Religion and drugs

[snooch]

I was just doing some reading on Scientology, and was interested to read that the Foundation for a Drug Free world (www.drugfreeworld.org) is actually a front body for the church. Scientology's opposition to drugs is pretty well-known, so I'm not overly surprised by it, although the site does peddle in plenty of lies (like the first line, that reads Drugs have been a part of our culture since the middle of last century). ughh

 

Given many, if not all, of the directors of Drug Free Australia (www.drugfree.org.au) list religious organisations in their profiles (and given I'm sure there's a million other similar anti-drug websites run by religious organisations out there), it got me wondering - why are the religious so anti-drugs? Or should I ask, why are religions so anti-drugs?

 

Coz it doesn't make sense to me that the religious would need to be anti-drugs. There's nothing immoral or essentially "evil" about it. Some people can act immoral under the influence of drugs, I guess, but that still remains a small percentage when drug use of all kind is taken into consideration.

 

I can understand why the religious organisations themselves are pro-prohibition, given there are plenty of profits to be shared around in that grubby industry.

 

But not being a man of god myself, but rather a man of nature, I'm interested to here what people's thoughts are about religious people themselves, rather than the corrupt organisations in control, and whether or not the actual faith, for want of a better word, influences people when it comes to their perception of drugs and drug use.

 

(And I mean no disrespect to anyone of faith out there with my corrupt orginisations jibe...just kinda the way I feel about 'em..)

Edited June 13, 2010 by snooch

[mull]

Given many, if not all, of the directors of Drug Free Australia (www.drugfree.org.au) list religious organisations in their profiles (and given I'm sure there's a million other similar anti-drug websites run by religious organisations out there), it got me wondering - why are the religious so anti-drugs? Or should I ask, why are religions so anti-drugs?

 

Imo it's the end of the old game still (hopefully right near the very end). Will take time to recover, maybe generations but getting there slowly.

Depends on the space allowed for freedoms of individual reason, logic and a cessation of corporate - crowd control..

 

The religions give a reason, usually a bad entity, followed by their logic interpreted from their book - for their form of crowd control.

 

Drugs in general don't lead toward being crowd controlled by superstitions. Its hard to control people with stories of burning bushes and flying horsemen, when they've taken psychedelics before. Or even those that believe we came from the planet Xenu and have billion year old evil spirits in us that need auditting to be paid to leave us..

 

Fancy having scientologists running a drug free world website. What an ego this deity delusion allows to flourish. Almost think they are god like.. like some of the others.. hmm

 

We all gotta live together tho and we're all here now - without any deity. Tolerance must go both ways to work long term.

Those with any 'friends that aren't present in reality' should not be allowed to form any policy in reality. With vested interest in the imaginary, this would be seen as conflict of interest in any other form of council or parliment.

They should have no ability to form a body such as drug free world.

 

That's like a heroin company forming a Pro-Opium/ No Gods World group..

[The Hash Nibbler]

Religion, the worlds oldest and best scam to date, started from people who just wanted to make the world a better place by laying out some ground rules for acceptable behaviour, taken by evil men and used for their own financial gain and for the control of peoples minds. They don't like drugs because they don't like free thinkers, they want sheep that follow blindly, not people who ask why.

These religions span every nation and every race, cause more war than anything else and divide where they should unite. After 2010 years (according to their stories) in the case of Christians, if your imaginary friend who is supposed to return again doesn't turn up, theres a pretty good chance it might be a crock of shit. Following blindly out of the need to belong is a human trait that leads religions to prey on the weak, people who are looking for some direction in life, some comfort in their life, or the basic need to survive.

Wonder how many missionarys actually feel guilty going to third world countries to do 'Good' work and end up converting people who only really needed food and shelter, education and the help of their fellow man, and are made to believe in the religion that can help them to survive, and they do it, because they want a better life and when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. Religion with goodwill to all men or brainwashing for the masses and money hoarding bastards who get off on the power of it.

You be the Judge. GH72

[Rocker]

Someone once said 'religion is the greatest crime perpetuated on mankind.' Something like that anyway.

Anyway, he/she was right.

[jabez]

Firstly, scientology is not a religion! It's a brainwashing cult. Which sole purpose is to gain control of the minds of people who have low intelligence, in order to convince them to give everything they own to the church.

 

I totally respect the idea of religions like Islam who say it's wrong to do any drug. Don't agree with it, but It's there opinion that you should live life completely drug free and that's cool.

 

What I have a huge problem with is Christians, who claim there drug of choice (alcohol) is just fine, but everybody elses drug of choice is pure evil! Even though there's not one single scripture in the bible that says anything about not using drugs. 

 

Although Christians do love to scrape the bottom of the barrel and get really creative when interpreting there scriptures. But the jokes on them, since alcohol is more harmful to the body and mind than any other commonly used recreational drug. So any scripture they can find that talks about not damaging your body, must also apply to alcohol.

 

Don't know much about other religions. But with chirstianity, they basically create a mentality in people so that they believe authority is holy by nature and that it's a sin in it's self to even question authority.

 

 It's actually a political tool used to keep some kind of control over the people. Chritianity was purposely designed by the Romans for this exact purpose.

 

So basically the reason most christians are so against illegal drugs, is because the all good holy authority figure has deemed them illegal. So there for, are deemed evil by nature by the brainwashed feeble minded people, we know as christians.

 

  

[shirt]

Some of the nicest religious and non drug using folk although even if generally dis-interested in cannabis issues I feel form our greatest allies in the fight against prohibition.. Whenever these people speak out I feel a small win in progress.

Sadly these people also face misguided intolerance and when this comes from the legalise community it hurts our cause.

 

Many religions/societies discourage abuses of the body, few religions in their actual doctrines actually encourage active persecution of others for drug/alcohol/food/laziness...

 

However people seem to take that right out of context and I don't think it is because they are religious folk, it is the same sentiment present in many anti religious anti drug people.......A lack of self responsibility seen in the blame anything but myself culture we live in when things go wrong.

 

As for scientologists I don't fully know the answer but in my opinion as much as they'd like to save the world from drugs etc and some misinformation about how bad drugs are, they do tend to focus on a health agenda than a punishment agenda.

They are the least of our worries and most attempts to hurt scientology in the past that have resulted in very strong fightback campaigns that should be considered before taking any such path.

Interesting bunch if you read about them IMO.

[cybergenesis]

Well my aunty is a religious person, she is about 70 years old.

 

She suffers from chronic pain and inflamation and arthritis, chronic nausea and vomiting, very low appetite, and an autoimmune system disease which causes painful inflamation around her body.. Oh and she also has severe insomnia. Oh serious thats right the pain she suffers from is Neuropathic pain.

 

I told her she would be a perfect candidate for Medical marijuana but she "freaked out" saying she would never touch that "evil poison" and that it was "the work of the devil". She told me never to ever bring the subject up again.

 

Well her loss, really. She is a lovely lady, shame she is so close minded, and brain washed.

 

I think religious people see drugs and "lustful" and the influence of the devil. Only alcohol is tolerated, because its mentioned in the bible, its sort of "endorsed" by god.

 

I hate religion BTW. I am a strict atheist.

 

Are many other of you guys atheists?

Edited June 14, 2010 by cybergenesis

[jabez]

isn't atheism a religion in it's self?

 

From a scientific stand point, a person who claims there definitely is a god and a person who claims there definitely isn't a god, actually have the exact same mentality.

 

I just personally think it must take an incrediblly big ego for a person to think they have any idea of what the universe is about. Our brains probably haven't even evolved enough to contemplate what the universe is about, even if another intelligent life form came down to earth and explained it to us in detail.

 

I mean we're just living from a rock that's free falling around a very average star in a insignificant part of our galaxy. Our own galaxy is also very plain and average.

 

On top of that, consider for a second just how big the universe actually is (that we know of). There are hundreds of billions of galaxies out there that we know of, each galaxy contains hundreds of millions of stars, the majority of stars almost certainly have a planetary system. Feeling a little insignificant yet? Our nearest star (Alpha Centauri) is 4 light years away and would take us 70 thousand years to travel to at the speed we can currently manage in space.

 

My question is, how can a person be aware of how big and complicated the universe actually is yet still have such a big ego as to think they know a single thing about it? Or that it makes sense to worship a god that's not much more intelligent than your average person. Which is made clear by how god has all the weak points that humans do. Anger, hate, revenge, lust even contempt.  These are all the emotions that I'm trying to eliminate from my life, so why in the fuck would anyone want to worship a god that actively promotes these soul killing emotions?     

[SHEEPinWOLFskin]

hmm I guess I should contribute to this thread..... As someone who walks Torah(YHWH' laws ie. the the Bible) and has the testimony of YAHUshua(Jesus) the Messiah ["Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of Elohim, and the faith of YAHUshua." Revelation 14:12 ].

 

I know that Cannabis is a blessing from the Creator Genesis 1:29(Torah) proves this.

 

FYI we are in the endtimes as the bible calls it, I KNOW we're in the last generation before the Great day of YHWH. Saying that.... nearly all "Christians" in these last days are Anti-Messiahs and the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one says the bible. In these days, evil is called good and good is called evil.

 

Cannabis is a Blessing that is to be taken with thanks-giving says the Creator! fyi the bible also predicted that some herbs that were given to be a blessing would be illegal in the End times. Christian Cannabis Challenge Bible Prophecy... <--video

 

I'm not a Christian, so they tell me and I'm not a Jew as they tell me. I'm just a disciple of YAHUshua the Messiah of YHWH of Hosts.

 

Cannabis in legal under Elohim' law

<--song

 

I fully understand that most Aussies are hardcore Atheists because I was one with ya till I was 22....

 

The bible isn't anti Cannabis.

 

Peace and Wisdom all

 

 

 

jabez wrote: I totally respect the idea of religions like Islam.....

[snooch]

I think religious people see drugs and "lustful" and the influence of the devil. Only alcohol is tolerated, because its mentioned in the bible, its sort of "endorsed" by god.

 

Thanks for that story gybergenesis, and for all the replies. I agree with what you're saying here, but I think it's also clear that those people who come to this conclusion did so through the influence of their church, or the corrupt people in control of that church, rather than perhaps the faith itself.

 

I do find it interesting that the Christian bible (which I haven't read completely) and the Koran (which I have read) seem to have an acceptance of alcohol, or at the very least do not oppose the use of it. There are several mentions of using alcohol in the Koran, which certainly goes against the Islamic notion of no drug use at all. (For instance, in one passage it mentions how you shouldn't go to your prayer sessions while drunk....it doesn't say you shouldn't get drunk)

 

It seems it's almost impossible to just follow a religion without blindly following everything the leaders of that religion demand. And ultimately that's the problem - no room for free thinking. But I guess there's no room for free-thinking when you're not dealing with reality, just a faith in something that's not tangible.

 

I personally do not hold a faith in god or gods, but I was certainly brought up in a religious, church-going family, did the religious schooling thing, was an altar boy etc. The basic tenants of those religious teachings (as well as having two pretty good parents guiding me) - respect, compassion, generosity, love etc - is something I've taken with me into my adult life.

And that's what I don't get. Why can't we just teach our children how to be good people without the need for fairy tales and threats of eternal damnation? Obviously it doesn't fit into the control agenda of the religious institutions, and that's what we need to break away from.

I certainly don't begrudge people from having faith. As Bill Maher (I think it was) once said "I'm fortunate enough to have had a fortunate life." I understand people who are not as fortunate and look for faith, for whatever reason.

But I do despise the control and power religion institutions have and the teaching of religion as historical fact.