[Nom]

Since you insist on comparing understanding of this - I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but apparently what passes for gnosis where you are attending lectures is a late, and sadly, lacking adaptation of the original gist of early Gnostic teachings. However, that fact is not eclipsed by the glaringly apparent lack of your own understanding.

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From Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/gnostic.htm):

“… While the thwarting necessity of nature is, for the Existentialist, a simple, unquestioned fact; for the Gnostics it is the result of the malignant designs of an inferior god, the Demiurge, carried out through and by this ignorant deity's own law. In other words, nature is, for modern Existentialism, merely indifferent, while for the Gnostics it was actively hostile toward the human endeavor.”

In any case, I believe these things:
1. Evil exists in the universe, literally.
2. Something had a hand in creating it, and is therefore evil also.

I don’t give a shit what the present take on Gnosticism is, other than to distinguish whether its current form bears any weight for me personally, and fits into my beliefs. I also believe you are wrong to suggest that your interpretation (which unfortunately, I presume by what you’ve said, must be the mainstream interpretive consensus) is the correct one. There were many philosophically differing sects which arose in the first and second centuries. Some of these did equate the creator to a malignant, ignorant deity, as do I, whether you like it or not.

Again, I don’t give a shit either whether you deign to critique my outward disdain for certain misspellings. It’s my feeble attempt at creating awareness of the common errors, and someone, somewhere, will care and take heed, again – irregardless of what you think. I take pride in my deconstruction. You, sir, are powerless to staunch the flow of my corrections.

Also from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“According to the Gnostics, this world, the material cosmos, is the result of a primordial error on the part of a supra-cosmic, supremely divine being, usually called Sophia (Wisdom) or simply the Logos. This being is described as the final emanation of a divine hierarchy, called the Plêrôma or "Fullness," at the head of which resides the supreme God, the One beyond Being. The error of Sophia, which is usually identified as a reckless desire to know the transcendent God, leads to the hypostatization of her desire in the form of a semi-divine and essentially ignorant creature known as the Demiurge (Greek: dêmiourgos, "craftsman"), or Ialdabaoth, who is responsible for the formation of the material cosmos. This act of craftsmanship is actually an imitation of the realm of the Pleroma, but the Demiurge is ignorant of this, and hubristically declares himself the only existing God."

Ignorance breeds suffering, and I call suffering evil. One of the (more reliable) definitions of “evil” is that which causes harm. So I am on firm, common ground with my definition. If you choose to only allow certain definitions for your world view, let me know, so I can slip into something more semantically confining.

Originally Posted by ziggytrix

For someone so distressingly anal as to correct spelling errors that haven't even been made in this discussion, you really ought to understand English a little better. Atheisim means NO God. The notion that God exists as a manifestation of human energies isn't even remotely similar to atheism because of that whole "God exists" part.

Also you would do well to look up the words 'create' and 'manifest' as they are not synonymous.

Atheists are commonly desirous to point out that homo sapiens created the imaginary façade of God. I don’t give a damn how you want to frame “Atheism”; this is an idea that atheists, chiefly, promote. Further, I did not use the term atheism at all, I said atheistic. So, you may look at it as me redefining or twisting the definition a little to suit my purpose, which was in fact, subconsciously yet intentionally done. Atheists wrote the book on anal btw – see your post above. Also, interchanging “create” and “manifest” in kahljorn’s abysmally reconstructed lackadaisical definition of his flawed understanding of the entirety of Gnostic philosophy would not have saved his position.