Gnosticism

From Conservapedia

Gnosticism (after gnôsis, the Greek word for "knowledge" or "insight") is the name given to a loosely organized religious and philosophical movement that flourished in the first and second centuries A.D. Though the exact origins of this school of thought cannot be traced with any certainty, it is possible to infer that certain non-canonical sources dating from the first and second centuries A.D. were used to develop it. It is considered a heresy by most modern Christians.

Literary critic Harold Bloom distinguishes Gnosticism from Christianity and Judaism in his book Agon:

"Gnosticism polemically is decidedly not a faith, whether in the Christian sense, pisits, a believing that something was, is, and will be so; or in the Hebraic sense, emunah, a trusting in the Covenant. If religion is a binding, then Gnosticism is an unbinding, but not for the sake of things or persons merely as they are. Gnostic freedom is a freedom for knowledge, knowledge of what in the self, not in the psyche or soul, is Godlike, and knowledge of God beyond the cosmos. But also it is a freedom to be known, to be known by God, by what is alien to everything created, by what is alien to and beyond the stars and the cosmic system and our earth."

Generally, Gnostics believed that the Abrahamic God was in fact two separate and independent entities. They believed that the Demiurge was the God of the Israelites and the Old Testament. He created the world and man imperfectly, and was malevolent. This belief largely stemmed from accounts of the highly interventionist God in the Old Testament directly and indirectly killing large numbers of people. The Gnostics believed that the second god was a good, benevolent god who is embodied in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to save humanity from sin and suffering, the evils of the material world.

Today, Gnosticism still exists in small, isolated communities throughout the world.