{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2617",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2617,
    "subject": "Gnostic point of view [Digest urth.v030.n102]",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-05-01T13:30:26+00:00",
    "last": "2001-05-01T13:53:18+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0368@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "John Bishop",
        "address": "jbishop at zko.dec.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-05-01T13:30:26+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Gnostic point of view [Digest urth.v030.n102]",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I think \"Gnostic point of view\" means the following:\n\n1)  The literal \"gnosis\": the idea that since most\n    people are illiterate or semi-literate peasants\n    and artificers, they can't understand abstractions\n    and complexities, and so are told the truths of\n    religion in the form of pretty stories about people\n    and fish and so on.  But for those who can understand,\n    there is a real knowledge beyond the pretty fables.\n\n2)  The coding: that real knowledge is encoded in the\n    pretty fables for any perceptive, alert reader to see,\n    because it was put there on purpose for that reason.\n\n3)  The knowledge itself, part 1: that the God of the \n    Testament is just another created being of great \n    power, a demiurge, and the real creator is behind\n    and above him; part 2: that the world of the senses\n    is therefore not real, not the world created by God\n    in the stories, but something less; we live in an\n    imitation world created by an imitation God (the\n    demiurge).\n\n4)  Body issues: that therefore the body is imperfect \n    like the world it belongs to and to be \"risen above\",\n    cue chastity, mortification and so on.\n\n5)  Moral inversion: that the demiurge is evil, or at least\n    non-good, we therefore live in a world created by \n    Satan.\n\nAnyway, that's Gnosticsm and some associated ideas, off the\ntop of my head.  All of the shades of Gnosticism would have\npoint 1 and most point 2, but the others are less shared.\nPoint 5 is the heresy of the Bogomils, for example.\n\nRe \"good\" villians: the Draka in fiction and Rome in actual\nfact, with the Vikings coming in second place because even\ntheir romaticized image admits that they were a bunch of \nthieving, raping thugs.\n\n\t-John Bishop"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0369@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Kevin J. Maroney",
        "address": "kmaroney at ungames.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-05-01T13:53:18+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Gnostic point of view [Digest urth.v030.n102]",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0368@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 01:30 PM 5/1/01 -0400, John Bishop wrote:\nI think \"Gnostic point of view\" means the following:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Good summary, with one thing omitted: That every person contains within\nhimself (or herself) the spark of the divine breath. The point of \"the\nknowledge\" and the self-abnegation is to allow that spark to rejoin the\ngreater God outside the created world. Direct contact with the divine is\nboth possible and difficult. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Wombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at ungames.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://www.nyrsf.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}