Ganondox wrote:
Actually this is taught in some forms of Gnosticism, though then satan is called the demiurge.
I was about to say just that.
Valentinean Gnostic cosmology in a nutshell:
Whole bunch of Aeons, some 30. Sophia was the last and youngest, got tired of feeling like the sandwich girl so she decided to make a REALLY big and over-the-top creation to show everyone that she could grasp the concept of God. She realized she bit off more than she could chew, had a half-stutter, and from that her creation became Kenoma or 'see of shards' into which she was pulled by her change in focus. From her mistake were also spawned creatures called Archons, the chief of these being Yaldaboth. These were lesser god-beings born outside Pleroma who then, when looking across the abyss to Pleroma, thought they were seeing their own reflection, decided that they were 'it', and went on doing things the way they wanted to. Sophia tricked Yaldaboth into putting divine sparks into things and viola - we're (if you're a Gnostic at least you'd believe this) here trying to escape the iron-barred cage of 'evil' matter to go back to the only thing that's good or true - the Pleroma.
I don't mean to knock Christian Gnostics but.... I'm sorry, matter is what you make of it. Instead of having the Marcion panic when trying to hold Jesus up against YHVH and true up the difference its probably best to just take the documents through Hebrew history (Jewish and Christian) and consider them in their context. Perhaps YHVH was a heavily coded mystery and the seeming Dr. Dre side he had in the desert was a metaphor for something much deeper? Almost all of that stuff as it was seemed to be coming from coded language revolving around astrology and the four elements anyway (add Elijah's experience in the mountain cave to the later). Some people have even made the claim that Jesus might have been referring to the Canaanite god El as his father, Paul's bit about Melchizedek and the location of Melchizedek would cause his being a priest in the order of Melchizedek to make a lot more sense in that light (I really think that what happened in the desert with Moses had something to do with the particular Egyptian ruler's catching Ra's wrath as well as Moses having an awakening to the superconscious).
My point in saying that - there are so many ways to look at the history of the Abrahamic religions that doesn't require making matter evil. It's just not necessary and beyond that it's horrifically flawed and escapist thinking when people consider matter fundamentally evil.