ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Monad (Gnosticism)

Okay kiddo, so the idea of a monad in Gnosticism can be a little complicated, but I'll do my best to explain it in a way you'll understand.

Imagine that you're playing a game where you're a character who can move around and do things in a big world. Now imagine that this game is actually a really big and complicated computer program, with lots of different parts that all have to work together in just the right way.

In Gnosticism, people believed that the world we live in is kind of like that big game. They believed that there's a big, powerful force called the Monad that created everything, kind of like the programmers who made your game. The Monad is so big and powerful that it's kind of hard to understand or picture in your mind. It's like trying to imagine the whole entire universe all at once.

But the important thing about the Monad is that it created everything in the world we live in. Gnostics believed that everything around us – the trees, the flowers, the sky, the animals, and even us – were all created by the Monad. They believed that the Monad created everything out of itself, sort of like how the programmers created the game out of computer code.

That might sound a little weird, but here's where it gets really interesting. Gnostics believed that even though the Monad created everything in the world, it didn't really belong to the same level as everything else. It was too big and too powerful, almost like a god. So in a way, everything in the world was kind of like a copy or a reflection of the Monad.

So basically, to sum it up: Gnostics believed in a really big and powerful thing called the Monad that created everything in the world we live in. They believed that everything in the world was made by the Monad, but that it was all just a copy or a reflection of the Monad because the Monad was too big and powerful to fit in.