[Big Papa Goat]

Oh ya, there's definitely a connection, but it's still blasphemous to point it out ;(

I learned about gnosticism in the context of studying Eric Voegelin, so I was looking at it kind of from his perspective, which was that gnosticism is at the root of (or is at least one of the original and most clear symbolic expressions of) pretty much the worst things human beings can do.

Basically the understanding of the unique and important aspects of gnosticism were that the gnostics thought the universe was a shitty prison that could be overpowered by human beings who had recovered their divine essence and overcome the alienation caused by the shitty psychic and material aspects of their beings. That basic attitude is reflected in such as Marx, Nietzsche and other totalitarians who speculated that there was some superhuman essence to human beings that could be recovered through some kind of really brutal activity. (read: proletarian revolution/dictatorship, all that bullshit about the importance of suffering and such, concentration camps to get rid of what isn't quite human) The recovery of that essence would turn man into superman, who would then be able to have power over reality.

In any case, gnosticism is weird, and it's certainly based in the same philosophical and religious tradition as plato or christianity, but I'd say it confuses some of its symbols, places the wrong importance on such things as dualism and in general don't have a lot of respect for the universe.
It's a good point about all philosophies and religions being similar from giving accounts of the same universe, but the whole problem of gnosticism as far as I see it is that it doesn't have an attitude of loving openness to the reality of the universe, it has more of a bitter and arrogant view of position of human beings in the universe, where they think humans are superior to the universe and dont' belong in it.


This might get even more relevant to politics in schols than the evolution nonsense if we don't watch out though :O
Though later I might post some nonsense about the gnostic attitude in the education system what with the whole emphasis some teachers have on such as creativity.

edit: oh certainly the bible is weird too though, and I have read it, and it's got all kinds of weird stuff. All truth be told I'd say the gnostic apocrypha I've read is weirder though.