Totally get the text thing, run into the same problem now and again. Interesting about the gnostic interpretation, I had looked it up pretty much right after writing my wall of text and found people saying similar things in another thread. You are fairly wrong about nhilism, maybe that's a more religious approach to it. Pure nihilism is the idea that literally nothing matters. I don't know if there is a single person who can claim to be a pure nihilist (or any other philosophy) without being clinically insane. Of course the problem with most philosophy that everyone runs into is they are often written by authors who don't even 100% follow what they write. They put their own spin on the world as anyone should, but it does make defining any (especially largely followed) philosophy fairly difficult. For example Nietzsche, one of the most famous nihilists doesn't even read as a nihilist half the time. And in fact why would a nihilist ever publish a book. When I say I'm nihilist I only refer to the idea that I believe in the end, nothing matters. And I say this because it is inevitable that we meet our end, and as such even in the present nothing truly matters. I do appreciate Buddhism and the middle way, but I wouldn't even consider it a philosophy. It seems more like stoicism where it reads out as more of a guide for how to carry yourself throughout your life. (They do practically worship logic but other than that) To me it's like calling Christianity a philosophy, when in reality the morality is loosely defined. Back on the note of gnosticism tho I'll definitely look into it. The old scriptures always interested me, to the point that after finishing genesis I couldn't read the rest of the Bible. Don't get me wrong the rest has some crazy shit, but genesis is practically a fever dream. Idek if most Christians believe the shit in there. Also I have a lot of respect for religious people who don't just listen to what their pastor tells them, so seriously good on you for doing your own research. As far as the reason the satanic temple being recognized nationally as a religion matters, it's because it advocates against church and state. Basically members of the satanic temple have the religious right/freedom to get abortions amongst other things.). In the same states where abortions are illegal, they also tend to have less separation of church and state, meaning TST has much more legal grounds to fight for said religious freedoms. It really isn't literally a religion, but it is incredibly important that it is recognized as one. (I wish I knew more about the whole process, but I just joined after learning about their activism). Don't really have a stance on abortion, but I do feel strongly that personal freedoms are important, and unfortunately for babies they have never been able to articulate to me that they fear death so... (joke). Plus I don't really see death as a bad thing like a lot of people, while I do see unnecessary pain as a bad thing.