Drugs and Spirituality?

Because Churchs don't want people to have any other crutch than religion
and pharmacutical companies don't want people to have acces to anything they can grow themselves. Lawmakers just do what they are told.

Re: Drugs and Spirituality?

Great job, bongstar. This is an excellent example of "begging the question" (petitio principii), and provides a wonderful opportunity to dissect this type of fallacious argument.

Note how bongstar starts with a perfectly reasonable question: "Is there any reason to believe...?" By itself, it would have provided a suitable topic for discussion. Next, bongstar makes a statement: "Almost all drugs...." That too is not terribly controversial.

But then notice what he does next: "The history of drugs predates religion, but not spiritual practice." In contrast to the preceding statement, this is controversial, or at least unsupported by any evidence. Nevertheless, bongstar presents it as fact.

And then comes the clincher: "Why do we deny our most ancient and primal of practices?" At this point, bongstar clearly assumes that the answer to the original question is "yes." In effect, he has gone from questioning the relationship between religion and drugs to assuming that there was such a relationship.

Yet that is clearly fallacious. There is no evidence that such a relationship even existed, so the second question relies on the validity of a premise that has yet to be established. In other words, it assumes that which is to be proven: the classic definition of "begging the question."

And note: if this had been directed at someone else's argument, it would have been a "strawman fallacy." So nice work, bongstar, I hope everyone could learn something from your post.

You wouldn't happen have majored in english, would you, joe?

I have to ask, Joe, does the opposition cringe and start to crawl under the table when you enter the courtroom?

Individual: No.

Hobitbob: What you describe is the reaction of most people when I enter a room.

Joe

That was a great posting -- and terrific analysis. Precision is super.

Your comments reminded me of a short old story that I'll share.

I'm sure you will get the connection.


Noah Webster's wife comes into the downstairs parlor and finds the old man with his hands down the blouse of the downstair's maid.

"I am surprised," says the wife.

"No, my dear," says old Noah, "I am surprised. You are astonished."

I love that story, Frank, but I think when I heard it first it was Samuel Johnson, not Noah Webster, with his hands on the hired help. Regardless of the identity of the guilty parties, it's still a great story.

See the problem is that you must not believe in primitive man. And it is fallicious to state that there is no evidence. Look into anthopology and youll find evidence of shamanistic practices that predate any religion, and in fact predate god/s (in idea). The evidence comes in the forms of cave drawings depicting various ethnogenic species. Joe, you must be a christian..But maybe not.

"The history of drugs predates religion, but not spiritual practice."
I say this because spirituality and ethnogenic practice seem to fabricate around the same time.

The whole point of such questions is to bring you to argue with me. Why dont you prove my wrong?

You might look up the history of shamanism. It is such an old practice that we cannot do anything but infer how long it might have been around. But on the contrast all religion has a date and origen that can be traced with a reasonable amount of accuracy. Especially christianity. So who was first? What is the oldest religion? What is the oldest practice?

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/s/shamanism.html
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/acubed.htm
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1789/a08.html
http://indigo.ie/~imago/cate/overview.html
http://www.maps.org/media/pi111703.html
http://www.mbspirit.net/topics/topi
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/vulture-shamans.html_page.aspx?topicID=18&pageType=38
http://www.spub.ksu.edu/issues/v100/sp/n123/fea-shamanism-bethea.html


The tip of the ice berg. Be sure to speculate with an objective mind.

Thankyou for your post. It would be interesting to discuss the link between spirituality and drug use.

I don't know how reputable those links are. It seems pointless to argue whether drug use precedes religion. Shamanism is an integral part of many nature religion. Speculation is not evidence.

There are links between drug use and mysticism because the use of mind altering drugs is an effective method of producing the altered state of consciousness which causes visions. However, there are many other safer and equally effective methods of achieving the mystic state. Meditation and dream work, for instance.

Also, drugs are generally used for recreational rather than spiritual purposes. Their use causes many social and health problems ( that includes legal drugs).

Are you referring to all "natural" drugs ? Hard as well as soft? Opium as well as marijuana?

The legalization of marijuana would make a good topic for discussion ( it probably has already, I suppose). In order to provide a balanced overview, however, it would be necessary to take many other factors into account (not only those related to its spiritual use).

Also, not all practices which are ancient are neccessarily "good" or "right".
Female circumcision, the rape and stoning of women caught having sex before marriage and a thousand other types of needless brutality have also been sanctioned for millennia.

OK, I'll be quiet now. Hopefully the above message isn't interpreted as a personal attack, just offering my ideas and humble opinions .

I know, and expect this to be percieved as speculation. These kinds of ideas have been slandered for thousands of years. It is because man is becoming addicted to himself and cannot except the reality of true spiritual connection. Yes drugs are but one way, the easy way. But this explains why we can manipulate our own perception without drugs. We are drug factories in ourselfs. If you dont believe me, then why is it that our bodys manufacture substances that act in almost the same manner as the very drugs that we outlaw. Our bodys manufacture chemicals in likeness to opium, marijuana, dmt, psilocybin, and mescaline to name a few. These substances account for the various outworldly sensations that we experience without ingesting any substances. Besides, back to the subject of speculation, any statement that does not have the evidence sitting next to it in front of your eyes can be subjected to such reasoning. People accecpt accounts for their gods on less evidence, why cant we accecpt reality for what it is on more evidence. I think that man is afraid. Of what, I dont know. If you ask me a good majority of our problems would not exist if it wasnt for all the confliction caused by religious beliefs.

That's a strawman argument. I see you're adding to your list of fallacies.

I must be a Christian? Why? Was there a law passed or something?

Because I have no interest in this topic and I have no interest in proving you wrong. You did, it's true, offer an opportunity to discuss a common logical fallacy, but that pretty much marks the outer boundary of my interest in this thread.

Ok, so now your my wrighting professor...Well I suppose thats a good thing.

You could do worse. But what he's talking about is logic, not writing. I've seen a few people confuse Joe's arguments about logic as simply eloquence in writing.

It's far more, and has more to do with thinking than writing.

truth
Bongstar, I agree with you that spirituality is earlier than religion (without getting up tight about definitions). Religion, according to most anthropological specialists on the subject, had its basis in illness. It was the earliest form of medicine, in so far as many cultures explained illness as punishment for deviation from norms. The Zinacantecos of Chiapas, Mexico traditionally assert that illness comes from either the aggression of witches (brujos) or as punishment from ancestors for unconventional behavior. But I do think (but have only very vague evidence) that the use of plants served to give people (in addition to visions) a more general sense of unity with nature. Aldous Huxley once wrote in the Saturday Evening Post that even contemporary drunks are often pursuing a softer more spiritual sense of reality. The following week the wife of a drunk wrote an irate letter to the editor cursing Mr. Huxley. Her husband, a drunkard, told her that on the grounds of the intelligent thinking of so great a man as Huxley she should call him a saint (spiritural seeker) rather than a common drunk.

WR 122 "English composition Logic, and Style".....What, you guys dont remember that class?