Is Calvinism a form of Gnostic Christianity?

This is cursory but will get you started.

This Calvinism stuff is subject to a similar treatment to what lots of Christians subject atheists. The old argument goes that if one is atheist then one has no reason to not rape, murder, and enjoy engaging in all manner of deadly sin.Calvinism offers the same opportunity. One is either of the elect or one is not. Nothing you do makes any difference. If you assume you are counted in the favored set then all manner of debauchery is open to you without consequence since you are already assured immortality and a forever existence singing hymns 24/7/365 at the foot of the golden throne. On the other hand if you assume you have been passed over then you were doomed from before the foundations of the world so you might as well go all out and enjoy your sins of choice in the here and now since whether you do or not makes no difference to your already sealed fate in the hereafter.Worse than that, from what Calvin believed, you have no choice whether to sin or not since you are just a puppet on a string with no will to resist whatever it is the puppet master has already determined you are going to think or not think, say or not say, do or not do. In a situation like that you might as well give up since your consciousness is just a faade directed from above (if you were predetermined to have such a thought, that is).People go on about the purpose and meaning of life. Seems to me that for the Calvinist these thing are meaningless since any thoughts they may think they have on the subject were preprogrammed in and are not really their own anyway.This differs so starkly from Gnosticism, with its reliance on self-generated (with help from the Messengers of Light — Jesus being a most prominent messenger) searching for the True Divinity, salvation by transcendence of the divine spark by internal intuition, Gnosis, that Calvinism, with its total powerlessness before the puppet master’s script, IMHO, does not qualify as gnostic anything.

Oh, Faith, you do not hate these discussions. You love them. It shows. You've become quite good at them. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. I've been known to go off into the weeds before.But in this case, it is not I who is misreading Calvin but it is Calvin himself. Apparently, he has totally misunderstood what he himself wrote. But then he didn't have the benefit of learning what he actually meant from all the experts who so obviously know Calvinism so much better than he did.Calvin and I both stand corrected.

But it is (supposedly) your god that determined what sin is. And, as I understand it, your god determined that all of us, even the most innocent and helpless, are corrupt sinners just by virtue of being born? Our (supposed) sins were predetermined by your god and forced upon us all through no action of will of our own. All because some slick-talking snake spun the head of some ditzy broad? Something your god knowingly caused to happen to begin with? So "God is not the author of sin? Really?So, now, he stands before all humanity and (supposedly) says, I hate you all because you have committed deadly sin against me. Never mind that I gave you no choice in the matter, by my will you are all doomed to eternal damnation. Oh, except for you, you and you, and you, you, you and, yeah ok, you, whom by my will get eternal life because I am a loving god. The rest of you go to hell."(T)hose who end up in Hell do so because of their sin and not because God willed it"? Really?If he can save you and he does not then you are doomed. There are only the two outcomes, right? If he hasn't willed your salvation then he has willed your damnation.Edited by AZPaul3, : The sad part is there are people who actually believe this shit.

Except the Calvinists do not believe that. I thought we were talking Calvin.