I've been bored lately and have kind of gone down a Youtube/Internet rabbit hole on the subject of Gnosticism. I've barely scratched the surface, but holy shit it's pretty wild. I've always know about the Gnostic Gospels, i.e. the gospels the early church deemed heretical and threw out when they were deciding Bible canon, but never really examined them or studied them beyond surface level cable documentaries. Again, I've barely scratched the surface, but some of the stuff is pretty fascinating. The Gnostic story of creation alone reads more like something from Hinduism than the book of Genesis with way, way more anime and David Bowie. Reading/listening to it though, it actually sounds like a description of the big bang, ironically. Oh and God is a woman and also a man, according to Gnostics.
For those who don't know what the Gnostic Gospels are or who the Gnostics were, basically they were some of the earliest Christian/Jewish communities, but were much more into mysticism and enlightenment than traditional organized religion or dogma and actually believe the Old Testament God was evil and Jesus actually came into being to reveal this to us and to show us that we all basically have a piece of divine spark within us...or something....and that the Old Testament God was basically just jealous of our divinity and wanted to trap us here in the physical world. They also believe that the real god, which we are a part of and will return to, is this androgynous male/female super being that exists outside of time and space.
A lot of their writings and gospels were super popular back in the day during the early days after Christ's death, but they were branded heretics by the powers that be later on. I've always found it weird that there are only four official gospels in the Bible. That's because in like 300 A.D., Constantine threw a bunch of church leaders in a room and told them to basically decide on what the Bible was supposed to be. Instead of including all of the Gospels from all of the disciples, they just decided Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were canon and everything else was glorified fan fiction.
For the record I grew up Catholic, but stopped going to church after high school. I only just recently started going to a Lutheran Church with my wife a few years ago (Lutherans are super liberal these days). I've always been drawn, though, to aspects of eastern religion like Buddhism and Taoism in regards to stuff like mindfulness, mediation, and the search for enlightenment. Gnosticism is like a mish mash of those eastern religions with a little bit of Hinduism combined with traditional Christianity.
So this isn't just a lame wall of text, here are two videos I found that explain this stuff way better than me. It really is super, super wild some of this stuff.
For those who don't know what the Gnostic Gospels are or who the Gnostics were, basically they were some of the earliest Christian/Jewish communities, but were much more into mysticism and enlightenment than traditional organized religion or dogma and actually believe the Old Testament God was evil and Jesus actually came into being to reveal this to us and to show us that we all basically have a piece of divine spark within us...or something....and that the Old Testament God was basically just jealous of our divinity and wanted to trap us here in the physical world. They also believe that the real god, which we are a part of and will return to, is this androgynous male/female super being that exists outside of time and space.
A lot of their writings and gospels were super popular back in the day during the early days after Christ's death, but they were branded heretics by the powers that be later on. I've always found it weird that there are only four official gospels in the Bible. That's because in like 300 A.D., Constantine threw a bunch of church leaders in a room and told them to basically decide on what the Bible was supposed to be. Instead of including all of the Gospels from all of the disciples, they just decided Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were canon and everything else was glorified fan fiction.
For the record I grew up Catholic, but stopped going to church after high school. I only just recently started going to a Lutheran Church with my wife a few years ago (Lutherans are super liberal these days). I've always been drawn, though, to aspects of eastern religion like Buddhism and Taoism in regards to stuff like mindfulness, mediation, and the search for enlightenment. Gnosticism is like a mish mash of those eastern religions with a little bit of Hinduism combined with traditional Christianity.
So this isn't just a lame wall of text, here are two videos I found that explain this stuff way better than me. It really is super, super wild some of this stuff.
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