davidstarlingm

On what historical source do you base your belief that Gnosticism was "ruthlessly stomped out"? Hint: Dan Brown is not a historical source.

Horatio Parker

I don't have them at hand, I'm not prepared to cite. I've read many books on the early church, and there are many tales of exile, riots, murder, burning of heretical texts etc with Gnostics specifically mentioned as targets. I've not read any Dan Brown.

Nag Hammadi itself could be confirmation of suppression. There's speculation that the body found there was a slave killed so that the location couldn't be revealed. If so, who were they frightened of?

Was Gnosticim not suppressed? What is your point?

Toto

The authorities tried to suppress gnosticism, with varying degrees of success. You can look up the unfortunate history of the Cathars.

What is your point, davidstarlingm? Do you think gnostics were treated well, or that the attempts to suppress them were unsuccessful?

Sarai

I know it's an idea that's commonly rejected, but it's also possible that there was more contact between "old" and "new" world pre-Columbus than was thought. There was a recent dig in Guatemala where distinctly Mediterranean-style sculpture was found. Here's a blog entry that tells more.

Sarai

davidstarlingm

Perhaps I misunderstood. Usually, when people talk about things like gnosticism being "ruthlessly stomped out", they're referring to supposed developments within the first few centuries AD....generally with the implication that Christianity was only one of several divergent competing ideologies that won merely by leveraging political power in the fourth century to violently suppress the others. That's simply not reflected in history.

If Parker was just referring to persecution of a few sects at no particular time (like the Catholic persecution of the Cathars along with Protestants, Jews, and Muslims), then I suppose I understand. It's generally agreed, though, that the Catholics in the Middle Ages generally persecuted anyone who wouldn't submit to their authority; I don't think there was anything particularly unique about gnostic ideologies that prompted the Catholics to stamp them out ahead of anyone else they didn't like.

It seems people subconsciously think that any minority ideology must have been "suppressed" by authorities, or it would have grown more than it did.

davidstarlingm

See, this is the kind of thing that I like to see: connections being drawn to new discoveries and ideas based on theoretical considerations.

dmm

I wrote a small article about the merits of God's actions in the Tower of Babel story. I posted it a while back, but here it is anyway.

The story of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is another example of God’s selfishness and shortsightedness. In this story the whole earth had one language and they settled in the land of Shinar. They decided to build a city and a tall tower with “its top in the heavens”, so they could make a name for themselves. Genesis 11: 5 says, “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.” So even though he is supposedly all-knowing, he needs to come see it and only just realize they were building a city and a tower. The Genesis 11:6 is, “And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible to them.’” All of the people are united, happy and doing well for themselves. They are presumably at peace if they can build a city and have the time to build a tall tower. Isn’t that what God wants us to do be, united and at peace? Apparently that isn’t what he wants. Genesis 11:7-8 says what he does to them, “Come, let us go down (He already came down, when did he go up? He is talking to someone), and confuse their language, that they may not understand on another’s speech’. So the Lord (what about “us” in verse 7?) scattered them a broad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.” Why would God scatter everybody and make them start speaking in a different language if they were doing fine as they were? Later on, he advocates working together and being united so why would he break them apart? Some might argue that they were being arrogant and were trying to best God by trying to build a tower that would reach the heavens so it is a punishment. First off, it does not say that they were trying to best God they just wanted to make a name for themselves. If that angered him why didn’t he tell them before they started building the tower? Secondly, what about all the families and friends he split apart by scattering them all over the world? Thirdly, being all-knowing, he knew that being from different countries, languages, and cultures would cause many conflicts among us from trading resources to world wars.

Going back to be mad at us for trying to achieve something, I have an analogy similar to the story of Babel. Let’s say your friend owns a business. It is a nice business with fifty employees. Your friend also has a couple of sons who are really close and decide to create their own business. They want to make a name for themselves and be successful with three hundred employees. A few years go by and they now have a hundred employees. Instead of being happy for them and encourage them, your friend is mad that the sons have more employees. He reasons that if they can accomplish that, then they could have five hundred employees. He gets so mad that he burns down their building along with all of their goods. He goes even farther and starts a feud between the two of them. They blame each other and stop talking to one another. After your friend accomplishes all of that, he is satisfied. If this were true, you would be horrified at such a horrible act. You would probably not want to be friends with such a person and view them as an envious, selfish, horrible monster. This story resembles much of the same actions done by God. He does not like that they accomplished a lot so he makes them speak in different languages and scatters them far apart. God is not a loving and forgiving being.

Jimmy Higgins

From my studies, the The Story of The Fall doesn't have have a clear message. It can support a number of angles from loss of innocence to a willing betrayal of god to the importance of farming. The most clear thing is that the Garden isn't this paradise that people make it out to be. Man was created to tend to the Garden, not to lounge in it.

Sarai

Ah, geez...now you make me blush! :wave:

Sarai

Horatio Parker

I'm not arguing whether or not orthodox Xtianity won "merely" through state sanctioned violent suppression. I would guess that that played a major role.

[...]
The minority ideology at point isn't just any MI. And I quite consciously think that it would've grown more than it did had it existed in a more benevolent environment.