What is the Christian take on Gnosticism?

Gnostic Christianity, a term used to describe a diverse set of religious movements, centers around the belief in "gnosis," or special esoteric knowledge, as essential for salvation. Gnostic Christians often view the material world as corrupt or evil, contrasted with the spiritual realm, and believe that Jesus Christ came to earth to teach divine knowledge, not to die and redeem humanity. 

Does it, in your opinion, fall into the category of absurdist thinking or does it have any practicality? 

My current understanding is that most modern christians would see it as so distinct, that it could be declared a heresy. Baptists probably wouldn't see it as a separate segment or denomination like catholicism or nazarene, but an unnatural corruption and abomination of The Holy Bible.

Gnosticism isn't absurd it's a shape shifting religion that finds itself adapting to other religious belief systems easy and using it to clothe itself. It can be found in ancient Rome in the Christian churches with Islam and in new age belief systems. It has always been here

Part of the 'divine knowledge' gnostics want to consider as essential knowledge, but which they purposefully ignore is the atonement of Christ for all who are born in flesh toe be redeemed from death, the last threshold through which all must pass and who inherit life everlasting, whether it is with God and Christ, or not. Then the other feature of the atonement gnostics dismiss is redemption from sin by repentance such that that everlasting life is with God and Christ. We do not inherit eternal life in the presence of God merely by, at one point in our life, acknowledging Chgrist, and then doin g our own thing thereafter. Faith without work to sustain our righteousness to the end is dead, Paul taught. Thererfore, all will defeat death, by resurrection, but not all will live with their benefactor of that life: Jesus Christ. We are to endure to the end in personal righteousness, chiefly by repentance for our own wrongdoing, and not for anyone else's. This is a repeating process throughout our lives, not a one-time expression.

It's bullshit

Imo, it's as much a Christian sect as Islam is, maybe less so. The differences are significant enough that it seems more like a different religion than a denomination.

It's no more absurd than any other religious belief system. I think it's neat. 

You've got the original supreme God, and beneath him, a pantheon of his god-children, called Aeons, arranged in male and female pairs. God and the Aeons exist in a kind of perfect spiritual realm. But one Aeon attempts to reproduce asexually, without an opposite-sex partner, and in so doing creates a deformed being called the Demiurge.

The Demiurge is twisted, imperfect, discontented, corrupt. Sensing its nature, its divine mother casts it out of the Aeon realm. In isolation it decides to create its own realm: our material universe. This material universe is as imperfect as the Demiurge itself, and the Demiurge convinces its inhabitants (us) that it is the supreme God.

What is the answer then? First to recognize the Demiurge's deception, and then to seek the true God. In Gnosticism, the true God (unlike the false one that proclaims itself to us and demands worship) is hidden, mysterious, withdrawn. You have to look for it; it won't present itself to you through organized religion. Christian Gnostics identified the Demiurge with the OT God and the true God with the more cryptic Christ. They believed you had to seek enlightenment through a deep inner knowing, innate, intuitive -- gnosis. 

It's pretty easy to see why the ancient Christians were not fans of Gnosticism. They thought Gnostics missed the entire message about sin and forgiveness, about Christ's sacrifice for humanity. And they did. They didn't see the world in terms of sin and forgiveness, but of illusion and satori. It was like their religion was a conspiracy theory about Christianity. As conspiracy theories go, though, I think it's pretty cool.

Firstable, gnosticism defines God pretty much like the God of Baruch Spinoza, which is very popular among the current spiritual movements, as in the new age movement for instance. So, it's not a rare belief. 

Besides, the Demiurge is seen as something mystic but it's not. Gnosticism refers to it as real entities led by Yahve or Jehova. So, the Demiurge is very likely the extraterrestrial being that was in charge of this planet Earth. He didn't exactly created this material world but the system in the Earth that keep us under slavery, so it is a flawed and corrupted system. 

Not sure about this but Gnosticism is also refered as the genuine movement that teach the legit teachings of Jesus and that neither Paul nor Peter were the closest disciples of Jesus but Mary Magdalene, the woman that was considered a hooker by the Christian Church. According to gnosticism, she was the only person who understood pretty well Jesus' teachings. It makes sense that Jesus not only has chosen male disciples but also females. This dogma that women cant participate in leading the Church is primitive and idiotic, it doesn’t make sense that someone like Jesus didn't allow women to teach and lead.

It would be interesting that you check out the lost gospels of Thomas and Mary so you can see how identical their teachings are to the new spiritual movements that are appearing around based on eastern phylosophies like Buddhism. For gnosticism, it's not about obbeying a supreme being that will judge humaninity any time soon but waking up our divine consciousness through an inner work that will eventually free ourselvess from this material world. So, all what we need has always been inside us, not outside. No need of a church or priests, nothing, just ourselves. This is pretty much attractive, not so for the Church though. That explains why the Church persecuted Christian gnostics, it would have been the end of the Church and its control over the people. 

The Christian take on Gnosticism is that if you get an STI you need to

A. Seek prompt and effective treatment

B. Stop fucking around with ratchet-ass hoes/downlow brothas

I think Gnosticism is the one that makes yo dick/pussy drip. Nasty.

I believe in Gnosis, which is obtained through prayer, symbols, writings and rituals.

Gnosis is the self creation of internal fantasy based concepts, derived from acquired data of a similar nature.

Wherein and wherefrom, the self generation of electrochemical responses occurs, resulting in the appreciation of said internally simulated fantasy.

Stimuli will vary relative to conditioning, though as species we have undoubtedly established common affects.

What?

  Tru-dat!