Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

Some religions like Christianity and Islam teach that people are condemned by God and that we have to work to gain salvation. God created us ill, and orders us to be well, on pain of tremendous eternal torture and eventual death. This teaching follows the one where we are told that God is unknowable, unfathomable and works in mysterious ways. This makes the notions of condemnation and the need for salvation obvious lies.

Gnostic Christianity does not use this type of carrot and stick motivation in its theology. We are Universalists and only see a heaven, no hell. We think God too good a creator to ever have to condemn anyone. Our God is a winner, not the loser God that Christianity has invented. All the Gods are myths created to help us reach our highest human potential and are only tools to open our inner eye. Our single eye as Jesus calls it.

How we can forgive ourselves is that as Universalists, we have tied righteousness to equality. The logic trail from there says that if God is to punish anyone, he would have to punish everyone as everyone contributes to what we all are.

For instance. If God were to punish Hitler, he would have to revue what made Hitler what he ended up being. God would follow his time line and see perhaps that his parents spanked him and God would know what we know today, that spanking creates resentment and a delinquent attitude. That beginning would see Hitler's parents setting his mindset which eventually flowered into his tyrannical nature. So to be just, God would automatically have to punish Hitler's parents. That same logic would apply to everyone who contributed or facilitated Hitler's rise to infamy.

So for you and me to blame just ourselves for what we are would be quite unjust. This is not to say that we hold no responsibility for our actions, just not all of them.

Do you agree that the need of Salvation promoted by religions is an evil lie?

Regards
DL

No. It is not evil lie.

Then whence cometh evil?

I'd say misguided instead of evil. You could quibble on the lie part as well. That depends whether you think lie is an untrue statement or if a lie is a statement that the speaker believes to be untrue.

I'm unfamiliar with your branch of Gnostic Christianity. You speak as though there's only one meaningful God and that he is responsible for the creation of the material world. I know that Gnosticism has many different variations, Valentinianism and Catharism are the ones I can rattle from the top of my head, but I'm fairly sure they all stipulate that the material universe was created by an arrogant and incompetent Demiurge. That's how they squared the divine sadist from the Old Testament with the all-loving deity of the New Testament.

I like this bit; I'm willing to stake my reputation as some random internet bozo on the statement that 'Hell is the wickedest idea devised by mankind.' Just reading accounts of torture - waterboarding and so on - makes me feel sick. You've really got to doubt anyone who's willing to stand by a god that creates tortures people for eternity.

Also, now that I think about it, your description of God automatically having to punish everybody could provide a basis for Original Sin that doesn't involve talking snakes. Please don't tell the other Christian denominations.

I'm always curious about unorthodox Christianities. Is there a link to your scripture that you can post?

What sin have you committed that is so evil that you have earned eternal punishment or death in hell?

Before you reply please see what this Bishop has to say about your belief.



Regards
DL

From God, just as scriptures indicate, and that is a part of the logic that says God will not punish anyone.

All in a mythical sense of course.

Regards
DL

We do need saving, but not from sin. We inherit a mindset from human culture that is destructive. It reinforces the illusion of the mind. Some religions describe a method for transcending this state of affairs. Others also work even if they don't recognize why, and add unnecessary layers of terminology. Heaven is a metaphor for freedom, hell is a metaphor for confusion, god is a metaphor for reality. Gnostic Christianity retains these metaphors, Zen Buddhism uses whatever metaphor is effective at the time. Religion is for fools. Knowing we are fools, we make the next step beyond religion.

I wrote you a long reply but the f*****g verification lost it all.

I am not in a civil mood at present so let me just give you the following.

This speaks to our view of the perfection of the material world.

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.
If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.
But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

This following is to your request.

http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

Regards
DL

That is a good way of saying what Gnostic Christianity tries to do.

Regards
DL

I like learning (I do well on Jeopardy -though before I took the online test I thought it was spelled Jeaporgy.)

Does Gnostism believe
Jesus was born of a virgin
Died for all sin on the cross was buried and is Risen and Alive today?

Thanks for adding to my knowledge.

In my limited reading on the subject, no. Those statements typify orthodox Christianity. Gnosis is more personal and transcendent. Not something you follow, but something you realize.

Would you call it more spiritual?

Some (well me) think religion is like reading a menu

Spirituality is enjoying the food.

I'm one that believes in both spiritual and religious experiences.

Let them with ears hear
Let them with eyes see.

No we do not.

We hold no supernatural or fantasy beliefs.

To us, Jesus was just an archetypal good man. All man and all natural.

We do like one of the many Jesus' that come out of the bible.

He is shown in this paste job as well as a bit more on how we think. I hope you can make the time to have a look

---------

I am a Gnostic Christian, yes, but our beliefs are not what Christianity says they are. We lost the God wars and they distorted our belief system. The lies have been known since the findings of our scriptures and myths at Nag Hammadi.

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

Gnostic Christianity is a teaching system from Jesus but not the one the church ever dares to teach. It frees us from religion and that is of course not what religions want. They never want the student to graduate as they might lose revenue and people.

Here is a bit of history as well as a nutshell version of how that freedom is gained.

Gnostic Christians are perpetual seekers after God. God here I define as the best laws and rules to live life with.

We believe that those laws and rules, as Jesus said, are found in our minds/hearts. I use the following to try to illustrate this notion. A bit of history and then a mindset and method to do what I promote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02cia ... =PLCBF574D

The thinking shown below is the Gnostic Christian’s goal as taught by Jesus but know that any belief can be internalized to activate your higher mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbes ... r_embedded

This method and mind set is how you become I am and brethren to Jesus, in the esoteric sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSVl_HOo8Y

When you can name your God, I am, and mean yourself, you will begin to know the only God you will ever find. Becoming a God is to become more fully human and a brethren to Jesus.

Regards
DL

True to a point.

We do follow a tradition that says that while our main focus is ourselves and our trying to be the best we can be, we also must fight evil as a part of us being good.

That is why we wrote our myths the way we did to try to fight what we saw as evil in the Christian myths and why we called Yahweh a demiurge.

That worked quite well until Christians became an idol worshiping cult and tried to kill us off for not turning to idol worship with them. If you follow the links above, you will see that issue spoken of by a better spokesman than I.

In fact. let me put it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02cia ... =PLCBF574D

Regards
DL

All that religions are, are tribal groups who are just appeasing their hivish gene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T64_El2s7FU

You will not get much spiritual training from them as the mainstream religions are basically immoral creeds and hold little if any spirituality.

One of the Jesus' shown in the bible hated religions.

John 6 ; 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

I have this above but let me make sure you see those words in practice, so to speak.

Regards
DL

I'm not sure I would use the word 'evil', but yes I agree with the premise.