Comments on: Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism III: Valentinianism

By: warren chan

warren chan — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:31:01 +0000

it is really ironic that the early church fathers who are considered orthodoxy really disliked gnostic sects like the vatlentinians and sethians because they adopted platonic and hellenist traditions with their belief in myths. Roman Catholicism was created by a pagan who was baptised in his death bed centuries after so isn’t the orthodox church preaching hypocrisy for their elitist traditions?

By: Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:39:22 +0000

I can’t face any of these myths, so I have always been grateful to all you hippy-dippy sorts who can.

By: Joshua Demers

Joshua Demers — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:17:23 +0000

Gnosticism does take a bit of time to digest, so I was a bit taken aback by the exercise (hence my quite lame hockey analogy – I actually think life can be boiled down to a hockey game, where anything from a high stakes relationship can be referred to as winning a game in overtime).

But I digress. What I found enlightening about the exercise in hindsight, was how it seemed to represent the natural human instinct to make all material personal to one’s self. It happens all the time. People will be inspired from books and movies, but for completely different reasons simply because something resonated with them specifically. This got me thinking about how the Gnostics could have used this very approach when dealing with canonical texts they found problematic. By taking aspects that resonated with them, they crafted intimate beliefs that made sense.

Religion tends to go awry when people get lost in the technicalities. A wonderful person that I know often states that her religious beliefs are whatever helps to make a person a better human being. The exercise in the context of reading Pagels’ work really helps emphasize how this can relate to Gnosticism, especially the Gnostic suggestion that spiritually is always a search rather than a set of definite answers. Maybe if people explored their faith and viewed it as a personal journey rather than a law that needs to be upheld, the world might be a happier place.

I apologize – this edition of Joshua’s rant had more tangents than a Grade nine math paper.

Cheers,
Joshua

By: Abdullah Ramay

Abdullah Ramay — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:27:01 +0000

This course provides an interesting insight in the sense that different people looking at similar text can come up with profoundly different interpretations. This must have been true for the early Christians, as other religions. I guess, interpretation is not as much about the text as it is about the individual interpreting. We interpret information based on our views, experiences and wishes. Therefore, often same statements can have radically different meanings for different people.

By: Emily Jurman

Emily Jurman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:08:33 +0000

I actually really enjoy reading all the different cosmologies and learning about them, but perhaps it’s because I spent my entire first year comparing Babylonian, Greek, and Jewish creation myths and loved every second of it… I find the cosmologies to be a similar experience. And as for helping us be sympathetic to the Gnostics, in some cases I’m actually surprised HOW much on their side I am!