all 32 comments

[–]IkeConn 7 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 5 fun -  (4 children)

The "g" is silent.

[–]jet199 6 insightful - 6 fun6 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 6 fun -  (2 children)

How do you gnow?

[–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 7 fun3 insightful - 6 fun4 insightful - 7 fun -  (0 children)

That gnome's prognouns are gnim/gnir.

[–]IkeConn 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Well just the other day I bought a pfabulous pfaucet with a pfunny name.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Nice one. You surprise me.

[–]Vulptex 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It's obviously true. I mean I'm not an actual Knower, who believes salvation is attained through knowledge. But the standard these days is to call anything that's not 100% orthodox, or anything remotely critical of the world, nature, humans, or society, "Gnostic".

The Matrix is real.

Don't go into the white light reincarnation trap.

Jesus hinted at this, much to the dismay of most of the church, no matter the denomination.

[–]EternalSunset 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I do find it very interesting. The idea of a creator that is either evil or flawed in some way is one that I find much more plausible than the one of the mainstream religions, in lieu of the actual world we live in. The idea of a deeply hidden world of knowledge that reveals the underlying truths of reality always appealed to me as well.

With that said. I certainly do not agree with the whole of it though; I do not believe that one can 'ascend' beyond this world by grasping some truth anymore than one can achieve nirvana through the Buddhist ego death, I do not believe that the problem of suffering is one that must be solved in some transcendental 'true' world, I do not believe that our existence is fundamentally shrouded in illusions, I do not believe that god created the world just so that the reality of things could exist only outside of it and, most of all, I do not believe in Christianism or any religion.

[–]Airbus320 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Mostly gnonsense.

[–]StillLessons 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The discovery of the gnostic texts illustrates the classic development that occurs in any religion - sorting. Different aspects of the original source separate out and people sort themselves into those who follow one aspect or another. The fundamentalists who believe their way is the only way are narrow-minded; there will be fundamentalists on both sides of the divide. The closest we can get to a true picture of a founder must account for all streams that descended from that beginning point. Even then, truth? That's a pretty tall order.

[–]jet199 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (15 children)

The world isn't evil, there is no better reality waiting for you out there. If a spiritual universe exists it's made up of as much bad and good as this one.

[–]Vulptex 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

The world is absolutely evil, in fact its entire order is evil. It thrives on evil dominion and power. What torments the losers suffer are irrelevant to its end goal. Everything is a fight to the death or enslavement, and even the winners waste their whole lives slaving away to the elements. Everyone is deep in denial trying to redeem it. And a normal day for most people on this planet is probably more hellish than you or I can imagine, and our own lives aren't miserable enough as it is. Just because there's a hint of good every now and then (mostly to give us false hope) doesn't make the world not bad.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

People are evil, the world is merely chaos.

[–]Vulptex 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

The world is evil and people are evil because they're of the world.

[–]DirewolfGhost 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Evil is life is chaos and death is order is good.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't know why everyone wants to be weighed down by a heavy painful sack of meat.

[–]DirewolfGhost 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hell is more fun. Sure there is pain, but only through limitation can we understand the two sides of any coin. Best to ride the line. At least that's what the taoists came up with. Losing weight can help with the heavy and painful part of existence.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

I'd consider the world itself to be neutral, people committing evil acts make the world seem evil. If people were less evil, the world would be more pleasant. Except for spiders, fuck those eight legged assholes.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

People are evil because the world is evil. Humans aren't the exception, look at all other animals. Heck even outer space functions the same way. Evil is natural, because the world is evil and nature is evil. Why do you think life is 99% bad? And yet everyone tries to act like it's the best thing ever and they'd do it again and again! Oh and that's exactly how they're supposed to think, because then they'll be easy to convince to do it again. True the world itself doesn't have a mind to be evil, but its current order was sure as hell designed by someone with evil intentions. Like the architect.

The world isn't evil solely because of other people. For example I'd still be a talentless, miserable, lazy, lethargic piece of shit afflicted with 1839507968317295050 mental diseases. People would still get hurt. Bad luck would still happen. Unlucky ones would still get eaten alive. So you see how the world itself is bad and not merely ruined by humans.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I disagree. The world, outer space, rocks, are incapable of being good or bad. They exist. Galaxies being created and destroyed over and over, this is just natural events which have no ill intent.

Animals do what animals do mostly. A bird fetching a worm to feed it's young is not even, nor a lion hunting a gazelle. Times when we determine animals to be evil are more often down to human stupidity or misunderstanding. A dog biting a child is not evil if it felt threatened. We wouldn't put the dog down for being evil, we would do so due to it presenting a danger. It's not to say animals can't be malicious, but beyond our civilization they mostly do what they do to survive.

Evil is intentionally wicked, decisively immoral. Morality itself, being of course a human construct in the eyes of a non-religious man such as myself. The world, the universe, animals cannot be held to the standard of human morality, which too is subject to cultural differences. It was not immoral in the eyes of Islam to blow themselves up to murder innocent bystanders.

People are evil. The world is sometimes just really fucking shitty, there is a difference.

[–]Vulptex 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Well the world is evil by design, because it's run by evil people.

Evil is intentionally wicked, decisively immoral.

No one does that. Everyone thinks of themselves as good. But are they making others suffer for personal gain? Even if it's "jusitifed".

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Society is evil by design because it is run by evil people. The world remains neutral, as does nature.

Indirect suffering as a result of decisions made for personal gain is not evil, it is unfortunate unless the suffering was intended in malice.

We cannot look at every action or inaction as being simply good or evil, some decisions are morally justified and have unfortunate consequences, but are necessary. The two patient moral puzzle springs to mind. If you can only save one, who do you save? Or save neither and be damned with them all. Each decision has consequences but are not necessarily evil.

[–]Vulptex 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

That's not an excuse for cases that aren't dilemmas. And we rarely make the right choice because nature is evil.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

It's like solipsism. How would you disprove it? How would you argue that there is a world outside the individual if all the evidence you give is part of the very world they deny exists?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

You can't prove beliefs. This dilemma is as old as logic itself. Pascal went very, very desperate and depressive over it, but "found" something relatively plausible anyway.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You can't always prove them but you can rationally argue for them. Some beliefs are well founded and other beliefs aren't.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nowadays, every "non-productive" time spent has to follow economic considerations. That is why developing a real understanding for ethic rationales (e.g.) went out of focus for a lot of people.

Imho this is the reason why Gnosticism was "simplified" to the Classical Christian Religion the same as Hinduism with its endless facets was "simplified" to Buddhism. To shorten the time needed for a basic understanding of it.

[–]Newzok 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's a perspective. I don't care about the flawed god idea; the practicality of it all is that you can achieve gnosis. Ie mystical experience, direct experience with g_d. The scriptures are fun to read.

[–]neovulcan 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I am a sun worshipper, but I don't pray to the sun. You know who I pray to? Joe Pesci.