as someone who has had varied religious experiences in the past, its is always healthy to question whether you are being lied to by an evil demon when it seems like god/the gods are talking to you. i like that the end-goal of gnosticism is to redeem yaldabaoth instead of destroying it. not a fan of the whole 'no engaging with the physical world' rules it shares with many other religions and systems of mysticism, dis-inhibitory spiritual practices can be just as psychologically effective for some people as inhibitory practices. also not a fan of the baked-in gender/sex essentialism common to these kinds of belief systems, you find this even with modern recreations of ancient beliefs like wicca, even sci fi like Dune has firm demarcations along gender lines regarding who is powerful enough to survive space witch training or drinking sandworm deathpiss. having external or internal genitals or having an x or y chromosome probably isn't some spiritual marker of your ultimate destiny or metaphysical identity or something. also the notion of 'hylics', people who are fundamentally incapable of spiritual growth due to a lack of 'sophia', is pretty toxic.
as a genuinely curious seeker of truth and meaning, i rate gnosticism like 5/10, better attitudes especially towards spiritual inquiry than garden variety christianity and more interesting beliefs, and has a history of some kind of anti-imperialism and repression by hegemonic powers, but suffers from the same flaws as many religions such as gender essentialism, rejection of the physical world, overly complicated and dubious creation myths that have at best vague metaphorical truths contained within that the original authors likely never intended or that modern audiences will never interpret correctly without context, and a holier-than-thou attitude towards nonbelievers ('hylics').
as someone who has had varied religious experiences in the past, its is always healthy to question whether you are being lied to by an evil demon when it seems like god/the gods are talking to you. i like that the end-goal of gnosticism is to redeem yaldabaoth instead of destroying it. not a fan of the whole 'no engaging with the physical world' rules it shares with many other religions and systems of mysticism, dis-inhibitory spiritual practices can be just as psychologically effective for some people as inhibitory practices. also not a fan of the baked-in gender/sex essentialism common to these kinds of belief systems, you find this even with modern recreations of ancient beliefs like wicca, even sci fi like Dune has firm demarcations along gender lines regarding who is powerful enough to survive space witch training or drinking sandworm deathpiss. having external or internal genitals or having an x or y chromosome probably isn't some spiritual marker of your ultimate destiny or metaphysical identity or something. also the notion of 'hylics', people who are fundamentally incapable of spiritual growth due to a lack of 'sophia', is pretty toxic.
as a genuinely curious seeker of truth and meaning, i rate gnosticism like 5/10, better attitudes especially towards spiritual inquiry than garden variety christianity and more interesting beliefs, and has a history of some kind of anti-imperialism and repression by hegemonic powers, but suffers from the same flaws as many religions such as gender essentialism, rejection of the physical world, overly complicated and dubious creation myths that have at best vague metaphorical truths contained within that the original authors likely never intended or that modern audiences will never interpret correctly without context, and a holier-than-thou attitude towards nonbelievers ('hylics').