Which ones contradict? I might be forgetting something, my knowledge isn't comprehensive. There are some epistles (Peter, and I think Corinthians) that say to be "sober-minded" but I don't think it's necessary to interpret that outside the normal context of biblical boozing that drunkenness is sinful, but alcohol consumption itself isn't (unlike in the Qur'an, where anything that intoxicates in large amounts is forbidden even in small amounts). I think it's best to interpret those passages within the context of the parable of the thief.
I asked my parents, who are lay Biblical scholars, about this. They echo essentially what you said: there's really nothing unequivocally against intoxicants per se in either the Hebrew or Christian bibles as they stand today. There are definitely passages in both which warn against excess in general, and extol the virtues of moderation in all behavior. There are passages which have been interpreted by highly respected commentators (who may or may not have been literate in Aramaic or Koine Greek) as endorsing a highly abstemious way of life. But anyone with a background in literary criticism can tell you the epistemological problems with authorial intent versus commentary. My read on the whole situation is that there have been (and continue to be*) majority Christian communities where excessive alcohol and drug use have caused great harm to the community, and as a result, biblical commentaries which read a call to abstinence into those ancient codices have received popular support.
* I'm thinking here, for example, of indigenous communities in North America and the Arctic
All the Jewish people I've spoken to have said the same thing. Drug use is OK; addiction is not OK. I think there just hasn't been the demand for abstinence-promoting Biblical commentary in Judaism, because unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism is an ethno-religion with a traditionally tight community structure and voluminous rules about daily conduct, that leaves little room for any drug use, let alone excessive drug use. Alcohol is part of Jewish ceremony, but Jews as are a pretty genetically homogeneous population, many of whom possess a genetic mutation that predisposes them to not really care for alcohol, similar to the one that half of East Asians have. This gene is theorized to have been selected for during the Babylonian exile, because it conveyed some resistance to foreign pathogens, and had the poor or aberrant metabolism of ethanol as a side effect. (I can cite a source for this admittedly bold statement, if anyone is interested.)
It's a very different story when you're talking about religions like Christianity and Islam that were made for export, and designed to fit a broad range of peoples with a broad range of histories, genetic predispositions, community problems, and environmental stressors. You're bound to see a multitude of interpretations of the core texts, which serve a multitude of perceived local needs.
Not really contradictory, the issue of eating pork (well really circumcision was more addressed)/mosaic law was dealt with in Acts and the epistles. There was great controversy over whether or not gentile converts to Christianity should have to take on all the law/become Jewish, and it was decided that they need only do stuff that basically coincides with Noahide law (the laws Judaism holds that non-Jews must obey), though it's not exactly that. Paul went further and suggested that believers' metaphorical death to sin and rebirth in Christ entirely voided Mosaic law. So if you aren't Jewish, you were never expected to keep kosher by of either the OT or the NT, it's just an issue if you are Jewish.
As an aside, have you heard of the Malabar Nasrani Christians of Kerala? If you've ever met a person obviously originally from India, whose surname is an English biblical first name, then you probably have. Before the Portuguese steamrolled over their religion and culture in the 1600s, these were the world's last remaining Christians who also believed themselves to be Jews and bound by Noahide law. Today they practice standard Roman Catholicism, but are still of great interest to historians of religion. Like the Sikhs and the Parsis, Malabar Nasrani are a so-called "model minority", wealthy and well connected, who comprise a disproportionate share of overseas Indians, relative to their share of the population in India. Some controversy has arisen in Israel due to the fact that DNA analysis of them shows them to be indeed Jews and carriers of the Kohain gene, which is the
sine qua non of the right to immigrate to Israel. But the fact that they number in the millions, may someday soon face strong push factors to leave India, and are hardly all willing to convert formally to Judaism, are not small issues. Israel would certainly forestall its feared Muslim majority, but its ethnic character would be forever changed in unpredictable ways if large numbers of Malabar Nasrani were allowed to immigrate.
living under grace, not under law (as the Law was fulfilled in Christ).
Though that leads into a good question, how much weight should we put on the epistles relative the Gospels, and what sections of the Old Testament should we use for guidance within a Christian context (assuming we're not Roman Catholic/Orthodox and subscribe to the prostestant idea of sola scriptura)?
Again, I think you'll see widely varying answers to this issue, which I see as strength in flexibility, not weakness in disagreement, in Christianity as a whole. Personally, I think it's quite worthwhile to read not only the Bible as it stands today, but also the so-called "apocrypha" of the Jewish Bible and the unchosen Gnostic gospels of the New Testament, plus lots of secular history pertaining to the ancient Levant, in order to form a general sense of what Jesus' overall message was. I'm not so big a fan of singling out individual lines attributed to one man, which are liable to be misconstrued, mistranslated, taken way out of context, or possibly not even truly attributable to that one author. Imagine someone jumping to the conclusion that you have a strong opinion on an issue, based on a misquoted one-liner from a conversation the person wasn't actively listening to, which was actually said by your brother, not you. This happens all the time. If someone isn't around to ask anymore, then the best way to get a sense of their temperment and character, and their
likely stance on an issue, is to read as much available about them as you can, and draw your own conclusions. No, we can never fully predict what someone else is/was thinking about a particular topic. But we can make educated guesses and work from there.
Well I'm alone in my active defense of the Abrahamic religions, and their compatibility with the psychedelic experience, over in PD. But the lack of them there makes sense, since psychedelics tend to attract those (or makes people) disillusioned with society in general, and Christianity is an emblem for all that is reactionary to these people. P&S is not very friendly towards religious discussion either*, and where else in the forum would this talk come up other than in our subforums?
Or maybe BL is just lacking religious people, or those that are religious are uninterested in discussing it (you know the type, their understanding of Christianity is John 3:16 and the Ten Commandments).
*In discussion of spirituality, pure logic/rationalism is a tool to use to discuss and solve issues, but the kind of monomaniacal focus on it that works in discussing random philosophy topics is not sufficient (of course, there are those enthusiastic about spiritual topics who are entirely devoid of rationality, and thus cannot participate in meaningful discussion). This probably contributes to the state where most religious topics here are on mythological issues that are of interest primarily to the non-believer, rather than discussion of practical/relevant issues within the framework of the tradition itself. It's possible that the lack of expertise, and thus authority, on these topics in the userbase is another reason that any people who would want to discuss these topics will not bring them here.
NKB, your perspective on this as a fellow BL moderator who is also a fellow non-non-believer (excuse the conceit) is valuable. I can really see both sides of this. On the one hand, yeah, I can see how rejecting the "drugs are sinful" meme goes hand in hand with rejecting the entire basis of the notion of sin, or rejecting Anglo society's traditional source of values (the Judeo-Christian tradition). But at the same time, drugs and religion have an ancient connection, and I have a hard time believing that there aren't more people who are interested in recognizing and reestablishing this connection. The spiritual seeker who turns to drugs is the stuff of legend. So where
are they all??
To come at it from another perspective, my forays into the Western mystery tradition and Hermeticism have taught me that there are no shortage of Westerners who demand to be both [wo]men of science
and [wo]men of faith, who do not see the two traditional definitions of enlightenment as mutually exclusive. It strikes me as awfully odd that so few of them would have a deep and sincere interest in drugs.
These are the questions which haunt my mind, on this issue:
* Is BL a representative sampling of drug users in the Anglophone world, or the West in general, with regards to beliefs and attitudes on things other than drugs?
* If not, what is it about BL's culture that attracts the non-spiritual, and/or fails to attract the spiritual?
* Was a normative precedent of atheism set early on and arbitrarily, or did it arise inevitably and naturally by selecting for English-speaking Internet users who are pro-drugs? IIRC, xtcxtc and Jase were both outspoken unbelievers, as have been a majority of BLers who've made major contributions to the site. I often wonder: would Fastandbulbous have gone so earnestly into drug research and development after his life-changing injury and chronic pain, if he'd been a man of faith? After all, deep faith allow many with chronic pain and disability to cope with their situations with few or no drugs. Does F&B's example show that it takes an atheist to be a drug pioneer? During my modship of P&S, I once received a spiritual-related post from the mods of ADD, with the tagline "We're all atheists here. Perhaps this would be better suited to your forum." Perhaps indeed 8).
* Is vocal unbelief simply a normative across the English-speaking Internet? Is this a function of the type of person apt to use the Internet to socialize, and or the lack of real life opportunities unbelievers have for getting together and reveling in their unbelief? If this is the case, then the phenomenon we've observed may have nothing to do with drugs.
I'm considering actively seeking out an online group whose interest in drugs is explicitly spiritual. But I'm picky -- I'll have no truck with a bunch that's anti-intellectual, recklessly hedonistic, uninterested in the science and sociology of drug use, devoted unquestioningly to a leader, pandering to the paranoid lunatic fringe, or after my money. If you or anyone else has any links for me, I'll gladly click them. I had a lot of faith in BL in this regard, because I still regard it as the best English-language drug resource out there, and I think BL does the whole community thing better than any other drug forum I've seen. I won't sugar coat it -- I feel vexed and alone that so few people seem to share my motivations for exploring drugs in the first place.
I never felt this more strongly than when I read a thread in The Dark Side by someone depressed because he can't see any meaning in life. Almost all the replies were something along the lines of "Yeah, there's no meaning in life. Man up and learn to live with it." Yeah, that's one perspective, and one has the right to voice it. But the fact that it was close to consensus was what appalled me.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
lol PiP, what's your story, man?
But the thing re:use of time, not apply to Drs and enginerds too? I mean, the time spent pondering the supernatural could be used to ponder the ideal bore/stroke ratio for a car engine, making that enginerd more likely to get a patent. The time spent attending church could be spent on ward, making the Dr more likely to become head of department. I do however see your point, and you have actually given me an original answer, and a very interesting one, I am going to bring it up with the Drs and engineers I know and probe it a bit more, thanks for the nice meal you gave my mind.