The only good Christian is a Gnostic Christian. True or false?

Gnostic Christians also describe ourselves as children of God.

Our ideology of universalism and all ending in heaven treats us that way Christianity, instead, has a dogma that says that only a few will get to heaven with the vast majority of us ending in hell.

Which religion has the better dogma?

If you say Christianity then you are an immoral fool.

Gnostic Christians are not atheists. We are closer to agnostic. The gnostic part of agnostic should have been enough of a hint for you if you could think better than what you showed above.

Regards
DL

 

You hate god. And you have the same time the arrogance to try to tell me you call yourself a child of god? Absurde. What about an orientation in the values of humanity in such a case? There's no need to say "god" and to think "devil".

The Christian religion is not an ideology. And the word for "universal" in the Christian creeds is normally "catholic" - also for well informed protestants. I say sometimes "god is a Catholic".

No comment

How do you survive your own big mouth?

Strange - very, very strange. How do you earn money with your loutish behavior?

 

I find it amusing when non-Christians presume to define "Christian".

Self-styled "Christians" cannot agree on their religion... have not been able to do so for two millennia... but outsiders can do it in a snap.

Pretentious, much??

 

What God do I hate?

I do not believe in your genocidal murderer Yahweh.

If you do not hate that immoral construct and love him, tell us why?

Regards
DL

 

No comment

 

I can relate to all of this. For it is very similiar to what happened to me. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and I mean if the church doors were open, my family had me in church. From being a small child carried around by a mother until I joined the military after high school. I was well conditioned into being a fundamentalist christian. Only after military service, and upon entering a state university here did I run across something other than Prot theology. And I ran across it when I decided that I should actually read the complete bible from genesis to revelations, since what I knew of the bible and christianity was taught to me by sunday school teachers and preachers. Perhaps I should read it for myself? And I did, twice. The second time I read it I wanted to make sure that the understanding that I personally had arrived at was actually sensible, and coherent. For I had arrived at a totally different story than the one I had been taught in church.

So, upon reading it the second time and taking much more time to do that, as I thought and pondered, I became convinced that Christ was the Christ of the Gnostics and not the Christ of orthodoxy. But at the time I did not know what gnostics were, or that they had ever existed. Later on in my reading when I discovered the gnostics and the gospel of thomas, it matched almost perfectly to the understanding that I got by reading the bible twice. What is given in the gospel of thomas, those sayings and teachings of christ, is the same narrative that I saw in the 4 gospels of the NT. And this narrative was not the narrative that organized orthodox christianity is grounded in and based on. It is understandable why the gnostics were seen as heretics and a threat to organized orthodox christianity. For there would have been little place for human beings being a religious authority in a religion founded around the gospel of thomas. There would have been no need for religious authority exercised by man, who has always loved positions of authority. For if you followed the path christ laid out for man, a life comprised of seeking an inner kingdom of god, which when found is the only real salvation, this would have created a totally different kind of church. You would be similar to the indian sanyasis, who are in the world seeking becoming one with Brahmin. Spiritual pilgrims, trekking the consciousness of human beings, seeking inwardly that kingdom christ spoke of, and suggested we seek. A follower of christ.

This understanding of christ makes him appear to be similar to other avatars in history, like the buddha. And finding the kingdom within analogous to enlightenment. People who are in this world but not of it. For the world is unenlightened, or as christians would say, the people of the world are lost, in sin, etc. A person who is seeking the inner kingdom, that very seeking make him or her in the world but not of it. They are seeking something else that is missing from the world. And since it is missing from the world, we have had perpetual wars for our entire history. And great evil, the likely suspects, greed, hatred, avarice, violence, and so on. And all of these evil things come forth from man's ego, his self image, the ideas and beliefs he has about himself, and the demand for self gratification, both physical and pschological. Gratification is not a bad thing, but when either kind hurts other people, it becomes a wrongness, or a sin. And most sin is involved with some kind of gratification. To kill someone you hate deeply is gratifying to the murderer. To steal from another because the object you stole will bring some kind of gratification, hurts another person, and it was driven by your own ego wanting to be gratified.

And supposedly finding the kingdom within or becoming enlightened ends the power of the ego to affect thoughts and actions which in it gratification hurts others, and commits sin. So such a state of consciousness is described very well in by christ who compared it to a rebirth, which happens after the death of the ego, the perpetrator of sin, as it pursues pleasure.

 

Well put One Mind.

Regards
DL

 

Apparently not often enough if we look at what is happening to our environment and wildlife.

 

There are no good Christians.

That's the reason to practice Christianity, because if you were good, there wouldn't be a reason to bother with it.

 

So you would not live by the Golden Rule. Ok.

You might seek a better ideology from the one you follow.

Regards
DL

 

Nobody lives by the golden rule. They just make an attempt and fail to varying degrees.

 

I have known people who lived by it. You discern if they do or not by their actions and human relationships. Not many mind you, but a few. All had very weak egos or opinions of their "self". Humble, no arrogance.

 

You have "ears to hear". It is an innate awareness. It is not a learned sensitivity. Most people lack your ability to hear and see what is there to be heard and seen.

Correct. I can recommend writings of Hindu and Buddhist "seers" (enlightened beings) for anyone who is interested.

Exactly. But be clear that being aware of "the kingdom within" is not yet enlightenment. Enlightenment is the discovery and actual realization of Self as infinite, eternal, and unrelated to body and mind. This discovery is the direct, immediate experience of 'IS' as Self. It is "oneness with Christ" and so it is the experience of "I, Christ". And once it is found, there is no going back to the old daily belief of self as body and mind. Always thereafter one sees Self as 'IS'. And there is an experience beyond that too. It is the experience of "I and my Father are one" only in that state that cannot be said nor thought because it would be like thinking "I and ME are one" and that is seen as nonsensical.

Be careful here, because seeking is not enlightenment. Only Finding is enlightenment. It is a mistake to see the awareness of something greater than 'self' within as "enlightenment" just as it is a mistake when a Christian discovers a strong inner devotion and love of Jesus as evidence of being "born again". When you become enlightened, it will hit you like a freight train and there will be no mistaking it. You will KNOW as a direct, immediate experience that you are not what you had thought you were. This is the difference between "knowing" and "Knowing". The first happens in mind. The second is Being, itself.

Yes. First the death of ego happens daily in meditation. This is "I die daily". Later, it remains even after the meditation session ends and persists through the day. This is being "born again of the Spirit". In this state, as one walks through one's day, the full awareness remains as Self and Self observes the body walking and doing, much like watching another person. The body and mind do what they will but they draw their values and ethics from the power of the Self as they draw their life and vitality from Self. Hence, the body cannot sin. And the awareness of "I" simply observes this strange other 'self' that thinks it is the only self, and it is observed as an odd, separate event.

This what the mystics of all religions teach.

 

I did not say it exist enough Christians.

 

Jesus:
Yesterday, today, and always, in this world:

A Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of offense.

He is spiritualized to the complete loss of His humanity, or humanized to the loss of His deity. Deceivers and heretics constantly distort His words and mission. They stumble over the Rock, and someday it will crush them.

Col2:8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 9For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form..
...
18Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

The Head. That is what matters. But the deceivers and enemies of Jesus do all they can to minimize, spiritualize, and trivialize the Head. They are detached from the body, and are dead to the Head.

 

Possibly, but at least they make the attempt to be moral while you do not.

I see many trying to live that way but I am not surprised that you do not.

Regards
DL

 

I liked your post but do not agree with this bit because of how I, as a Gnostic Christian, think.

We liken enlightenment to a treasure and vision.

Gnostic Jesus was questioned as to what sees the vision?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/mary.html

The Saviour answered and said, 'He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind which [is] between the two - that is [what] sees the vision...'

For where the mind is, there is the treasure.

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The treasure is in your mind or in modern terms your mind that produces your consciousness.

Regards
DL

 

I agree with much of this.

Who is distorting our view more than perpetually lying clergy from most mainstream religions?



Regards
DL

 

You added that which is in bold according to how you "see" it. Of course a vision is seen in the mind. For the Self, the vision seen in the mind is Being. It is "IS". Or for the human mode of thinking and knowing, I could cheat and say for the Self it is "I AM". But this is only reflected in the mind. And a reflection is not the "real thing". It is a copy. It is one step removed. So while Self "IS", it is the mind that sees that vision of the Self. The Self understands nothing. Hence, the vision is not seen through the soul or the spirit. And in fact speaking of "the Self" is also artificial. If this mouth were to say to you "I am infinite" it is a lie. But "I" am, indeed, infinite. So, I, who am there before consciousness am not concerned in any way about all that happens in consciousness. There is a state beyond forgetting and remembering. As Rumi wrote, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there."

Or as found in The Gospel of Thomas (Nag Hammadi Library) Yeshua says "When you strip naked without being ashamed and take your clothes and put them under your feet like small children and trample them, then you will see the child of the living one and you will not be afraid."
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom-meyer.html

 

Again, I like your post but am not sure I agree with this bit because my consciousness, after apotheosis, and touching what they call the all, or I am FPOV I think, is concerned but is only of a minimal help for us as it seems to want us to develop our own thinking and gives us a vague outline and not a map.

Otherwise, it is nice for me to see that we are on the same page.

Regards
DL

 

I'm not sure what you're saying.

 

Agree completely that the seeking of the inner kingdom is not the same mind that exists after the discovered. The discovery itself is a revolution in consciousness. A rebirth as voiced by christ is a good term for it. But there are others. I only meant that the mind that is actively seeking, is of a different quality of a mind than a mind fully emerged in ignorance. The activity of this seeking is its own quality. For me it introduced some order and a different quality of awareness that serious inner inquiry seems to introduce.

For me, the dying to the ego from moment to moment is a state of meditation. This is a different quality of consciousness than what is experienced in an ego driven being, who isn't even aware of the nature of this ego. I used to spend lots of time just watching my own ego and its movement. Of course, which begs the question, "who" is watching. But discovering this division is also a part of the path. We are divided beings, inwardly. The me, and the not me. The controller and the controlled. The thinker and the thought. I submit these are illusions in some sense. And they create conflict. Conflict destroys clarity. And creates many other problems.

 

"Who are you? - And if so, how many?" You are not able to watch yourself in a moment when you are not watching yourself. So what do you really know about yourself? What do your ideas about you tell you about you? But what knows god about you?

 

True that the seeking requires a new perspective and produces new thoughts and perspectives, but this is not to be confused with Realization.

The ego may modify its interests and strategies, but it remain ego until it is seen for what it is by an actual, direct, immediate experience in consciousness. If you are fully convince in a dream that you cannot run from the monster, you remain unable to run and frightened until you awake and know reality. Once you awaken and know it was a dream, you cannot ever live again in the belief that you cannot run from that monster. The dream is then known as a dream. When you awaken to enlightenment you Know the ego is not related, connected, or part of you. It is seen as alien. For you, this is the death of he ego though it remains for the body.

True.

Keep watching. See the creature operating of itself, apart from Self. Be detached. Be the watcher. The watcher is not divided.