Dear America,
For decades now, whenever I have had to declare a religion...thankfully almost never...I have designated Gnosticism as my faith. I am not steeped in the doctrine and dogma of that faith and philosophy from the millennium before last, but my general knowledge of it is that it posits one God who required no creation. That God created a being called Sophia, who out of self-indulgence and a desire to know the one God created a petty, jealous inferior god who in turn created a realm of his own: the physical world and thus all of its vagaries. That is a vast over-simplification, but it suffices to explain the Gnostic doctrine that the one God was and is pure virtue and light, and the physical world and its creator god are essentially vicious in nature; we are all imbued with a piece of the one God to whom we are intended to return, but the false god of the material world constitutes a spiritual diversion from the process of reunification with God.
All that being said, I don't and haven't been one to pray or to worship, but rather I acknowledge the Gnostic framework for existence as a practical explanation of this, and for that matter any subsequent, life or form of being. I have demurred in my thinking as to the nature of the one God, and I have not regarded it as a sentient being, but recently, that has changed as a consequence of a lapse in my appreciation of our existence on this plane. The details aren't important, but it comports with an idea with which many people today are familiar: be careful what you wish for. That consequent personal epiphany crystallized into the idea that didactic Manichean dogmatism that posits an objective and rules based doctrine of right and wrong is fundamentally misguided. The Gnostic concept of the one virtuous God entails, as I understand it, inculcation in all of us of a sense of right and wrong that is amorphous and demands of us only one thing: that we follow the golden rule. It has nothing to do with all of the catechism that has emanated from Christian religion and other faiths. Rather it is an exhortation to each of us--to that grain of the one God in us--to do the right thing out of compassion, sympathy, empathy and simple rectitude. We don't need rules for that. We have our intuitions to guide us.
Of course, that opens a giant chasm that we as human beings have to cross. There is no shortage in history, myth or current events of people who claim to be righteous in ways that most of us cannot accept, some of which are downright maniacal. But for the most part they can be identified by a single common trait: sanctimony. In fact, that is how the Gnostics believed that the physical world was created...out of hubris. And so we are left with an onus on us that will be hard to carry to a satisfactory conclusion if any such thing is possible. Perhaps life on earth can only be no less fraught than it is and it is the destiny of each of us to cope with it as a means of redemption, not in the sense of ascension to heaven, but simply because it is the right thing, which in turn serves our fellow human beings and comports with some form of wisdom that we can only aspire to until we achieve something akin to Nirvana.
Rereading all of this, it sounds preposterous and pontifical, but hear me out. Sanctimony has come to be the party affiliation of those who lead us along with personal ambition and venality as a creed. Add to that the advent of groups of people who characterize themselves as militias, sects, movements, doctrines and the like. There seem to be ever-proliferating individuals and groups of individuals who think themselves entitled to redirect our collective course and to bend us to their respective wills and tutelage. They are everything from Oath Keepers to Tutsi's and Hutu's, and everyone from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump and their assorted acolytes and sycophants. As I said at the outset, I haven't really believed in the traditional concept of God, but in the Gnostic sense, I do now. Call it a personal revelation or lunacy, the essence of it is simple. I hope for the human race to succeed for the benefit of my grand children, and our progeny in general. And the only way I can see that happening is if we all cleave to the belief that there is some kind of golden rule whether we are Christians or christians, Muslims or muslims, Buddhists or buddhists and so on. We have doctrine to guide us, but in the end, the compelling factor in every decision we make involving others is, what does the golden rule require of us.
I'm no one to talk. I have made my share of selfish and misguided decisions and undertaken cognate acts. And believe me I don't intend to be anyone's critic, much less anyone's inspiration. But I feel that we have to change our way of inhabiting the earth. At some point, we have to cease to be guided by dogma and doctrine, self-serving allegiances, myths and superstitions. We have to begin to think independently. We have to stop following like sheep.
Your friend,
Mike
For decades now, whenever I have had to declare a religion...thankfully almost never...I have designated Gnosticism as my faith. I am not steeped in the doctrine and dogma of that faith and philosophy from the millennium before last, but my general knowledge of it is that it posits one God who required no creation. That God created a being called Sophia, who out of self-indulgence and a desire to know the one God created a petty, jealous inferior god who in turn created a realm of his own: the physical world and thus all of its vagaries. That is a vast over-simplification, but it suffices to explain the Gnostic doctrine that the one God was and is pure virtue and light, and the physical world and its creator god are essentially vicious in nature; we are all imbued with a piece of the one God to whom we are intended to return, but the false god of the material world constitutes a spiritual diversion from the process of reunification with God.
All that being said, I don't and haven't been one to pray or to worship, but rather I acknowledge the Gnostic framework for existence as a practical explanation of this, and for that matter any subsequent, life or form of being. I have demurred in my thinking as to the nature of the one God, and I have not regarded it as a sentient being, but recently, that has changed as a consequence of a lapse in my appreciation of our existence on this plane. The details aren't important, but it comports with an idea with which many people today are familiar: be careful what you wish for. That consequent personal epiphany crystallized into the idea that didactic Manichean dogmatism that posits an objective and rules based doctrine of right and wrong is fundamentally misguided. The Gnostic concept of the one virtuous God entails, as I understand it, inculcation in all of us of a sense of right and wrong that is amorphous and demands of us only one thing: that we follow the golden rule. It has nothing to do with all of the catechism that has emanated from Christian religion and other faiths. Rather it is an exhortation to each of us--to that grain of the one God in us--to do the right thing out of compassion, sympathy, empathy and simple rectitude. We don't need rules for that. We have our intuitions to guide us.
Of course, that opens a giant chasm that we as human beings have to cross. There is no shortage in history, myth or current events of people who claim to be righteous in ways that most of us cannot accept, some of which are downright maniacal. But for the most part they can be identified by a single common trait: sanctimony. In fact, that is how the Gnostics believed that the physical world was created...out of hubris. And so we are left with an onus on us that will be hard to carry to a satisfactory conclusion if any such thing is possible. Perhaps life on earth can only be no less fraught than it is and it is the destiny of each of us to cope with it as a means of redemption, not in the sense of ascension to heaven, but simply because it is the right thing, which in turn serves our fellow human beings and comports with some form of wisdom that we can only aspire to until we achieve something akin to Nirvana.
Rereading all of this, it sounds preposterous and pontifical, but hear me out. Sanctimony has come to be the party affiliation of those who lead us along with personal ambition and venality as a creed. Add to that the advent of groups of people who characterize themselves as militias, sects, movements, doctrines and the like. There seem to be ever-proliferating individuals and groups of individuals who think themselves entitled to redirect our collective course and to bend us to their respective wills and tutelage. They are everything from Oath Keepers to Tutsi's and Hutu's, and everyone from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump and their assorted acolytes and sycophants. As I said at the outset, I haven't really believed in the traditional concept of God, but in the Gnostic sense, I do now. Call it a personal revelation or lunacy, the essence of it is simple. I hope for the human race to succeed for the benefit of my grand children, and our progeny in general. And the only way I can see that happening is if we all cleave to the belief that there is some kind of golden rule whether we are Christians or christians, Muslims or muslims, Buddhists or buddhists and so on. We have doctrine to guide us, but in the end, the compelling factor in every decision we make involving others is, what does the golden rule require of us.
I'm no one to talk. I have made my share of selfish and misguided decisions and undertaken cognate acts. And believe me I don't intend to be anyone's critic, much less anyone's inspiration. But I feel that we have to change our way of inhabiting the earth. At some point, we have to cease to be guided by dogma and doctrine, self-serving allegiances, myths and superstitions. We have to begin to think independently. We have to stop following like sheep.
Your friend,
Mike
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