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God and Drugs

why I am not (entirely) a Christian

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

March 12, 2024



In "There is a God," former atheist Antony Flew stops short of embracing Christianity, but he lauds the religion as the front runner among its rivals in presenting a compelling case for belief. "No other religion," writes Flew, "enjoys anything like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul"1.

Update: May 25, 2025

Although I have never been an atheist, I have my own qualms about Christianity, which can be reduced to two main points: arbitrariness and irrelevance.

Arbitrariness


Consider the second appendix to Flew's book, which is a discourse by Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright entitled "The Self-Revelation of God in Human History: a dialogue on Jesus"2. Taken in itself, it might strike one as a compelling argument about the self-revelation of an acknowledged divinity. But surely it presupposes the importance of its subject matter. Why does the subtitle not refer to Buddha, or to Lao-Tze, or to Mohammad, or to some more obscure thinker? It seems to me a trifle arbitrary or random. I have no doubt that a large variety of biographical figures could be discussed by an active mind in such a way as to plausibly flesh out a backstory about self-revelation. Why have we granted the importance here to Jesus as opposed to all other possible contenders for that role? If I had to answer this question for myself, I could only say that the faith of the reader must be presupposed by authors like Wright for only then can their arguments be properly seen as compelling. Otherwise they are making just one case among many possible cases for the legitimacy of a certain instance of self-revelation.

I'm not saying that this is wrong: perhaps faith DOES have to come first. But if that is so, then say so. Do not present such treatises as authoritative arguments in and of themselves. Follow the lead of all good electronic toy companies: tell your customer base that "batteries are not included."


Irrelevance


You may talk about your men of Gideon, you may brag about your men of Saul. But after Gideon trounces the Midianites and Saul teaches the Ammonites a thing or two, the survivors all go back to their homes and start groaning about their lives and wondering if life is worth living at all. This, at least, is the takeaway message of many a Shakespearean drama, that war is necessary for keeping men virile and purposeful and that men become soft, petty and sulky in the absence of such tests of valor. As Bertram says to Parolles in "All's Well that Ends Well":

"War is no strife,
To the dark house and the detested wife"3.


This also seems to be the implicit message of the Old Testament, that war is both natural and regularly required. The emphasis is on the geopolitical world, versus the internal mental world, and that's a turnoff for someone like myself who has been troubled for a lifetime now, not by the social reality in which he lives but by his relentlessly negative and uncreative view of that world.

As I wrote in a recent tweet:

The worst form of government is not communism, socialism or even unbridled capitalism 4 . The worst form of government is a Christian Science Theocracy, in which the government controls how much you are allowed to think and feel in life.


And what world is that which controls and limits your most basic feelings and attitudes? It is the world created by Drug Warriors, who outlaw drugs that would allow one to mentally transcend their environment, be it never so petty and unfair.

This is why my eyes glaze over when you talk about your men of Gideon. This is why I say "whatever" when you brag about your men of Saul. Their battles, at least for me, have nothing to do with the price of tea in China. I have to live with myself 24/7, and until I can do that peacefully and productively, Solomon himself could not construct a sociopolitical setup that would float my boat.

These qualms about Christianity are only heightened when I reflect that most Christians support the War on Drugs, if only by their silence, and in so doing willfully block my road to self-actualization and happiness in life.

Like most of my essays, my reasoning above will only make sense to those who are familiar with the fantastic but largely untapped potential for demonized drugs to inspire and focus the human mind. For a quick primer on this subject, I recommend "Psychedelic Medicine" by Dr. Richard Louis Miller5. The latter book demonstrates the slow awakening of western science to the mind-enhancing pharmacopoeia to which I allude. Of course, tribal peoples have always known that drugs can help. For information on tribal medicines around the world, read "The Plants of the Gods" by Albert Hofmann and Richard Schultes6. As you do so, try to imagine all the wonderful psychological and spiritual progress that could be made by human beings were we only to consider those tribal drugs as godsends rather than as devils and so devote our time to establishing and promoting safe scenarios for their therapeutic and spiritual use.




Author's Follow-up:

May 25, 2025

picture of clock metaphorically suggesting a follow-up




For those who think that drugs have no positive uses, consider the following descriptions of the use of psychoactive medicines:

"Excellent feelings, tremendous opening of insight and understanding, a real awakening"
-- From Pihkal, by Alexander Shulgin 7

"To breathe the [nitrous oxide] was, simply and literally, inspiration."
-- From Emperors of Dreams by Mike Jay 8

"In the meantime the morphine 9 had its customary effect- that of enduing all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf- in the hue of a blade of grass- in the shape of a trefoil- in the humming of a bee- in the gleaming of a dew-drop- in the breathing of the wind- in the faint odors that came from the forest- there came a whole universe of suggestion- a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought." 10
-- From "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" by Edgar Allan Poe


In fact, the beneficial uses of psychoactive medicines are limited only by the human imagination. That is, of course, if we approach substance use from the standpoint of psychological common sense. Unfortunately, medical doctors view the matter through the passion-scorning lens of behaviorism and professionalism, and so have no interest in the fact that drug use merely helps one, psychologically speaking11. They insist that effectiveness can only be determined by looking under a microscope -- hence their laughable inability to find any use for laughing gas in fighting depression12 13.











Notes for essay entitled God and Drugs: why I am not (entirely) a Christian:

1: Looking for God in All the Wrong Places DWP (up)
2: There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind Flew, Antony, 2007 (up)
3: All's Well That Ends Well Shakespeare, William, The Folger Shakespeare Library (up)
4: What the drug war tells us about American capitalism DWP (up)
5: Richard Louis Miller. 2017. Psychedelic Medicine : The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press. (up)
6: Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers Schultes, Richard, 1979 (up)
7: Shulgin, Alexander T, and Ann Shulgin. 2019. Pihkal : A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, Ca: Transform Press. (up)
8: “Emperors of Dreams : Drugs in the Nineteenth Century : Jay, Mike, 1959 December 14- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” 2023. Internet Archive. 2023. https://archive.org/details/emperorsofdreams0000jaym/page/n3/mode/2up. (up)
9: Three takeaway lessons from the use of morphine by William Halsted, co-founder of Johns Hopkins Medical School DWP (up)
10: “Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Tales - A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (Text-02A).” 2026. Eapoe.Org. 2026. https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/raggeda.htm. (up)
11: Behaviorism and the War on Drugs DWP (up)
12: Forbes Magazine's Laughable Article about Nitrous Oxide DWP (up)
13: Glatter, Robert. 2021. “Can Laughing Gas (Nitrous Oxide) Help People with Treatment-Resistant Depression?” Forbes, June 9, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2021/06/09/can-laughing-gas-nitrous-oxide-help-people-with-treatmentresistant-depre (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Ug! Fire bad! There were 4,731 fire-related deaths in America in 2023. Learn more at the Partnership for a Death Free America.

Rick Strassman reportedly stopped his DMT trials because some folks had bad experiences at high doses. That is like giving up on aspirin because high doses of NSAIDs can kill.

The DEA conceives of "drugs" as only justifiable in some time-honored ritual format, but since when are bureaucrats experts on religion? I believe, with the Vedic people and William James, in the importance of altered states. To outlaw such states is to outlaw my religion.

The outlawing of coca and opium is a crime against humanity.

The DEA is a Schedule I agency. It has no known positive uses.

Alexander Shulgin is a typical westerner when he speaks about cocaine. He moralizes about the drug, telling us that it does not give him "real" power. But so what? Does coffee give him "real" power? Coke helps some, others not. Stop holding it to this weird metaphysical standard.

If there is an epidemic of "self-harm," prohibitionists never think of outlawing razor blades. They ask: "Why the self-harm?" But if there is an epidemic of drug use which they CLAIM is self-harm, they never ask "Why the self-harm?" They say: "Let's prohibit and punish!"

Imagine someone starting their book about antibiotics by saying that he's not trying to suggest that we actually use them. We should not have to apologize for being honest about drugs. If prohibitionists think that honesty is wrong, that's their problem.

When psychiatrists write about heroin, they characterize dependency as enslavement. When they write about antidepressants, they characterize dependency as a medical duty.

My approach to withdrawal: incrementally reduce daily doses over 6 months, or even a year, meanwhile using all the legal entheogens and psychedelics that you can find in a way likely to boost your endurance and "sense of purpose" to make withdrawal successful.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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