Comment by ptsneves | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptsneves | Hacker News Reader

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I would say it is human, as in humans are social animals, to do drugs socially. I think of alcohol or cigarettes and maybe pot as a rebel cult of teenagerhood.

To seek or try drugs that may change your whole life is not healthy because it means you are implicitly deciding your current existence is not enough and something else needs to be on the other side: be it a nice trip, the most powerful high, or rush. The rejection of one’s existence is a concept that bothers me.

that is what bothers me with religion as well: it is a rejection of ourselves and reality traded for comfort. I get people need it due to bad life circumstances, but like any addiction it is just a pain killer for a festering wound.

This can be applied to anything that gives us comfort. I take the view that we do these things because of a deep psychological knowledge that we will die. There's a book called The Denial Of Death. It's speaks all about how a lot of choices we make (almost all) once you still down deep enough, are because we are creatures who know the power of our own minds but also are aware that we will die one day.

Another way to think of it is, we have kinds that can imagine and simulate anything. We are practically gods in our own minds. The tragedy is that we have this power but will sooner or later die. This is a tragic a deep realization we all have.

> because it means you are implicitly deciding your current existence is not enough

> that is what bothers me with religion as well: it is a rejection of ourselves and reality traded for comfort. I get people need it due to bad life circumstances, but like any addiction it is just a pain killer for a festering wound.

Is it only drugs and religion though? And not just illegal drugs, but the legal ones as well?

Couldn't one argue that people seek out religion for emotional needs, and that emotional needs force people to reject themselves in favor of the community? Or is this a misguided take?

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