he is likewise "denying himself"? Pouring water into an upturned vessel or no vessel at all, so to speak.

>>14877805
?
Having read the bible, I regularly advise people to not read it. Guess what happens.

>>14877824
If you love a girl, then when you're listening to her speak, you're thinking entirely about her and not about yourself.

Christ sanctions brotherly friendship and marriage. By helping others, giving gifts to others and accepting their gifts in gratitude, we imitate Christ.

"Denying yourself" does not mean denying love, friendship, and gratitude. Christ shared many meals and much wine with His apostles.

>>14877836

Who or what accepts the gift if not yourself?

>>14877874
But your true identity is in union with Christ, who is God, and thus the giver of all good gifts and the source of all good things.

Christians don't believe that there is no "real" identity, but instead that real identity is in union with Christ, which means in union with the moral life. The "self" is mainly comprised of anxieties and worldly concerns, but Christ is comprised of wholesome pleasures, sacrifice, strength, and good will.

>>14877650
she's completely right, you sound like an underread goof. take a seat and don't embarrass yourself like this with these new age platitudes you call rebuttals

>>14877884

Aren't you double dipping? This is very much "Gnostic".

>>14877892
I'm the new age propagator here?
You should check who's embarrassing himself in the mirror, bucko.