Sort of, but either way he’s portrayed as malevolent and somewhat evil even if by accident. It’s kind of like Zeno from Dragon Ball Super, if you’ve ever watched that. He’s nearly omnipotent, but has the mind of a child and because of this is regularly extremely malevolent by human standards, for example when he makes off the cuff decisions to wipe out entire universes. Don’t forget, the religion we’re talking about is called Gnosticism. Gnosis, Greek for knowledge, rather than good nature or faith or fulfilling responsibilities, is the engine for salvation. Many if not most people are considered too ignorant to ever be saved. The demiurge is not just intrinsically evil but his ignorance brings him to do evil things, just like the ignorance of human beings is what causes suffering
Gnostics are also dualistic, for the most part. The true God is an ontologically distinct entity from the demiurge, and runs counter to him. Even in platonic strains which are in favor of self-immolation and are critical of provisional reality, the demiurge is only a distinguished element of The One
I would never not in a million years expected someone to make an analogy between the demiurge and zeno from dbs… it’s the best thing i’ve seen this year so far btw do you know any books to read up on the gnostics and the demiurge? i feel like my own knowledge is lacking
Plato described the complement of Nous as necessity. The material world is constructed to follow demiurgic order but is decayed by Necessity. Today it could be best understood as entropic decay. But Plato's Necessity is not quite like the fundamentally evil nature of, say, Ahriman. I'm not well read enough to say more on this.
thanks on all the info you should definitely read up more on it if you consider yourself not well read you seem to have a great interest in this topic, never stop uploading this stuff
Thanks, it means a lot. I'll definitely read more on it one day, but when you're young there are many books which you'd like to read before you get to the heavy stuff. Mainly for me, epic poetry and fantasy/scifi. But nonetheless, I need to read more!
Heheheh, I think it made a lot of sense. Dragon Ball has always had pretty obvious Buddhist undertones. The idea that the most powerful being in the universe is just some kiddy guy is quite befitting. I've sort of gotten mixed messages, but Buddhists believe that the "ultimate reality" either simply does not exist (everything is contingent on something) or is completely empty of quality and ineffable, so much so that we can't really develop any knowledge about it. So the demiurge in this context is not necessarily evil, but petty I guess you could say. Elder Scrolls lore is also a great thing to bring up for these sort of arguments.
As far as books on gnostics, I've never really looked into books on gnostics. The definition of the demiurge is not always constant. I go by the Platonic understanding, wherein the demiurge is equated with the intellect, or at least the intellect is the defining quality of the demiurge. This is talked about in Plato's Timaeus but there are probably later Platonic writings which are more clear. like you I am not particularly well-read on this subject, I just have a rudimentary understanding of it plus a lot of headcanon. Basically, quality (as opposed to the simplicity of the monad) ==> intelligibility ==> intelligence (intelligent systems are ordered/qualified systems) ==> the creative (demiurgic) principle
Like I said... If you've ever played elder scrolls, Anu is sort of like The One, and Anui-El is sort of like the Demiurge. But Auri-El and Lorkhan also have Demiurgic elements to them. Which makes sense, as the Demiurge is understood as a sort of nested being. There are multiple levels of the demiurge. I think Proclus has good writing on this. Maybe this is better than reading Timaeus, but I haven't read anything Proclus
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isn’t the demiurge supposed to be more ignorant than actually this cartoonishly evil being
Sort of, but either way he’s portrayed as malevolent and somewhat evil even if by accident. It’s kind of like Zeno from Dragon Ball Super, if you’ve ever watched that. He’s nearly omnipotent, but has the mind of a child and because of this is regularly extremely malevolent by human standards, for example when he makes off the cuff decisions to wipe out entire universes. Don’t forget, the religion we’re talking about is called Gnosticism. Gnosis, Greek for knowledge, rather than good nature or faith or fulfilling responsibilities, is the engine for salvation. Many if not most people are considered too ignorant to ever be saved. The demiurge is not just intrinsically evil but his ignorance brings him to do evil things, just like the ignorance of human beings is what causes suffering
Gnostics are also dualistic, for the most part. The true God is an ontologically distinct entity from the demiurge, and runs counter to him. Even in platonic strains which are in favor of self-immolation and are critical of provisional reality, the demiurge is only a distinguished element of The One
I would never not in a million years expected someone to make an analogy between the demiurge and zeno from dbs… it’s the best thing i’ve seen this year so far btw do you know any books to read up on the gnostics and the demiurge? i feel like my own knowledge is lacking
Plato described the complement of Nous as necessity. The material world is constructed to follow demiurgic order but is decayed by Necessity. Today it could be best understood as entropic decay. But Plato's Necessity is not quite like the fundamentally evil nature of, say, Ahriman. I'm not well read enough to say more on this.
thanks on all the info you should definitely read up more on it if you consider yourself not well read you seem to have a great interest in this topic, never stop uploading this stuff
Thanks, it means a lot. I'll definitely read more on it one day, but when you're young there are many books which you'd like to read before you get to the heavy stuff. Mainly for me, epic poetry and fantasy/scifi. But nonetheless, I need to read more!
ye i’m still in my late teenage years so i’m not as wise yet , need to grow a big beard first
Heheheh, I think it made a lot of sense. Dragon Ball has always had pretty obvious Buddhist undertones. The idea that the most powerful being in the universe is just some kiddy guy is quite befitting. I've sort of gotten mixed messages, but Buddhists believe that the "ultimate reality" either simply does not exist (everything is contingent on something) or is completely empty of quality and ineffable, so much so that we can't really develop any knowledge about it. So the demiurge in this context is not necessarily evil, but petty I guess you could say. Elder Scrolls lore is also a great thing to bring up for these sort of arguments.
As far as books on gnostics, I've never really looked into books on gnostics. The definition of the demiurge is not always constant. I go by the Platonic understanding, wherein the demiurge is equated with the intellect, or at least the intellect is the defining quality of the demiurge. This is talked about in Plato's Timaeus but there are probably later Platonic writings which are more clear. like you I am not particularly well-read on this subject, I just have a rudimentary understanding of it plus a lot of headcanon. Basically, quality (as opposed to the simplicity of the monad) ==> intelligibility ==> intelligence (intelligent systems are ordered/qualified systems) ==> the creative (demiurgic) principle
Like I said... If you've ever played elder scrolls, Anu is sort of like The One, and Anui-El is sort of like the Demiurge. But Auri-El and Lorkhan also have Demiurgic elements to them. Which makes sense, as the Demiurge is understood as a sort of nested being. There are multiple levels of the demiurge. I think Proclus has good writing on this. Maybe this is better than reading Timaeus, but I haven't read anything Proclus