A religion is essentially a "cosmology" that describes the individual's role in the universe, and thereby describing what is a meaningful life in regard to society and nature.
Gnosticism is an Abrahamite religion, who are characterized by an initial creation, a linear history where a God is (or gods are) acting in the history for or against his own chosen people, depending on their well-behavior according to his rules. Since the antiquity, all Abrahamite religions believe that all humans are judged individually after their death, to live eternally in a Heaven, or if so judged, suffer eternally in a Hell. Judaism per se doesn't have a Hell, this Hell is probably a borrowing of the Greek Tartaros, superimposed upon a Sheol (some kind of Purgatory) a temporary grave-place where newly deceased awaited elevation to Heaven.
Abrahamite religions are among others Judaism, Samaritanism, Bahá'í, Islam, Ahmadiyya and so on. The most dominant and in parallel some of the most deviant Abrahamitism is Christianity, and it has a far sibling the Gnosticism originating in heretic Judaism, with clear signs of an earlier embedded polytheism.
In the Christian cosmology the Cosmos was created by God in 6 days, and the original man Adam and his wife Eve, were created as managers for Gods personal garden of Eden. There were two trees in this garden the Tree of Life that gave eternal life by eating from it, and the Tree of Knowledge that gave divine knowledge of good and evil when eating from it. God had a monopoly of divine knowledge, so he placed a snake ("serpent") in the Tree of Knowledge for protection, but this snake was illoyal, and manipulated Eve and Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Then God had to expel Adam and Eve from Eden, and make them live short lifes of hardships before dying. The cause of all hardships in this world was this Original Sin, and Jesus, the son of God, came down to the Earth to prepare an easier way to return to Heaven after death.
As far as Gnosticism goes, this Adam-and-Eve story is a false late addition to the Bible in order to surpress the Divine knowledge that Gnostic movements provided, presuming that the Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life were originally identical, and probably originated from the Asherah-poles thrown out of the Bible where Asherah the Wisdom (Sophia, Barbelo, Pira, etc..) was the Heavenly Mother of all angels and all divine knowledge. Therefore the Sethian Gnostic scriptures provide alternative stories regarding this Adam-and-Eve stuff, while the Valentinian Gnostic Scriptures mainly builds the creation story on the Gospel of John Chapter 1.
The Christian moral is here that everybody is originally sinful, not by own acts, but by being born, and the only means of salvation is submission under the regime of Jesus, the Son of God God — which is either the Church (Catholic or Orthodox), or the consensus of the Christian collective (Protestantism). What Jesus did was, among others, reconquer the Cosmos that had been kidnapped by evil spirits, and sacrifice his own Life as a scapegoat for all sins of the humankind. Christianity is submission under this external regime of moral.
Gnosticism instead regard the Cosmos to be created by "evil" forces, the paths of everyday sinfulness and depraved behavior were followed to their origin: our biological material bodies, which when used without knowledge and understanding, creates sin and depravation. The low drives and the limited life length of our biological body was put in contrast with the clarity and objectivity of a knowledgeable enlightened mind, which was seen as an eternal divine spark originating from God. Our natural inborn sense of moral was seen as a "memory" of our divine heritage. The main original Gnostic moral is to not let strong passions ("archons", the rulers of this world) rule us, but to always act after consideration and understanding directed towards charitable acts and altruism.
The Demiurge is the creator of this material world and a symbol for transient worldly success, that makes us insensitive for other humans' needs and isolate us from each other, it is also a symbol for narcissism and power based on cynism and exploitation. Those following the way of the Demiurge, follow a path of sensations and success in vanity, while those following the way of the true Lord and his messengers (such as John the Baptist, Jesus and the prophets) disregard such worldly success and dedicate their life on understanding and acting for social charity and welfare. In modern Gnosticism, it is assumed that such social acts must come from within, and to be adapted to personal traits, in order to be valid.
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