Telling my roommate.

Tell him straight up. If he has a problem with it, and decides to ruin your relationship over something like that, he's not a real friend. If you actually are really good/best friends like you say, this will not affect your friendship as long as you don't smoke in his presence.

 

Haha yeah, technically anything that changes anything you in any way when the body breaks it down/absorbs it is a drug. Sugar could be called a drug. I know what you mean though. All natural, healing plant? Too good to be true.

OP, just come out and tell him. He's gonna find out either way like you said. If he's your best friend, he'll accept it. If he badgers you about stopping, it's not because he wants to change you, it's because he believes lies and thinks he's helping his best friend.

Tell him about the history you've learned, facts, etc. One day he might even light one with you.

 

I can't obviously speak for every orthodox religion, but basing my opinion on that of which I am very familiar with (Catholicism) I can firmly say that no, that can only be applied to in what way people decide to use religion as a means of. Generally speaking, religion in it's truest form (scriptures) is not intended for "brainwashing". (I don't consider myself a Catholic btw, but I was raised as one).

 

You may be right about religion in its truest forms GNJ, but Catholicism as an organized religion is exactly what Glass Clown said.

 

This comes up time and time again.. No offence OP, but i have always seen the same answer work for the most part..

Educate him on the plant and he will then be more curious and more comforterable with it.

If that doesnt work, hot box the room youre in and he will have a good time whether he likes it or not lol

 

I'm not denying that it can be used for brainwashing, because it definitely can be and I've witnessed it being used for those means. I'm just pointing out the fact that it depends on what context people use/take it in; the actual religion itself is not intended for controlling the population.

 

I agree, the Union focuses much more on the economics of the situation. I think National Geographics "Marijuana Nation" special did a really good job. It showed many people in chronic conditions and how Marijuana aids them tremendously. It also has a good amount of footabge with Marc Emery.

Anyways, talking about it would be a good idea. My freshman roommate and I never talked about it, but he was a much more liberal kind of guy. A really smart mathematician type who was really friendly, but had below-average hygiene.... anyways, we never discussed it, but I would toke up in their frequently, so it was kind of an unwritten "hey I smoke.... okay just dont do it when I am around" kind of thing.

 

I think what Glass Clown was getting at, is that despite any individual/communinty benefits from Religion, it is dangerous if it is highly influential in Government. All the right-wing media in the United States are saying how we have a "Judeo-Christian belief system" then complain how we are becoming a secular nation.

I mean most religions like Catholicism and Islam have violent histories and the United States is really special in that it was born, on paper, a secular-nation. I don't think we should answer Glenn Beck's cry for whatever bullshit.

 

yeah, christ was obviously against the corruption in temple, so why would his religion be based on brainwashing? Just human nature for man to be power hungry, want to take over.

OP: Just talk to him about it, both of you are adults.

 

Sorry, but catholicism is the OG of political control. Early in the middle ages the catholic church made political deals with rulers in Europe to eliminate Arian churches. Arian churches (hit up Wikipedia if you're not familiar) were by far the majority christian churches in the early middle ages. Catholicism went on to leave a legacy of incredibly corrupt popes. The whole business of priests not being able to marry was to prevent priests from using their power to amass wealth that could be passed to their heirs. Instead the property of priests after their death passed to the church (which is why they are one of the richest organizations in history) or back to the government.

Religion is ideal for political control because people will rise up against a government but not against a church which can condemn you to eternity in hell. The carrot and stick combination of heaven if you're good and hell if you're bad kept peasants working their asses off for their manorial, feudal and later mercantilistic lords and living at minimum substinance levels with the promise from the church that although life was a living hell, the afterlife would be a place of constant bliss and plenty.

Also, while what you say is true about scripture, the catholic church carefully designed the bible to be what it is to support their doctrine. The bible is a disjointed collection of unrelated writings most of which are not attributed to their real authors but to some quasi-mythical figure. There were many many more books considered inspired and canonical by the early church fathers that were rejected by the catholic church because they didn't support their control of the european populace. While the writers of the individual books were no doubt sincere in their intention (although how do you justify claiming to be Moses writing when you're not?) their words have been twisted into bizarre doctrines that don't really appear in the original texts. For instance, the concepts of heaven and hell really don't appear as such in the bible. As to the old testament, different sects of jews disagree as to what the afterlife consists of or whether there is one at all. Ancient jews didn't really have a concept of afterlife and if they did it was that the grave (Sheol in hebrew, translated variously as grave or hell to suit the purposes of the person who commissioned the translation) was a place of waiting until eventual ressurection. The new testament says very clearly that only 144,000 "saints" will go to heaven, which is god's abode, not a place of reward. The rest of the faithful are ressurected to the new heaven and earth after the final apocalypse.

Also your point about scriptures is kinda moot when talking about catholicism because catholicism places equal weight on scripture, church tradition, and papal decree to determine dogma.

But don't get me started, I could go on all night about this stuff.

 

Im Catholic, i go to church every sunday, my grandfather is a decon, and i lector or alter serve almost every mass. And i always do it totally blazed. It makes church so intense. Be careful but it is definitely something i recommend trying.

 

Jesus (if he was indeed a historical figure, there's no evidence for him outside the four gospels) was one of many many failed messiahs at the time of roman occupation. The actual concept of messiah (mashiach in Hebrew, Christos in Greek, means annointed one) was very different that the modern christian idea (actually Pauline since it's based on Paul's writing and not anything that Jesus said or did in his lifetime.) The messiah expected based on old testament prophecy was a descendant of King David and was to be a military leader that would rally the Jewish people to revolt against their oppressors and take back the throne of David and reestablish the kingdom of Israel. All the attempts to shoehorn the Pauline concept of messiah as savior of mankind and forgiver of sins is retconning.

If you google around on messiah you'll find that they were a dime a dozen in Roman Judea. Jesus himself just had a good marketing team in Peter and Paul.

 

Like stated previously, I don't disagree with what you're saying about how it can manipulated. It really depends on each person's perception of how they percieve the bible. You have to keep in mind when reading the Bible, that the scriptures were written in very literal terms because of the time period they were formed and written in.Ultimately, I'm not a word-for-word believer, I personally believe in reading in-between the lines and thinking outside the box and not literally, more in a metaphorical sense if you will. BUT, that could just be my personal uprbringing. I do agree in the sense that a lot of religious believers are very orthodoxical and do not question, which is a very traditional way of thinking. But I have to say that Catholicism has developed over the years, and especially pertaining to the whole concept of liberty when believing and questioning (which goes back to what you said about heaven and hell). I had been attenting Catholic schools my whole life, and I can say it has definitely changed (pertaining to the "liberty" of free-thinking, etc) My views are much different as opposed to my grandmother's, who was raised with very strict, basic, black and white biblical beliefs.

 

Back when I was a fundamentalist preacher and youth pastor, I was friends with the youth pastor at the local catholic church. He was giving me a tour of the church, which was seven kinds of awesome, it was so big and nice. My church met in a shitty little women's club. Anyway, we walk through this one door and there's four priests sitting there in clerical collars smoking cigars, drinking beer, and playing poker.

Years later after I passed out of my religious phase and back into my default alcoholic rocker persona, my band was playing at a catholic festival with live music, games, booths, crafts, food, you name it, here in Salt Lake (which is the only place in the US, probably in the christian world, where the catholic church is challenged for religious dominance.) I was doing the sound for some other acts early on Sunday and while I was setting up in the morning the first thing that opened up was the beer tent.

Right then I decided if I ever was stupid enough to get religious again I'd be a catholic.

 

Hypocritical? Slightly. And that's why I don't consider myself a Catholic..

 

The Old Testament and the New Testament are two very different things. The New Testament focuses very much on forgiveness, and shows a very different side of the Catholic religion. The two can be considered to contrast each other, in a positive way. And indeed, unfortunately is it human nature that feeds on the want to be constantly "in control", as we've always seen throughout history in every part of the world..

 

I don't think it's hypocritical at all. Religious figures throughout the bible are portrayed as drinking wine. The idea of things like drinking, playing cards, dancing, etc. being sinful was a very much later development stemming from the holiness movements of the early methodist during the 17th century revivals, and again a blatant attempt to control people. After the reformation the text of the bible was available to all for the first time so people could see what it said. Feudalism and Mercantilism had given way mostly to capitalism and there was no longer an enslaved class of workers (serfs, peasants, peons) that could be legally and morally held in bondage (apart from southern slavery, a whole different subject). Organized religion needed a new set of carrots and sticks to control people and their money and keep them focused on continuing to work their sorry asses off and produce surplus value for the bourgois exploiters (yeah, that's Marxist, sorry.)

Hence the concept of Protestant work ethic and the holiness movement that removed the availability of most liesure activities other than church.

 

Interesting.

 

As in Cool Story, Bro? hehheheheh

OP, I apologize, I have perpetrated a massive threadjack on you. I will do appropriate pennance and abstain from our favorite herb tonight (since I don't have any anyway )

 

No, I legitimately found that interesting.