I spearheaded the /r/conspiracy Round Tables, and since my unceremonious removal from reddit, it appears the remaining /r/conspiracy mod team is uninterested in keeping the tradition alive, sadly.
Well, here at conspiracies.win we are "building back better" (lol) and we have no problem continuing the traditions that made /r/conspiracy fun.
Suggest a topic for us to dissect in a pinned thread...please limit yourself to one suggestion per comment to facilitate voting.
Emphasis should be put on the more "high octane" speculation, but the more general conspiracies are welcome too.
Happy speculating!
I'm not entirely sure. Gnostics believe the physical universe is intrinsically evil, yet also believe in a hidden higher power.
It just seems sort of baseless. Why would we be part of a fundamentally evil universe, while our true creator hides and tells us to view our reality as vane? Now, I DO agree with their more spiritual outlook on religion. I personally believe the formalities of religions are mostly superfluous. It's faith that matters, not the amount of time someone goes to church. Knowledge is what faith is built on, despite what many Bible-thumpers will have you believe. I'll explain:
If you study how the universe operates, you will inevitably hit a dead-end. What created everything? Nobody knows, yet if you take a chance, and try to connect with God, you'll have an epiphany. You just KNOW he is real, because he enables you to see through lies and deception. He is holding out his hand, and one only needs to take it. Doing this takes humility and wisdom (which is why it took me so long ?). It is then our duty to spread God's truth. Everyone is an individual, and will worship God in their own way. If you're more science-minded, God can be referred to as the "Source", which is the origin of ALL quantum particles/waves (which make up ALL of creation, including us).
I digress...
I feel Gnosticism is a slippery slope into Puritanism, which essentially teaches that you aren't supposed to enjoy any aspect of life. They believe you are meant to SURVIVE for God, while avoiding all forms of debauchery. Seems like a pretty sad existence to me...
All that said, Gnostics have the largest collection of real Jesus quotes on the planet, and I do appreciate their perspective.
Perosnaly, I've taken the elements from various schools of thought, and merged them into what feels right for me. For example, why do I need to go to church every week, or recite prayers in old English if God is omnipotent? I'd rather just speak to him like my father. After all, we are all his children, and he knows EVERYTHING about us. I'm not going to insult him by pretending to believe in certain dogma, just because it has become mainstream.
Re: Jesus quotes - seriously, the gospel of Thomas should be part of the canon, the only comprehendible reason for its exclusion is the power it vests in the individual, over the Church
Re: The physical universe as pure “suffering” - that’s not my interpretation. To me, the gnostic belief systems reads as a westernizing of the eastern beliefs of Buddhism and Taoism (the things existed long before the isms). In this reading, while the physical universe, and thus the demiurge, is the incarnation of “suffering”, but it is also the incarnation of “joy”. As the eastern traditions figured out long ago, one will not exist without the other. The physical exists as a stepping stone, one segment of a vast journey from the immaterial to the material and back again.