Gnostic Atheism

[PRmerger]

Worse things have happened in the course of human history, and you probably take for granted the good that’s come from them. It’s best to stay focused on the big picture, and not get lost in the momentary pain of breathing. It’s all for the glory of God in the end.

“Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains.”

- Liber AL vel Legis, II:9​

“Everything that is true is beautiful. The only vanity under the sun is error and falsehood. Even pain and death are beautiful, because they are the work which purifies and the transfiguration which delivers.”

- Eliphas Levi, The Great Secret​

Not sure how this answers my question?

Is it correct to say that when you say that all is existence is joy, it’s a qualified “all”?

Yes?

 

[PRmerger]

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know I enjoy all of existance, even the parts that hurt.

So you would teach the woman whose daughter just got killed by her husband for being raped that this is “pure joy”?

That is what your religious tradition upholds?

.I am a member of Ordo Templi Orientis and an ordained deacon in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, and we teach that all existence is pure joy and that no part of the universe is corrupt. On the contrary, everything in the universe is considered holy to us. We have nothing to do with pessimism.

 

[PRmerger]

No. That would be rude.

Then you need to retract your assertion, no?

(And please note, we are talking about teaching here, not praxis. What you would actually tell this woman is irrelevant. What you originally posited was that your tradition teaches that this woman’s intense suffering and misery is “pure joy”.)

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t need to retract my assertion.

Just so we’re clear, so everyone here can read this:

You are saying that this murder and sexual assault is “pure joy”?

(I think it would probably be more noble–and logical–to just acknowledge that you did indeed mean a qualified “all”.)

I am a member of Ordo Templi Orientis and an ordained deacon in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, and we teach that all existence is pure joy and that no part of the universe is corrupt. On the contrary, everything in the universe is considered holy to us. We have nothing to do with pessimism.

 

[PRmerger]

I meant what I said.

“Thou then who hast trials and troubles, rejoice because of them, for in them is Strength, and by their means is a pathway opened unto that Light.”

- Liber Librae​

Now, the above is very Catholic.

But that’s quite different from what you* originally *proposed.

I am a member of Ordo Templi Orientis and an ordained deacon in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, and we teach that all existence is pure joy and that no part of the universe is corrupt. On the contrary, everything in the universe is considered holy to us. We have nothing to do with pessimism.

 

[PRmerger]

I meant what I said.

“Thou then who hast trials and troubles, rejoice because of them, for in them is Strength, and by their means is a pathway opened unto that Light.”

- Liber Librae​

It takes an astonishing amount of mental gymnastics to be able to look at something brutal and heinous as what I cited earlier and call it “pure joy”.

 

[PRmerger]

All it takes is a love and acceptance of God’s creation.

Very Catholic, this!

 

[PRmerger]

93
93 93/93

Whut???

 

[PRmerger]

All it takes is a love and acceptance of God’s creation.

Very Catholic, this!

And just for clarification, my “All it takes is a love and acceptance of God’s creation” is a qualified “all”

 

[PRmerger]

I suppose the astonishing amount of mental gymnastics don’t hurt.

No, Tsuzuki.

We want to conform our views to truth.

Not try to make these gyrations to attempt to have truth conform to our wants.

That’s the definition of mental illness.

 

[Vico]

The origins of gnosticism are as diverse as the groups themselves. The early Church just lumped them together for convenience. They were as related then as the modern forms are now.

The Church addressed contrary doctrines, sometimes associated with a person, such as in Vatican I Canon 4:
4. If anyone says that finite things, both corporal and spiritual, or at any rate, spiritual, emanated from the divine substance; or that the divine essence, by the manifestation and evolution of itself becomes all things or, finally, that God is a universal or indefinite being which by self determination establishes the totality of things distinct in genera, species and individuals: let him be anathema.

The Catchism lists some of the contrary teachings:

285 Since the beginning the Christian faith has been challenged by responses to the question of origins that differ from its own. Ancient religions and cultures produced many myths concerning origins. * Some philosophers have said that everything is God, that the world is God, or that the development of the world is the development of God (Pantheism). * Others have said that the world is a necessary emanation arising from God and returning to him. * Still others have affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked, in permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). * According to some of these conceptions, the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism). * Some admit that the world was made by God, but as by a watch-maker who, once he has made a watch, abandons it to itself (Deism). * Finally, others reject any transcendent origin for the world, but see it as merely the interplay of matter that has always existed (Materialism).
All these attempts bear witness to the permanence and universality of the question of origins. This inquiry is distinctively human.

 

[PRmerger]

66. Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in working! Thrill with the joy of life & death! Ah! thy death shall be lovely: whoso seeth it shall be glad. Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Come! lift up thine heart & rejoice! We are one; we are none.
67. Hold! Hold! Bear up in thy rapture; fall not in swoon of the excellent kisses!
68. Harder! Hold up thyself! Lift thine head! breathe not so deep— die!
69. Ah! Ah! What do I feel? Is the word exhausted?
70. There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein!
71. But exceed! exceed!
72. Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine— and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous!— death is the crown of all.
73. Ah! Ah! Death! Death! thou shalt long for death. Death is forbidden, o man, unto thee.
74. The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its glory. He that lives long & desires death much is ever the King among the Kings.

- Liber AL vel Legis, II:66-74​

“The splendour of truth shines forth in all the works of the Creator and, in a special way, in man, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26). Truth enlightens man’s intelligence and shapes his freedom, leading him to know and love the Lord. Hence the Psalmist prays: “Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord” (Ps 4:6).”–Pope JPII
The Splendor of Truth

 

[Vonsalza]

Somewhat to the OP, as people of all faiths require “faith” itself as a stand-in for a lack of factual certainty, virtually everyone is at least somewhat technically “agnostic” in their religious view.

Ergo the modern atheist semantic of “gnostic” versus “agnostic” belief is immaterial and irrelevant. You believe “there is”, “there isn’t” or you don’t take a stand either way. It’s a pretty tight trichotomy.

 

[TheCuriousCat]

The most curious fact is that atheists demand proof for God but are clueless as to proving there is no God.

Hmm, believers think that God is an all-knowing, all-powerful, invisible, non-tactile, inaudible, incorporeal, non-physical, timeless, indefinable, being that only reveals himself when he chooses, whose ways are mysterious and require faith. Who exists beyond this universe. Also, to change your mind about his existence would put your immortal soul in danger of an eternity of suffering. Not to mention that most believers will say that either nothing will shake their faith or the only thing that will is proving that the resurrection didn’t happen. Which, short of a time machine, is impossible. Craig even says the time machine wouldn’t shake his faith.

You find it curious I can’t disprove him, eh? It’s the ultimate shell game. People have spent centuries making sure it is impossible to disprove. That doesn’t make it true. You can’t diprove I don’t have a pooka for a friend, or that I was a cat in a past life. Doesn’t make it true.

 

[Vonsalza]

Hmm, believers think that God is an all-knowing, all-powerful, invisible, non-tactile, inaudible, incorporeal, non-physical, timeless, indefinable, being that only reveals himself when he chooses, whose ways are mysterious and require faith. Who exists beyond this universe. Also, to change your mind about his existence would put your immortal soul in danger of an eternity of suffering. Not to mention that most believers will say that either nothing will shake their faith or the only thing that will is proving that the resurrection didn’t happen. Which, short of a time machine, is impossible. Craig even says the time machine wouldn’t shake his faith.

You find it curious I can’t disprove him, eh? It’s the ultimate shell game. People have spent centuries making sure it is impossible to disprove. That doesn’t make it true. You can’t diprove I don’t have a pooka for a friend, or that I was a cat in a past life. Doesn’t make it true.

What is equally important to realize from a purely rational perspective is that it also doesn’t make it demonstrably false.

 

[Vico]

Hmm, believers think that God is an all-knowing, all-powerful, invisible, non-tactile, inaudible, incorporeal, non-physical, timeless, indefinable, being that only reveals himself when he chooses, whose ways are mysterious and require faith. Who exists beyond this universe. Also, to change your mind about his existence would put your immortal soul in danger of an eternity of suffering. Not to mention that most believers will say that either nothing will shake their faith or the only thing that will is proving that the resurrection didn’t happen. Which, short of a time machine, is impossible. Craig even says the time machine wouldn’t shake his faith.

You find it curious I can’t disprove him, eh? It’s the ultimate shell game. People have spent centuries making sure it is impossible to disprove. That doesn’t make it true. You can’t diprove I don’t have a pooka for a friend, or that I was a cat in a past life. Doesn’t make it true.

And also the divine Son of God Incarnate with rational soul, and visible, tactile, audible, corporeal, physical human body.

 

[PRmerger]

Also, to change your mind about his existence would put your immortal soul in danger of an eternity of suffering.

Well, it’s only logical that if God exists, and God is offering you a chance to be with Him, and you say NOPE, that hell is what you desire for yourself.

Not to mention that most believers will say that either nothing will shake their faith or the only thing that will is proving that the resurrection didn’t happen.

I would not believe in Christ as the 2nd Person of the Godhead if the resurrection didn’t happen.

And I wouldn’t believe in God if you could prove He doesn’t exist, such as by offering some sort of evidence for His nonexistence, or by offering some rational argument to show that God is a contradiction.

Which, short of a time machine, is impossible.

Or if the bones of Christ could be presented. That would prove the resurrection didn’t happen, right?

You find it curious I can’t disprove him, eh? It’s the ultimate shell game. People have spent centuries making sure it is impossible to disprove.

I don’t understand this statement. How have people spent centuries makint sure it is impossible to disprove?

 

[TheCuriousCat]

And also the divine Son of God Incarnate with rational soul, and visible, tactile, audible, corporeal, physical human body.

That there was an actual person named Yeshua living during the time of Pilot who had a brother named James and a following of people who believed he rose from the dead, yeah that is something that can be proved or disproved in principle. If I were to say those things weren’t true, you could legitimately demand I provide evidence to back up my claim.

Demanding proof that he is not God Incarnate is another shell game. That the story is internally inconsistent, violates the laws of physics and everything we know about biology is just swept aside with the claim that it is a miracle. (People can’t walk on water? That just proves he is God.) It is impossible to disprove by design. Prove that the Dalai Llama isn’t the reincarnation of Buddha. You can’t, but once again it doesn’t make it true.

 

[PRmerger]

That relies on some assumptions that aren’t universally agreed upon.

If God exists, and if it’s the Christian God…yes, those are assumptions for this argument.

But if those are ceded, then the logic is incontrovertible.

 

[PRmerger]

That the story is internally inconsistent, violates the laws of physics and everything we know about biology is just swept aside with the claim that it is a miracle.

Well, first you have to concede the argument that God exists.

If God exists, then, yes, God could incarnate and then rise from the dead, yes?