Where did you start?

[Moni_Gail]

My best friend Amelia was changing her religion from Christianity to Paganism... and taught me things about the Bible tat I didn't know. Magdelene is a title of honor, for instance. She told me that there was a goddess (Sophia) in Christianity...

This is what I was referring to.

I actually have all three of the Jesus Mysteries books. I like them quite a bit. So far, I've only been able to find one thing that they were incorrect on.

Trust me, I'm not in any way disagreeing with you, I just want to read more on it. Thanks!

 

[Buttons*]

This is what I was referring to.

I actually have all three of the Jesus Mysteries books. I like them quite a bit. So far, I've only been able to find one thing that they were incorrect on.

Trust me, I'm not in any way disagreeing with you, I just want to read more on it. Thanks!

I see

Well if I recall correctly, she mentioned that she bought a book called "bad girls of the bible" .... but I cant remember what she said about it, other than it was entertaining. I'll ask her next time we talk.

I love those Jesus Mystery books. Arent they amazing? They really opened my eyes to new ways of looking at things.

 

[Moni_Gail]

Well if I recall correctly, she mentioned that she bought a book called "bad girls of the bible" .... but I cant remember what she said about it, other than it was entertaining. I'll ask her next time we talk.

Now THAT I would be very interesting in finding more information on.

I love those Jesus Mystery books. Arent they amazing? They really opened my eyes to new ways of looking at things.

:yes: My husband just wrote his final paper for his World Religion class and chose to write it on much of the information from those books.

 

[Katzpur]

I began with going to a Southern Baptist private school until Jr High, at that point my family converted to Mormonism. I think this was a huge leap for me. The two are polar opposites of the Christian scale.

I'll say!

It enabled me to think outside of the box. Also, growing up my dad always told me that not one church or religion has the whole truth, but each one has a piece of it. That has always stuck with me.

My parents were both LDS and I was raised LDS. They (especially my dad) were pretty philosophically liberal, though. My dad was always telling me that I didn't have to accept everything I ever heard taught in Sunday School. He encouraged me to think for myself from a pretty early age.

My main point of this question/thread is, what helped you step away from literalistic teachings? For those literalists it's so hard for them to stop and think that others may be right also. They believe their texts and dogmas to be infallible.

Since I just barely noticed (when I re-read this sentence) that I am posting where I have no business to post :sorry1: , I'll leave it at that and hope nobody minds my throwing in my two cents worth.

 

[gnostic]

I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, I haven't checked this thread out in a while.

That's ok.

Ummm, no I actually haven't got "involved" with Gnosticism yet.

I'm not really Gnostic, but I do find Gnosticism to be a very fascinating subject.

All I know is it means constantly seeking, right?

I'd guess so. To be a gnostic, is not to limit oneself to a doctrine, therefore they seek to understand not only what is written in the scripture, but to seek knowledge outside the scripture and to understand their origin.

 

[gnostic]

As I said I'm not gnostic, but I am quite interested in learning more about Gnosticism.
Four years ago, I have never heard of Gnosticism. I did, however, hear about the Gospel of Thomas, as well of Philip, at least 12 years ago, but I wasn't aware that these 2 gospels were Gnostic. I did not know where to find translations of these gospels.

Three years ago (2003), I had managed to trace down Thomas' gospel from a couple of websites, then later that year I had found Nag Hammadi Library at the site called Gnosis Archive.

It was the Gnostic cosmogony and cosmology that had spark my real interest in . I had always been interested in mythology, though mostly of heroic mythology, but I still found creation myths to be fascinating. And I got to admit Gnostic version of creation (particularly the Apocryphon of John) is certainly fascinating. The concept is alien, because I have been used to the traditional biblical version, but in some ways the Gnostic version far better sense than the Christian one.

Anyway that's how I became interested in Gnosticism.