“We’re all God in disguise. Jesus found that out, and they crucified him for saying so.”
— Alan Watts 
Discussion
Not so. Let gnosticism stand or fall on its own merits without falsely marshaling Christ for the cause. ✌🏼
How is this falsely marshaling Christ?
Christ is not a gnostic. He is not merely a human who "achieved a higher consciousness," he is the eternal Son of God incarnate. See [John 1](https://esv.org/John+1), [Colossians 1](https://esv.org/Col+1), [Hebrews 1](https://esv.org/Heb+1), etc.
“If you pedestalize Jesus, you strangle the Gospel at birth. And it has been the tradition in both the Catholic Church and in Protestantism to pass of what I will call an emasculated gospel. Gospel means “good news.” And I cannot for the life of me think what is the good news about the gospel as ordinarily handed down. Because look here: here is the revelation of god in Christ, in Jesus, and we are supposed to follow his life and example without having the unique advantage of being the boss’s son.”
— Alan Watts
Awful take from Alan. If he couldn’t see what the good news was then he clearly did not grok the new testament
Exactly.
The good news is that you are a son of god, as is Jesus. The Hindu’s and Buddhists have known this to be true for thousands of years.
Sad that so few modern Christians grasp the gospel.
Wrong. The good news is that Christ by his perfect life and his substituuonary death have fully paid the debt we owe and it is offered to us freely. He has absorbed the just wrath of Gid in our place, and we get the just reward he earned--eternal life.
"The chastisement that brought us peace was laid upon him; by his stripes, we are healed."
👆🏼
>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
[John 1:1-5](http://blb.org/kjv/jhn/1/1-5/), KJV
>Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
[John 14:6](http://blb.org/kjv/jhn/14/6/), KJV
And, perhaps especially:
>...Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[Philippians 2:5-11](http://blb.org/kjv/phl/2/5-11/), KJV
Gnosticism is the Serpent's hiss.
How do you know?
He told us.
That’s not how you “know”. That’s what you read.
What I read is objectively clear.
It literally isn’t. You’re hiding behind verses and won’t even bear your testimony. The reason you won’t is because then you’ll accept the subjectivity of your faith.
You don’t “know”. You BELIEVE. You assume something to be true that you don’t know. Now why would one person assume something they read to be true and another ( me ) not?
Well that comes down to our psychology. Your psychology is rooted in the need for a protector, a need for order, a need for a method to the madness of life, a need for “deliverance”, a need for a father and a brother to save you. Why do you have that need, and because of it, cling to words written in the Bible, and someone else doesn’t?
I'm not hiding behind anything, friend. I believe in order to understand. Belief is always the ultimate starting point of knowledge--"I believe in order to understand," as St. Anselm famously put it.
A thing can be clear in and of itself (perspecuity) even though a given subject is unable clearly to see it (perspicacity). So how do the scales come off?
Yes, the subjective difference is faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, which is precisely why I am sharing it--in hopes that others will believe as well.
"All the riches of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ."
Theology is not a subcategory of anthropology (or psychology).
The existence of God is clear from creation and conscience (despite those who repress this knowledge).
The law of God, written on our hearts, manifest in our conscience, reveals our true need for Christ.
Christ walked this earth and told us of this need, and then--wonder of wonders--met our need. He proved his identity with supernatural wonders including his own resurrection. That validates his message. The tomb is empty.
These are historical facts, not the byproducts of an immature father-hunger. They happened. "Under Pontius Pilate--it is all in order" as Lewis put it.
Dude endless punchlines. Insufferable. They’re not historical facts. These are all things you deduced (inaccurately) and someone else hasn’t. Talk to a Christian once and you’ve talked to them all.
The fact remains you don’t KNOW. You believe.
Faith is not wishful thinking or presumption. It is confidence based on evidence. All knowledge involves some element of trust and assent.
Do you *know* that your mother is who she says she is--your mother? Or do you merely "believe" her? If not, do you *know* that she treasures you or do you only "believe" her when she says it? You're driving too large a wedge between knowledge and belief and trust.
What's insufferable, if I may say so, is that our Creator has gone to such enormous lengths to speak to us, to persuade us, to call us back to himself, and yet people are like "yeah, I'm still not buying it." He became one of us, brought Truth, Light, healing, spoke words of comfort, then died on the cross *for us*--and STILL people are like "nah, still not convinced."
"Longsuffering?" I'd say so.
Our Redeemer calls you to come home. Stop running, stop fiddling about with hocus pocus manmade "All is One" nonsense and just come home before the opportunity passes.
Even if this particular point is fruitless, perhaps we can simply fall back to having common cause in liberty, bitcoin, nostr, etc. I would rejoice to become full allies but I am content enough to be co-belligerents in this space. I've said my piece.
Jesus never once says, “I am the *only* son of God.”
...that's wordplay, friend. He is *the* Son of God, and said he is the *only* way to the Father, as quoted above. His name is exalted--pedestalized, one might say--above all other names, as quoted above. He said *I am* the Light of the World--not *we are* the light of the world, if you'll just realize that you're god too."
Christians are sons by adoption through propitiation. He is the Son by eternal generation.
The living God is a god of true distinctions. The gospel is not a message of all things melding into an indistinct mishmash. The good news is that your unique individual ego can be saved; that you can find your proper place. The Logos is the one who creates by saying "This is not that". Pantheism/Gnosticism is the doctrine of creation reversal, that our hope should be in our own unmaking.
The Gospel is most certainly not about one’s ego. Far from it.
Sounds like Alan much like Adam was fooled by Satan into thinking he too could be like God.
Haram
the pentateuch is actually a variation of the sumerian mythology and what if... what ifff.... actually the taking of that fruit was THEFT?
not that humans cannot become like angels but that they cannot be permitted in the citadel of the angels if they are unable to recognise what a crime is
i recommend you read the book of Enoch to see just how clearly it states that angels are actually humans (you probably already knew they were breeding with humans and indeed there's a kinda ... artificial inscemination... scene in the Qur'an with Gabriel)
and i think the exact words were "you can be as gods" not "God" and "gods" is plural and means angels, like Elohim, which also means "the people of the light" and the Irish called this Aes Dana or Tuatha De Danaan (the people of the light).
it's staring us right in the face.
This is only obvious to those who know via the experience of enlightenment. Belief gets you nowhere here. In fact, it's an active hindrance to the truth of the matter. You cannot fight the ego and win. You cannot make a believer see, if that's all they have. The church is a scam, but not in the way anyone can explain. It's just words.
Well said.
How is claiming enlightenment different than belief?
First-hand experience is a kind of knowing. Belief is a sincere hoping.
But experiences are subjective and can deviate from reality, like dreams, there must be some tie to reality, ie. a shared experience with unbelievers/unenlightened that could serve as proof?
There is a difference between believing something because it has been told to you, versus feeling it viscerally in your heart.
This feeling is what many who sit in meditation, travel to mountaintops, or take psychedelics seek.
There must be distinguishable evidence of this knowledge/belief in reality. Many people have genuine belief/perceived knowledge in falsehoods, and their strength of belief/understanding does not produce truth in reality. Wouldn’t that which is true have miracles associated with it?
Experiential wisdom