Neo-Gnosticism 2/28/11

Today in religion class we unraveled neo-gnosticism, a foreign idea to most of us. We discovered that neo-gnosticism is a philosophy, not quite a religion, in which the ultimate goal is to discover your inner self, your true meaning. This philosophy is very different than traditional Christian views. It brings up the clash of selfish vs. selfless. Christians like to view Christianity as a selfless religion, helping others and stereotypically, as Steven Timmis said, helping little old ladies with lots of bags cross the street. Christianity, unlike neo-gnosticism, is a very companionship-full religion, all about others and helping them. However, neo-gnosticism has its own views. It is very selfish, as we would put it, where they only strive for self-fulfillment. There is no salvation in neo-gnosticism, just the pride of knowing your true self. If this is true, I would not think that anyone would be neo-gnostic, something that was not made clear in the presentation. However, I believe it was a very informative presentation, but not completely clear at times.