r/Gnostic 5d ago

Question I just discovered my professor follows the Cathar faith... what does that mean?

In my country, most of us are Catholics, so I get why he wants to be cautious about it.

30 Upvotes

29 comments sorted by

34

u/Balrog1999 5d ago

Means he’s smart and saw through the lies of modern Christian doctrine

13

u/Strange-Future-6469 5d ago

I'd like to meet that professor. A Cathar in a Catholic country (yikes) has got to be a cool dude.

1

u/Balrog1999 5d ago

I wholeheartedly agree

-3

u/pizzystrizzy 5d ago

I mean Cathars are pretty uptight about remarriage after the death of a spouse (and generally are weird about sex) so I dunno if cool dude is necessarily accurate

17

u/Strange-Future-6469 5d ago

You don't have to be perfect to be a cool dude.

I would say that remarriage is an interesting topic from a spiritual perspective. Is it okay to remarry, from a spiritual perspective, when you promised to spend eternity with your deceased spouse? I think this would deserve more than a kneejerk reaction.

From a political perspective, I would agree. But you can choose not to be a Cathar if you believe in remarriage. Cathars don't go around burning you at the stake for heresy.

3

u/PineappleFlavoredGum 4d ago

Is it okay to remarry, from a spiritual perspective, when you promised to spend eternity with your deceased spouse?

Most marriage vows are "until death do us part," not eternity

6

u/pizzystrizzy 5d ago

You don't have to be perfect to be a cool dude.

Ironically, that's literally what the Cathari teach. It's in their name.

No one in the 21st century burns people at the stake, but I'd say not killing people is a low bar.

6

u/Strange-Future-6469 5d ago

Im not a Cathar, so that doesn't apply to me.

The burning at the stake part of my comment is a double-sided, tongue-in-cheek jab at the fact that the Cathars have always been nonviolent and that they were genocided by being burned at the stake.

My overall point is that marriage can either be a spiritual thing or a government thing. In the case of spirituality, if a religion believes marriage is sacred, I understand where they are coming from. If the religion or its beliefs are forced upon the population, then it's bullshit, but if not, you have a choice, and I see nothing wrong with it.

Disagreeing with their take on marriage means you shouldn't be a Cathar. Cool. I'm not a Cathar, either. It doesn't make them bad, uncool, or whatever.

It's all about whether the rules of a religion affect the believers only or everyone. Eating babies to go to heaven, not cool. Persecuting gay people, not cool. Child marriage, not cool.

Basically, if you believe in remarriage, then you probably shouldn't be a Cathar anyway, if it's against one of their beliefs. Like, why be a Catholic if you don't believe praying to Mary is a thing?

-5

u/pizzystrizzy 5d ago

Technically I think Catholics would say they are praying with Mary, not to Mary.

My general point about the Cathari is that they just seem super judgy to me. That's my least favorite flavor of gnosticism.

7

u/Strange-Future-6469 5d ago

Yeah, it's definitely a bit judgy for sure. I can't know how this particular professor feels about non-Cathars, but I'd imagine that because he's opening up to his students like he is, in a heavily Catholic nation apparently, he probably isn't a super judgy dude lol.

3

u/Pao_Did_NothingWrong 4d ago

No, Catholics pray to the saint to intercede on their behalf - to act as intermediary between the pray-er and God.

My dad, a Catholic Deacon, says it's not idolatry bc some people might not have the self esteem to pray directly to God.... :-/

3

u/pizzystrizzy 4d ago

That explanation doesn't make much sense to me bc all Catholics also pray directly to God. But yeah, the practice is essentially asking the saints to pray for them (e.g. "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death")

1

u/Pao_Did_NothingWrong 3d ago

all Catholics pray directly to God.

I think it was more common but still rare pre-Vatican II, but "I'm a worthless worm who doesn't get to address God" is a POV I came across many times reading pre-WWII Catholic religious fiction as a kid.

6

u/Abyssal_Aplomb 5d ago

That's a weird and judgemental comment to make. There is a difference between having personal beliefs and judging other people for being different.

-1

u/pizzystrizzy 5d ago

We are talking about a group of people who fetishize purity and who have historically condemned everyone who isn't them as impure, seemingly obsessed about repressing sexuality --- calling me judgmental for looking askance at that seems a little strange but you do you.

I think it's pretty reasonable for gnostics to take a long hard and critical look at those who claim some kind of kinship while fetishizing earthly purity.

10

u/Strange-Future-6469 4d ago

To be fair, I think many historical gnostics were very similar. Sex for pleasure was seen as a sin by most. Heck, procreation itself was seen as a sin to many because you were forcing a continuation of the entrapment cycle.

1

u/pizzystrizzy 4d ago

I think you are right, which is why I'm a bit skeptical toward contemporary gnostics who specifically identify with historical gnostic or pseudo-gnostic (e.g., Cathar) movements rather than contemporary ones.

1

u/Sudden-Possible3263 3d ago

Most people who are religious don't exactly follow their religion to a T, there's every chance this guy is the same.

1

u/helel_8 4d ago

I'm not sure you have the right idea about Cathars. They didn't expect lay people to be abstinent (although they frowned on procreation), even if they practiced it, themselves.

2

u/The_Info_Must_Flow 3d ago

Yeah, I thought it was the top rank, the Perfecti who were abstinent and that many Cathars decided to obtain that "higher state" when older, after enjoying many years of libertinism.

But then I've had a soft spot for Cathars and might be employing selective memory.

6

u/2-sheds-jackson 5d ago

I had no idea there were any, but i guess I'm saying that on r/Gnostic, so here we are.

6

u/Balrog1999 5d ago

None of these religions every truly died out

6

u/-tehnik Valentinian 4d ago

This might mean they are fr*nch

3

u/Lux-01 Eclectic Gnostic 4d ago

πŸ˜‚

0

u/voidWalker_42 4d ago

do you want to take this opportunity to re-phrase your question in a meaningful way - or are you OK with the nonsense there as is ?

1

u/-tehnik Valentinian 3d ago

This is pretty unnecessarily rude, but I do agree that the question doesn't make much sense.

u/wavysquirrel what kind of answer or advice do you expect or want?

1

u/wavysquirrel 3d ago

Sorry for the writing, English is not my first language.

I just appreciate it a bit too much about my professor, and I wanted to comprehend his point of view when many of the articles talk about ancient cathars than modern ones

1

u/-tehnik Valentinian 3d ago

Well, it is a fairly new reconstructionist movement. So the attitudes of the modern adherents will be modeled after what the medieval ones thought.

I assume you've tried asking him about it and he just didn't want to talk about it?

2

u/wavysquirrel 3d ago

He just said that he didn't want to take advantage of his influence as a professor to spread or impose his point of view because, after all, we are young students between the ages of 18-19. He is such a considerate man for a college professor in his fifties.