From a reader:

Gnosticism is really a feature of Star Wars, since the Jedi are the elite keepers of esoteric knowledge and powers inaccessible to the hoi poloi. Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, owed its philosophical and religious overtones (such as they were) to Mormonism (thirteenth tribe, wagon train trekking to find a new promised land, rule by a council of patriarchs, occasional contact with angelic beings quoting Joseph Smith, etc.)