This being the case, perhaps you should refrain from accusing Fundamentalist Protestants of "gnosticism" because they also believe something . . . even if it is something that you do not.
***ZC; we have spoken before and I have always made it quite plain that I believe. Why would I be inconsistent?
This being the case, perhaps you should refrain from accusing Fundamentalist Protestants of “gnosticism” because they also believe something . . . even if it is something that you do not.***
Your Catholic schooling was even more remiss than I had thought. I think that an understanding of Gnosticism might be in order. I don’t think that you’re using the term correctly.
Gnosticism
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The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word ( gnosis “knowledge”, gnostikos , “good at knowing”), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought. Whereas Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan systems, hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power, i.e. by faith and works, it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge. Gnostics were “people who knew “, and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know.
from http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=5209
Therefore your statement about me is incorrect. I do not accuse those who claim belief of Gnosticism. I accuse those who claim quasi-intuitive knowledge as the driving force, the means or the path to their personal salvation as Gnostic. Do you see the difference?