Simon Magus & Peter Debate

Guest post.

I had no idea, till I did the research on this, that Simon Magus was so pivotal to the Church in initiating its struggle against Gnosticism. Simon is the archetypal Gnostic - a mage and miracle worker before the Gnostics devolved into "sects". Notice the typical Gnostic arguments (which are well put). Very helpful to consider this stuff, as our current milieu greatly resembles that of the early Church (minus some of the supernatural stuff, for now).

The Universe a Hologram?

"Once, in a cheap science fiction novel, Fat had come across a perfect description of the Black Iron Prison, but set in the far future. So if you superimposed the past (ancient Rome) over the present (California in the twentieth century) and superimposed the far future world of The Android Cried Me a River over that, you got the Empire, as the supra- or trans-temporal constant. Everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it."
See V.A.L.I.S.
Also, source