What I am writing now is a diatribe on the subject of religion.
It may seem strange from someone as skeptical as me, but the truth is that its not ironic but perfectly fitting.
To put out my thesis straightforwardly, religion has presented me with a newfound purpose in life.
A lot of converts into common religions such as Christianity and Islam feel this way, but what many people do not understand (both theist and atheist) is that you can subscribe to a system of belief without believing its teachings literally.
Catholics and protestants will read the bible and take it at face value.
They will read the stories of Yhwh and Jesus believing that they were people who actually existed, and that they were not just ordinary people but quasi-superheroes who could make magic tricks happen at the snap of a finger.
Belief of this type is delusion, and atheists are correct to call it out as such.
However, this does not mean that religious belief as a whole is delusion. This distinction is something that pagans understood well, but their successors, in Christianity, have utterly forgotten.
In history classes, we say that the ancient Greeks believed in this whole pantheon of gods and goddesses, and they had all these legends about them that they believed.
The truth of the matter is that people generally didnt think the tales of characters like Zeus and Heracles happened in reality, rather they thought they communicated things that were more fundamentally true through the use of symbols.
Religion to them was not a historical record of how events like creation occurred, but a vessel of knowledge (knowledge being something that requires a vessel, because we cannot communicate our impulses telepathically).
As for the knowledge that is communicated, one can think of it more as a why than a how.
An ideological framework much like Freudianism or Confucianism, but rooted in spirituality as well as intellectualism, rather than pure intellectualism.
Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.
Tying it back to myself, Gnosticism.
Gnostic belief originated in the very early era of Christianity.
It came to be known as a heresy and largely died off with the crusades, but for a time it was influential and popular in certain regions.
None of that necessarily matters, but its good background.
Moving on, Gnosticism is rooted in Christianity, but it can be considered an offshoot rather than a sect under Christianity, because it directly contradicts the bible.
How so? Well, the abrahamic religions believe in a deity, Yhwh, who created the world, and is in turn, the lord and savior of humanity (and all else that is worth saving in the world), and Christians also believe that Jesus is the messiah who communicates this truth to us as an emission of Yhwh (they also tend to believe that even people who have not been taught about Christ can be saved, but I digress).
Gnosticism can be thought of as similar in the very beginning, but then branches off heavily.
What Christians call Yhwh (or God) is known as the demiurge in Gnosticism, and he did create the world, but he is a malevolent deity who created without consideration.
He did not make man in his image, nor did he think of them as his children, which is why we are so flawed as well as why there is so much suffering in the world.
The contradiction within Christianity, that believers of it never have an answer to, is why, if God is both loving *and* all powerful, would he allow people to suffer?
Either he allows people to suffer because he doesnt love them, or he does not have the power to stop people people from suffering, but it is a fallacy to say both.
Gnosticism corrects this by making a simple admission, God, or the demiurge, is not a proper god because he did not create the world lovingly, and furthermore, he is powerless to alter the world after its creation.
The etymology of the word demiurge stems from Greek, meaning architect or artist.
Just as a painter does not tweak already finished paintings for an eternity, the demiurge leaves the world be after he created it, even knowing that it will change and decay over time, for he does not care.
This may seem pessimistic, to believe that we have been abandoned by our own creator and he has no remorse for it, but it is much to the contrary.
Mainstream Christianity brands itself as a monotheistic faith, but therein lies another unaddressed contradiction, which is that it is still a multidimensional belief system, owing to the Paganist pantheon that Yhwh originated from.
This is represented in the holy trinity, that is, the father (Yhwh), the son, (Jesus), and the holy spirit, which are separate from each other but form the same whole.
Gnosticism conveys a concept that can be thought of as similar but it is distinct not only in detail but in spirit from Trinitarian belief.
The demiurge, as established, is not a proper god despite being the creator, but this doesnt mean that there isnt a true god.
God is out there but hes not Yhwh, rather a hidden deity that exists outside the universe and thus has no influence in it.
How can he be more of a true god if he neither created the universe nor has direct power in it? Well, the thing that makes him the actual savior is that he is good and just.
Why is that? It stems from a fundamental truism, which is that knowledge is power, and power is everything.
Thus, the true god of Gnosticism is a god of wisdom, and Jesus is not the son of god nor a supernatural being, but rather a wisdom teacher (and both have nothing to do with creation).
One can achieve communion with this god by having knowledge of him, and it is through knowledge itself that one can receive his divine teachings.
In fact, Gnosticism has its etymology in the Greek word “gnostikos”, meaning “to have knowledge”.
Synthesizing all of this, Gnosticism provides people with higher purpose in the form of knowledge and understanding as a virtue, as opposed to the delusional forms of religion which claim to give people purpose by restricting their lives with arbitrary rules ordained as divine guidance.
It is for this reason that Gnosticism was hunted down during the crusades, as the Catholic church knew they could not control people whose spirituality was based in enlightenment rather than fear.
But while you can kill leaders and communities, you cannot kill an idea, and thus the truth is still out there.
That idea can exist in its full glory even now because unlike Catholics, Gnostics fear not their creator, nor do they abide by someone like a pope, or congregate in somewhere like a church.
Knowledge is all that is needed, and this connects people across cultures and continents even if they never physically meet.
Now, while Ive explained a lot, its probably still confusing for me to say that you can subscribe to a belief without really believing in it.
Thats like saying an object can be drenched wet and completely dry, or like saying that you can have a glass of milk without the glass.
Except, its different in this case, and thats because the act of believing in something can make it true. This, too, probably sounds like science-fiction, but bear with me.
Consider the placebo effect. Fully believing that a substance will have a certain effect on your body (or mind, because the body and mind are the same) will cause it to manifest to some extent. Within an individual, this is a powerful principle, but what impact does it have on the world?
In sociology, the (roughly) equivalent concept is called the Tinkerbell effect. Essentially, if a supposed fact is believed to be true by the general population, then it is as if that fact is true, even if it cannot be proven scientifically.
For example, in medieval Europe, it was common to believe in magic, and things like witches, devil-worshippers, and even fairy-tale creatures.
Nobody ever found definitive evidence of these things existing, but it didnt matter in the context of their society because scientific analysis was not the norm; information was more centralized around the church. And because people believed in them, the idea of them was real, and the effect that that idea had is historical fact.
Witches were hunted and killed, and in context it didnt matter if they were real because they might as well have been. Same goes with the crusades, heresies (Gnosticism being one of the major ones) were hunted down under the belief that they were in league with the devil, which wasnt true in reality, but it might as well have been if you were immersed in the proper context (of being a Catholic).
The Tinkerbell effect can also work in reverse; for example, the average person believes they are more capable than an average person, but because all of them do, none of them are.
Syndrome from the Incredibles said it better than I ever could, And when everyone’s super? No one will be. But thats neither here nor there.
God with a capital G, the Christian God, is dead.
I dont mean that in a literal sense, as in God is an entity in reality who perished due to some ailment, but in a sociological sense. God needs a majority of people to have utter faith and reverence in Him to merely exist, which may have been the case at some point, but it is not in our current-day society.
This is the fundamental flaw in Christianity, and not just that but various related faiths such as Judaism and Islam, God is not all-powerful unless everyone believes in Him.
In order to construct this faith, Christianity (or at least Catholicism, but other sects as well) operates oppressively, indoctrinating those born into its grasp and forcing others to comply via missions and crusades.
Though, it’s likely there will never be a total belief in God again, due to how life has begun to operate in the Information Age. God can still have an effect within His believers, but because this is only a shallow portion of what He is supposed to be, He is rendered a ghost of His former self.
Dead but vengefully lingering in the world.
This is where Gnosticism’s hidden god comes into play. A god who is timeless because he does not ask everyone to believe in him; he simply serves those who do.
This simple fact is what makes him a true god, much more-so than Yhwh, and because he demands nothing, he is liberating instead of oppressive.
He can flourish in his full breadth within the individual as well as within the society that individual is a part of, rather than requiring society to measure up in some Kafkaesque scheme.
If I were a Christian, I’d end an article like this with a call to action: you absolutely must believe in my god, or something to that effect.
However, I’m not aiming to be a father figure (unlike some self-proclaimed gurus), I’m aiming to be someone that shares knowledge. In antiquity, you would refer to someone like this as a shaman, perhaps even a wizard, though I’m not sure if that fits within the context of our society (one might even consider it disrespectful if I were to use terms that related specifically to cultures that I am not a part of, which isn’t my intention, but I digress).
What I suggest the reader to do is think about spirituality. You could think about it in terms of the Gnostic god, of some other deity or group of deities, or none at all. All that matters is what works for you.
Belief is everything, but if that belief doesnt make sense, it is a delusion.
And to clarify, what I mean by working for you is simply being helpful, in the sense of fulfillment and purpose in life (as well as the afterlife if you believe in that), which is what religion should be.
God’s light saved me from the brink of suicide, and perhaps it can do something similar for you, so dont take this as an invitation to join some death cult, thats the opposite of my intention.
Or do, Im not your dad.