Why did we stop inventing gods?

LamarkNewAgeYou asked how I deal with Islamic Gnostics like the Alawites of Syria then.I view them as just as brain dead as all who believe in the supernatural.Gnostic Christianity does not have any supernatural beliefs.We do shoe supernatural situations in our myths, but those myths were written to be used to argue with and against Christ8ians before Christianity became a literalist and idol worshiping cult.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02ciandvg&feature=BFa&l...Alawites may hold that Jesus is divine but we do not. Gnostic Christians just see Jesus as that link above shows, as just an archetypal good man.There may have been an actual Jesus but the one we might embrace is the one who had a wife and kids. We do not believe in a salvific Jesus because we do not think that God would ever condemn his own perfect works.Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect:You also said that you don't see any evidence to back up your claims but failed to show which claim you were talking about.----------------------------------------"(Also, when do you think gnosticism started? How did it get started? What was the flame that flickered it? What king of gnosis/Gnosis was the forger of the Pastoral Epistles referring to?)I have no idea what king those scriptures speak to.As to where Gnostic Christianity came from, we cannot know from this far up the time line. I speculate that we were around before Christianity and were know as the Chrestians whose books were usurped by Christian.Two things lead me to those conclusions.1. Our Gnostic Christian ideology is closer to Judaism than Christianity and that may be a part of why we wrote our myths to put against Christianity and not against Judaism.2. Christianity and the bible seem to be a consolidation of many older myths and I think they plagiarized much of their book from what were Chrestian books.https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r...------------------------my quote:Gnostic Christians always saw those invented gods, specifically Yahweh, Jesus and Allah, as immoral and not worthy of us and that is why they named those gods as immoral and vile demiurgesYour reply.
But what about this evidence?The evidence is in analysing what is said of them and their rules.That is how one determines if someone is moral or not. Right?Yahweh, for instance is shown to be a genocidal son murderer.It is not hard to lean on the immoral side for him based just on those two issues.Regards
DL

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and that may be a part of why we wrote our myths to put against Christianity and not against Judaism.

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What texts are you talking about?You keep saying "we" this and "we" that.I have no clue what texts you are talking about.I'm so lost that I'm wondering if I even have the slightest clue what you are describing.I will no longer ask for any dates. Can you quote me the name of a text or a sentence or something? No need to date it. Just a text please. Or give me the name of a certain group that might give me a clue to the text. Something please.

LamarkNewAgeApologies. I took it that you would know.When speaking of our myths, I am speaking mostly of the ones in the Nag Hammadi Library and when I say we, I mean Gnostic Christians.Nag Hammadi LibraryThe Gospel of Thomas is the most important of these myths.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09tzKUuIgzQ&feature=relatedA thing to remember while reading them is that they were created for debate against other supernatural myths and that is why the old Gnostic Christians took liberties with the supernatural.This saying shows that we did not believe anything of the supernatural.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.Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be or an ugly and imperfect world?Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.That means that we live in the best of all possible worlds, given all the conditions at hand. That is an irrefutable statement.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGEyBeoBGM&feature=playe...Regards
DL

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When speaking of our myths, I am speaking mostly of the ones in the Nag Hammadi Library and when I say we, I mean Gnostic Christians.

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Nag Hammadi Library

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The Gospel of Thomas is the most important of these myths.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09tzKUuIgzQ&feature=related

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A thing to remember while reading them is that they were created for debate against other supernatural myths and that is why the old Gnostic Christians took liberties with the supernatural.

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This saying shows that we did not believe anything of the supernatural.

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The Gospel of Thomas was responding to the current Gnostics of the day?What about Thomas saying 15?

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BLATZ translation of Gospel of Thomas

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(15) Jesus said: When you see him who was not born of woman, fall down upon your faces and worship him; that one is your Father

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This is about angels.What about Gnostics and angels?What was that a response to?Perhaps this is an answer:

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James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls

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Robert Eisenman

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1998(Penguin Books)

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p.236
Even Pliny in the early 70s is already locating a group he calls the 'Nazerini' in northern Syria. Lucian of Samosota, a second century, Hellenistic traveler and writer, who contemptuously dismissed Jesus as 'a magician' and 'revolutionary,' gives us a marvelous contemporary picture of Daily Bathers on the Euphrates in northern Syria in his own time. They ate nothing but wild fruit, milk, and honey - probably the food John the Baptist also ate.

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Hippolytus (c. 160-235), a century later, tells how a book by the individual he calls 'Elchasai', was brought to Rome, and he describes the followers of this Elchasai as having an incarnationist doctrine of many 'Christs', Jesus 'continually being infused into many bodies, manifested at many [different] times'. This, of course, is nothing but the 'Imam' doctrine of Shi'ite Islam, which we have already compared to the 'Primal Man' in the Ebionite Pseudoclementines. Calling Elchasai 'a Righteous Man', Hippolytus also attributes the doctrine of 'the Standing One' - already encountered in the Pseudoclementines above and one of the variations of 'the Primal Adam' - which he says Elchasai transmitted to the Sobiai. We are back to the daily bathing or Hermobaptist 'Sabaeans' again.

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Epiphanius also identifies the 'Standing One' doctrine as Elchasai's, saying the Ebionites got it from him. As he puts this, they 'think that Christ is some Adam-like figure invisible to the naked eye, ninety-six miles high' ... 'they say that Christ is Adam, the First Man created'. Earlier too he expressed this in terms of Christ being 'a Power', [p.327] some 'ninety-six miles high' - once again, the Power' language of the Gospels.

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One should also note that Hippolytus' 'Nassenes' - whom he seems to think are an earlier group of 'Priests', following the teachings of James, have more or less this same doctrine of 'the Perfect Man'. They call him either 'Man' or 'Adam' - the 'Primal Adam' ideology delineated in the Pseudoclementines, ...'the Standing One is Exalted Power which is above the Creator god and can be thought of as being the Christ' or 'the Great Power of the High God ['that is, in other words, the Christ'] superior to the creator of the world.

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Not only do these doctrines peer through the Gospels even in their present form, for instance, in the references to 'the Great Power' and repeated allusions to 'standing', but their antiquity is attested to by Paul himself, who knows that Adam is 'the First Man' (that is 'the Primal Adam') and that Jesus, 'the Son of Man' or the 'Lord out of Heaven', is 'the Second Man' and 'Heavenly' or a 'Heavenly One' - what he also refers to as 'the Last Adam' (1 Cor. 15:45-49). This, in turn, means that the knowledge of these doctrines and their identification with "the Christ' comes before the Gospels in their present form and, true enough, reflections of the Primal Adam' ideology and the 'standing' vocabulary are to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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What did Paul mean here? Is this supernatural?

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1 Corinthians 15:45-49
So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

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NRSV

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Thomas is dated by most scholars as around 140 A.D. The Elkesaites are dated at around 100 A.D. , though their ideas could be earlier. They are the oldest known "gnostic" group though many don't think they should be considered "gnostic" but rather just an early Jewish Christian sect. (Gnostics are then considered to be even later than 100 A.D.)Hippolytus was a major figure in early Christianity too. Hippolytus of Rome - WikipediaHere is an important source for the discussion of whether the Alawite and Elkesaite First Man concept dates as far back as the time of Paul.

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Adam Kadmon is a phrase in the religious writings of Kabbalah meaning "original man". The oldest mainstream rabbinic source for the term Adam ha-Ḳadmoni is Numbers Rabbah x., where Biblical Adam is styled, not as usually Ha-Rishon ("the first"), but "Ha-Kadmoni" ("the original"). In Kabbalah, Adam Kadmon ("above") is the first of the comprehensive Five spiritual Worlds in creation, distinguished from Biblical Adam Ha-Rishon ("below"), who included within himself all future human souls before the sin of the Tree of Knowledge. The spiritual realm of Adam Kadmon represents the sephirah (divine attribute) of Keter ("crown"), the specific divine will and plan for subsequent creation.
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Philo[edit]

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The first to use the expression "original man," or "heavenly man," was Philo, in whose view the γενικός, or οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος, "as being born in the image of God, has no participation in any corruptible or earthlike essence; whereas the earthly man is made of loose material, called a lump of clay."[4] The heavenly man, as the perfect image of the Logos, is neither man nor woman, but an incorporeal intelligence purely an idea; while the earthly man, who was created by God later, is perceptible to the senses and partakes of earthly qualities.[5] Philo is evidently combining philosophy and Midrash, Plato and the rabbis[citation needed]. Setting out from the duplicate Biblical account of Adam, who was formed in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and of the first man, whose body God formed from the earth (Genesis 2:7), he combines with it the Platonic doctrine of ideas; taking the primordial Adam as the idea, and the created man of flesh and blood as the "image." That Philo's philosophic views are grounded on the Midrash, and not vice versa, is evident from his seemingly senseless statement that the "heavenly man," the οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος (who is merely an idea), is "neither man nor woman." This doctrine, however, becomes quite intelligible in view of the following ancient Midrash.

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Midrash[edit]

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The remarkable contradiction between the two above-quoted passages of Genesis could not escape the attention of the Pharisees, for whom the Bible was a subject of close study. In explaining the various views concerning Eve's creation, they taught[6] that Adam was created as a man-woman (androgynous), explaining זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה (Genesis 1:27) as "male and female" instead of "man and woman," and that the separation of the sexes arose from the subsequent operation upon Adam's body, as related in the Scripture. This explains Philo's statement that the original man was neither man nor woman.

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This doctrine concerning the Logos, as also that of man made "in the likeness,"[7] though tinged with true Philonic coloring, is also based on the theology of the Pharisees. For in an old Midrash[8] it is remarked:

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'Thou hast formed me behind and before' (Psalms 139:5) is to be explained 'before the first and after the last day of Creation.' For it is said, 'And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,' meaning the spirit of the Messiah ["the spirit of Adam" in the parallel passage, Midr. Teh. to cxxxix. 5; both readings are essentially the same], of whom it is said (Isaiah 11:2), 'And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.'

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This contains the kernel of Philo's philosophical doctrine of the creation of the original man. He calls him the idea of the earthly Adam, while with the rabbis the spirit (רוח) of Adam not only existed before the creation of the earthly Adam, but was preexistent to the whole of creation. From the preexisting Adam, or Messiah, to the Logos is merely a step.
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Pauline Christianity[edit]

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The above-quoted Midrash is even of greater importance for the understanding of the Pauline Christology, as affording the key to Paul's doctrine of the first and second Adam. The main passage in Pauline Christology is 1 Corinthians 15:45-50. According to this there is a double form of man's existence; for God created a heavenly Adam in the spiritual world and an earthly one of clay for the material world. The earthly Adam came first into view, although created last. The first Adam was of flesh and blood and therefore subject to deathmerely "a living soul"; the second Adam was "a life-giving spirit"a spirit whose body, like the heavenly beings in general, was only of a spiritual nature.[contradictory][clarification needed]

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As a pupil of Gamaliel, Paul simply operates with conceptions familiar to the Palestinian theologians. Messiah, as the Midrash remarks, is, on the one hand, the first Adam, the original man who existed before Creation, his spirit being already present. On the other hand, he is also the second Adam in so far as his bodily appearance followed the Creation, and inasmuch as, according to the flesh, he is of the posterity of Adam.

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With Philo the original man is an idea; with Paul He is the pre-existent Logos, incarnate as the man Jesus Christ. With Philo the first man is the original man; Paul identifies the original man with the second Adam. The Christian Apostle evidently drew upon the Palestinian theology of his day; but it can not be denied that in ancient times this theology was indebted to the Alexandrians for many of its ideas, and probably among them for that of pre-existence. The Midrash thus considered affords a suitable transition to the Gnostic theories of the original man. (Cf. Original Man (Nāā Qaḏmāyā in Aramaic) under Manichaeism#Cosmogony.)

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Clementine literature[edit]

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It has been said that the Midrash already speaks of the spirit (πνεῦμα) of the first Adam or of the Messiah without, however, absolutely identifying Adam and Messiah. This identification could only be made by persons who regarded only the spirit of the Scripture (meaning, of course, their conception of it) and not the letter as binding. In such circles originated the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, in which the doctrine of the original man (called also in the Clementine writings "the true prophet") is of prime importance. It is quite certain that this doctrine is of Judo-Christian origin. The identity of Adam and Jesus seems to have been taught in the original form of the Clementine writings. The Homilies distinctly assert:[11]

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If any one do not allow the man fashioned by the hands of God to have the holy spirit of Christ, is he not guilty of the greatest impiety in allowing another, born of an impure stock, to have it? But he would act most piously if he should say that He alone has it who has changed His form and His name from the beginning of the world, and so appeared again and again in the world until, coming to his own times, . . . He shall enjoy rest forever.

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The Recognitions also lay stress upon the identity of Adam and Jesus; for in the passage[12] wherein it is mysteriously hinted that Adam was anointed with the eternal oil, the meaning can only be that Adam is the anointed (מָשִׁיחַ). If other passages in the "Recognitions" seem to contradict this identification they only serve to show how vacillating the work is in reference to the doctrine of the original man. This conception is expressed in true Philonic and Platonic fashion in i. 18, where it is declared that the "interna species" (ἰδέα) of man had its existence earlier. The original man of the Clementines is, therefore, simply a product of three elements, namely, Jewish theology, Platonic-Philonic philosophy, and Oriental theosophy; and this fact serves to explain their obscurity of expression on the subject.

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Other Christian sects[edit]

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In close relationship to the Clementine writings stand the Bible translator Symmachus and the Jewish-Christian sect to which he belonged. Victorinus Rhetor[13] states that "The Symmachiani teach EumChristumAdam esse et esse animam generalem." The Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites also taught (about the year 100) that Jesus appeared on earth in changing human forms, and that He will reappear.[14] That by these "changing human forms" are to be understood the appearances of Adam and the patriarchs is pointed out by Epiphanius,[15] according to whom the Jewish-Christian sects of Sampsans, Ossenes, Nazarene, and Ebionites adopted the doctrine of the Elcesaites that Jesus and Adam are identical.

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The "Primal Man" of the Elcesaites, was also, according to the conception of these Jewish Gnostics, of huge dimensions; viz., ninety-six miles in height and ninety-four miles in breadth; being originally androgynous, and then cleft in two, the masculine part becoming the Messiah, and the feminine part the Holy Ghost.[16]

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Gnosticism[edit]

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The Primeval Man (Protanthropos, Adam) occupies a prominent place in several Gnostic systems. According to Irenaeus[17] the Aeon Autogenes emits the true and perfect Anthrpos, also called Adamas; he has a helpmate, "Perfect Knowledge", and receives an irresistible force, so that all things rest in him. Others say[18] there is a blessed and incorruptible and endless light in the power of Bythos; this is the Father of all things who is invoked as the First Man, who, with his Ennoia, emits "the Son of Man", or Euteranthrpos.

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According to Valentinus, Adam was created in the name of Anthrpos and overawes the demons by the fear of the pre-existent man (tou proontos anthropou). In the Valentinian syzygies and in the Marcosian system we meet in the fourth (originally the third) place Anthrpos and Ecclesia.

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In the Pistis Sophia the Aeon Jeu is called the First Man, he is the overseer of the Light, messenger of the First Precept, and constitutes the forces of the Heimarmene. In the Books of Jeu this "great Man" is the King of the Light-treasure, he is enthroned above all things and is the goal of all souls.

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According to the Naassenes, the Protanthropos is the first element; the fundamental being before its differentiation into individuals. "The Son of Man" is the same being after it has been individualized into existing things and thus sunk into matter.

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The Gnostic Anthrpos, therefore, or Adamas, as it is sometimes called, is a cosmogonic element, pure mind as distinct from matter, mind conceived hypostatically as emanating from God and not yet darkened by contact with matter. This mind is considered as the reason of humanity, or humanity itself, as a personified idea, a category without corporeality, the human reason conceived as the World-Soul. The same idea, somewhat modified, occurs in Hermetic literature, especially the Poimandres.

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Adam Kadmon - Wikipedia

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I'll post some sources and references so you can look into it more.What do you think though?So far?

You said that the Gospel of Thomas speaks against the supernatural. I quoted the Gospel approving of angels and infact describing them as God. I think it was an allusion to the monumentally important Elkesaite sect (whether they are lebeled "Jewish Christian" or "Gnostic Christian") and their angelic revelation.

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Hippolytus (c 170 — c 236)[edit]

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Hippolytus of Rome (Philosophumena, IX, 8-13) records that in the time of Pope Callixtus I (217-222) a Jewish Christian called Alcibiades of Apamea, came to Rome, bringing a book which he said had been received from Parthia by a just man named Elchasai.[2] According to Alcibiades the book had been revealed by an angel ninety-six miles high, sixteen miles broad and twenty-four across the shoulders, whose footprints were fourteen miles long and four miles wide by two miles deep. This giant angel was the Son of God, who was accompanied by His Sister, the Holy Ghost, of the same dimensions.[3] Alcibiades announced that a new remission of sins had been proclaimed in the third year of Trajan (AD 100), and he described a baptism which should impart this forgiveness even to the grossest sinners.

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Hippolytus' commentary starts in Book 10 Chapter 8.[4] In his next section Hippolytus recounts that Alcibiades teaches the natural birth, preexistence and reincarnation of Christ which may relate, per Louis Ginzberg (1906) to the kabbala concept of Adam kadmon, and also that Alcibiades teaches circumcision and the Law of Moses
Elcesaites - Wikipedia

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You have Jewish Christian sect that is "gnostic" (they have features of gnostics like vegetarianism and Avatar views though the alawites aren't vegtarians). The Gospel of Thomas talks about James the brother of Jesus being the leader in teaching about righteousness and rules. A Jewish Christian environment clearly is on the mind of the unknown author of the Gospel of Thomas.People know about the Gospel of Thomas because of Elaine Pagels work. She doesn't consider it "gnostic" anymore.Bart Ehrman still does though. He is discussing the gnostic gospels and Nag Hammadi.

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Jesus and His First Followers: What Current Archaeology and Biblical Research Are Telling Us
2005 Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington D.C.
[3rd hour long lecture titled:]
Discoveries of New Gospels: The Case of the Gospel of Thomas
By Bart D. Ehrman

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The books themselves were manufactured in the 4th century, the mid to late 4th century. The reason we know when the books themselves were manufactured is because the people who made the books strengthened the bindings with scrap-paper and the scrap paper included dated receipts. .And so we know when the books were manufactured. Now knowing when the books were manufactured isn’t the same thing as sayingthat you knowwhen the documents within the books were actually composed. I’ve got a Bible in my book-bag here. The Bible was manufactured in the year 1997. But the books within that manufactured book are 2000 years old. how old are these [ Nag Hammadi] books within them? When were they composed? .They’re written in the Coptic language. .Originally these books were all composed in Greek. We know that. There’s nobody who doubts this.This one is pretty secure. [They were certainly] original Greek compositions. So. 13 leather bound volumes, written on papyrus, in the Coptic language, translations from Greek [to Coptic], a total of 46 writings-most of which we did not know before including the one that has been the most significant- the Gospel of Thomas.
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there exists then 114 of Jesus’ sayings .There are no narratives here. No stories of Jesus’ miracles, or his confrontations, or his activities, nothing about his death and resurrection. One saying after the other, Jesus said, the other saying, Jesus said, the other saying. Sometimes you’ll have a discussion between the disciples [who] will ask Jesus something and Jesus will reply. So you do get narrative sometimes to the extent that you have an actual conversation going on between Jesus and the disciples but other than that it’s just sayings.
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One of the leading questions on scholarship of the Gospel of Thomas that has become an even hotter issue over the last decade involves the character of [this Gospel] I maintain the view that used to be the view that everybody had but now it’s come under some dispute. I continue to maintain the view that this is a Gnostic gospel. . There have been people recently, including Elaine Pagelsand some others, who have come to dispute whether it’s best to understand Thomas as a Gnostic gospel. I continue to stick to my guns on this one.
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There are some sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that are Synoptic like. By that I mean this-the word Synoptic is a word used of three gospels in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called Synoptic Gospels because Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the New Testament, tell many of the same stories often in the same wordsso that it’s possible to put Matthew, Mark, and Luke in parallel columns next to each other and read them at the same time. .The Greek word for being seen together is synoptic and so these are called the Synoptic Gospels-Matthew, Mark, and Luke-as opposed to John-he is very different from the other three. There are some sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that are very much like sayings found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in fact some of them are the same sayings with some slight variations.
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[Now as to the relation between] Thomas, the canonical gospels, and the historical Jesus. Thomas then contains sayings that are very much like the sayings we get in the Synoptic Gospels. It’s different from the Synoptic Gospels because the Synoptic Gospelshave sayings like you find in Thomas but the sayings are subservient to a broader theology, which, in the Synoptic Gospels, is the theology of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s his death and resurrection that brings salvation, not the sayings. It’s the opposite with the Gospel of Thomas.To be a believer in Jesus means to understand his teachings and if you understand them then you have the knowledge; when you have the knowledge you have what is necessary for salvation. The death and resurrection is irrelevant in the secret sayings of Jesus.
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So, you’ve got the Synoptic Gospels- Matthew, Mark, and Luke-and what scholars in the 19th century argued-almost everybody still thinks this today is that Mark was the first gospel and Matthew & Luke both copied some of their stories from Mark. They sometimes changed the stories, sometimes they kept it the same- that’s why there are similarities and differences. But Matthew and Luke have other stories not found in Mark; The Lords Prayer,The Beatitudes,Where did they get these sayings? They’re almost all sayings common in Matthew and not found in Mark? Where did they get them from? The hypothesis is there was another source that existed, a source that contained mainly sayings of Jesus that Matthew and Luke had access to [but] not found in Mark. The German scholars came up with this idea of a sayings source, called it the source- Quelle- German word for source. It starts with a q. And so, in short, Quelle is Q. And so that’s what the Q source is. A hypothetical document probably written in Greek, used by Matthew and Luke-not found in Mark. Scholars objected to the theory of Q for decades on the grounds that there could be no such document that contains sayings of Jesus without an account of the death and resurrection. They objected to the existence of Q until they discovered Thomas which is a collection of the sayings of Jesus without an account of his death and resurrection. Now it’s not that Q can be Thomas and that Thomas can be Q because there’s all sorts of Q material not found in Thomas and all sorts of Thomas material not found in Q but they’re similar kinds of documents probably. Q was a document like Thomas-a collection of the sayings of Jesus but I would argue not a Gnosticized collection as Thomas is.

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Thomas is useful for scholars who want to know something about the historical Jesus because it contains sayings of Jesus not found in our other sources. Now it‘s not [certain at all the these were actual Jesus quotes or slightly re-worded traditions that originated with Jesus]. Jesus didn’t say a lot of these things but he may have said some of these things that survive in Thomas and so it’s a useful additional source for knowing some of the things Jesus may have said. It has to be used critically just like our other gospels. Thomas is best understood as an early Christian gospel that has a Gnosticized orientation I think. Its best understood as a gospel that came out of a gnostic circle in which sayings of Jesus had been circulating-some of them found also in the Synoptics, some found in other sources, but these sayings are understood in a Gnostics way.

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Ehrman considers it "gnostic" but is it actually a "Jewish Christian" gospel?What do you think of the Elkesaites?(sorry my post ended up being a bit long because f my Ehrman quote).

LamarkNewAge(15) Jesus said: When you see him who was not born of woman, fall down upon your faces and worship him; that one is your Father----------The way I interpret this is from the point of view of the more Eastern mystics and their words put into Jesus' mouth.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.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.To that Jesus, your Father is in you.This view is bolstered nowadays by science with Jung and Freud's Father Complex.Father complex - WikipediaA bit of trivia for you. Google Michelangelo's creation painting and have a look at where God is. Note that the background is a representation of the right hand hemisphere of our brains. The Egyptians had the same view and notion with their eye iconography.Gnostic Christianity has a more Eastern view of God than what the West has ended up with.I can tell you from experience that apotheosis is hard to take and I ended up on my knees when I experience mine.I would not say any should worship what they find though. Gnostic Christians are perpetual seekers and we wish to evolve what we find to an even greater state.------------------------------------------"What did Paul mean here? Is this supernatural?"Not to me as the Father Complex is our primal man. It is our set of instincts that push us to be the fittest of our species."'the Perfect Man'."This theme is indeed old and many religions accepted as fact that man was God's greatest expression. God to them would have meant nature as indicated by this gnostic saying.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."-------------------------------------------This that you quoted fits in quite nicely with Gnostic beliefs when you see heaven as here and now.1 Corinthians 15:45-49
So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.You are born without the Christ , ---as it is known. You were born from dust but when you matures and our true spirit, your Father Complex, manifests itself, you are in a sense born again from your apotheosis.----------------------------------------------------"that Jesus appeared on earth in changing human forms, and that He will reappear.[14] That by these "changing human forms"I pulled this to start me up on Jesus.Gnostic Christians basically see Jesus as an archetypal good man. When we were Chrestians, before Christianity usurped our writings and incorporated them in their idol worshiping theology, we called Jesus, Jesus the Good, and we named God, God the Good. No names as Gnostic Christians will see all people as being able to reach the Jesus mind within us. We are all Gods, minus the stupid supernatural aspect.In scriptures, Jesus asked his disciples, who do they say I am?The old Jewish tradition states that the spirit of their dead prophets will return and be reborn in other Jews. This is the tradition that is spoken of, I think, when people talk about the first Adam and second Adam etc. If Christianity had done a better job of interpreting the myths that they were usurping, much of this would have been clear and they would not have become the idol worshiping supernaturally lost religionists that they have become.The waters became even muddier when Rome slid their Roman ass kissing Jesus into scriptures.Jesus is the ultimate phone tag character who went from just a good man archetype to the son of an imaginary supernatural God who had to die to redeem us from the condemnation that the foolish Trinitarians must see as coming from Jesus himself. Too stupid of a scenario for any thinking man.I must compliment you on your research and hope I have given you something to think about.If you go into the more Eastern and especially Egyptian theology, you will see that they were into the chakra thinking, our glands, and were well aware of our pineal gland which they thought was the key to access our right hemisphere of our brains.If you look at the largest sculpture inn the Vatican collection, you will see that it represent the pineal gland.Some think it is a pine cone but that is a foolish view. To think that the ancients would sculpt a pine cone in that great of a size, showing it's importance, is too foolish for me to contemplate especially when they put a lot of importance on the pineal gland.Regards
DL

Who were you on your knees to? Yourself? I can respect your beliefs only so far.You think that belief in a power greater than yourself is scientifically silly...but scripture supports the western concept far more than the cherry picked scrip that supports your eastern concept.When the truth is revealed fully to humanity, the scientific rational mind will be thoroughly blown away.

IF "The Truth" was revealed to humanity, the rational scientific mind would be the first to accept it. True Believers from a thousand different faiths are the ones who would be blown away. Of course, there's always a slim chance that one of those thousand faiths might be right.

Phat, rational minds have been asking for some evidence all along. You make an assertion about some truth being revealed but that is all rational minds have ever asked for, reveal some evidence.But is there some reason that you expect the "Truth" to actually be anything anyone had ever imagined? Do you actually think that the "Truth" will ever show some religion got it right even though all of the current evidence shows that they are all most likely wrong?

quote:

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When the truth is revealed fully to humanity, the scientific rational mind will be thoroughly blown away.
  —Phat

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Yeh, the zealots have being saying such things for thousands of years. The fact that it never ever happens is one of the reasons people are no longer believing this stuff.

Phat"Who were you on your knees to? Yourself?"In terms of the Father Complex, yes.---------------"You think that belief in a power greater than yourself"Get the quote where I show such a notion and we can discuss it.---------------"When the truth is revealed fully to humanity,"Tell us who or what is hiding whatever truth you allude to please, and tell us why it is being hidden.Regards
DL

Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.Robert A. Heinlein

Why do you call it religion when it is only psychology? OK. First, my full quote,however. I am asserting that you do not believe in God as an external reality but only as an internal rationality. Logic tells us that an internally generated "god" can never be greater than ourselves because it is in fact our self. Quite simply---we humans by nature do not want anyone or anything to be in charge of us---except ourselves. You may assert that the truth has been hidden by organized religion. I would assert that the truth--that Jesus Christ is Lord and is alive today--is scoffed at by much of rationally minded society. Critics will point out that I am presenting my idea of the truth as established objective fact---and i cant argue otherwise. My basic argument is that God is not an invention of the human mind...though gods certainly are.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

The main reason that people no longer believe this stuff is because there are many more rational reasons not to believe. Logic and rationality will be the last to believe.Belief is the pre requisite---and it logically makes little sense.I believe that there is and will be a rational reason to believe.Call me crazy. Edited by Phat, : spelling

Ok. Ok In as much as I understand this, Ok. Well this makes no sense at all does it?
Belief in the face of strong negative evidence is not rational - never can be, never will be. You're just hoping that what you believe is true, you need it to be true. You spend very large quantities of your life counting angels on pin heads and praying for it to be true. It's such a waste of your energy and life. You'd be far better off just behaving like a decent person and getting on with it. No, not crazy, just deluded and conned.