> Fetishizing sobriety and stigmatizing altered states are anti-human ideas.
The exact opposite is true. There’s nothing “human” about using substances to “alter” your natural state.
The exact opposite is true. There’s nothing “human” about using substances to “alter” your natural state.
That doesn't make it good, or mean we can't prohibit it; I can think of other human things that we can't reasonably tolerate. But your specific argument was weird, and faulty.
In current times it seems especially prudent to resist openness to marijuana lest it serve as a gateway to harder drugs. Because, we are sort of going through an opioid crisis of epic proportions: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
When I'm driving home from work, I have to pass a certain intersection which is filled with folks on hard drugs, and sometimes they're very brave in that they like to walk into oncoming traffic while barely alert, you have to basically be _super_ careful and ready to brake hard in an instant to make sure you don't kill them, and that really irritates me. And I can't help but think that this is the result of the recent openness to drugs, including by our libertarian-inclined peers in the tech sector. Somehow or other the comedians and edgelord warriors won this one, and everyone thinks marijuana is cool, even when the science is out on its harm: long-term usage causes memory and general cognition impairment, usage by adolescents and pre-teens results in even more serious and lasting damage.
It kind of makes me want to pull all of my hair out when you have streets like this in every other large city it seems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y What a shameful and irresponsible thing to do, to be defending recreational drugs in any manner at this point.
IIRC from childhood, before Vatican II only the priest drank the consecrated wine; the congregation received the bread only.
In the Episcopal Church, all hands get both bread and wine — indeed, when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Article 30 of the C of E's Thirty Nine Articles of Religion (1571, and still in the Book of Common Prayer) included the following: "The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord's Sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike." [0]
[0] https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/109014/Thirty-Nine-A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_theology
(I'm well aware that getting buzzed is not by extension at the center of Christian life. The above comment was simply too ironic not to respond to.)
Add Judaism to the roster as well; wine is an integral part of the Seder.
“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”
Or a South Asian lens: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-drugs/banglade... ("Bangladesh sets death penalty for drug offences in draft law")
Or an African lens: https://fileserver.idpc.net/library/Drug-laws-in-West-Africa... ("In Nigeria, the death penalty for drug-related offenses was replaced by life imprisonment in 1986.")
We can both come up with examples to suit our viewpoint. I didn’t say that person was wrong. I just said that person was being selective.
You might not like changing from your baseline, but maybe you don't like blue or purple and prefer red cars. You don't have to like everything, and not everything has to be to your taste.
No that's a very post 1960s European/American thing. For most of the rest of the world, it's all about doing what you're supposed to do.