To the question, "Why are you a bigot?" ... the true believer says:

"Well, in the 1st Century they said homosexuality was immoral, lightning was an angry god, earthquakes were god's vengeance, leprosy was caused by demons, etc. They said that God informed them about this so it would be wrong to not believe it. That's how we do religion."

Gnosticism -- an inner knowing of spiritual matters -- as long as it respects reality ... is a legit thing in my book. But being an ipso facto, presumptive, axiomatic, self-evident messenger with a given manifest destiny of spieling some orthodoxy on the nature of god. ... not so much.

If the vast majority of people in India are Hindu, the vast majority in Iran are Muslim, the vast majority in America are Christian ... what does that mean about the religions? Doesn't it mean that god isn't behind the belief systems, the culture is? The cultures create the religions and its people believe them. Over and over and over ... no matter the religion.

"Yes, I believe the religion predominant in my society" isn't a badge of morality. It is a default.

You fool, it means God is divided against himself. Part of him wants groupthink, distraction, confusion, and separation. And part of him wants individuation, relationship, and revelation. If God is good, then it all must be redeemed and the former must be in service to the latter.

God killed all the people, women, children, fetuses on earth ... but let Satan be. Is this good with your morality? Take responsibility for the faith: "Yes, killing babies and protecting Satan is good with me. Amen."

Institute of Physics diversity survey. This is ofc unsurprising, pure atheism is rare among scientists. Our friend here is in fact not ostensibly a pure atheist, difficult to know what he rails against - bible literalism? Well it is obvious sacred texts require more subtle reading than being given credit here.

'Observable natural phenomena' excludes many "acceptable" scientific (non)-theories as equally as those shunned by SCIENCE. There is as much if not greater weight of evidence for deluges as there is for say universal common ancestry, for instance.

I agree science is by definition demarcated clearly from religion. Perhaps Fella is arguing with a straw man - the bible literalist who presents his beliefs superceding anything science has to offer - no doubt such folk exist, but it seems a strange target on these pages. The goodFella attacks clumsily "religion" in its entirety, while suggesting science has better answers.

There are however, times when science does hit a brick wall and finds religion lurking. A personal favourite - "inertia is caused by the immutability of God". That's quite literally the "current" understanding.

I confess my absolute novice understanding of this, but I do believe that gnosis means knowledge of God at a deep intimate level. The gnostics were/are Christians. They had/have alternate interpretations of the meanings of Genesis and so on, and many other fairly recently discovered works they believe/d in. To applaud this while dismissing with outright combativeness other interpretations is quite strange to me. The "orthodoxy" in Gnosticism is that the *true* God is unknowable while the creator/workman/demiurge of this Universe is a false divinity, "Ialdaboath" the God of Genesis, who is imperfect hence this world is imperfect. Is this not the same irrationalism?

Quite likely it means those religions, and many others, are ultimately connected and represent aspects of truth. Exoterically even, the Abrahamic religions are hardly disconnected are they.

What about the thousands of religions and gods past and present which were not Abrahamic? Those people believed those religions as a function of tribalism and with no revelation from an actual god behind it. That is the point. This is the nature of religious belief and there is just no reason to exempt the Abrahamic ones.

The official "Gnosticism" sects were are part of early Christianity, yes, but the term "gnosis" uncapitalized commonly refers to a phenomenon of personalized, experiential knowledge as opposed to reasoned, intellectual knowledge. I do find legitimacy to that, again, not as part of any particular official religion, but as a path and experience of being-based, personal experience based, internal knowing based, intuition based ... understanding. Luv that. It is the opposite of clinging to a group orthodoxy and apologizing for it as a way of life.

Because the social self establishes itself in the driver’s seat through the unavoidable socialization of every child, gnosis has to attach itself to organized, social religion and there are two contenders for humanity’s future: (1) Islam or (2) Christianity + secularity. There is no third option in reality.

Gnosticism grew out of the same soil modern Christianity did. Further, you don’t even seem to consider the role of Christianity in your early life on your current connection to gnosticism. You just foolishly assume there is no cause and effect.

Gnosticism clearly enters into the Christian story after Christ goes away and promises to send the spirit of truth to guide his followers.

And in ancient Greece what was gnosis? Maybe a personal, experiential, intuitive knowledge of spiritual mysteries?

Good luck with your mission to resurrect ancient Greece and compete against Christianity and Islam. You will fail.

Yeah the point being Christianity didn't invent the gnostic approach to spirituality, but it is the best part of it or of pretty much any major religion.

Jesus never called himself an inventor. He is a teacher of reality who laid the groundwork like no one else could. His teachings are not optional for anyone serious about truth and reality because he became unified with truth and reality.

How old is this mysterious god of yours?

Listen, there is a part of self which wants to make a final decision that God doesn’t exist. The good steward (refer to my recent thread) does not allow himself to be captured by this. You have allowed yourself to be captured.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those captured in apologetics. You assume that I am one of those people, but you are wrong. It would be clear you are wrong if you weren’t captured. I would not be able to post what I post on this subforum if I were captured by either extreme.

I’ve thrown enough buoys into the water. Recognize you are drowning or don’t. It’s on you. I’m out.

Anyone who wants to find me can find me on X / Twitter. It shouldn’t be difficult to find me.

And they might have disproved the thing about lightning, and the thing about earthquakes, and the leprosy/demon connection, but they haven't disproved that homosexuality is an abomination. So I'm sticking with it! Based on 1st Century beliefs. What's wrong with that?"