>>19058414It all really depends on which school of gnosticism you really follow with many, many various beliefs.
The reason gnosticism makes sense to me innately is that reality is just a sloppy job. Something design, to the root level, to be this evil could only have been made through intelligent design.
Every level of life being a cacophony of carnage, violence and gnashing of teeth points to that. What loving God would make life wholly dependent on constant killing and violence? Every waking moment your body kills untold numbers of living things just operating.
The snake is simply symbolism, you have to remember that different cultures has different perceptions of snakes. Some cultures viewed snakes as symbols of doctors and medicine men due to the value of snake venom and snake bile in many medicines and treatments. Some cultures viewed snakes as symbols of dangerous grace, or infinity. You shouldn't focus too much on the symbolism here because the cross pollination is massive to the point that it's basically meaningless. Snakes aren't a universal "negative" symbol or even unique to the Levant.
I like to think of the monad as a kind of "divinity and consciousness" field. It's not strictly sapient, but it's the stuff of sapiences meaning it projects the ultimate goodness that is within divine life. The monad is a consensus of everything, which is why action is ontological impossible for it in the sense that it will never override the actions of its constituent parts because it IS those constituent parts.
Some gnostics like to view the Monad as a traditional "God" like being, but I think the father symbolism is dangerous because it puts you in the subservient, child like frame of thinking that the demiurge wants you in.
The loving, divine embrace of the monad grants us all with Will, the Word and Righteousness. It's not submissive cowardly "worship", it's exultation of our collective divinity and will.
