Gnosis--the Greek form of "knowing"--rendered negative by the prefix a- or i- as "unknowing" or "not-knowing".

As always the core "sense of truth" of a given religious system is to be carefully differentiated from the organizational culture and dramatization that sets in when said core tries to bring abount an organization.

A dramatizing, expansion-driven organization is NOT a religion. A moral code of random and arbitrary strictures about how to act is NOT a religion. But in the common parlance, these things get heavily conflated and identified. They are as different as Christ was different from an abusive pedophilic bishop with high cholesterol.

All the brouhaha surrounding organizations flying the colors of a religion has no bearing on the actual spiritual tenets of the creed, regardless whether it is Christian, Mohammedan, Zen Buddhist, Universalist, or Scientologist-ian.

A