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Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

You may use whatever set of commandments you think Yahweh gave. There are a number of renditions.

As for the Gnostic commandments, I offer the following.

1. You shall place no commandments above these unless proven to be morally superior.
2. You shall value all people as equal before the law. The inequality of outcome is punishment enough of itself.
3. You shall live by the golden rule and respond with reciprocity of harm or care to what is done to you.
4. Use Gnosis and put logic and reason and their proofs above faith, which by its nature has no proofs, logic or reason.
5. You shall leave the environment in a better condition than what is given to you as an inheritance to your next generation.
6. You shall not impoverish the next generation and live according to the means you produce as their labor and wealth is theirs and not yours to squander.

Gnostic Christianity and free thinking lost the God wars when the Orthodox Church decimated us and burned most of our scriptures. I think that Gnostic Christians had a superior set of commandments then as well as now. Those commandments were not only meant for seekers after a God but also a guide to secular law. Both secular law and Christianity seemed to ignore the second commandment of equality till our modern era. As a Gnostic Christian, I ask (rhetorically), what took the world so long to catch up to Gnostic Christian thinking and what is Islam and other backwards thinking people waiting for.

Many have a problem with the 10 commandments given by Yahweh so I thought I would see if there is a consensus of thought on the Gnostic Christian ideology as compared to the Christian ideology. The main complaints I see are that Yahweh’s commandments have created a Christian ideology that denies gays and women equality. I think all souls to be created equal and thus deserving of equal human statue and citizenship.

Others as seen in these two link have their own views and I would add that I think Yahweh’s no divorce policy, --- which Jesus confirms. --- and Yahweh’s policy of accepting bribes, ransoms or sacrifices (these are all analogue) to alter his usual and moral policy punishing the guilty and not the innocent, --- to the immoral policy of punishing the innocent instead of the guilty, as exemplified by his accepting Jesus as a sacrifice to save sinners whom God himself created to be sinners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0#t=100

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfGRN4HVrQ

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Regards
DL
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Did you write those commandments? What were the original Gnostic commandments?

It's very easy to improve on the 10 commandments. One specific I'd require is a total prohibition against slavery that is absolutely clear. Otherwise you will have the situation - even with your 2nd Gnostic commandment - where slaves are not considered human or citizens and therefore are not covered by that rule. That is how the US Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision.

The First Amendment is a vast improvement over the First Commandment. 8)
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But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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LanDroid wrote:Did you write those commandments? What were the original Gnostic commandments?

It's very easy to improve on the 10 commandments. One specific I'd require is a total prohibition against slavery that is absolutely clear. Otherwise you will have the situation - even with your 2nd Gnostic commandment - where slaves are not considered human or citizens and therefore are not covered by that rule. That is how the US Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision.

The First Amendment is a vast improvement over the First Commandment. 8)
Most secular based law is better than Yahweh's commandments including the American law so I agree with your view.

Slavery, to me, needs not be singled out because of the Golden Rule, but you might be right as many cannot seem to apply that rule the way it was meant to be.

Perhaps both archetypal Jesus and I give people too much credit, in terms of people being able to use empathy and altruism in their thinking, to take that small leap in moral thinking.

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DL
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?
Gnostic teachings are morally superior but impractical. The representatives of Yahweh fought dirty, and that is why he won in Biblical days.

The Bible maintains that Jesus Christ brought a New Covenant as the Son of Yahweh, shifting from the ethic of revenge in the Law of Moses - eye for an eye - to a new ethic of love, with teachings such in the Sermon on the Mount with its call to love your enemies etc. The morality of Jesus is Gnostic in the sense that it understands salvation through an individual relationship with the divine, although of course that idea also appears strongly in orthodox Protestant belief.

Gnostic ideas appear in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Last Judgment, where Jesus Christ predicts that at the Second Coming the criterion of salvation will be if people treat the least of the world as Jesus Christ. As I see it, the message of Jesus presents an enlightened Gnostic vision for a future world of universal abundance and peace, with security based on knowledge of God, and human ethics focused on good relationships of love and grace. That is all fine and well and idealistic, but the worldly response to those ideas was crucifixion, at least in the story, which reflected prevailing attitudes. By contrast, the message of Moses is a practical worldly ethic for survival in a world of violent conflict. So this otherworldly ethic of Christ is the foundation of Gnostic morality, imagining a possible ideal future.

Clearly, the imaginative future ideal ethic is superior, but it faces the constraints of being impossible to implement in practice, and leading to social values that will be defeated militarily by less ethical competitors. It is like the big so what that greets the observation that indigenous people are morally superior to western civilization. Yes, but they are less productive, and productivity does not come from morality.

The covenant of Moses, defined around the dawn of the Iron Age, presents the practical hierarchical monotheist patriarchal view that to be a person means to be a man with property. Society has since evolved a lot from that primitive attitude, but not enough to make love of enemies widely attractive as a moral framework. It is still a line ball question if Jesus would be crucified again if he returned today.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: You may use whatever set of commandments you think Yahweh gave. There are a number of renditions.
Exodus has two sets of ten commandments, the well-known two tablets of stone handed down by God to Moses at chapter 20, and when these cracked, a new set described at Exodus 34. Both essentially set out the conditions required for the society to achieve military security, since without control of property no ethical claims mean much. The second set is even more practical than the first, expanding on the idea of God’s jealousy to instruct the Jews to smash the temples of the goddess worshippers, since feminism is subversive, getting people to question authority.

The essential idea of Moses is that national security is based on ownership of property and social obedience, which required subordination of women to men to resist imperial invasions. That is my basic impression of why Biblical traditions were so hostile to feminist ideas. Not very nice, but it worked.

The genetic rules as explained by Richard Dawkins are that the fecund, durable and stable genes win. That applies for culture as much as for natural evolution.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: As for the Gnostic commandments, I offer the following.
1. You shall place no commandments above these unless proven to be morally superior.
The role of proof in morality is vexed, since practical consequences of moral actions are hard to measure. It is possible to have rival visions of the good which seem equally legitimate.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 2. You shall value all people as equal before the law. The inequality of outcome is punishment enough of itself.
This is a good point, setting the principle of rule of law before any corrupt deviation from fairness and reason.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 3. You shall live by the golden rule and respond with reciprocity of harm or care to what is done to you.
Usually the Golden Rule does not include reciprocal harm. Kant’s formula was to act only in ways that you could want to be universal.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 4. Use Gnosis and put logic and reason and their proofs above faith, which by its nature has no proofs, logic or reason.
Very nice, except that faith produces loyalty, belonging, trust and social cohesion. The world needs a bonobo-style super abundant economy before any society can abandon faith.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 5. You shall leave the environment in a better condition than what is given to you as an inheritance to your next generation.
As we move into a groaning globe, this point is central to salvation. A lovely Gnostic line is Rev 11:18, that the wrath of God is against those who destroy the earth. This illustrates that ecological complexity and biodiversity are priceless revealers of the divine.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 6. You shall not impoverish the next generation and live according to the means you produce as their labor and wealth is theirs and not yours to squander.
Tricky. My sense is that the internet revolution is producing a big jump in productivity, such that we are on the cusp of a transition to a new economy that can deliver universal abundance. Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism made the excellent point that pious belief in the afterlife enabled the industrialists to focus on investment rather than consumption, which is always the basic issue for wealth creation. I don’t like the labor theory of value as it is Marxist, and wrongly assumes your labor is worth your effort rather than what others will pay in a free market.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: Gnostic Christianity and free thinking lost the God wars when the Orthodox Church decimated us and burned most of our scriptures. I think that Gnostic Christians had a superior set of commandments then as well as now. Those commandments were not only meant for seekers after a God but also a guide to secular law. Both secular law and Christianity seemed to ignore the second commandment of equality till our modern era. As a Gnostic Christian, I ask (rhetorically), what took the world so long to catch up to Gnostic Christian thinking and what is Islam and other backwards thinking people waiting for.
I agree with all that, but again, it illustrates that society is ruled by those who can achieve hierarchical security, not by those with the best ethical system. Only when our economy evolves to the point that hierarchy becomes obsolete like slavery did with steam power will Gnostic morals gain social traction. Just lovely to say the stone the builder refused will be head of the corner, but unrealistic in a hierarchical world.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:
Many have a problem with the 10 commandments given by Yahweh so I thought I would see if there is a consensus of thought on the Gnostic Christian ideology as compared to the Christian ideology. The main complaints I see are that Yahweh’s commandments have created a Christian ideology that denies gays and women equality. I think all souls to be created equal and thus deserving of equal human statue and citizenship.
I don’t see the lack of social equality as the main complaint. I see it rather as a symptom of how the Christendom ideology of supernatural fantasy enables avoidance of logic and evidence as the highest moral principles.
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Robert Tulip wrote:[
quote="Gnostic Bishop"]Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?
Gnostic teachings are morally superior but impractical. The representatives of Yahweh fought dirty, and that is why he won in Biblical days.

The Bible maintains that Jesus Christ brought a New Covenant as the Son of Yahweh, shifting from the ethic of revenge in the Law of Moses - eye for an eye - to a new ethic of love, with teachings such in the Sermon on the Mount with its call to love your enemies etc. The morality of Jesus is Gnostic in the sense that it understands salvation through an individual relationship with the divine, although of course that idea also appears strongly in orthodox Protestant belief.

Gnostic ideas appear in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Last Judgment, where Jesus Christ predicts that at the Second Coming the criterion of salvation will be if people treat the least of the world as Jesus Christ. As I see it, the message of Jesus presents an enlightened Gnostic vision for a future world of universal abundance and peace, with security based on knowledge of God, and human ethics focused on good relationships of love and grace. That is all fine and well and idealistic, but the worldly response to those ideas was crucifixion, at least in the story, which reflected prevailing attitudes. By contrast, the message of Moses is a practical worldly ethic for survival in a world of violent conflict. So this otherworldly ethic of Christ is the foundation of Gnostic morality, imagining a possible ideal future.
Nicely put.

I am in agreement with all this and can understand that that looking to the future and as widely as we can into issues is why I think Gnostic Christianity ended as a Universalist creed that would be maintainable over long time periods, if not forever.
Clearly, the imaginative future ideal ethic is superior, but it faces the constraints of being impossible to implement in practice, and leading to social values that will be defeated militarily by less ethical competitors.


In how they interpreted the reciprocity rules and turning the other cheek in that past, I agree, but not for now and the future.

People are recognizing that turning the other cheek rewards evil and that goes against the reciprocity rule. These days, I think more people are using a Harm/Care response to what they are given. This allows harm to be put against harm and care against care and that maintains the spirit of the reciprocity rule.
It is like the big so what that greets the observation that indigenous people are morally superior to western civilization. Yes, but they are less productive, and productivity does not come from morality.
Yes. Empathy should have us walk in their shoes before judging them.
The covenant of Moses, defined around the dawn of the Iron Age, presents the practical hierarchical monotheist patriarchal view that to be a person means to be a man with property. Society has since evolved a lot from that primitive attitude, but not enough to make love of enemies widely attractive as a moral framework. It is still a line ball question if Jesus would be crucified again if he returned today.
I am a Jesus mind WIP and I can feel the hate directed at me when I exercise my Jesus mentality and morality so I would say that Jesus would not have much of a chance in religious circles but might make one hell of a politician.

Then again, his eloquence, not that he really existed, would likely put mine to the shame it deserves and that might just make the difference.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: You may use whatever set of commandments you think Yahweh gave. There are a number of renditions.
Exodus has two sets of ten commandments, the well-known two tablets of stone handed down by God to Moses at chapter 20, and when these cracked, a new set described at Exodus 34. Both essentially set out the conditions required for the society to achieve military security, since without control of property no ethical claims mean much. The second set is even more practical than the first, expanding on the idea of God’s jealousy to instruct the Jews to smash the temples of the goddess worshippers, since feminism is subversive, getting people to question authority.

The essential idea of Moses is that national security is based on ownership of property and social obedience, which required subordination of women to men to resist imperial invasions. That is my basic impression of why Biblical traditions were so hostile to feminist ideas. Not very nice, but it worked.

The genetic rules as explained by Richard Dawkins are that the fecund, durable and stable genes win. That applies for culture as much as for natural evolution.
Indeed. I do see some of what you say of Moses in scriptures and agree that it is a shame that in that day, the scribes still had women as chattel that the equal partnership that Gnostic Jesus taught.

At least Moses used for the name of God what some Gnostic sects adopted for themselves. I am. That was good to read in terms of making me wonder just how literal he was being.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: As for the Gnostic commandments, I offer the following.
1. You shall place no commandments above these unless proven to be morally superior.
The role of proof in morality is vexed, since practical consequences of moral actions are hard to measure. It is possible to have rival visions of the good which seem equally legitimate.
I do not agree here as I think that internally, we create a hierarchy of values and cannot have an internal conflict. The internal graph we create cannot have two values at exactly the same place.

There could be exception though in more complicated minds than mine. I would have to see a real example of the conflicted graph though.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 2. You shall value all people as equal before the law. The inequality of outcome is punishment enough of itself.
This is a good point, setting the principle of rule of law before any corrupt deviation from fairness and reason.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 3. You shall live by the golden rule and respond with reciprocity of harm or care to what is done to you.
Usually the Golden Rule does not include reciprocal harm. Kant’s formula was to act only in ways that you could want to be universal.
Reciprocity is like for like. To reward evil with good rewards evil and that is not reciprocity.

What is the point of going out of your way to do good if taking a shorter more evil route to a goal gains you the same reward?

That glitch might be why some are using Harm/Care as their response to what is given to them in terms of harm or care. That is true reciprocity. Not the turning of the other cheek which rewards evil.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 4. Use Gnosis and put logic and reason and their proofs above faith, which by its nature has no proofs, logic or reason.
Very nice, except that faith produces loyalty, belonging, trust and social cohesion. The world needs a bonobo-style super abundant economy before any society can abandon faith.
Faith is not required to produce what you show above. I offer two examples.

https://www.churchoffreethought.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRtJPSmI9pY

Further, many tyrants use other tools to create loyalty, belonging, trust and social cohesion. Hitler, Stalin and others did without faith in some God. They, like Christianity did in inventing hell, use fear.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 5. You shall leave the environment in a better condition than what is given to you as an inheritance to your next generation.
As we move into a groaning globe, this point is central to salvation. A lovely Gnostic line is Rev 11:18, that the wrath of God is against those who destroy the earth. This illustrates that ecological complexity and biodiversity are priceless revealers of the divine.
Nicely played by scriptures, especially if we forget that God curse the earth back in Gen 3.

I bet that Rev 11;18 was written by a Gnostic Christian. I did not recall that verse from my bible reading.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: 6. You shall not impoverish the next generation and live according to the means you produce as their labor and wealth is theirs and not yours to squander.
Tricky. My sense is that the internet revolution is producing a big jump in productivity, such that we are on the cusp of a transition to a new economy that can deliver universal abundance. Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism made the excellent point that pious belief in the afterlife enabled the industrialists to focus on investment rather than consumption, which is always the basic issue for wealth creation. I don’t like the labor theory of value as it is Marxist, and wrongly assumes your labor is worth your effort rather than what others will pay in a free market.
Time will tell but our present systems are well entrenched.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: Gnostic Christianity and free thinking lost the God wars when the Orthodox Church decimated us and burned most of our scriptures. I think that Gnostic Christians had a superior set of commandments then as well as now. Those commandments were not only meant for seekers after a God but also a guide to secular law. Both secular law and Christianity seemed to ignore the second commandment of equality till our modern era. As a Gnostic Christian, I ask (rhetorically), what took the world so long to catch up to Gnostic Christian thinking and what is Islam and other backwards thinking people waiting for.
I agree with all that, but again, it illustrates that society is ruled by those who can achieve hierarchical security, not by those with the best ethical system.


I think it goes by boom bust cycles. The French hierarchy had security but only till the lower classes got fed up.
Only when our economy evolves to the point that hierarchy becomes obsolete like slavery did with steam power will Gnostic morals gain social traction. Just lovely to say the stone the builder refused will be head of the corner, but unrealistic in a hierarchical world.
I think we will always want a hierarchical socio economic demographic pyramid. Communism had it's chance and failed as well as other pure socialistic systems. China and it's blend of socialism and open markets is likely close to where we will all end up, but with a vote and a tad more freedom.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: Many have a problem with the 10 commandments given by Yahweh so I thought I would see if there is a consensus of thought on the Gnostic Christian ideology as compared to the Christian ideology. The main complaints I see are that Yahweh’s commandments have created a Christian ideology that denies gays and women equality. I think all souls to be created equal and thus deserving of equal human statue and citizenship.
I don’t see the lack of social equality as the main complaint. I see it rather as a symptom of how the Christendom ideology of supernatural fantasy enables avoidance of logic and evidence as the highest moral principles.
[/quote]

Yours is a good point for sure and would include literal reading of myths, but from my Universalist stand point, and since Gnostic Christianity has tied equality to righteousness, and given the huge number of women who are denied their equality, I have to push for it in a major way. Know though that I also go after supernatural beliefs whenever I can.

Regards
DL
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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mina6000 wrote:
LanDroid wrote:Did you write those commandments? What were the original Gnostic commandments?

It's very easy to improve on the 10 commandments. One specific I'd require is a total prohibition against slavery that is absolutely clear. Otherwise you will have the situation - even with your 2nd Gnostic commandment - where slaves are not considered human or citizens and therefore are not covered by that rule. That is how the US Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision.

The First Amendment is a vast improvement over the First Commandment. 8)
Did you compose those decrees? What were the first Gnostic decrees?

It's anything but difficult to enhance the 10 instructions. One explicit I'd require is an all out forbiddance against subjugation that is completely clear. Else you will have the circumstance - even with your second Gnostic rule - where slaves are not viewed as human or nationals and in this manner are not secured by that standard. That is the manner by which the US Supreme Court managed in the Dred Scott choice.
A good point.

Unfortunately, making people into sheeple is to subjugate them and that is the main job of a religion.

From what you put, all revealed religion and their clergy would have to be liars as they hide their lies behind a supernatural shield.

That is likely why most who read the bible end as non-believers. Knowledge is power against the liars.

Regards
DL
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Gnostic,

What you are interpreting as a legit response to you is actually the work of a spammer and that person is now banned. It seems a new technique to quote the last post and alter a few words by picking synonyms. I don't yet understand the purpose of this sort of spam. I am guessing it is a technique to test a forum for vulnerability. Once they see the forum doesn't moderate they can then start throwing spam links in their posts.
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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Chris OConnor wrote:Gnostic,

What you are interpreting as a legit response to you is actually the work of a spammer and that person is now banned. It seems a new technique to quote the last post and alter a few words by picking synonyms. I don't yet understand the purpose of this sort of spam. I am guessing it is a technique to test a forum for vulnerability. Once they see the forum doesn't moderate they can then start throwing spam links in their posts.
My oops then. Stay sharp buddy.

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DL
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Re: Which commandments do you think are superior; Yahweh’s or Gnostic Christianity’s?

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I try. 8)
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