Intoxication and Religious Experience

I have some experience with `mind-altering` drugs, and have had some `strange` experiences, but I can`t say that they where religious. Religious experiences may be the result of a psychosis triggered by the drugs, and in a psychosis you can not tell what is real or not.

I find a discussion concerning the use of such drugs very interesting!

I wasn't using intoxication in some symbolic fashion - I mean actual intoxication; being drunk, high, whatever.

Also, boagie, you make a great many statements that show a great deal of bias towards religion. I hope this is not the mistake of criticizing the whole of a population based upon the actions and thoughts of a portion of that population. I know you can do better.

I did not intend to imply the use of the term intoxication to be limited to the symbolic. About my bias against religion, yes indeed, no mistake there on your part. Criticizing must be done in general when we are speaking of a generality such a Christianity. I assume somewhere there are exceptions to the rule. "I know you can do better." Well, thanks much, but I think I am doing fine!!

So, because some Christians do X, all Christians are guilty of X? As I said, you can do better.

You are still making blanket generalizations about a wide variety of conflicting view points based on only a portion of those particular view points. Yes, there are twi sides to each coin, and many more sides to Christianity. If you do not intend to deal with the variety of viewpoints, that is fine; but instead you have dealt with them - you have ignored the variety, and insist on pretneding that such variety does not exist.

Philosophy requires that we be willing to examine issues that complicate our subjects.

Victim? Hardly. I have enough intellectual honesty to be fair to other view points.

You continue to judge an entire population based upon but a portion of that population. Yes, the politization of the church is horrendous - Christians have caused many problems; however, whatever issues you might have, whatever issues I might have, with some Christians, there is no reason to condemn all of Christians.

I am sorry if you do not have the intellectual integrity, constitution or interest to honestly consider topics such as this. We can criticize Christianity all day - I'll join you, and I'll bet that our we share most of our criticism of Christianity.

Personally, I have not asked you to consider any particular opinion that might be related to Christianity - other than the opinion you have presented: "Criticizing must be done in general when we are speaking of a generality such a Christianity."

"I do not know how much clearer I can make this, the basic stories of the bible,the garden of eden, walking on water, talking serpents, the whole fantasy. If someone tells in this day and age that they believe this stuff literally, they instantly lose my respect."

As I said, many of our criticisms are the same. To take any of such stories as being literally true is silly to say the least. But my point is that not all Christians take these stories literally, and many would tell you that to do so is to miss the point of the stories.

"You are quite good at trying to manipulate but I really do not need you approval."

Manipulate what? Honestly, what have I manipulated? As for my approval, no you do not need it for anything. You can think and believe anything you like; however, I can also point out your errors, which is what I have done. In turn, you could respond with reasons why what I have called errors are nothing of the sort, though, you have not done so, rather you have asserted that I am "playing the victim" and "manipulating" something or another.

"If you can deal with the fact I do not hold Christianity in high reguard, and you still wish to dialogue, then we have a communication going, if not, its been nice!
Thanks"

I dont particularly care what your opinion of Christianity is; as long as you keep posting, I'll respond with reason as best I can.

Even if one does not truely attain enlightenment while drugged, it surely feels like it at the time

How do you know what true enlightenment feels like?

(I know this is a very old thread, but it is something that has been on my mind.)

I was into recreational intoxicants when I was very much younger. I never took opiates of any kind, and never cocaine, but as for experiences with entheogens, I lost count. I definitely had real spiritual realisations through these. There is a phase you go through where you have hallucinations, intoxication, flights of ideas, and so on. But there is another stage appropriately called Clear Light. At this point I was completely taken by the realisation that everything in life was holy, life itself was holy, there was nothing lacking, nothing to be gained, nothing the matter anywhere. This manifested as being spellbound by nature - saplings, moss-covered boulders and the like (doesn't sound much when you write it....) Particular objects would seem to be extremely beautiful - for the first time, I really saw how beautiful nature was, it was like an artwork, very much like what Huxley wrote in Doors of Perception. It was also realisation of what a uniquely amazing thing it is to be a human. In fact it was a taste of self-realisation, of that I have no doubt.

This was a long time ago now, more than 30 years. And I realised then you couldn't stay in this state artificially. You always would come down and back into the normal mundane existence. So the question was, how to realise that state naturally? Because enough of it remained to know it was real, not just an induced fantasy. Subsequently I studied mysticism and learned to practise Buddhist meditation. (And to be honest, maybe I have a pre-disposition to mysticism which this all was tapping into.)

Of course, dharma completely forbids intoxicants, as it should; I would now not advocate going down that road and I have been a non-user of any such things since the 70's. But I still believe the entheogen experience is real. And maybe that is the reason for the stigma attached to them. It is normality protecting itself. They really did make me realise that the reality of many lives is basically habit and convention. Conventional existence really does have shallow roots, and I think there is a deep realisation of that which we are not allowed to acknowledge. A lot of what goes on in the world is built on that denial.

It doesn't matter any more. I have started to discover the inner truth of dharma and don't need anything further. But in a way it does validate what I saw back then; that state of mind is starting to become more real in everyday life. So I guess when it comes to 'sacred intoxicants', and subject to the above caveats, I have to vote 'Aye'.