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Why do all the major religions frown upon drugs?

All the religions have a good reason to frown upon drugs. Let's be honest here, all drugs are bad for you and create an enormous amount of mental and physical problems to the user. And I don't mean just crack, meth and heroin. Even marijuana can create pyschological problems for the user and has been known to trigger mental disorders such as anxiety and schizophrenia(debatable).

The only drugs that I can see that might benefit a person are psychadelics such as LSD and mushrooms. But even those can trigger problems such as schiznophrenic breaks and post dramatic stress disorder. Not to mention that all drugs may be addicting to some.

From a biological standpoint, the usage of drugs and the onset of addiction is an evolutionary paradox. It is strange how a species would seek out a substance that shortens their lifespan and may lead to death.
 
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That's probably the most down to earth answer on this thread.

Religions were instituted mainly for survival reasons, as well as maintaining some sort of control on sex and procreation. Morality was linked to a safe modus operandi that ensured a higher probability of survival. Also, man's self-conscious, reflective nature needed to be given some type of meaning for going on. Survival no longer just a biological urge, but suddenly a great cause in the name of the divine right. Attraction between the sexes no longer just a physiological function but now presented as 'Love', holy, sacred and pure...and regulated

As for drugs being frowned upon by major religions, can you think of something more stupid, from a an evolutionary point of view, than getting wasted on mushrooms when there are wild animals and rival tribes ready to lop your head off or eat you as soon as you make a false move?

Another aspect, is that drugs, regardless of the high claims laid by psychonauts, do provoke pleasurable reactions and stimulate brain reward centres, it is a form of hedonism no matter how you look at it, unless(ironically), a religion touts a certain plant as 'sacred' , and codifies it's use into moral and religious practice. The drug experience is pleasurable and human nature dictates that the pursuit of pleasure is good, even the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of vital survival practices.

The creators of religion, in the interest of suvival, have known how to utilize these human machanisms of safistaction and reward, thus 'repressing' sexual liberty or linking it to a productive function, such as marriage, which is linked to social status, which in turn is linked to wealth and/or tribal accomplishments. Drugs, being a pleasuable experience, and not connected with utility and survival, will logically be excluded from acceptable religious behaviour.

Religion's primary objective is to prevent the dissolution of energy, energy in religion is focused on productive endeavours.
 
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You'll probably find that the major religions will argue that drugs are responsible for - crime, poverty, irresponsibility, laziness etc.

They'll go on to state that you shouldn't "need" drugs because all we really need is "god" etc.

Apart from that you only hope is to call the pope or someone at a similar ranking and ask them if there is some sort of Orwellian conspiracy to cast drugs as evil because they threaten the fabric and apparent truth that the religion in question is attempting to disperse (at a resonable price of course).

Let me tell you though, tis not easy to get through to these head-honcho types. When i was 14 i tried to call the Pope - i got as a far as a switchboard before the women explained the pope couldn't talk to me. Boy was i devastated.
 
TruthSpeaker1 said:
All the religions have a good reason to frown upon drugs. Let's be honest here, all drugs are bad for you and create an enormous amount of mental and physical problems to the user. And I don't mean just crack, meth and heroin. Even marijuana can create pyschological problems for the user and has been known to trigger mental disorders such as anxiety and schizophrenia(debatable). .
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if your playing devils advocate your brilliantly shown up the flawed logic that the established groups utilise to attack concepts/people/objects which threaten their existance


My job causes me physical and mental problems. My wife and family cause me physical and mental problems. I've gotten deep seeded psychological problems from relationships (terrible ones which lead me to listening to far to much Cure). Yet we don't see religion fighting against those evil creating sources.

They claim to have good reason based on the causality or apparent consequence drugs cause.

Take the video in Dark Side of the 8 year old shooting up heroin.

Is heroin bad because he is shooting it up or is it bad that his friends gave it to him? Are we to ban friends because of the epidemic of evil peer group create, be it with a powerful opiate or potato gun?

No of course not - its this terrible short sightless in humans beings to look in the most shallow way possible at the concept of; cause & effect.
 
Drugs are antithetical to the Judo-Christian premise of an infinite God.

It's often pointed out that some religions allow or encourage the use of psychadelics in order to interface with a higher power. From a Judo-Christian perspective, God does not require us to interface with him via a drug in order to enable him to be able to communicate with us clearly.

Such a belief would seemingly put some limits on God's power of communication and make his ability contingent upon a substance that he created. This is incompatible with a belief in a God that posseses infinite ability, wisdom and omnipotence.

More prosaically, drugs tend to impair your ability to perfom physical tasks, thus making you a lazy, unproductive heathen. =D
 
Need I remind you that weed was and continues to be a divine sacrament for many religions and has been used for thousands of years as such. Many religions today practice that belief including rastafarianism, coptic (northern african?) christianity, sufi islam (which has a patron saint of cannabis), sadhu hinduism, some forms of tibetan buddhism, and quite a few others.
 
tambourine-man said:
Drugs are antithetical to the Judo-Christian premise of an infinite God.

It's often pointed out that some religions allow or encourage the use of psychadelics in order to interface with a higher power. From a Judo-Christian perspective, God does not require us to interface with him via a drug in order to enable him to be able to communicate with us clearly.

Such a belief would seemingly put some limits on God's power of communication and make his ability contingent upon a substance that he created. This is incompatible with a belief in a God that posseses infinite ability, wisdom and omnipotence.

More prosaically, drugs tend to impair your ability to perfom physical tasks, thus making you a lazy, unproductive heathen. =D
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In Jewish belief, Psychedelics are aknowledged as one of many ways a mystical state can be obtained. It's just not the traditional, or even best way of going about it. With that in mind, I know of a Rabbi who had experimented with replacing alcohol for psychedelics in certain holiday rituals.
 
yougene said:
In Jewish belief, Psychedelics are aknowledged as one of many ways a mystical state can be obtained. It's just not the traditional, or even best way of going about it. With that in mind, I know of a Rabbi who had experimented with replacing alcohol for psychedelics in certain holiday rituals.
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How interesting!

Thanks for sharing.
 
I think a possible reason could be is that (im mainly talking about psychedelics here) some drugs can help you to 'communicate with God' or atleast what you think is God. And after such an experience you will realise God is not the way religions made it out to be and you will be able to think for yourself. This is what religions don't want you to realise as it will turn you away from religion.
 
SmC said:
I think a possible reason could be is that (im mainly talking about psychedelics here) some drugs can help you to 'communicate with God' or atleast what you think is God. And after such an experience you will realise God is not the way religions made it out to be and you will be able to think for yourself. This is what religions don't want you to realise as it will turn you away from religion.
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Of all the religions out there I think there should be at least a couple that reflect these experiences, no?
 
Not when an omniscient/omnipotent being is the center of it, imo. I would call that fundementalism or religion. It's just a personal thing. I think boiling down the universe to a single being or god is absurd.
 
SmC said:
I think a possible reason could be is that (im mainly talking about psychedelics here) some drugs can help you to 'communicate with God' or atleast what you think is God. And after such an experience you will realise God is not the way religions made it out to be and you will be able to think for yourself. This is what religions don't want you to realise as it will turn you away from religion.
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Yeah, but why? Moral systems were once very useful as far as keeping human earthlings somewhat civilized or better able to live amongst eachother.
 
I agree with the survival thing. Look at a LOT of the rules in say...Leviticus. Most of them had foundings in a lot of survival practices. Nearly all the rules about kosher food came from the fact that most of the things that are prohibited by keeping kosher can cause serious illness when prepared wrong. There are a lot of rules dealing with how to clean house, especially with sick and injured people in the house...

Drugs often cause societal ills. Like it or not, it's a fact. Drugs, are, to the general population at large, harmful. Yes, when taken with responsibility, they can provide amazing, mind-altering expirences and be amazing tools to our own conciousness and beyond, and do wonderful things for people, and they don't always cause harm and destruction. But the number of people who can handle drugs responsibly is fairly small. It's easy to fall into the lapse of addiction, easy to lie cheat and steal to get what you want, drugs can cause latent psychiatric problems to manifest.

As such...it's easier to frown on them, say it's a sin as opposed to educating people, as opposed to giving people the facts and knowledge, and hoping that they will be responsible. It protects more of society to ban them than it does to let drugs be an accepted part of your culture.

Drugs are also the "easy" way out. You're supposed to work to make yourself as good of a person as you can to reach salvation. If you're a drug addict, you're on the easy life, you can't be bothered to stop indulging yourself, you don't try and get help, you don't try to improve your life, therefore, you're not a very good practitioner of your religion.
 
shmacky said:
Yeah, but why? Moral systems were once very useful as far as keeping human earthlings somewhat civilized or better able to live amongst eachother.
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Yes, moral systems are useful but we don't need religion to tell us that anymore, we have progressed beyond that stage I like to think. Religion is too controlling these days, it forces its way of life on us, spreads hatred on people if they choose a different lifestyle, etc. I hardly call that a good moral system.
 
Hanlons_Razor said:
It protects more of society to ban them than it does to let drugs be an accepted part of your culture.
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I strongly disagree with this. This might be their reasoning for banning drugs but it is severely flawed.
 
yougene, I've also noticed that Jews take a pretty nonchalant attitude towards drugs -- probably the most so of any major world religion. My g/f explained to me that in Jewish communities it's not DRUG USE that's inherently shameful, it's BEING FUCKED UP ON DRUGS that is. For example, if her family simply heard I smoke pot, they'd let it slide. But if I came to dinner at their house red eyed and silly and disoriented, they wouldn't.

I guess you can afford to allow a practice like drug use when you live in a tight sort of community that ensures it won't get out of hand.

Speaking of Judaism, doesn't your screen name mean "you're nuts!" in yiddish, Meshuggah?

elemenophee, but when you consider the times in which most religions were invented, and the survival threats that were very real then compared to now...
 
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