When I first read about the Gnostic beliefs I found them compelling and it did not surprise me that the early Christian church hunted the Gnostics down until they were all but wiped out. New born religions are often aggressive, it seems to be a concomitant of that enthusiasm which infuses the acolytes.
The Gnostic ideas have precursors and threads of idea that run throughout the Middle East but their main idea which informs all the others is that creation is a mistake, that what we know as nature was not created by God who is all good and all powerful. They could not believe, and I agree with them, that an all powerful, all good god, would create a world in which it is a principle of life that animals feed off each other. Not would such a god create suffering to the extent it is found in the world. They concluded that creation (they did not know anything about evolution) was an act carried out by a lesser being than god, some angel or demi-god (they were accused of saying the devil created nature which they never did – I don’t actually think they thought the Devil existed).
You can see how this all runs counter to orthodox religions but I am interested to find that Gnostic are springing up all over the world and beginning to write books. A religious idea that is a counter-weight to those that exist today would be a very interesting development.