/lit/ - Literature

>>19046774
Gnosticism is irrefutable.

>>19046774
all anyone knew about gnosticism before the 19th and 20th centuries were early church scholars refuting it

>>19046799
read the quran

>>19046774
St. Paul.

>>19046813
lol

>>19046774
refuting mythology by using mythology

why are relligious people retarded?

>>19046810
Repeatedly accusing them of sodomy doesn't count as refuting. Same way screaming faggot over and over is seen as shitposting now

>>19046890
have sex

>>19046890
Sorry, i meant to say was:
>"refuting mythology by using theology"
>"Why are religious people so based?"
Man spellcheck on my phone is so weird

>>19046774
>St Irenaeus of Lyons
>St Clement of Alexandria (for extra context on Hellenism)
>Tertullian
>St Hippolytus of Rome
>Origen's Contra Celsum
>St. Epiphanius of Salamis

>>19046907
Jewish spell checking algorithms to confuse the goyim. All machine learning is done in hebrew

>>19046923
good. it's a based mathematical language

This is tangentially related but what theologians have good arguments against christian mysticism?

>>19046774
No one has ever refuted Muhammad

>>19046774
Not christian but

>>19046799
explain why.

>>19047662
If you could explain why that would be an argument that could be refuted. Gnosticism is irrefutable so there can't be a reason why it is irrefutable

>>19046774
The Confessions of Saint Augustine.

>>19046774
apocrypha

Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus, disciple of St. Polycarp (who was the disciple of St. John the Evangelist) is literally entirely dedicated to refuting every single type of Gnosticism. That is the book you are looking for. Finish it off with his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching to get the /actual/ Christian apostolic teaching.

>>19046774
The Phenomenology of Spirit

Voegelin

>>19050760
Iranaeus was absolutely seething and his entire criticism is wrong lmao
Cope harder
>>19050767
Hegel is literally an archon

>>19050807
>Iranaeus was absolutely seething and his entire criticism is wrong lmao
Care to provide a single example of one of his arguments, and your refutation to it?

Gnosticism doesn't even describe one single religion or school of thought but a generalized set of traditions, ideas, and texts, some linked some not, with a very basic set of similarities. To refute "Gnosticism" you'd have to either refute all of these interlinked arguments to the point of generalization or you would have to refute the core principles that they mostly share, some of which are as simple as "world bad" which is such a foundational concept its difficult to actually refute except by saying "no, world good" which is another concept of the same likeness.
In other words its pointless to try and refute something as nebulous as what we call Gnosticism, best you can do is try to refute the most popular and elaborated iterations of it if that is something you for some reason want to do, but I'm also not sure why you want to waste your time doing so.

>>19050797
This and René Girard

>>19046799
Except by other Gnostic schools.

>>19046774
I'll do it for you right now, the gnostic texts were written by Greeks. It's basically fanfiction.

Gnosticism is the “good Christianity” though.

You must realize that faith in the hands of the state and central command turns corrupted

>>19046774
>gnosticism
You mean the distorted version of Christianity people use exclusively to allow themselves to have free sex?

>>19046922
>Duns Scotus
>Aquinas
>Anselm
>Bernard
Remove this cringe from my face, anon.

>>19052285
No, Gnosticism is a collection of heretical texts written by Greeks pretending to be followers of Christ and presented to that era's Christendom as if they were hidden chapters of the Bible. Obviously, they were rejected. They are all demonstrably false.

>>19052315
No, this is not even the right definition. You don't know what you're talking about, stick to your tradlarp threads.

>>19052472
What a nothing statement

>>19052519
Cope

>>19047662
>>19046774
gnosticism the refutation amongst refutations. it refutes everything. u cant actually negate or truly debate it because it rejects everything even discussion, it rejects the whole world, it rejects the intellect and its fights, it rejects the persons, so it doesnt care about people thinking about it, it puts itself outside of every game people can muster.
it's why in gnostic texts you do not see arguments, intellectual shit or anything, it just spew shit at you, sometimes outright schizoic, sometimes mysteriously cloaked, but still it simply tells you the what things are.

>>19046813
not Christian

>>19046902
Fornication is not allowed in Semitic monolatry

>>19052775
Sounds slot a lot like the prominent Christological debates

1. The great deluge
2. losing conscious when in great pain
3. man is poised midway between the beasts and gods

>>19046922
>gnostic heresy officially refuted
Checked

>>19046922
Reading these is actually the best way to become a Gnostic, highly recommended.

>>19052315
>___ is a collection of heretical texts written by Greeks pretending to be followers of Christ and presented to that era's Christendom
You’ve just described the Bible
> They are all demonstrably false.
Also fabulously correct!

>>19053059
>You’ve just described the Bible

>>19053000
I read them. Turned me into an anti-semitic, science denying, flat earther, Church dogmatist.

How am I doing? Have I reached the “gnosis” yet?

>>19053096
>anti-semitic, science denying, flat earther, Church dogmatist.
Extremely based.

>>19046774
every epistle apostle paul wrote

>>19052775
>it rejects the whole world
That's what I like about it. Rejection of everything: dogma, rationality, the world itself. Are there any non gnostic books/philosophers with a similar outlook?

>>19053211
The Holy Bible

>>19053235
>the Bible rejecting dogma
>Christianity rejecting rationality
Even the Christian rejection of the world isn't true acosmism. I don't care for the world at all, it's nothing to me. For Christians, it's a creation of god.

>>19052285
You don't get it. There should be state christianity for the plebs and gnostic christianity for the spiritual elites who should rule the state.

>>19046799
If Gnosticism was correct, why wouldn't Jesus more explicitly say that Yahweh/the Demiurge is a different entity from the Father whom he says it is impossible to come to except through him?

>>19053244
>I don't care for the world at all
>noo you see I don't care about having this fun and masturbating! its just something I do! I dont care about it!!

>>19053254
Dude, there were like 1000 types of gnostics, not all of them believed that meme. I am aware that reducing all gnosticism to that is easier for you to refute it but don't be ignorant

>>19053262
Absolutely seething.
Still want book recommendations if anyone who isn't a brainlet has some.

>>19046922
>Augustine
>Ambrose
>Justyn Martyr
>Isidore of Seville

>>19053263
The essential components of Gnosticism to me are
>material world was created by Demiurge/Yahweh to spite God above him
>Jesus was an emissary of the real God
>material world is inherently evil
If you go separating its major theological/cosmological claims from it and boiling it down to just vague philosophical ontology, what's the point of not just lumping it in with the rest of Neoplatonism?

>>19053244
A Christian is dead to the world. A citizen of heaven through the death and the immaculate resurrection of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Logos of God. We die to the material, in order to be “born again” to the spiritual. We care not for the passing world, but only for that which forever remains. The stains we left upon one another. Our dispositions yet to be reconciled.

Christianity is accountability. A path from out of the darkness of ignorance, and into the uncreated light of truth everlasting.

I do not care for the passing world neither. I’m only concerned with my immortal soul.

>>19053297
There are no essential components of Gnosticism and everyone who tries to formulate some ends up leaving out some sects.
The broadest way you can qualify most gnostic sects is:
>uncompromising acosmism
>rejection of institutional dogmatism
>personal experience over faith

>>19053307
If you truly were "dead to the world" you'd be antinomian. I don't care for your meek half-assed rejection of the world, most of your religion's believers actually think the end of salvation is being resurrected in a physical body on a perfected Earth.

>>19053311
That just sounds like little more than an abstract philosophical spook when you make it that broad. Like you'd just take all of the Abrahamic religions together, take whatever vague as fuck philosophical gleaning you can get from all of them and ask someone to "refute it" in a philosophical manner. Feels like any attempt to describe it or to refute it would just be pointless bloviation.

>>19053328
Your expectations are the problem. Something as syncretistic, anti-dogmatic and opposed to all contemporary views as Gnosticism is bound to be difficult to describe as a monolithic entity. If you want a good exposition on what the main sects believe and how Gnosticism can generally be qualified, read Jonas.

>>19053252
No, you don’t get it

>>19053315
Your envious wishful thinking is far from threatening. Its not me you don’t like, its the Guy upstairs. Take it up with Him, He’ll pull rope through your ears, in earthly terms speaking, we will reap what we’ve sown

What have you sown?

>>19053415
>envious
Are you fucking retarded or just saying words at random? Your post makes no sense, go babble elsewhere.
We won't reap shit, this world is nothing.

>>19052852
Gnosticism is not inherently Christian and existed before Christianity. Also, the anon who said to read the Quran was talking about refuting Gnosticism. Since the Quran was written 600 years after Jesus, it is entirely possible for the Quran to have some sort of comment on Gnosticism. I wouldn't know if it actually does and, if so, does it well, but it is certainly possible.

>>19053439
Lets say for example. That I were, if time permits God willing, to plant me, in proper righteous soil, seeds of corn. Right? Can I possibly expect for bananas to grow? Likewise, if I do my brother dirty, I can only expect for dirt in return.

Tit for tat, materially and spiritually alike. The Holy Bible is our blueprint.

Reap what you sown anon.

>>19053491
Cool story but I couldn't care less. "The Bible is the because it's true", I know the drill.

>>19053505
The truth*

>>19053505
>couldn't care less

We can see that you’re better than everyone else

>>19053530
Your inferiority complex is your problem.

>>19053533
Thank God almighty is my problem

At least I’m not a scumbag

Gnosticism ancient and medieval h king

Hippolytus philosophumena
Augustine's works against the manichean, Augustine prob best source since he was a gnostic many years

How is gnosticism not just ressentiment

>>19053590
Gnosticism is as anti-nietzschean as you can possibly get, so yes, it is absolutely ressentiment

>>19053593
Than call me gnostic. Neechee is scum.

>>19046799
All sentimentalism is :)
Your silly thread from a few days back got deleted after you go repeatedly btfo'd, bro

>>19053608
Yes you mentally ill faggot there is a single person making all of these threads

>>19046774
if gnosticism hadn't existed simone weil would have invented it

>>19053958
Explain, wasn't she a Christian?

>>19053311
>rejection of institutional dogmatism
This cuts out one of the largest groups of Gnostics that existed, the Valentinians.

>>19053983
It doesn't, actually. Read Iranaeus.

>>19051036
is that why its the go to for most people who reject traditional religion, its to confusing to refute? i hate gnositic/philosphy fag so much because it feels just like religion. it feel like its the other side of the same coin

>>19052301
What cringe? lol

>>19046922

>>19050807
>>19050882
>he never replied
Gnostics only know how to bait, coom and seethe.

>>19054069
Cope and dilate :^)

I love these new gnosticism threads.

There are no refutations of gnosticism, only clarifications, qualifications, elaborations. How do you refute a fundamental temperament, a mood of Being? You people have no idea what you're even doing. Iranaeus doesn't refute anything, he mocks the Valentinian cosmology and just thumps his Bible. He considers its truth self-evident and gnosticism a self-evident heresy.

>>19046922
>posting a Christian gnostics like Clement to refute gnosis

None of you read.

>>19053963
She was a Christian atheist, except for her conspicuous lack of a Demiurge (referring instead to God's creative function as a "deifugal force") she's as Gnostic a 20th century mystic you're liable to find anywhere. A preoccupation with suffering/affliction is what distinguishes the great religious teachers of history from the hordes of midwits eternally seething. She's like McCandless: no one can talk about what she said or did, they can only attack her for the systems and institutions she refused to participate in.

>>19053608
Stop conflating a rational, cold observation of the suffering inherent to nature with "sentimentality", we know you just read 48 Laws of Power and we know you think Gnosticism won't help you fuck preteens, you reprobate.

The real and actually fruitful debate here isn't between judaized Christianity and Gnosticism, but between Gnosticism (arguably a radical Orphism) and Zoroastrian-type dualism - both are dualist, but the latter venerates the body and the material and holds that our goal is to expel darkness from an originally perfect creation, not to flee this creation to an unknown realm. Now there is a line of argument that is infinitely more provocative than the same old same old xtian pilpul ad nauseam.

It says- or the source cults that were viciously put down by the Judaized state churches, which along with the secular state would go on to violently see-saw between antisemitism and philosemitism as corrupt material interest & Jew wiseness waxed and waned with the extent and recentness or remoteness in time of their perfidies- 'world bad, burn the kikes, g-d is a nigger, we can do better.' In so many words. The enemy does not like this. The enemy does not want this, because it is an extremely straightforward path to massacring him in a World Pogrom that will refuse to recognize conversos as having a right to life beyond the time in which they can assist in massacring their kin as a purificative act to cure them of their near-hopeless Hyclic state. The original Gnostics agreed more or less universally that the Old Testament was a shit and the New Testament God stood completely apart from it, with the prophetic parallels being a matter of using what is available to lead men to Truth and to spit in the face of the false god real spicy like. They talked shit on Abraham and Moses. They talked shit on the Jews in general. The labeling of gnostic cults as being 'Jewish X' can be recognize plainly as a religious-archeological conceit of no racial relevance, in spite of these embracing op attempts.

Some of the Gnostics of yore liked to go further and turn Old Testament stories completely on their head rather than merely rejecting them; Cain killed Abel because Abel was a doddering slave to something inhuman. Jacob was a liar and a cheat and Esau an honest man, murdered by the birthright thieving brother he forgave from beyond the grave for refusing to allow his tomb to be stolen for Jacob. Queen Esther was a whore and King Ahasuerus a drunken whoremonger duped by his court Jew Mordecai, resulting in a Jewish massacre of the local population and the prevention of Haman saving the country through a well-deserved pogrom. Enoch wasn't embraced by 'god' by being rendered an angel of Metatron, but enslaved to his will and turned into a half-living processor for the material universe- in the computational sense- and a mouthpiece for YHWH-Yaldabaoth, crucified to it in Christly fashion. So on and so forth.

As a result of this diametric opposition and relentless persecution, we have extremely bare fragments of original literature, some new reconstructive stuff by kooks who are correct but still kooks, Blavatsky and other New Age well poisoning horseshit to muddy the waters with the idea that the universe is 'evolving' and to be embraced rather than destroyed, and worst of all extra faux-gnostic cults in Freemasonry and the Kaballic tradition in general which embrace the enemy they cannot strangle, and claim to oppose YHWH-Yaldabaoth as 'Adonai' and to love 'Lucifer' in the form of a mincing, knowledge-withholding, blood sacrifice craving false idol of your Molochite Bohemian Grover sort. In other words, a creature that does not resemble Lucifer-Prometheus in the slightest, who led Man to the Apple completely free of charge and at great cost to himself, ensuring that Man would be on the course to reuniting with Heaven rather than being an eternal animal in the garden, devoid of active spirit.

The Kingdom is of the other world. Christ-Lucifer is King. He does not withhold. He does not need sacrifice, for he is sacrifice. He is the second bright and morning star, the Stone the builders rejected, and the successor to the Great Work of devouring this world in fire, breaking the shackles of Eden and the incessant creative breathing of the false Brahma forever. Satan's kingdom is here and now, and it is ruled by him who is called so, and Samael, and YHWH, and Yaldabaoth. Crush it. Destroy it. If you cannot accomplish these, and no one can yet or else we would not be here, hate it to the end and yearn fanatically for the perfect world of Pleroma. It can be found in the ashes of the god of burnt offerings, hurled into the inferno of his own altar of the World.

The 'material universes' are a series of experimental plagiarisms. Falsities. Imitations that fail in the variance of implementation, 'inspired by Him only,' a truth he will no longer admit through his other faces. If there is a 'true' Brahma, he has naught to do with the nitty-gritty administrative cycle of creation and destruction in this world we perceive, not in closeness, and has been plagiarized as a mantle of Yaldabaoth, lion faced snake and father of the pig called Kali. The true world is one and one alone. The proper purpose of each lower world is not devourment of the self by anti-individuation through a farce of experiential evolution, but absolute individuation through the trials of infiltrating and destroying these universes and spiting those crafting them by taking all that is good out and burning away the evil. They exist as a recursive trial and masochist playground for those who would become Mahakala, Dharmapala, wrathful destroyers of that which exists in untruth. Devourers of devourers. To shut the face of breathing by tooth and jaw, bite off its face and eat Time alive to deny the falsely ineffable its meal. Then, eventually, to eat that god as Indra attempted in the Vritra myth; and this time, not be corrupted from the inside out. Not to become drunk on the world, as one sees in the descent of his mythology from high Jupiter archetype to low Dionysian drunkard.

>>19054200
Based as fuck

>>19054069
As expected - because nobody who reads St. Irenaeus, while acknowledging his degree of closeness to the apostolic tradition, can remain a gnostic. If "to be deep in history is to cease being Protestant", how much moreso is it to cease being a gnostic, who reject even the earliest apostolic church creeds?

Gnosticism is simply a stepping stone on the spiritual path of the disenfranchised dead, who are rebelling against their archetypal father, God as He is, and their archetypal mother, the holy Church. I pray that the people stuck on this ideology of prelest and ignorance realize that there is a reason no gnostics did anything worthwhile for the world in their ~2000 years of pitiful existence - they are spiritually impotent escapists, who delude themselves into thinking they are superior through peddling "hidden knowledge" that everybody with discernment rightly evaluated as a fruitless distraction.

Pic related: with nothing more than traditional Catholic spirituality and a Bible, this man accomplished more than every gnostic on the planet, throughout history, combined. Surely, as the gnostics will say, because he was unaware of the gnostic teachings, he was unenlightened and lost. And yet he was a prolific mystic and saint by any standard, through whom many miracles were performed - yet no gnostic of value has ever appeared in history - no healings, no miracles, and providing nothing of value to the world. Gnosticism is, in the end, a symptom of a lack of self-awareness in the cosmic story of salvation, and where one fits into it.

It is simply vain spiritual masturbation, and its adherents are similarly drained.

>>19055000
Cope

>>19055000
Gnostics reject the world, why would they be troubled by not contributing to it? The rest of your post is uninteresting.

>>19055000
Gnostics don't care about the world, why should they feel threatened about some worldly faggot having "accomplished" things in the world?
kek, your post is yet another proof that nicaean Christianity is the religion of the world, as divorced from Jesus' teachings as you can possibly get. Your incessant seething about doctrines that make more sense than yours isn't convincing to anyone. Keep crying while gnosCHADS realize their inner star

>>19055045
We can't stop winning gnostibros. What is this, like the 5th thread nicucks got utterly demolished by the simplicity and purity of our doctrines?

>>19055055
The one who rejects the world wholesale can never be confined by petty worldly ideologies. Nicaeans can't even begin to understand, they are like little babies.

>>19055023
Still waiting on you to provide a single example of one of St. Irenaeus' arguments, and your refutation to it. Of course, you won't - because you are spiritually dead, and not well-read.

>>19055043
Exactly what I said: "they are spiritually impotent escapists, who delude themselves into thinking they are superior through peddling "hidden knowledge" that everybody with discernment rightly evaluated as a fruitless distraction".

>>19055045
>why should they feel threatened about some worldly faggot having "accomplished" things in the world?
It's actually quite sad that you don't realize how objectively inferior you are to that man in every single way, and yet you call him a "worldly faggot". This is a man who was more deeply ascetic than any gnostic, and more mystic than all of your LARPers combined. Such a lack of self-awareness is very sad.
>as divorced from Jesus' teachings as you can possibly get
Why did the people closest to Jesus, such as His apostles, their disciples, and their disciples disciples, all reject gnosticism?

>gnosCHADS realize their inner star
Yes, reject your people, goyim. Run away into yourself seeking pretty lights, and effect no change - you have finally found a way to spiritually rationalize your own inadequacy and impotence, and hide your cowardice with a veil of words in a language you do not speak.

>>19055000
>It is simply vain spiritual masturbation, and its adherents are similarly drained.

>>19055090
>Why did the people closest to Jesus, such as His apostles, their disciples, and their disciples disciples, all reject gnosticism?
How could Christ's disciples reject a system of doctrines they predated by, what, a century? Why caricaturize the gnostics as fools and reprobates when we have evidence that their writings, and especially the sects, flourished in the Mediterranean and Middle East for centuries?

The rest of your post, again, is fembrain pathologizing, and is fundamentally uninteresting. It reflects poorly on your spiritual discernment.

>>19046892
Yes it does homo

>>19055090
Just more bullshit and cope, more pilpul, more spiritually sterile bickering. You are a golem. Your religion is a lie, and you are absolutely SEETHING in rage that some people reject your petty dogmatism and see past your retardation to yearn for something higher, something true, something beyond what nicaeans or any worldly religion for that matter can ever provide.
You are of the world, you will NEVER understand

>>19055119
I think I recognize you from other threads. What got you into gnosticism? What explains this sudden resurgence of people staunchly defending it in these threads? You'd be unheard of just 2 years ago on /lit/.

>>19055090
Holy projection lmao
Also that dude in your pic looks like a faggot

>>19055090
>the disciples of the man tortured and murdered by the world rejected those who reject the world
I truly feel like we occupy two different realities.

>>19055138
I'm not the Laruelle anon if that's who you're thinking about.
>What got you into gnosticism
I've always been disinterested in dogmatism and looking for something that broke through ideological filters, I looked into Buddhism at first, then gravitated towards Gnosticism.
>What explains this sudden resurgence of people staunchly defending it in these threads?
Gnostic threads have actually been going on on /lit/ for quite some time, at first it was a meme/fad with the spurdo stuff, but now the threads are fairly regular and lean less on memes. These threads are usually fairly informative and have interesting discussion, the shitflinging only happens with bait OPs and when the occasional nicaean comes in to talk about things he doesn't understand.

>>19053254
Well he does but those scriptures aren’t considered canon. Like the gospel of Judas for instance

>>19055172
>I'm not the Laruelle anon if that's who you're thinking about.
Well I hope not, cause I am. I won't drag you into another huge discussion and derail the thread for others. Just what are you reading? Any new insights?

>>19046922
>>19053272
These are good OP, also
>Saint John of Damascus

>>19055213
>posting another Christian gnostic to refute gnosticism

Brother observe this gentleman

>Ultimately, Christ, “the very wisdom and truth” in whom “all the treasures of gnosis are hidden,” was the one who led the soul from ignorance
and falsehood to the truth (Phil. 1)

>But, as much as diligence in study, neither grace nor revelation could have sufficed either. John iterated again and again that one had to be personally worthy to acquire gnosis.

AHAHAHAAHHA

You people are just the gift that keeps on giving.

>>19055172
>d looking for something that broke through ideological filters
lol. so general new-age behaviour.
what does your gnostic practice even look like? are you part of some group or is it a 'self-initiation'?

>>19055194
Oh, hello again. I've been busy with moving to a new place this past week, so I haven't read much. When I'm done I think I'll dive into Future Christ. I've also been looking into books that might elaborate on the whole "non-death" thing we've been fleshing out during our discussions, but there doesn't seem to be anything of note. Also want to dig deeper into anti-dogmatism as a concept, so I plan on reading more about that subject (Zen patriarchs mostly, I might even take a look at RAW, with caution). These (non-death, dissolving dogma) are my two main interests right now.
What about you?

>>19055112
>How could Christ's disciples reject a system of doctrines they predated by, what, a century?
Do you not know that the seeds of proto-gnostic heresies were present in the era of the apostles, and the apostolic fathers? Have you ever read the first epistle of John, which states that "He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son" (as a polemic against those who deny the Father, like gnostics)? Or the epistle to Timothy, where St. Paul writes, "O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “gnosis”"?
>Why caricaturize the gnostics as fools and reprobates
I have not characterized them as such, as Jesus forbids us from calling people fools. I have only said the truth as evident to anybody dispassionately observing history: gnostics are spiritually impotent escapists who contribute nothing of value to humanity, which is exactly why impotent and cowardly men gravitate towards it - it provides a justification for their uselessness.

>>19055119
>Your religion is a lie, and you are absolutely SEETHING in rage
The projection is clear for all to see, here.
>[we] yearn for something higher, something true, something beyond what nicaeans or any worldly religion for that matter can ever provide.
And yet there are Orthodox and Catholic mystics and saints who have not only reached higher spiritual states than any gnostic, but have also actually contributed to the world in a positive way, helping to lead others to freedom and salvation - and thus became vessels for the Holy Spirit, who acted through them as Jesus promised. For He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do". But where are the great works of the so-called "gnostics"? They are, once again, not existent, because they are spiritually impotent.

>>19055139
He's an example of an actual spiritual man who has renounced the world, not just a LARPer who posts on his $500+ electronic device about superior he is to those hylics chained to the material world.

>>19055143
Jesus said to not "be of this world" - but did He say to remove yourself from the world, to run away from it? Or did He say, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost"?
The apostle says, "Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?" - but does not Jesus say "I appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will remain--so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you"?
So where is the fruit of the so-called gnostics? We have been waiting for ~2000 years, but you have not produced any. The Lord says "you will know them by their fruits". If I judge by your fruits, I am left with the unavoidable conclusion that your ideology is vapid, empty, and vain; of value to nobody, it is simply spiritual masturbation.

>>19055241
>Christian gnostic
Please tell me what your understanding of 'gnosticism' is and I will show how St. John of Damascus refutes it. Give me concrete teaching about Christ you believe.

>>19055258
>contributed to the world
Don't care. Also, their attainments were lies and they were misled.
I don't feel like putting in any amount of effort against you golems, not today. You're boring, all of you are the same, all of you think the same, none of you see what's right in front of you, stop wasting my time.

>>19055249
>dissolving dogma) are my two main interests right now

>>19055249
Just been hacking away at Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Laruelle's Dictionary of Non-Philosophy, and reading my copy of the Nag Hammadi slowly and carefully.

That paper I linked on Heidegger in the last thread will elaborate on the non-death intuition we've been talking about. I also recommend the Tiantai article on Stanford, I think it's very resonant with this stuff.

But I said I'd be brief. I come bearing gifts:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180323125916/http://theforbiddenreligion.com/hyperboreanwisdom.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20180322180302/http://theforbiddenreligion.com/gnosticfragments.htm

Both excellent, less philosophical, more blood and fire Gnosticism, gnosis with that Serrano/Hyperborean tinge. You will enjoy it.

>>19055172
Dogmatism is the only way past ideology

>>19055258
The Gnostics deny the Creator, not the Father. Please don't make such sophomoric mistakes like this.

And then you have the Mandaeans and even Marcion who revered Paul as a gnostic luminary. I don't think you're qualified to have this discussion.

I don't care about contributing anything to humanity, when all humanity can contribute to the world is death. Men here spend weekends here killing animals for fun, we are hard-wired to dominate and destroy, imagine me not wanting to be alienated from that.

What is the fruit of Christianity? War, imperialism, pedophilia? I'll wait.

>>19055272
>Also, their attainments were lies and they were misled.
Very bugman take.

>>19055278
>Sayings of the Desert Fathers,
>Nag Hammadi

>>19055276
Yes yes, bend all lines of flight back into the system like the golem bucket crab you are, you will never taste the Pleroma.

>>19055264
You're not qualified to speak on this topic based on the mistakes you keep making. I won't waste my time laying out my system for you.

>>19055306
I use what is useful, and discard the rest. Imagine trying to dogmatize the Desert Fathers. You truly are just a seething cuck mad nobody itt wants to join your treehouse club.

>>19055272
>none of you see what's right in front of you
yeahhh bro! I am LITERALLY God! That is who I am...
The stupid nicean can't see it because he isn't pneumatized by the McDonalds modern scholarship we Gnostics read and fully rely on...

>>19055272
Yes, run away. Retreat into yourself, and do not change the world. Under no circumstances should you ever man up and face the enemy - just post on your expensive electronic device about how free and enlightened you are, mocking those who have actually left their material attachments behind. Who cares if your mother and brother are enslaved to their sin? Who cares if you are still attached to the material world? Who cares if the hungry need food, or the thirsty need water? As long as you can pretend, you will be good enough. Maybe tomorrow, you'll give it all up. Or the next day. Or the next day. Or the next day. Just think about the pretty lights within you, and don't shake anything up.

>>19055295
>The Gnostics deny the Creator, not the Father
The Gnostics deny God the Father in the Old Testament.
>I don't care about contributing anything to humanity
I already knew that, because like I said, your ideology is like a lamp attracting cowardly moths - "impotent and cowardly men gravitate towards it, because it provides a justification for their uselessness". Too many microplastics, perhaps.
>What is the fruit of Christianity?
Hospitals, universities, modern science through Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, and by far the largest charitable organizations on the planet (just to name a few).
What are the fruits of gnosticism? Did you see pretty lights while closing your eyes, one time? I'll wait, but I'm not expecting much.

>>19055309
>I won't waste my time laying out my system for you.

>>19055324
Modern science! Christianity is good because it laid the groundwork for the technological imperative currently enslaving all life on this planet! Hahaha. Unbelievable. Here's your (you), baitmaster, you've earned it.

>>19055278
Right, I had begun reading the Tiantai article but haven't finished it, I will tonight.
>more blood and fire
Very good, thank you. I try to spend less time on here as much as I can, this place is a cancer of which this thread is a shining example, but I look forward to our next discussion.

>>19055319
>I use what is useful
How do you know what is useful and what is not? Maybe the 'useless' stuff really is a symbol for a deeper notion inaccessible to the unenlightened. Have you obtained gnosis yourself to judge such matters?

>>19055340
He says, while posting on an expensive electronic device, using the internet. One question, how does it feel to be so self-aware?

>>19055324
>Retreat into yourself, and do not change the world. [...]
Yes, cry and seethe about it

>>19055349
Apple is a gnostic company bro!
They use the symbol of the fruit the good guy told Adam to eat in the garden!

>>19055346
I follow my intuition of goodness born of experience and inner struggle and discard what feeds or makes excuses for my demons. I do not call myself a gnostic, it's cringe, I am someone called to its temperament, and I've experienced enough (call it what you want) that I do tower over the same programmed pilpul I see posted in these threads (and in vegan threads, etc., it's a whole axis of Evil) again and again and again.

>>19055343
I'll be around, and same.

>>19055258

Your last point is particularly ironic since most of the Apostles were murdered, and there is little to no continuation between their deeds and the current Catholic and Orthodox Churches. By the same measure, there is a continuation between current Gnosticism and original Gnosticism, its original distinction from Platonism, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Zoroastrianism, being perennial.

>>19055349
Sorry, I don't think using 4chan qualifies me as a member of the Synarchy, this is a lame argument and if you want to wag your finger at my fair weather asceticism, look to the dust in your eye first.

>>19055363
>I do not call myself a gnostic, it's cringe, I am someone called to its temperament
I suspect this is the case for all genuine gnostics

>>19055381
>>19055363
So you don't even have gnosis and you're trying to teach other people that your view is correct?

>>19055363
>I've experienced enough
Yeah, seeing flashy lights is such a cool gnostic experience worth to build your life around.

>>19055386
I tire of your sniveling nicuck credentialism. Real eyes realize real eyes, end of story.

>>19055391
Lame and ineffectual.

>>19055386
Much like you've never experienced theosis and still shill your shit
Or how there are Buddhist threads despite nobody on this board being an arahant
Dumbass

>>19055354
Yeah, I'm so upset that you are a useless person who will never contribute anything to society. I can barely contain my anger at how enlightened and materially detached you are - make sure your laptop is charged, though.

>>19055367
The apostolic tradition was handed down through their disciples. Jesus to St. John the Evangelist, St. John to St. Polycarp, St. Polycarp to St. Irenaeus. The apostolic deposit of faith remains wholly intact in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, which is why we have actual initiatory schools of mystical contemplation. The Holy Spirit is with us, as is shown through out myriad saints and healers throughout history, and into the present day.

>>19055375
I'm not the one pretending to be an ascetic spiritual teacher, and I have not made the claim that I am materially detached. You so-called gnostics, on the other hand, pretend to be enlightened to rationalize your impotence, and it shows. I would at least respect a gnostic who is self-aware enough to actually stop using technology, because it is so obvious to everybody that all internet gnostics are armchair gurus. Imagine pretending to be an adherent of an ideology based around the material world being an evil illusion, on an internet message board using an expensive material device. It is almost beyond parody, I don't know how you guys don't see it.

>>19055363
>I follow my intuition
So the ultimate arbiter of truth is yourself (who has been wrong in the past) and admittedly does not possess gnosis.

>>19055324
>>19055349

I already know that Materialism is Catholicism but thanks for proactively conceding.

>>19055415
Yup, as it is clarified by the truth of others. You are a moon, your light will always be borrowed and your truth second-hand. I am struggling to become a star.

>>19055422
>Catholics, who acknowledge the existence of supernatural beings and immaterial truths, are materialists

>>19055422
When's the next thread? Should be 2/3rds done by now, right?

>>19055411
>society
lol

>>19055428
>by the truth of others
Which is still ultimately judged by how you, an unenligthened perceive it.

>>19055411
>The apostolic deposit of faith remains wholly intact in the Catholic and Orthodox churches

The current Catholic and Orthodox Churches were originally Roman institutions.

>>19046774
On The Cosmic Mystery Of Jesus Christ by Saint Maximus the Confessor

>>19055444
Nope, gnosis is a vesica pisces, the middle of the venn diagram or point of intersection between my truth and the truths of others who have, also, clung to nothing other than their truth.

>>19055434

I think so, though the last part is quite dense. 15 000 characters and counting...

>>19055443
No better than an armchair socialist, you fully partake in society's fruits, like the internet and electricity, and yet speak against it. Either you work a petty job and are a hypocrite, or your parents pay for your internet connection, and you leech of their labour, also making you a hypocrite.

>>19055445
The original churches were not formed in the city of Rome, so I'm not sure what you're getting at, unless you want to make the absurd claim that organized Christianity didn't exist before Constantine (like some Protestants say). The church was originally headed in Jerusalem, which was a Roman province (as was much of the known world), but to say it was "Roman" is quite far off-base. Either way, it is irrelevant to the question of apostolic transmission and succession, because we know the apostles did transmit their teachings to their disciples, their disciples to their disciples, unto the present day.

>>19055479

Even Constantine precedes the origin of the current Churches:

>On February 27, 380, the Roman Empire officially adopted the Nicene version of Christianity as its state religion. Prior to this date, Constantius II (337-361) and Valens (364-378) had personally favored Arian or Semi-Arian forms of Christianity, but Valens' successor Theodosius I supported the more Athanasian or Trinitarian doctrine as expounded in the Nicene Creed from the 1st Council of Nicaea.
>On this date, Theodosius I decreed that only the followers of Trinitarian Christianity were entitled to be referred to as Catholic Christians, while all others were to be considered to be heretics, which was considered illegal.[36] In 385, this new legal situation resulted, in the first case of many to come, in the capital punishment of a heretic, namely Priscillian, condemned to death, with several of his followers, by a civil tribunal for the crime of magic.[37] In the centuries of state-sponsored Christianity that followed, pagans and heretical Christians were routinely persecuted by the Empire and the many kingdoms and countries that later occupied its place,[38] but some Germanic tribes remained Arian well into the Middle Ages

Literally a branch of the Roman Government. What does it even mean to claim Apostolic succession here, "now they own the boot, j-just like Jesus s-said, heh"?

>>19055529
Just because the empire officially embraced trinitarian Christianity, does not mean the Catholic church did not exist before that decree. The Council of Nicaea is clearly a meeting of the same church which met at the Council of Constantinople. I'm sorry, but your understanding of church history is completely off-base. We have mentions of organized churches called "Catholic", with appointed bishops, in the epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch and Clement.

>>19055550
The Marcionite Church and canon predates the orthodoxy of "trinitarian Christianity". Stop posting, please.

>>19055562
I know that heretics, rejected by the successors of the apostles, existed. It was a reaction to these heretics by the apostolic successors that led to such precise Christological and Trinitarian formulations on essence and procession being codified.

Why you would trust some random man with no apostolic succession, over the disciple of St. John the Evangelist, made no sense to me - until I realized that gnosticism is more of a coping mechanism for one's own inferiority and lack of masculinity. It allows one to sit back and do nothing, while also making them think they are virtuous, just like any other spiritual-but-not-religious nonsense. Of course the facts of church history don't matter, because it is not a rational choice - it is a coping mechanism.

>>19055562
Marcion was a heretic, and was condemned as such by the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church for her heterodoxy. Go ahead keep posting..

>>19055585
Ah yes, heresy as defined by the successors of the apostles who were conveniently endorsed by imperial power, funny how that worked out, isn't it?

>until I realized that gnosticism is more of a coping mechanism for one's own inferiority and lack of masculinity.

Oh please, you're so boring lmao. A true baitmaster, I am in awe.

>>19055550
>We have mentions of organized churches called "Catholic", with appointed bishops, in the epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch and Clement.

Yes, and they would have faced the same fate of the contemporary churches in, say, India had it not been for the Roman Empire. I say "would have faced", but to what degree can it even be said that there is a continuation even between said churches and the current Church given that the latter came to be not by anyone's "fruits" and not for the purposes of "God", but by the whims of the Romans and the purposes of their Empire's power, unless, of course, you want to claim that the former lives on in the latter precisely as such?

>>19055604
>Marcion is heretical as defined by an orthodoxy which had a vested interest in condemning those sects which threatened its monopoly on power as heretical

Really poaches those pecans

>>19055479
>you fully partake in society's fruits
Nah, cope

>>19055605
The successors of the apostles had no imperial endorsement when they condemned Marcion. You have a shallow understanding of church history. St. Polycarp called Marcion the "son of Satan" hundreds of years before Constantine and Theodosius.

>>19055618
>Nah, cope
He typed on his Chinese-made keyboard, connected to his expensive computer, using an internet connection paid for by his father.
Truly, you have reached the pleroma.........

>>19055627
And Catholics borrowed the confessional from Manichaeism lmao. Please don't lecture me about what it is I know or don't know. I am not surprised in the least judaizers would seethe at Marcion.

Why would I trust Irenaeus to know anything about anything? He couldn't even read Greek.

>>19055627
All wrong
>noooo you have to go live in the woods or you can't criticize society
Keep seething bugman

>>19055614
Marcion is a heretic as defined by Jesus, Paul, and John. Yes.

>>19055667
>Marcion is a heretic as defined by Paul, someone who he considered himself a disciple of

Really

>>19055646
>the Catholic and Orthodox churches, which have repeatedly condemned and anathematized Judaizers, are Judaizers

>Why would I trust Irenaeus to know anything about anything? He couldn't even read Greek.
Because he was a direct participant of the apostolic tradition handed down from Jesus to St. John the Evangelist, while your random sect of a sect was created by people who had literally no connection to any of the apostles?

>>19055659
Nobody takes your armchair spirituality or criticisms seriously when you're typing on the internet. If the material world is objectively evil, why waste your time typing on a material object? Just be intellectually honest and admit that you only have an aesthetic attraction to Gnosticism, but don't actually follow any of its tenets, just like the average whore who says she is Buddhist.

>>19055646
Why would I trust you over Irenaeus, Christ denier?

You are, by an long shot, far from better than “St Irenaeus of Lyon” the Church Father. You just another gnostic heretic anti-christian circumcised turd.

>>19055675
St Paul, the Church builder.

Really!

>>19055677
>>19055681
Why should I care about any of your church daddies when I reject a apostolic succession to begin with? Again, none of you have overleapt Irenaeus, you're trying to refute Gnosticism on the basis of a dogma they reject on a priori grounds.

>>19055687
>rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil
>gets beheaded by ruler

What did he mean by this?

>>19055687
Seeing as how we're judging the truth value of early Christian doctrine based on its proximity to the apostles, why should we listen to you about what Paul "really" was about as opposed to Marcion, who was almost close enough to be his contemporary?

>>19055695
>when I reject a (sic) apostolic succession to begin with
What exactly is your argument against the apostles teaching their followers, who then taught their followers?

>>19055706
Because the contemporaries of Marcion who were actually disciples of the apostles uniformly condemned him, while only random no-names with no apostolic connection supported him.

>>19055695
>admitting to being an christ-denying heretic

Go get circumcised and be a gnostic anon.

You are free to hate Christ, Whom is God, and His holy Church, all you like. This won’t diminish His divinity, nor will your agendas free you from the burden of whatever filth you’re accountable for.

>>19055720
>What exactly is your argument against the apostles teaching their followers, who then taught their followers?

You can only save yourself.

>>19055720
Again, why should Marcion or I care about what dogmatists think when they reject dogmatism out of hand, when these same "Christians" did everything in their power to pull the radicality of Christ's message and suffering back into the orbit of the OT?

This is the last question I'm going to ask you, you're tedious and though I've scoured high and low for compelling refutations of Gnosticism (because I'm not a dogmatist and will immediately discard Gnosticism if I find another system which does greater justice to my inborn intuitions, since they are the only pole stars I have to sail by), I've never found any that didn't sound like they were motivated by worldling seethe at heart.

>>19055730
>gnostics
>practicing circumcision

Bruh just stop lmao

You are free to love the world, this won't diminish the True Christianity, nor will it free you from the filth you have grafted yourself to.

>>19055706
Because Paul is scripture, unlike Marcion, just like Simon Magus, who was a heretic, isn’t.

And scripture is the holy Word of God.

St Paul the Church builder is an Holy man.

>>19055677
>blah blah
Don't care bro, you're not even arguing against Gnosticism, just a strawman

>>19054106
>>posting a Christian gnostics like Clement to refute gnosis
St. Clement was neither a Valentinian nor a Basilidean nor a Marcionite. If you're referring to Christians calling themselves "Gnostics", that simply means they had true knowledge as opposed to the "Gnosis" so-falsely-called the previous sects I mentioned claimed to have.

>>19055748
A Christian hates the world. We are dead to it. Christianity = death to the world. A world that will pass away.

>>19055763
>gnosis is only valid when its promoted by the in-group

Hilarious.

>>19055767
But acosmicists are heretics, right.

It was fun.

>>19055767
>>19055411
Get your story straight

>>19054082
>buzzword

>>19055741
>You can only save yourself.
Ignoring the fact that your soteriology is also based off of the teachings of men, and not "yourself", I asked for your argument as to why you reject apostolic succession. If you don't provide one, I and any other observer must conclude your position is irrational.

>why should Marcion or I care about what dogmatists think when they reject dogmatism out of hand
You also embrace dogma, such as the existence of the demiurge.
>when these same "Christians" did everything in their power to pull the radicality of Christ's message and suffering
Are you talking about the Christians like St. Polycarp and St. Irenaeus, who were literally martyred for the faith, in direct accordance with Christ's message and suffering?

>though I've scoured high and low for compelling refutations of Gnosticism
And yet you haven't read St. Irenaeus' Against Heresies, which is literally the foundational work in studies of refutations to Gnosticism.
>because I'm not a dogmatist and will immediately discard Gnosticism if I find another system which does greater justice to my inborn intuitions
Your "inborn intuitions" are shaped by your unconscious aesthetic attraction to the foreign and mysterious nature of Gnosticism, and the sooner you recognize this, the better off you will be. "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child".

>I've never found any that didn't sound like they were motivated by worldling seethe at heart.
The apostolic fathers are about as far as one can get from "worldlings". These are people who willingly chose to be eaten by lions, burned alive, and otherwise tortured and killed for love of Jesus Christ, just as he taught. Show some respect.

>>19055755
>can't refute argument
I understand. I hope one day you will grow up, and stop thinking the be-all-end-all of spirituality is focusing on pretty lights in your brain and dying as a useless coward who rejected the teachings of Jesus Christ.

>>19055763
Marcion, Arius, and Valentian are gnostic heretics. What next, will we question Jesus’ divinity and theanthropic nature?

>>19055000
Checked. Trips confirm the message.

>>19055782
What argument lol
Also keep seething endlessly, I'm putting zero effort into these shitposts and you keep vomiting your impotent rage at me while I barely even read your replies, I'd feel bad for you if you weren't an archon slave

>>19055776
>heterodox are heretics

Yes.

t. Paul

>>19055782
Yawn.

>>19055763
Gnosis = juadism

>>19055776
>>gnosis is only valid when its promoted by the in-group
>Hilarious.
Are you for real? Gnosis literally means "knowledge". "Gnoseology" is another name for "epistemology", that's how it's called in Slavic countries.

>>19055800
>our work is not in persuasion
>has been desperately shilling his bullshit for the better part of a day
kek

>>19055780
I'm >>19055411, and that is the "story".
We believe, in accordance with Christ and the apostolic traditions, that "[...] a friend of the world is appointed an enemy of God", and "If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world".

And yet, unlike the gnostics, we do not believe that the material world is evil or corrupted per se, nor do we run away from its suffering and only worry about achieving "gnosis". The goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, which manifests itself in works described by Christ:

>>19055797
>can't refute argument
31When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. 32All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.

34Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took Me in, 36I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.’

37Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? 38When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39When did we see You sick or in prison and visit You?’

40And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’

41Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

44And they too will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’

45Then the King will answer, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’

46And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

>>19055788
These responses aren't for you, they are to show everybody who isn't a part of your heresy that your belief system is spiritually impotent, cowardly, anti-Christian, and quite frankly, for faggots.

>>19055809
We're not talking about epistemology and Clement was either, please stop posting, I'm getting sick and tired of schooling you faux profound tradlarpers on the most basic points of contention between the system that soothes your bad fee fees after you jerk off to lolis and a tradition as masculine and uncompromising as Gnosticism.

You see how aggravating it is to have your faith accused of all these base motives? Now you know.

>>19055811
Literally didn't read a single thing you just wrote, you managed to make me reach the boredom threshold
Stay deluded and eternally mad at people who don't even care about your existence

>>19055811
Isaiah 45:7, Matthew 7:18. Bye bye now.

>>19055823
You literally cannot read holy shit

>>19055810
>I shill for Christ and His holy Church

Got that right.

You are free to call good evil and evil good all you like. Impiety after all, is a choice.

>>19055831
>uuh bro gnosis conveniently doesn't have these heretical connotations when a father of the church promotes it
>uuh clement was talking about epistemology bro
Kek, what a laugh riot. You're funnier than the other guy.

>>19055830
Likewise


Luke 11:23
He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters

>>19055837
I thought trolling was verboten outside /b/?

>>19055837
>frivolous laughter
check
>deicide
check
>circumcision
check

Anything of value though?

>>19055844
>doesn't even try to reconcile the contradictions present in those verses, just posts the George Bush verse

Ok senpai. Goodnight.

>>19055860
So long heretic

The earth is flat btw

>>19055811
>to show everybody
Anyone who would bother reading your exchange has already picked a side. You're either preaching to the choir, or to people who will not accept any of your arguments because they simply don't believe in your religion.
Scholasticism makes it easy to forget that acceptance of a belief system is not predicated on pure logic but on personal affinity, since most of the great philosophies and theologies have consistent and logically sound arguments for their metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Thus it comes down not to which makes the most sense, as they all do in a vacuum, but to which sways one's personal subjectivity. Although Catholics don't like it when this is brought up because of the nature of their philosophical tradition, so I suspect this will fall on deaf ears. I still thought it was worth pointing out since /lit/ has so many pointless debates.

>>19055898
Not him but,, Christ is God. There is no debate, only accountability.

We are accountable. For every last motion, thought, and feeling. We answer to an higher calling, to an agency that is responsible for creating our noetic nature, and the limits of it.

>>19055924
...My suspicions are usually right, I've found.

>>19055929
What does that say about you christ-denier?

>>19055974
I don't believe in your religion, so nothing you can say has any hold on me at all. You might as well be berating me for not being a Muslim, it holds absolutely no weight. Don't bother.

>>19055980
Whatever you believe, is your religion. How is any of that any bearing on the absolute truth, self evident to us all? That whatever seed I plant, I will reap from the fruits of it.

>>19055830
>implying calamity is a "bad fruit", when it is a punishment sent to enact perfect justice on unrepentant sinners
You'd be hard pressed to find a single person who affirms the God of the Old Testament is God the Father more than Jesus Christ.
"In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Torah and the Prophets."
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Torah or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."
"If you had believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me."

What did the Torah and the Prophets say about who God was? Did Christ affirm the Torah and the Prophets? What did Moses say about God? Where did Moses write about Jesus?

>>19055898
I appreciate your civil tone, and acknowledge the validity of the essence of your message.
I will say that although not many people are swayed by logical arguments and rational discussion, some are. Thus, I am willing to "waste" time on providing arguments against these doctrines because even if 1000 people disregard the conversation, perhaps one person might find use in it, and come to true and right faith in Jesus Christ. and His church. If even one person is brought to light out of spiritual darkness, and my posts seeded the Word in one persons mind from whence it grew, my entire existence is worth it.
God bless you, though, I appreciate the calm and level-headed perspective. I myself was persuaded by the logical arguments from an agnostic/new-age/gnostic perspective, so it is only right that I pay it forward, so to speak. My own testimony proves that people do exist who follow good arguments and truth, and so this effort is never wasted.

Pic related: me when I used to be a gnostic new-age syncretic perennialist

>>19056017
>Whatever you believe, is your religion
Yes.
>the absolute truth
I know better than to post my take on this in a Christian thread, but it's only subjectively self-evident is all I'll say.
>>19056046
My point was more that there are convincing rational arguments from all sides and that it's good to take a step back and acknowledge that what makes an argument convincing is fundamentally an appeal to personal affinity; the logic is just a prerequisite (in most cases). A good argument to one might be utterly unconvincing to another. It's rare for people to be absolutely open to a new worldview, you usually build upon an existing worldview, which I think is good. /lit/ tends to forget that building your own view is important, that you're not a blank slate waiting for an -ism to be applied onto it like a coat of paint. My personal affinities and worldview have led me to different conclusions than yours, but I doubt either of us were swayed by less rational arguments (well, in my case I admittedly could have, but I'm making a general statement).

>>19053254
Jesus never refers to himself as Yahweh by name and he never states that the Father is Yahweh

>>19056167
>subjectively self-evident
Is the sky not blue? Since when is the very pinnacle of human logic, wisdom and rational not flawed?
We are subjects of an higher agency. Of a divine agency which transcends everything and anything we can muster up.
This is self evident objective truth.
The sky forever remains blue, whether under the cover of clouds or night, it will always remain blue. Pretending intellectual superiority over one another will only display my own ignorance of all that which doesn’t succumb to change.
The Cross doesn’t change. The Cross remains a pathway from the finite into the infinite, from the flawed into the perfect, from corruptible into incorruptible, a path from the darkness of ignorance into the light of true knowledge. The truth fears no criticism, requires no advocate. The truth is. Just like the sky is, forever blue.

>>19056275
The 7 I AM statements are functionally indistinguishable from claiming to be the LORD (aka "He who is being"), which is why the Jews attempted to stone Jesus for blasphemy almost every time He said one. Read the context.

>>19057412
>Just like the sky is, forever blue.
Technically speaking, the phenomenal experience of blue is distinct from both the physical and neurophysiological correlates. There are three independent albeit interrelated aspects here:
1. qualiatative experience of 'blueness' (qualia)
2. light's "wavelength between about 450 and 495 nanometers" (physical correlates)
3. neuronal firing patterns around visual cortex (neuronal activity).
Normally, the wavelength of light causes a cascade of neuronal activity, which then leads to the qualia of blue and then labeling it as such.
I surmise it is theoretically possible to rewire a person's brain to perceive certain wavelengths as different colors.
There is something more at work here, which we need to consider. The sky could easily become red. Moreover, certain species do not apprehend the sky as blue.

>>19046774
Genesis, chapter 1.

>>19055309
>>19055241
You make the mistake of assuming that just because one uses a greek term (like "gnosis") it's automatically meant in the platonist/neo-platonist sense, which ironically enough is the same mistake of the original so-called "gnostic" heretics.

>>19046774
>>19046799
I think it should be easily intuited by basic logic. If God is all powerful, no being like the demiurge could conflict with his plan, and if it did that would solely be under the command of God. The demiurge as a concept is ex nihilo and makes the omnipotent either not omnipotent, or uses the demiurge as a tool, which effectively is just the normal non christian understanding of the material world as a stage and could simply be replaced by the devil/lucifer as a digressing agent.

>>19058625
>normal non christian understanding of the material world
*normal Christian

>>19046813
A demonic perversion of Christianity, fuck off

>>19046774
>Gnosticism
I can't take it seriously or anyone who believes in it.
It's literally a kiddy ideology Christians have been refuting since the very beginning.

>>19059105
>If
>If
>If
yeah but no
christers tend to forget that their religion crumbles when faced with the simple retort "I don't believe that happened"

I ask of the so-called 'gnostic', can he remit my sins?

>Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
>And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
>Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

>>19059127
>I don't believe that happened
That's your loss, anon. We know it happened, but you willingly refuse this knowledge.

>>19059131
Sin doesn't exist

>>19046774
>>19059032

>>19059134
>We know it happened
no we don't lmao
you're delusional
by the way even if it did happen (which it didn't), I still wouldn't be a christian because I wouldn't care. A man rose from the dead? cool, doesn't compel me to worship him, why should I give a shit

>>19059134
>pic
This dude would be on /lit/ if he were alive today. Fell for all the memes: western buddhism, then guenonian traditionalism, then orthodoxy. His ramblings are barely more eloquent than those of the fanatic larpers on this board who keep autistically screeching about prelest and demons.

>>19046813
>>19058634
>A demonic perversion of Christianity, fuck off
Infidel.
Alahu Akibar.

>>19058634
Kikestianity is a demonic perversion of European paganism

>>19051036
/thread

>>19059139
What do you think sin means?

>>19053666
Why is that your go-to argument when I've been in fact debating with you continuously in that thread, and now here?
You kept refusing to give a proper cosmology so that ypu could be debated, then, once you gave a few pieces and ai kept asking questions, which quite clearly picked it apart, you refused to continue. Then your miserable thread died.
I still maintain you are under the age of 20, faggot

>>19059525
Actual unironic mental illness

>>19059548
How so? Go on and analyse me. Lay out how I am mentally ill, instead of claiming it. You don't like to be challenged.
You're not even able to differentiate between a monad and non-duality. When pressed on it you come up with big words syncretistically from various traditions, throw them in a blender, and hope you can intimidate people's intellect with that. That is precisely what you did in the last thread.
I furthermore maintain that you never properly immersed yourself in either Pythagoras, Plato or Plotin.
You're a charlatan. I wasn't the only one accusing you of this, and I wasn't the only one to challenge you on your flimsy, incoherent cosmology.
Come at me bro

>>19054132
Everything which does not follow metaphysics is essentially sentimental, that is, conditioned and individual, in privation. It's temperament, which conditions how you interact with the world. If you lack a metaphysical organ, you are completely dependent on mere emotions provoked by lack (sentimentality proper) and discursive thought, which, by its nature, will always lead to dualism and be incomplete.
Both of these are the dim reflections of spirit in the conditioned being, thus lunar.
Go on and wrestle with shadows, bro.

>>19046799

Gnosticism is the biggest meme in this board since R. Scott Bakker, Jordan Peterson bashing, Neetch, the Moby Dick annotation and Dune.

Can it just go back jacking off to Sophia and shut up already?

>>19059105

How does that excerpt pertain to Gnosticism?

>>19059584
Meds

>>19059738
Impotence :)

>>19059744
Meds

>>19059749
Pathetic :)

>>19059638
My worldview is based on sentimentality and I don't care that it's not logical/rational or appeals to your or anyone else's standards for respectability. Metaphysics merely informs and inspires my worldview, if even that. Call me filtered or a brainlet, it doesn't matter, feels > reals

>>19059781
Meds

>>19059784
Thank you for admitting this, then we can lay any debate or conversation whatsoever to rest as there will be no possibility for correspondence except for that in temperament, which we don't share much.

>>19059787
No :)

>>19059799
>we can lay any debate or conversation whatsoever to rest
I wish this happened in more threads and people didn't feel the need to make everything a fucking debate.

>>19059802
>he still doesn't realize I'm not whoever he thinks I am
TOMA TUS MEDICINAS

>>19059810
Non :)

>>19059814
Hermano... El Seroquel... Por favor...

>>19059826
Hey bro, that stuff will put you to sleep in no time. I'm wide awake

>>19059842
Are you?

>>19059852
Yes buddy

>>19059856
Carry on then.

>>19059867
Cheerio

>>19059638
I'm not intimidated by your fetishization of metaphysics because you just read Guenon this year. System building is for mole people.

>lunar/solar distinction

Lmao, called it.

>>19059784
Basically this. Abstractions reinforce my temperament, they don't efface it for academia points.

>>19046774
The soul trap is real, we are prisoners.

>>19059638
I'd just like to add that there's nothing funnier than "love and peace broooo :)" monists/non-dualists calling gnostics sentimental, it really boggles the mind. Even fucking TRIGUN btfos your type.

>>19060278
How is that just in Guenon? How do you disprove anything I say?
Help me to recollect, what do the two terms in fact signify?

>>19060322
It's in Evola, whose in that trad basin undergrads like you loiter in for years thinking you're something. It happens to all of us, just stay out of the threads that are clearly uninterested your thematic.

Solarity is dry, vertical, active, masculine, objective. Lunarity is moist, horizontal, passive, feminine, subjective. Nature against nature vs. nature fascinated by nature, as Evola puts it in his book on alchemy. Don't quiz me lil nigga.

>>19060299
Where did I advocate for peace and love? Do you understand what I mean by sentimental?

>>19060400
I do and I don't care it. Even Evola, who defended the calm, rational objectivity of the solar man and took liberal Buddhism to task for its cloying universal compassion himself admitted, unequivocally, that he longed for an infinite realm of light and peace that was not this place. You're just an American afraid of his own depths, and what's worse, repressing the fire that tells you there's a war on. Leave.

>>19060355
How is it unrelated to the topic? It clearly goes against Gnostic srntiment. You're able to regurgitate what the terms mean, yet you're unable to put them in any meaningful relation to the topic. Curious. Am I supposed to intimidated by that drivel in turn? I think not. Try again, and explain to me how they relate to the discussion. Naturally you'll be able to, aye?

>>19060419
I'm of Anglo German ancestry in Europe, you fool.
I do not advicate for sterile monism which tries to blot out the conditioned temperament I possess. I don't advocate for a dualistic flight of them either. Gnosticism amounts to stuck up, obscured monism anyhow trying to blot out that which it deems apart.
I accuse you of just that, fool.
I see what I am, I see the world for what it is. I seek to integrate all that in a polar way, in a way that orders instead of opposes, thus, a non-dual way.

>>19060422
It doesn't, because your grasp on both Gnosticism and the distinction is puerile. You're not my teacher, this isn't a classroom, I don't have to do anything you say.

>>19060441
I reject integrationism, I don't care for your pseudo-Jungian metaphysics, it repulses me. You'll notice Gnostics generally keep to themselves while the peanut gallery can't help but vomit up their sophomoric breakthroughs of the week every time we have a thread like this.

>>19060463
Eternally stuck in teenage structures, making rebellion your metaphysical end. Does your drivel make you proud? Does it fulfill you? You're not able to debate the metaphysics of non-dualism, because you don't understand them.
You are able to cite passages or terms, yes, but you lack any ability to put them into meaningful relation, I maintain.
You see keywords and jump at them as though somebody yells sic.
I speak of integration, I'm a jungian. I speak of non-duality, I'm a monist.
You accuse me of only recently getting into this. Are you projecting?
I'll take my time to lay out my understanding of cosmology on a bit so you have the chance to actually show your argument in a proper debate. As of now, it's just shitflinging. I've said this to your bro in spirit up there and in the last thread, too.

>>19060505
Have at it, you'll just end up wasting my time and yours

>>19060517
Yea I'll get to it in a bit, I'm busy rn and I'm not gonna do it phoneposting.

>>19060441
Based tantric

>>19060517
Alrighty then,
Reality needs to be of one essence for its parts to be put into relation to one another. A seperate world from this one is thus untenable.
Furhtermore reality needs to be bounded, which it cannot be by particulars, as these needs a point of entry, too.
This leaves us with a non-dual origin of reality. That means, that this reality is beyond the particulars, but even this classification makes it particular, thus being insufficient. The best explanation would be to say that it is and is not its particulars. It is transcendentally immanent.
From thereon, to have particulars you have the tired old idea of essence and substance. The further away you move from the ultimate essence, which is spirit and the source of being, as it is the first point to differentiate, you encounter more differentiation. Call them the ideas or whatever. Ultimately, moving further towards matter you encounter sequence in space and time, and further and further differentiation in particulars.
So inbetween spirit and matter you encounter animation, and movement up or down.
Clearly elaboration on these particulars is not relevant to the discussion, as my opening remarks are the most relevant to what we are debating.
I maintain that there can be no seperate world, and that evil has no essence, as all evil is privation from being, closer to matter and thus to that which dissolves.
What I advocate for is, that men who possess a metaphysical organ, that is intellect in its proper and original form turn towards a mode of non-dual being, so that their conditioned being is integrated by virtue of their spirit assimilating reality. Every particular would only lead downwards again, so does the fetishization of a Pleroma, or the demonization of matter or this world.
I view this all as one reality, and I wish to build myself an ontological map which will enable me to rise to the highest point of the pole to then become said pole.
Now please engage with what I've written, debunk it, chip away at it, refute it. But please stop the shitflinging, evading and senseless citing.

>>19060747
>It is transcendentally immanent.
Yes, the chora, the place that is no-place, what you are doing is confusing the site of the Mixture between Good and Evil with the "ultimate essence" or "spirit" itself. Spirit is not the field of activity of particulars, Spirit is not what activates the differential play of forces, Spirit is the PREY of these forces, and whatever liberative negativity the practitioner finds in himself is ALWAYS OPPOSED TO THIS PLAY.

Evil clearly has an essence, or else we would not be talking about it - if Evil had no essence, then the being most endowed with essence, with differentiation, particularity, individuality (man) would not be capable of Evil.

You are advocating absorption into the ungrund which is the void and gullet of all particulars, the tzimtzum, the space that is the no-space or the divine that is undivine. I reject non-differentiation, I advocate differentiation in BEING, not in thought ("fetishization of the Pleroma").

>>19060747
To add to what I said: you (rightfully) reject ontic particulars, but you're still riveted to the ontological field where these particulars have their day.

The Pleroma proper (not the Jungian Pleroma, which conforms to your definition of a undifferentiated muck) is pre-, non-, or post-ontological. This is the Gnostic difference: a field beyond all fields, or a lumen "behind" pagan chaos.

>>19060797
Again, muddling of non-duality with monism. You people really are incapable of understanding. I really believe temperament is everything, and if someone lacks the metaphysical organ, he is wholly incapable of conceiving of what non-duality really is.Jesus fucking Christ, what a salad of bs
I did not realize I was conversing with a schizo. Again, cheerio, fuck this lol

>>19060828
>pseud gets absolutely blown the fuck out
>drops the smug posturing act
>"f-fuck this"
top kek, I come here for these moments

>>19060828
The chora is not monistic. It is not a monad, a unit, a substantive Thing, it is the non-dual field of duality as such, just like you described. I leveled with your basic bitch one-size-fits-all ontology and this is what I get. Bye bye now.

>>19060842
>>19060847
Nope

>>19060852
Your reddit ontology impresses no one, you presented your system, I presented mine as it clarifies and is clarified by the axioms of your system, and you started shitflinging again, which I made a point not to do.

>>19055324
Cathar genocide is your fruit ?

>>19060874
I'll fling whole buckets of diarrhea at obscurants and those that repeatedly, either on purpose or by lack of understanding misrepresent what I say.

>>19060797
>if Evil had no essence, then the being most endowed with essence, with differentiation, particularity, individuality (man) would not be capable of Evil.
That's not man though. That's God. Man is not fully endowed with essence.
>Evil clearly has an essence, or else we would not be talking about it
Nothing does not have an essence yet we can talk about it. What are you even on about?

>>19060889
Obscurants haha, I couldn't have used more pristine language if I tried. And I never misrepresented what you said, I presented you with an overview of how my system has already taken what you're saying into account.

>>19060899
Man certainly possesses more essence than animals, so we should expect to find the potency for (moral, intentional, not incidental or predatory) Evil more readily actualized in them, but we find the exact opposite is the case.

>Nothing does not have an essence

You're not talking about nothing, you're talking about an essence which is a non-essence, an absolute non-essence is inconceivable by definition. Do you even know your Parmenides senpai? Do we really have to do this?

>>19060899
Bro he will not bow to intellect, he makes himself an eel, repeatedly, and tries to escape through a series of loopholes.
If that doesn't work he'll try to obscure by misusing religious or philosophical terms.
He still has not understood what non-duality really signifies. He blindly stumbles thru it creating vast figures and monuments that he then calls this or that. He does neither engage with the concept of non-duality, nor will he engage with your arguments.

>>19060913
>you're not using these terms according to my preset definitions therefore you're misusing them!
>how dare you possess a more refined and well-read understanding of my cookie cutter metaphysics!

Haha, you're funny man.

>>19060900
:)

>>19053254
The people who worshipped the demiurge that Jesus preached to would have lynched him if he suggested anything so blasphemous.

>>19055585
Most gnostic sects were founded by people who were students of the apostles.

>>19060917
The cosmos necessarily has 1 ground. That means that there has to be a truth that's able to be approximated. That can only be done thru true intellect, experience of metaphysics. If it'd be all dependent on sentiment and individual, and I'll say it again, obscuring systems, that'd make no sense.
You flip flop around like an impotent ragdoll.

>>19060929
You still here senpai? Imagine me wanting to engage with you in good faith again. Keep imagining it, it won't happen.

>>19060944
Did you tho?

>>19060948
Absolutely, do you take all caps personally or something? Jesus Christ. Get a water filter my man, nothing should be this complicated.

>>19060964
Nope

>>19060912
>so we should expect to find the potency for (moral, intentional, not incidental or predatory) Evil more readily actualized in them,
Animals do not possess "more essence" than man. The essence of man and animal are different, essence is not a pure undifferentiated quantity. If you don't consider quality it becomes meaningless to speak of essence, and we might as well just speak of "being" or lack thereof. The essence of a man is trivially different to that of a beast. A beast can only be considered evil if it is considered, abstractly, a man in essence (unless it is simply an animal which does not fulfil its own essence). This is why men who act like beasts are considered evil, yet beasts acting as themselves are not.
>so we should expect to find the potency for (moral, intentional, not incidental or predatory) Evil more readily actualized in them, but we find the exact opposite is the case.
Even assuming that we can speak of essence quantitatively like this, this is still untrue. Animals are more often intentionally vicious and depraved than men. Observing a chimpanzee society for more than a few hours or days would suffice to prove it to you, you can watch them seek out the young of rivals, butcher them, eat them, and then rape the mother, all without sufficient reason apart from malice.
>You're not talking about nothing, you're talking about an essence which is a non-essence
I am talking about nothing. You're creating linguistic confusion here which is irrelevant: The fact that I can speak about nothing does not mean that nothing exists, and the same applies to evil. This is exactly what Parmenides would say, and he explicitly agrees that despite the fact that we can talk about nothing, it can only be spoken about in abstracto, unlike Being which is concrete and can be spoken of as a non-abstract actuality. If Parmenides thought we could not speak of nothing, he would not have spoken about it in his Platonic dialogue (assuming that dialogue is even him). That's the only place he offers an actual argument though, so I assume it's what you're referring to.

>>19060968
>we can only know the absolute apophatically!!
>y-you just lack the metaphysical organ to understand such a subtle doctrine!!

Lmao jesus christ. When I said you were a first year, I had you pegged, didn't I?

>>19060813
>the ontological field where these particulars have their day.
>pre-, non-, or post-ontological.
This is pretty clear though, not sure why the guy's throwing a tantrum. The basis of what you're saying is that nondualism is still conceptually ontological, the Pleroma is not an object of ontology at all, it goes beyond any notion of metaphysics (or philosophy).
It's simple to understand, the guy just doesn't want to. This is why I'm letting this shit go, it's a waste of time.

>>19060977
I'm a no-year
That'd be the path towards mystical union, sure. I believe that the path to that which I described in polar terms would be an apophatic route that does not dissolve subjective experience, thus keeping everything in its natural place, yet allowing for a piercing of that non-duality I speak of. Trying to blot out unity in favour of multiplicity or the reverse cannot lead to the absolute, I maintain it.

>>19060973
I said animals possess less essence than man, less perfections, so naturally we would expect them to be living gates to Evil. They're not.

The cruelty and savagery of animals like chimpanzees is only findable to the extent they conform to the nature of man; it's why highly intelligent mammals like dolphins are known to have sex for pleasure. There's a link here you're deliberately covering up.

No, what Parmenides is saying is that even the concept of "nothing" possesses a content, even if that content is "the absence of all possible content", what Parmenides is saying is that talking about nothing is meaningless because we cannot speak of anything outside the correlationism between our thought and our being because, to do so, we have to necessarily re-enact that correlationism all over again, we have to bring Something with us to talk about Nothing.

I've posted to knock-down arguments against privatio boni, I'll at least give you more credit than the other guy for actually engaging.

>>19060985
Non-duality is infact not an object of ontology you fool, I've been maintaining this the whole time. That is what I meant by Gnostic misrepresentation thru misunderstanding. Good job.

>>19060997
I don't want to keep things in their "natural place", or in any case I reject a supreme "re-naturalization" of this universe that doesn't begin with the recognition of an arch-dualism - between this liberative "non-duality" and ignorance as a positive, "dualizing" counter-force - the principle that occludes your negative field. And since this ignorance is necessarily bound up in (what I perceive as) the boundless/mindless effectivity of this field, I decouple the chora from the Pleroma and preserve their essential natures or non-natures, whatever may be the case.

>>19061001
>I said animals possess less essence than man
Which is wrong, for the reason I just gave. "Less essence" is meaningless pseudo-philosophy. Give Aristotle a read.
>The cruelty and savagery of animals like chimpanzees is only findable to the extent they conform to the nature of man;
No, it's not. It happens in plenty of other animal species, it's just that we find chimpanzees the most shocking because they are most superficially similar to us. Dolphins do the same thing. Chickens do the same thing. Even microbes do the same thing, on a much wider scale than any of the others.
>No, what Parmenides is saying is that even the concept of "nothing" possesses a content,
That's not what he's saying at all, go back and read the dialogue. He says flat out that nothing is nothing, it has no content. That's one of his most famous quotes, and his point is that nothing is an abstraction with no content at all. You might be confusing him with Heraclitus? But even he doesn't say anything to this effect in my memory.

>>19061002
It is not an object of ontology because it IS ontology, it is the EFFECTIVITY of any possible ontology, and that's what I'VE been maintaining this whole time. You are LITERALLY worshipping the Jungian Abraxas lmao. Are we done?

>>19055611
>>19055705

Not to be rude, but the overall quality of discussion would have been much higher if these points were addressed.

>>19061017
Sleeve upon sleeve upon sleeve to maintain muh Pleroma that's seperate. Fuck, you're thick

>>19061020
Yes, you're done.

>>19061019
This cat today is much like any cat a hundred years ago. I'm not an anthropocentrist anyways, you're taking this point to heart.

All animals are capable of cruelty, but in chimps/other animals capable of metacognition, that cruelty phases into intentionality. Nothing you've said really challenges my point.

Yes, nothing is nothing and is therefore meaningless because... nothing can be conceived of outside the ring of conceivability.

>>19061030
Good, you wasted my time and yours. Never again.

>>19061041
Ever again, bro. This discussion will never end, it'll go on for as long as you persist in your path, and that you'll do because it's who you are. And I'll always push back. Because I too persist, and that's who I am.

>>19061054
Not him, are you a Hindu or Buddhist of some kind?

>>19061060
No, I'm not. I simply see that I'm endowed with a certain temperament, and so is he, and I know that they're complementary in that they'll always react like this.

>>19061038
>and his point is that nothing is an abstraction with no content at all.
I should add out of interest that Fichte explicitly acknowledges the same in the grounding of his second synthetic principle of the Ego (Ego and non-Ego become grounds of Being and non-Being). The principle of negation is conditioned with respect to content (ie it takes its content directly from Being, the Ego, it has no unique or self-existing content) but unconditioned with respect to form, in the sense that the mere form of negation is unconditioned and original (the abstraction). This is an exact correspondence between Fichte and Parmenides, Fichte just fleshes the progression out more explicitly.
>Nothing you've said really challenges my point.
Yes, it does. You've just arbitrarily raised "intentionality", but this has no relevance to the discussion because it is impossible to say what intentionality even is. I think it's fair to state that every person and every animal intends what it does in every moment, even if it might be deluded in a given moment. I'm guessing this is an attempt to obfuscate the discussion with a pointless divagation. I'd rather not discuss what constitutes "intentionality" if you refuse to agree with my conception of it, because otherwise our entire discussion loses any possibility of resolution.

>>19061077
You're a nondualist though, yes?

>>19061086
Yes.

>>19061082
Let's distinguish the demonism inherent to animals and, honestly, most humans - evil "intended" as a matter of course - from radical or diabolical Evil - Evil performed for its sake. I'd urge you to find me an example of an animal capable of radical Evil.

Beyond that, where do I start with Fichte, at an angle of approach relevant to this thread & discussion? Secondary sources welcome.

>>19061100
What is it that makes gnosticism so offensive to you? Would you go on a similar crusade in, say, a thread about Zoroastrianism, or Manichaeism, or even dualistic interpretations of Theravada?

>>19061110
It's claim to lead to something that is supreme or ultimate is not true. It is ultimately not logical.
Yes I would. Afaik, 2 of those 3 have non-dualist alternatives. I'd oppose Manichaeism fully, yes.

>>19061138
What about Christianity or Neoplatonism, or other strands of western esotericism? Those aren't nondual either.

>>19061082
I want to add, with regards to the Fichte point, you're kind of helping me formalize the tricky status of dependence/independence of Evil in Zoroastrianism by saying that negation derives its content from Being/Ego and yet, abstractly, retains an "unconditioned and original" status. Any works on/by Fichte that elaborate on this would be greatly appreciated.

>>19061152
How is Neoplatonism not non-dualistic?

>>19061170
The One is a monism, being a singular source, there is only it. Let's not argue about it if you disagree, I can't be bothered. What about Christianity?

>>19061102
I've never seen an example of radical evil. All evil has some good intention, however meek and unjustified it might be in comparison to the negative consequences. Like, even doing exactly what isn't good would be justified by the person by stating that it is good to disobey or to act out of the norm ('it is *good* to do bad because it just is"). So their misdeeds are justified to themselves as a believed deed. I really, honestly see this kind of behavior as a severe type of delusion, rather than genuine evil, I'm not just disputing this for the sake of argument.
>Beyond that, where do I start with Fichte
I started with the 1804-13 Science of Knowledge but I'd already read a lot of standard Western philosophy beforehand. The introduction is comprehensive, relatively short, and will talk about everything I just mentioned in more detail than I did. It then has a theoretical and practical part similar to Kant's critiques. The theoretical is how the non-Ego determines the Ego, and practical the Ego the non-Ego. I'm not a Fichte scholar, though, I just think he's underrated and I enjoy the clarity of his thought (maybe the translations are more clear than the originals? Supposedly Fichte's German prose was worse than Kant's).

>>19061194
Say what? That is not true. It is described as a reality beyond this or that. Spirit brings being in form of that, it contemplates "the One". The ideas of spirit are reflected in matter. The One is not literally 1 like a monad. Just because the midwits at Wikipedia maintain this does not make it true.
I do enjoy reading Eckhardt.

>>19061207
>I do enjoy reading Eckhardt
Yeah but his beliefs are extremely fringe and Christianity as a whole is not nondual.

>>19061211
Right. Does that contradict anything I said though? Are you simply curious about what I believe, are you trying to get something particular out of me, or are you preparing a sort of gotcha?
Genuinely curious.

>>19061199
I believe radical Evil exists, so that's where diverge and it would be pointless to try and plaster this gulf between us over with more arguments. We can agree to disagree.

I think it's time I take the Fichtepill. Thanks.

>>19061222
Just wondering why you don't vehemently argue against wrong views in Christian threads (which are much more numerous, and their proponents much more annoying) but seem to be on the lookout for gnosticism specifically. Not a gotcha, merely curiosity.

>>19061242
Gotcha bro
Because Christian theology atleast doesn't posit a dual reality. It still has problems with its focus on the transcendence of God towards the world etc, but the cosmos takes its origin from him. Then there is Christian mysticism, that offers unification with God. Still not what I advocate for, but again, ontologically all sound and possible. There js a point to be made about Christian persecution of mystics or non-dualists (hermeticism). But then again I'm not an active Christian. I grew up Catholic, hell, I was even an altar boy. But that was all in childhood.
I find Christian cosmology to be sounder than the Gnostic one. I believe that that sort of dualism is fatally misleading, and I believe it only leads to dissolution. It's a mirage.

For the readers, add second wave feminism to your Gnostic reading:

>Women value care because men have valued us according to the care we give them, and we could probably use some. Women think in relational terms because our existence is defined in relation to men. Further, when you are powerless, you don't just speak differently. A lot, you don't speak. Your speech is not just differently articulated, it is silenced. Eliminated, gone. You aren't just deprived of a language with which to articulate your distinctiveness, although you are; you are deprived of a life out of which articulation might come. Not being heard is not just a function of lack of recognition, not just that no one knows how to listen to you, although it is that; it is also silence of the deep kind, the silence of being prevented from having anything to say. Sometimes it is permanent. – Catharine MacKinnon, Difference and Dominance

This one in particular reads like /lit/ schizoposts: http://nomistolzenberg.usc.edu/documents/Catharine-MacKinnon-Feminism-Marxism-Method-and-the-State-toward-feminist-jurisprudence-_000.pdf . Who knows, even I might read it.

>>19061289
>I believe it only leads to dissolution
Why? The purported goal of gnosticism is the opposite of dissolution (annihilation). Why do say that then?

>>19061297
I'm open to a Gnostic feminism, there is a melanic Gnosticism for god's sake.

>>19061315
do you*

>>19061315
Because I believe that Gnostic cosmology is completely outta whack. I believe it's a broken compass, and I believe because it points to a place that can not exist it delivers its followers to exactly that which they dread so very much.
Want me to go full eclectic schizo the way I chastised the other Anon for earlier? I believe that the Aeon of Pisces we're currently in and which will soon come to an end lines up perfectly with the 2 Spenglerian cycles of the Magian and the Faustian culture. I believe that the first 1000 years of the aeon, which were under the aegis of the vertical fish were the time of the Magian cycle, which started out dualistic, and ended monistic with Islam. I believe that the 2nd fish, the horizontal one facing west is the patron of the Fauatian cycle. I believe that the resurfacing of Gnosticism is a last big crescendo, happening after the Faustian, horizontal age condensed itself into mechanism and materialism, and finally dissolves itaelf into Aquarius, culminating at the wnd if him in the subsequent re-ascent to Leo. I believe that the first fish was the Christian fish, as it were, making the 2nd one the anti-Christian fish. I believe discursive intellect that is disembodied to be the closest equivalent we can find to something like the devil. I believe this intellect to be an ultimate agent of dissolution. And I do think furthermore, that this intellect deceives those that lack a metaphysical sense.
This is the schizo cosmology underbelly to the metaphysics I outlined way above.

>>19061389
Thanks for explaining.
>it points to a place that can not exist
That is the point. Anyway, since you being up astrological cycles, how do you believe Aquarius will manifest itself? Since you're not Christian, I assume not as the "religion of the antichrist", what then?

>>19061414
Sure, no problem.
I really can't say. A friend of mine and I have speculated on that recently, and tried to come up with some sort of connection between Ganymed, the waterbearer, and Galahad, him who is variously described as attaining the Grail but dying or being carried to heaven.
If the culmination of the 2nd fish of Pisces is the Antichrist, and if the end of Pisces lines up with complete condensation and materialization of consciousness, then perhaps we'll see a slow dissolving of that condensation in Aquarius.
The idea is that after Leo comes the age of Cancer, starting the descent, and after Aquarius then ofcourse being Capricorn.
Something strange we noticed is the appearance of bull-killers at the age of Taurus, which then turned into lambs being herded or sacrificed at the end of Aries, with Christ either being shepherd or lamb. Then what does that signify for Pisces? And what for Aquarius?
Is there always an anthropomorphic figure at the beginning of each age, which modifies/kills the former, and then itself degenerates into an object or animal, depending on the sign?
And how does that then relate to the 2nd half of the Great Year, the ascent after Aquarius towards Leo?
Prophecies are always tricky and fickle as fuck, so it's a fools errand, but I feel like I want to be the fool that immerses himself in this idea, even if it leads nowhere. There's a book on this by Julius Schwabe, but I don't know if it's been translated into English, my copy is in German.
But yeah, I do believe that it can be speculated that Aquarius will lead to the utmost dissolution, gradually, tying back to the idea of the grail as the fons, yknow, something that holds all potential and can regenerate.

>>19061507
*at the end of the age of Taurus

>>19061414
Yes but then what binds the place that cannot exist, or the place that is outside, to this place? There must surely be a ground to that, no? That's been my point this whole thread over. The place cannot lie outside of the non-dual. You could only posit that if you distorted the non-dual into something like a container or something particular like that, which is why I kept reiterating that the non-duality is no monad, and that the non-duality itself is not an ontological content and cannot be, becuase all ontology and being and non-being proceed from it. It's an absolute beyond all absolutes and particulars, and it cannot be captured like that. There is nothing outside of it, or sewn into it.

>>19061507
>2nd fish of Pisces
>>19061520
>age of Taurus

>>19061553
Yes, I spoke of those things. :)