Are religions that use military power instead of moral authority and persuasion

[Greatest I am]

Are religions that use military power instead of moral authority and persuasion to convert us, worthy of us?

I was reading of my Gnostic Christian history, --- which grew itself without violence and with moral authority, --- and noted that both Christianity and Islam have both grown themselves through military conquest as compared to moral authority gained by persuasion.

We have had to suffer many Holy Wars, Inquisitions and jihads instead of those religions winning us over by good deeds and a better moral code.

Both Islam and Christianity say they respect Jesus and he said that we would recognize his people by their good deed, not war, so I think that Jesus would condemn both Christianity and especially Islam, given that they are both homophobic and misogynous religions who refuse to grant gays and women full equality. Christianity is slowly moving to equality while Islam is not.

Further, most religious laws have been bested by secular humanist laws, thanks to equality provisions and have already rejected the laws of those immoral Gods and their religions.

Given that violence instead of a better moral code has been used to grow Christianity and Islam, should moral people reject both Islam and Christianity as unfit to convert us to their religions?

Regards
DL

http://bigthink.com/videos/jelani-cobb-on-military-vs-moral-power-2

[Greatest I am]

Christianity went a good three centuries without the use of violence to spread the faith.  All of the conversion to Christianity in recent history has been peaceful.

So a few years of doing the right thing eliminates centuries of murder.

Ok.

Let's hope God is as forgiving as you are.

Our courts sure would not be as they prefer justice be done.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Are religions that use military power instead of moral authority and persuasion to convert us, worthy of us?

I was reading of my Gnostic Christian history, --- which grew itself without violence and with moral authority, --- and noted that both Christianity and Islam have both grown themselves through military conquest as compared to moral authority gained by persuasion.

We have had to suffer many Holy Wars, Inquisitions and jihads instead of those religions winning us over by good deeds and a better moral code.

Both Islam and Christianity say they respect Jesus and he said that we would recognize his people by their good deed, not war, so I think that Jesus would condemn both Christianity and especially Islam, given that they are both homophobic and misogynous religions who refuse to grant gays and women full equality. Christianity is slowly moving to equality while Islam is not.

Further, most religious laws have been bested by secular humanist laws, thanks to equality provisions and have already rejected the laws of those immoral Gods and their religions.

Given that violence instead of a better moral code has been used to grow Christianity and Islam, should moral people reject both Islam and Christianity as unfit to convert us to their religions?

Regards
DL

http://bigthink.com/videos/jelani-cobb-on-military-vs-moral-power-2

Let's be honest, if the various strands of Gnostic Christianity had gotten popular enough to be associated with imperial or monarchical power, they would have been enamored of military force just as any other faith.

So that excuses all the murders that Christianity and Islam are responsible for and makes them good religions. Ok.

BTW, Gnostic mystery schools where quite popular and widespread. That is why it took centuries for Christianity to reduce us to what we are today.

We are presently growing while Christianity is shrinking.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Also, if I recall correctly, Gnostic groups like the Paulicans did conquer territory outside of their "homelands". I don't know if they force-converted anyone, but some Gnostics were not adverse to military force.

We certainly did take over territory but I have yet to read an account of our using force to do so.

Please show where and when we were adverse to using military force other than when defending ourselves against Christians.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Christianity went a good three centuries without the use of violence to spread the faith.  All of the conversion to Christianity in recent history has been peaceful.

So a few years of doing the right thing eliminates centuries of murder.

Ok.

Let's hope God is as forgiving as you are.

Our courts sure would not be as they prefer justice be done.

Regards
DL

Christianity certainly has a better record than atheism, if you look at the 20th century.

Look again for the first time so that people will not just think you are lying or talking through your anal orifice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94f2h-5TvbM&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdtwTeBPYQA

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

You have a good point. While previous religions used both moral authority and military power, it would be best if religion was not spread by military power, for violence and force are degrading. It is even more grotesque than the nihilistic violence of say, Genghis Khan, for it is evil cloaked in the hypocrisy of righteousness, rather than an honest domination. That being said, is Gnostic Christianity not still a form of Christianity?

(I have no right to watch videos right now)

Gnostic Christianity is not at all like Christianity although our myths were written when no one read their scriptures literally. They, like the Christian myth are full of supernatural while Gnostic Christians do not hold any supernatural beliefs.

We are a Universalist religion that cannot abide homophobia and misogyny as they go against the notion of equality of all souls.

We also see Yahweh as a vile demiurge who always seems to kill when he could just as easily cure those he thinks defective. Especially the babies and children.

We are demonized by Christians and others who see Yahweh as a good God and not the genocidal son murdering demiurge that Gnostic Christians see.

That is basically why Christianity tried to annihilate us when Constantine gave them political power.

They too like to kill instead of converting by good arguments.

Gnostic Christianity is quite an all inclusive moral ideology as compared to the discriminations of Christianity and Islam.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

You have a good point. While previous religions used both moral authority and military power, it would be best if religion was not spread by military power, for violence and force are degrading. It is even more grotesque than the nihilistic violence of say, Genghis Khan, for it is evil cloaked in the hypocrisy of righteousness, rather than an honest domination. That being said, is Gnostic Christianity not still a form of Christianity?

(I have no right to watch videos right now)

I would consider Gnosticism to have less in common with Nicene Christianity than Mormonism. Make of that what you will.

Indeed.

Seeking wisdom through Gnosis beats going into intellectual dissonance by believing all kinds of supernatural garbage.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Alex

I am aware that Gnostic Christianity is not mainstream.

It should be as the morality we follow is quite superior to what the mainstream offers.

I E. We are not homophobic and misogynous and believe in full equality for all.

In fact, this Gnostic Christian believes that the law of the sea, as it pertains to putting women and children first, should be applied on land as well.

That was normal and natural in ancient days and did not even have to be articulated but it seems that today, men have forgotten where their duty lies.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

If by "we" you mean just yourself

No. I mean Gnostic Christians. Our creed ties equality to righteousness.

"The righteousness of God is a kind of sharing along with equality.

http://gnosis.org/library/ephip.htm

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

What you call "Gnostic Christianity" is just your very own theological views and I don't think the reflect the views of many self-called Gnostic Christians

You have canvased us Gnostic Christians have you?

Link me up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1PDxeUynA

We all create our own view of God. That is what Jesus taught us to do. Write his laws in our hearts. Gnostic Christians just do not idol worship their God nor let him subvert our freedom to think. Unlike sheeple.

Tell me where in the bible Jesus teaches Christians to be homophobic and misogynous the way Christianity has ended up being?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Shouldn't Gnostics be just as disgusted by homosexuality as they are by heterosexuality?

What a strange thing to say.

What ever gave you the idea that we were disgusted by heterosexuals?

Most of us are just as most in the rank and file are. Why would our own natures disgust us?

We are also not disgusted by gays as they are following their natures just as heterosexuals are.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

You have canvased us Gnostic Christians have you?

Yes. They've all been dead for well over a thousand years.

Not so. I think you should refine your research methods. Or at least get some.

We are not mainstream but a good 25% of the world are free thinkers and that is what we are and the numbers are growing daily.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Shouldn't Gnostics be just as disgusted by homosexuality as they are by heterosexuality?

What a strange thing to say.

What ever gave you the idea that we were disgusted by heterosexuals?

Most of us are just as most in the rank and file are. Why would our own natures disgust us?

We are also not disgusted by gays as they are following their natures just as heterosexuals are.

Regards
DL

If you don't look down on sexuality, then you aren't a real Gnostic.

I don't know where you are getting such weird ideas.

Link me up.

We embrace our sexuality as that is what keeps the human race from going extinct.

I don't know your drug of choice but switch quickly before you lose all your reasoning ability.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

You have canvased us Gnostic Christians have you?

Yes. They've all been dead for well over a thousand years.

Not so. I think you should refine your research methods. Or at least get some.

We are not mainstream but a good 25% of the world are free thinkers and that is what we are and the numbers are growing daily.

Regards
DL

I don't understand the relation between freethinkers and gnostics

Gnostic Christians are perpetual seekers after God. God as described as the ancients did, which is basically the best rules and laws to live life by.

One of my favorite scholar explains that well.

http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Even after apotheosis and finding our inner part of God through Gnosis, we are to set what we learn aside, raise the bar of expectations, and seek anew.

That is what being esoteric ecumenist is all about.

To not do so would, in our view, might mean missing something better and end the evolution of our moral thinking the way that thinking has died in Christianity and Islam and has made them idol worshipers.

All sages that I have read rail against becoming idol worshipers. As you can see from history, that idol worship has contributed quite a bit to our 5,000 year history of war.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Not so. I think you should refine your research methods. Or at least get some.

My research method is the following: there was once a branch of Christianity that held certain views and this branch is conventionally referred to by historians as Gnostic Christianity. This particular branch of Christianity - about which we know relatively little and of which what we know at all it is by chance (i.e. the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library) - appears to have died out by the 5th Century at the latest. Of course there has been substantial interest in Gnosticism in certain circles since the 19th century but there's no connection between this and the actual (long dead) religion.

Died out is a strange way to say that the Christians tried and failed to annihilate us.

We are a small group, but never died out as there are still Gnostic Churches in Europe and France.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Not so. I think you should refine your research methods. Or at least get some.

My research method is the following: there was once a branch of Christianity that held certain views and this branch is conventionally referred to by historians as Gnostic Christianity. This particular branch of Christianity - about which we know relatively little and of which what we know at all it is by chance (i.e. the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library) - appears to have died out by the 5th Century at the latest. Of course there has been substantial interest in Gnosticism in certain circles since the 19th century but there's no connection between this and the actual (long dead) religion.

Died out is a strange way to say that the Christians tried and failed to annihilate us.

We are a small group, but never died out as there are still Gnostic Churches in Europe and France.

Regards
DL

And the continuity for the past 1500 years? Or is that part of the secret knowledge?; where your believers were for over a millennium.

Check the literature. We have popped up all over the place at all times and never left France and other more Eastern countries.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Start here and follow your bliss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic_church

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Ecclesia Gnostica, revivalist. It's even spelled out in the article
Johannite Church, revivalist. It's even spelled out in the article
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, revivalist. It's even spelled out in the article

They were all founded by people who claimed to receive a new revelation from God or a very very very weak link to some extinct movement. There are thousands, if not tenths of thousands of these "prophets" with non-gnostic Christianity and in every other religion, why are these three more important or more believable than any other?

Because they free the mind instead of trying to slave it to a religion.

That is partly why Christianity tried to decimate us.

Churches and governments want sheeple, not people who can think for themselves.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Shouldn't Gnostics be just as disgusted by homosexuality as they are by heterosexuality?

What a strange thing to say.

What ever gave you the idea that we were disgusted by heterosexuals?

Most of us are just as most in the rank and file are. Why would our own natures disgust us?

We are also not disgusted by gays as they are following their natures just as heterosexuals are.

Regards
DL

If you don't look down on sexuality, then you aren't a real Gnostic.

I don't know where you are getting such weird ideas.

Link me up.

We embrace our sexuality as that is what keeps the human race from going extinct.

I don't know your drug of choice but switch quickly before you lose all your reasoning ability.

Regards
DL

Real Gnostics look down on sexuality, as a base desire that distracts from transcending the material world.

Perhaps your soul has already moved on to the eternal realm, where Gnosticism means something different from what it means here on Earth.

I see that you have been reading the lie that Gnostic Christians think the physical world to be shunned.

Does this sound that way to you.

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The bestthat can possibly be or an ugly and imperfect world?

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

That means that we live in the best of all possible worlds, given all the conditions at hand. That is an irrefutable statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGEyBeoBGM&feature=player_embedded

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

What? Nothing you say makes any sense at all

I think the problem is at your end.

What is it about slaved to a religion as compared to free thinking that you do not understand?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

[

That's not the point of Gnosticism, and that's not the point of Candide.

Nice song btw

Denial is hardly a worthy argument on an irrefutable quote.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

[

That's not the point of Gnosticism, and that's not the point of Candide.

Nice song btw

Denial is hardly a worthy argument on an irrefutable quote.

Regards
DL

So why do you call yourself a Gnostic when you aren't one? Do you think it makes you seem intellectual? Just call yourself a Neoplatonist. There's no shame in that.

Neo-Platonists come in many flavors just as Gnostic Christianity had many flavors.

I chose Gnostic Christianity due to the morality I saw in it. We are Universalists and a cut above those religions which are homophobic, intolerant and misogynous.

I chose the moral high ground as compared to the mainstream intolerant, homophobic and misogynous religions like Christianity and Islam.

Neo-Platonists are not compelled to fight those evils but Gnostic Christians are.

For the evils of the mainstream religions to grow, all good people need do is nothing.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I chose Gnostic Christianity due to the morality I saw in it. We are Universalists and a cut above those religions which are homophobic, intolerant and misogynous.

Classical Gnosticism, with its belief in a secret knowledge that not all can comprehend, is certainly not Universalist.

In those days, we were called mystery schools because God was considered unknowable, unfathomable and working in mysterious ways.

This was before Christians became idol worshipers.

The knowledge was said to be secret as each of us, through Gnosis, would see our internal spark of God differently.

It was not secret knowledge but only knowledge/Gnosis that only the seeker could find within himself.

Scriptures back that notion up.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Further.

John 6 ; 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

As to secret knowledge. Your tradition says that God is unknowable yet your church sure seems to know a lot of the unknowable and that is rather like saying the priests have some secret view of God that you must kiss their ass to get.

Martin Luther killed that idiocy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_qnsTr7I04

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

Neo-Platonists are not compelled to fight those evils but Gnostic Christians are.

What? Says who?

Says this Gnostic Christian of course, unless proven wrong.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Neo-Platonists are not compelled to fight those evils but Gnostic Christians are.

What? Says who?

Says this Gnostic Christian of course, unless proven wrong.

Regards
DL

And how do you know that this applied to other "Gnostic" Christians?

Ask them when you find them.

You will know them as they will use the term demiurge for Yahweh and Allah.

Not a complimentary tern that.

Regards
DL