From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>

<<
I find gnosticism appealing: the Creator exists, and is mad;
>>

Actually, I think gnosticism (a severely dualistic theodicity) would say,
"God exists, and He (She?) is bad."

        ("God is mad" sounds more like H.P.Lovecraft to me.)

The idea of a Fallen God is deeply rooted in the Platonic tradition -- see
the Demiurge in the Timaeus.

There are various stances you can take with respect to the (or a) Creator,
most with long roots in time -- hatred (an extreme?), disbelief,
renunciation, despite.

And, I am forced to admit, belief, love, and obedience.

Though what these apparently positive emotions are directed at is more
problematic.

As Dom points out, while it is utterly inconsistent to disbelieve in a
Creator while simultaneously hating Him, this stance has a long and
(ig)noble history.

    Does the name Nietzsche crop up here?

                A Hasty Rodent, with one hour to pack.

See you all in a week folks, and don't say anything in my absence that you
wouldn't say in my presence.

(I once thought I'd met the Seventh Daughter of God, Sophia, but I was
probably mistaken.)

On the eighth day of creation
    my true love said to me
"You're a partridge
    in a pear tree."

... which, if you think about it, makes as much sense as anything else.

As Dom points out, radical atheism can lead to either quietism or anarchy.

(Strelnikov via Dostoievsky put it succinctly: "If God does not exist, all
is permitted.")

[Or as Sam Johnson pragmatically pronounced, "I wouldn't trust an atheist
with my life." Tell *that* to David Hume. Mind you, existentialism in none
of its varieties ever managed to come up with an ethic rather than an ethos.
Just as well, too.]

Much of the trouble with Christianity (other than the catastrophe of Saul of
Tarsus, the hatchetman of the Sanhedrin, winning out over James the brother
of the Christ) is due to Augustine winning his argument with Pelagius.

        {That, in itself, goes back to Paul -- "The wind of the spirit
bloweth where it listeth."}

Look what happened to Origen -- if you refuse to limit the love of god,
you're not only denounced as an heretic but as a [sic] *filthy* heretic.

Apocatastasis, who needs it?

R finally.

<<
consequently there is no sanity in creation and the only rational
response of any sane person to the created order is to diskard it
uterly. There exist hopeful and despairing versions of this creed. The
hopeful version says "smash capitalism (or whatever the prevailing
idiocy may be) and replace it with something nicer". The despairing
version says "why bother? You'll only get something even more dumb and
violent in its place". Actually, I don't find either of those
positions compelling, so maybe I'm not so hot on gnosticism after all.

Burroughs is good on this subject, explaining why a Many God Universe
makes more sense - you ask god X why such-and-such atrocity is
permitted to take place, and get a shrug: "No good asking me. Hustling
myself". Maybe god Y is having a pissing contest with god Z, and
you're the lucky recipient of that golden shower. There's no One in
charge. As below, so above.

Dominic
>>