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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:

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: Psychedelic Medicine: The Healing Powers of LSD, MDMA, Psilocybin, and Ayahuasca Kindle Miller, Richard Louis, Park Street Press, New York, 2017 (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: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains Poe, Edgar Allan (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)








Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Self-medication is not a dirty word. It has always been a fundamental right to take care of one's own health -- until the medical establishment demonized the practice for obvious financial reasons.

We should start taking names. All politicians and government officials who work to keep godsends like psilocybin from the public should be held to account for crimes against humanity when the drug war finally ends.

"They have called thee Soma-lover: here is the pressed juice. Drink thereof for rapture." -Rig Veda (There would be no Hindu religion today had the drug war been in effect in the Punjab 3,500 years ago.)

I'm told that most psychiatrists would like to receive shock therapy if they become severely depressed. That's proof of drug war insanity: they would prefer damaging their brains to using drugs that can elate and inspire.

That's why I created the satirical Partnership for a Death Free America. It demonstrates clearly that drug warriors aren't worried about our health, otherwise they'd outlaw shopping carts, etc. The question then becomes: what are they REALLY afraid of? Answer: Free thinkers.

The Drug War is a religion. The "addict" is a sinner who has to come home to the true faith of Christian Science. In reality, neither physical nor psychological addiction need be a problem if all drugs were legal and we used them creatively to counter problematic use.

Americans are far more fearful of psychoactive drugs than is warranted by either anecdote or history. We require 100% safety before we will re-legalize any "drug" -- which is a safety standard that we do not enforce for any other risky activity on earth.

DEA Stormtroopers should be held responsible for destroying American Democracy. Abolish the American Gestapo.

That's why we damage the brains of the depressed with shock therapy rather than let them use coca or opium. That's why many regions allow folks to kill themselves but not to take drugs that would make them want to live. The Drug War is a perversion of social priorities.

There is more hope in dope than there is in the psychiatric pill mill.


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






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Copyright 2025, Brian Ballard Quass Contact: quass@quass.com

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