Hey there!
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ghrue84 said:
Alright, so only God can judge and no being can judge him. Sounds like a hypocritical tyrant.
From the point of view of a 1-year old baby, his/her parents are complete and utter hypocritical tyrants. They exercise a full control of infants body (dress/undress them at will, decide what food they get etc.) and of the infants day-time activity (when to go to sleep, when to go for a walk into the park etc.) The parents are always right, by definition, and they can thus judge their baby, while the baby has no say in it whatsoever. The babies are not even able to speak as to utter their discontent. What a tyranny! Luckily, the babies rebel against this tyranny quite often by means of unstoppable crying and yelling, as to make the tyrannical parents feel their pain
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ghrue84 said:
Doesn't the Bible say "Do to others as you would have them do to you."? Luke 6:31
This applies only to the creation, not the Creator.
ghrue84 said:
So this God can judge everyone but no one can judge him. Sounds like a great guy.
Did you even write a book, or at least a short poem? With lots of different characters in it? You, as a writer, can make the characters do whatever you please in the book you just wrote, while those written characters has no power over you, nor can they judge you, for they are just a product of your imagination. The same logic applies to God versus us, humans, His creation.
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ghrue84 said:
Are you asserting that absolutely all of the inhabitants in the spirit world are demons? Or just the ones that you encountered? If it was the ones that you encountered, was it all of them or just some of them? What proof, other than your conjectures, do you have that these entities are demons?
I can only speak about my own experience, just like everybody else, and I have no valid ground to extrapolate my own story to the rest of us. Yes, in my experience, every single one spirit I had the (un)pleasure to meet in Hyperspace turned out to be a demon.
Now, not every demon is an enraged horny creature, or does at least not present himself as such. In the beginning, the first 6 months or maybe even a year, I was under the impression that every entity is good. Sometimes harsh, but benevolent nevertheless. Until I had that remarkable trip. I blasted off as usual and expected to partake in the joyful dance of love, like always. But it was not to be. The atmosphere in the trip was grim and dark from the start, and became more and more lightless as the trip progressed, and then I saw them: thousands upon thousands of entities, everywhere, resembling an army on the march. They emanated an aura of darkness and felt unmistakably evil and dangerous. I was perplexed to say the least – such a sharp contrast to what I was used. So I asked, in disbelief: “Who are you?!?” And then they turned all at once to me, and said in unison: “We are the Legion, for we are many!” And their menacing chorus resonated with an unspeakable dread through my entire soul.
Then the dark picture became a bit more vague, and I saw my usual guides, at a distance. Once they saw me, they were quick to say: “Come, come here quickly, move away from them!” I moved as fast as I could to them and gradually the image of the marching demon army disappeared. I was in a shock, and the rest of the trip my guides were calming me down and tried to reassure me. Upon my astounded question: “what the hell just happened?!?”, they responded: “well, not everybody here is nice, stay away from them (the Legion), we will do our best to protect you from them.” This was the first time I realized that at least some of the entities are bad.
Fast forwarding: I learned that even my so called guides and protectors work together with the evil spirits, working out a “bad cop/good cop” routine. You see, I was quite adept at lucid dreaming, and was able to communicate with the hyperspace inhabitants in my (lucid) dreams. And one time they blew their own cover: I saw them, for a few seconds, friendly and happily associating with each other. Upon seeing me, they disengaged in a rapid manner, but the damage to our relation was done: I saw that they were deceiving me, and did not want to admit it upon facing them with that. Their petty lies, through which they tried to explain their behavior, was completely unconvincing. There were more instances of such deceiving behavior, but by that time I was already too deep into, let’s say, our “working relation”, and could not leave them, but had just to accept it.
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ghrue84 said:
Jesus Christ saved you from what, specifically? And how? Why would you have been incapable of writing?
Jesus Christ nullified our working agreement, the pact I willfully made with the entities. It is a very long story, but at some point it happened that I stayed near the Optina monastery in Russia, for a family reason unrelated to the entities. I was happily working for the entities, and despite their deceiving, I thought that the benefits of our cooperation outweighed the cons. I had no way of leaving them anyway – we were intertwined in a manner that can not be broken, the Legion would torment me day and night even for the mere thought of a rebellion against them.
And then there was this monk, father Antonius. Who looked at me and said: “those friends of yours, are not your friends”. And then I saw them, my usual guides and other demons, circling all around me. But now, for the first time in years, there were not connected to me. There was a sphere of bright light that surrounded me in a radius of like one-two meters, which they could not penetrate. You could compare it to a mosquito net, with hundreds of mosquito's buzzing all around, only the buzzing was much more louder. They were screaming towards me, but they were powerless, no control of me whatsoever! And I had peace in my mind, for the first time in years, and maybe in my entire life, I was alone in my inner space. I belonged to myself and could do whatever I wanted to do, no pressure from anyone or anything.
I saw our so called “working relation” for what it was: an abusive pattern of stick and carrot tactic to make me do their bidding. How they spiritually tortured me for years, and I was kind of happy to get this kind of attention. How they promised me a very bright future, but actually made me their puppet. How I was a victim of a long-term spiritual abuse, while thinking, paradoxically, that I was the king of the world.
I looked, astounded, into the eyes of that monk, with a silent question: “what, how, what should I do?” He smiled in response, he understood perfectly well what I felt and saw, and replied: “Jesus Christ can save you from them and make you free. But only if you want to.” Wow! Of course I wanted it! And I saw that it was the real deal, not only because of this protective shield still surrounding me, but I also saw how the demeanor of my “guides” and “tormentors” changed. From their usual: “You now belong to us, so live with it” to actually begging me: “please, please, don’t leave us, we will do whatever you want!”
I did not hesitate for a minute, I jumped on my knees and cried out: “Jesus Christ, please help me, I regret so much that I worked for the demons. I don’t want to! Please, I want to be with You!”. Then, father Antonius put his epitrachelion on my head and spoke the prayer of absolution (“May our Lord and God Jesus Christ, through the grace and bounties of His love towards mankind, forgive you my child, all your transgressions; and I, an unworthy priest, through the power given to me by Him, do forgive and absolve you from all your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.).
And this was it. I was free! A new man, so to speak. The pact I had with the demons was nullified, I was given a full command of my life back. A peace of mind I never experienced before was given to me. Joy and happiness filled my entire body and soul. A door to a true spirituality opened up – not that oppressive puppet-master kind of spirituality I was used to, but one that was based on true love, in which my personal integrity and free will were never violated.
ghrue84 said:
Would Jesus show up during a trip if you asked for him?
Yes. But not in the way you probably expect. Pray to Him when you are having a difficult trip and He will help, be assured.
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ghrue84 said:
About punishment: Eternal hell seems like a pretty harsh punishment, no matter how you look at it. Would God like to spend an eternity in hell? If he wouldn't, why would he allow this to happen to beings that he created? Why should beings be grateful to him for creating such a hell and sending some of them to it? If the God of the bible, or Yahweh, is love, how come he murders people in the Old Testament? How come he impregnates a virgin without her consent? How come he condones rape?
God didn’t create hell – it is simply a place, or a state of mind, where God is not present. Or, better said, where His presence can not be felt. Why? Because we don’t want Him to be there and He respects our choice. He does not condone rape – we do. We like to kill and rape, and God does not violate our freewill to do so. Nor does He impregnate a virgin without her consent. He simply said, through His archangel Gabriel, to the Holy Virgin Mary that He wanted her to become the mother of the Messiah, to which she willfully agreed:
Luke 1:38 said:
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
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ghrue84 said:
A few examples of the love of your Lord in the Old Testament:
"See, the day of the LORD is coming —a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger— to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD Almighty, in the day of his burning anger. Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, they will all return to their own people, they will flee to their native land. Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated." - Isaiah 13: 9-16
Seems pretty clear to me in this passage that the Lord is saying that he does punish in the way that you said he doesn't. Wives raped, kids killed, what a fantastic God.
"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys." - Kings 2: 23-24
Seems like a pretty ruthless God.
"If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid." - Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Isn't this a bit harsh?
Now, this is an interesting question. This question, and its many variations, is being asked to Orthodox Christians throughout the ages and boils down to: “How come, that the God in the Old Testament is so harsh, brutal and fierce, while the God in the New Testament is all about love, even for your enemies, while you, Christians, say that this is the same God?”
In order for you, or anybody else, to understand this paradox, it is necessary to understand how people were in the older ages. I know, this is a hard part, and it will not come as easily. I will give you a few examples and metaphors from which you can start to work your way up.
The first point I want to make is that people in the older ages were much more brutal and harsh than they are today, generally speaking. Take the example of slavery, which was abolished very recently in historical terms, like 150 ago. In that time, it was normal to enslave other people who could not resist your oppression. It was not that an evil slave-owner A, or a bad slave trader B, did horrific deeds to their fellow human beings. No! It was a completely normal way of doing things back then.
Or take the era of colonialism. It was normal, even good, to conquer other continents, enslave its population. People who did it were heroes. Of course, now we know better and even try to erase those pages from our history, renaming the streets and taking down the statues. But this is akin to a fully grown-up adult, who learns that once he was a cry baby, constantly pissing and crapping his pants, driving his parents into insanity and destroying their sex life, and seemed quite happy about it. Now, in shock and shame, he realizes what he did back then and tries to erase every memory about his shameful past. But you know, this is what babies do – they crap their pants, until they learn to control their guts. Accept it and move on.
The same logic applies to people from the Old Testament times. From our point of view, they were ruthless barbarians, to say the least. Murdering, raping, blood offerings – this is what they did, and there was no way of telling them that it was bad. Like you can not tell a 6-months old baby to not crap its pants. The baby will simply not understand. If God asks for a devotion from a ruthless barbarian, the only way a barbarian can show his devotion, is by killing and raping others, in Gods name. There is no other way a barbarian can possibly understand.
Look at Moses, for example. He was one of the most enlightened and wise persons of his time. And this was one of his usual, matter-of-fact commands to his generals:
Numbers 31:17-18 said:
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Does it make him a bad person? If he ordered this in our times – absolutely, but back then – this was what people did, and Moses was no different. If the Midianites won that particular battle instead of the Jews, they would have done exactly the same thing. You see, even the most smart 6-month old baby, no matter how brilliant, would not be able to not crap its pants. And Moses, a spiritual baby from the point of view of the New Testament (the book for the grown-ups, so to speak), was no different.
The second point I want to make is that God respects our free will, and will never violate it. He will allow you to crap your pants no matter how ashamed you will be later. Your freewill is sacred. He chose the Jews to be His folk not because they were better than all others, but because they were inclined to search for God more than others, and as such they were the most appropriate target for the Messiah to be born, who will finally declare: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (“stop crapping your pants!”) and find at least some people who will give in to this call. Two thousands years have passed, and people still crap their pants all over the place, albeit at a lower rate than in the past, so the message is slowly getting through.
Finally, studying history, and particularly the ancient history, without understanding the historical context is dangerous for one’s mental well-being. It can lead to a lot of anger: “How could they do such things to each other? Why didn’t God stop them?” A short answer: this was a period in our life, as a mankind, in which nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes fought each other and by means of a forceful assimilation (killing all the men/women/boys and enslaving the girls) either grew in number or perished forever. The Jews were the God’s chosen people not because they were better, or above that bloodthirsty way of life, but because they had a mission.
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ghrue84 said:
Can you elaborate on the subtlety and the deeper level in which true love operate?
True love does not have these excitement, euphoric, ecstatic qualities that you experience when you have a regular romantic or drug-induced love. It is a very quite kind of joy, almost imperceivable. You simply feel at odds with the world, you see that everything goes as it is supposed to go. There is no sad news that can disrupt this feeling: “your girl cheated and left you?” - you do not experience any negativity, but truly and genuinely hope she will be happy with this other guy, “your family member died?” - you feel happiness that he/she is in a better place now, “you did not get the job you desired?” - you have an unshakable believe that God has prepared an even better path for you. It is hard to describe, really, if I would had to define true love in one sentence, based on my own experience, I would say something along these lines: “God is always with me.” But this presence is not disruptive in any way, like with the entities’ “love”, it simply is and allows me to remain calm and happy even in the direst situations.
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ghrue84 said:
When you say that Jesus heals wounds. Does he heal physical as well as mental and soul wounds? Or just soul wounds?
Jesus can heal any type of wound, but it is your soul that matters. Your physical body will die eventually anyway – your lifespan is limited, no matter your health. Living 50 years or 150 years has no difference in the light of eternity. Your soul, however, is immortal and that is where Jesus Christ is concerned about. Even more so, some kind of a physical sickness or an injury can be beneficial to your soul, for a variety of reasons, like making your humble. So, God oftentimes prefers not to heal your physical wounds, no matter how hard you pray:
2 Corinthians 12:6-9 said:
Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
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ghrue84 said:
What was your personal hell like? How did Jesus get you out of it?
I think the biggest trick in my personal hell was that I didn’t realize that I was in hell. You see, hell is not always about torment and pain, it can have many different shapes and forms. I, for instance, was under the impression that I was “the king of the world”: vastly more prudent and spiritually developed than the absolute majority of the people. I was delving into the psychedelic realm, reading all kind of occult and esoteric authors. I felt superior to others because I always had my spiritual, other-worldly guides near me, while all, or at least most, other people are just bio-zombies, unable to break free from the eat-sleep-work-procreate circle.
In reality, however, I was just a puppet, driven around like a circus donkey with a carrot made of pride and self-glorification, and a stick of… not even torment and pain per sé, but the fear that the guides will no longer work with me, deny me the entrance to their realm and I will become just a mortal pleb like everybody else. A shaman without his spirits is worth nothing after all. I thought I was free and enlightened, but I was just a slave with a tunnel vision. And Jesus offered me the opportunity to become free, really free, and I gladly accepted His gift.
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ghrue84 said:
I don't think anyone is powerless in the face of these "entities". After tripping hundreds of times you start to realize that you can control the psychedelics, and not vice-versa. You can even decide to shut down visuals on purpose if desired/needed. You just need willpower. Psychedelics don't own you. I haven't tripped since last year though so I don't know if that was just a thing I was able to do when I was tripping more frequently. Who knows, maybe I'm super delusional and have been fooled by the psychedelic demons, but to me it seemed like you can exercise complete domination over the psychedelic.
Sure, even when fully submerged, you still can exercise some control over your trip. A full-blown possession is quite rare, luckily. But having a “complete domination over the psychedelic” goes too far, in my opinion. Maybe, with very small dosages or in case of a very mild psychedelic, like weed, you could be “in control”, but a breakthrough on DMT is all about losing control.
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ghrue84 said:
I don't think I'm God in the sense that I think this body is God. It's rather obvious that the body is not God, since it is obviously finite, and I believe that God is infinite. The mind is also finite, so it's also not God. The soul is the only thing that's eternal, and that's where I believe my identity with God lies. I believe that there is only one soul and that soul is God's soul. This soul is in every being. And thus God is in every being. For God to be omnipresent, he must necessarily be present at all times and in all places. Not in the sky apart from the Earth. He must be present in the entire universe at all times for omnipresence to be a valid description of God.
Our souls are indeed the pinnacle of creation – not the stars and the galaxies, but our souls are the most marvelous and complex things in all creation. It is easy to get lost in its beauty, when you start to perceive it during your trips or meditation. I understand that you can easily mistake your soul, particularly given its interconnections to other souls, for God. But your soul lacks one quality to be called God: your soul is finite. It has a beginning: modern science estimate it to be 14 billion years at most (The Big Bang), while God has no beginning, He just is.
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ghrue84 said:
Hypothetically, what is the demons' goal? What do they hope to achieve by establishing a connection between the Earth and hyperspace?
Well, what is the demon’s goal in general? I think it’s necessary to say a few words about the demonic logic, freedom and freewill. Otherwise, we will have no context to answer this question in a meaningful way.
Spirits (angels) have a freewill like we do. It means that they are not forced to do what God wants them to do. Now, God has created the entire creation, both the physical and the spiritual worlds, and in each world He made laws by which each world operates. The spirits could roughly be compared to atoms, the building blocks of our physical universe, with every atom/spirit having its function. The great difference is that atoms do not possess a freewill – they simple obey the physical laws. The spirits in the spiritual world do have such a power – they can freely choose what they want to do.
At some point, the spirits, under the leadership of Lucifer, now known as Satan or the devil, thought to themselves: “We are enslaved! We are the slaves of God, always doing exactly what He wants us to do! We want to go our own, separate way. We want to become free from that oppression!” But here comes the trick: God’s creation, from which the spirits are a part of, is perfectly harmonious, everything fits water-tight. There is nowhere to go, so to speak. So, the only way to become free in such a harmonious world, is to break free from God. Doing slightly a different thing than what He wants equals to becoming a little bit free, while doing the exact opposite of what He wants makes your absolutely free. This demonic logic is flawed, however, because once you become free in such a way, you are bound to always oppose God, or you will lose your so called freedom.
The freewill of spirits is not the same kind of freewill we experience. They are immortal and live outside of time, their choice is thus absolute: they choose only once whether they want to be obedient God’s servants, or do they want to be free from God. Once the choice is made, there is no turning back, the whole timeless fabric of the spiritual world is created in such a way that your choice can not be undone. So, some spirits became the fallen angels, created their own “heaven with blackjack and hookers”, while other angels remained truthful to God.
So, this is where humans come into play. We are mortal and, while alive, have a perfect freewill: we can move either towards or away from God many, many times a day, during our entire lifespan. This makes us a very interesting target for the demonic influence – they have already made their choice to always oppose God, and by influencing us to become “free” like they are, to make the same choice as they did, they actively oppose God and thus become even more “free” themselves.
Therefore, the ultimate demonic goal is to oppose God in all ways possible, and assist humans in such an opposition whenever possible. It will go well beyond the scope of my reply to your post, which is already quite large, to describe the interconnections between the spirit world and our world. For the current topic, it is sufficient to say that the direct demonic influence on our world is quite limited. And this is where the witches, magicians, occultists and (basement) shamans come into play. Although their reasons may vary greatly (from simple curiosity to hunger for ultimate power), all these esoteric people actively look for ways to interact with the spirit world more closely, using all kind of means: elaborate rituals, crafted artifacts, meditation/astral travel, psychedelics etc.
Now, if one becomes successful in procuring such a connection, one can easily become a puppet in the hands of the demons. Since their ultimate goal is the absolute opposition to God (demonic “freedom”), they will try to make you oppose God as much as possible. Preferably, they would like to make you believe that God doesn’t exist, that this creation is all there is. Or, that you will start to hate God, seeing Him as an oppressor and a tyrant. Or, even better, inflate your ego to the point you start to believe you are God yourself. Then you will be ready to become a New Age guru, preaching about how everybody and everything is God, getting more and more souls to accept the “light” and “freedom” the demons advocate.
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ghrue84 said:
This is all just so odd to me. Since sometimes I didn't even experience entities during DMT trips. I hear all this talk about entities, but many of my trips did not include entities. Some trips were just pure silence and visuals. Other times it was just me. Other times the visuals seemed to be communicating a message (without actual entities). And yes, sometimes, there were entities.
The devil and his minions don’t like to show themselves unless absolutely necessarily and/or if they are very hard pressed to do so. Usually, they prefer to operate from the shadows, not letting you to see them, but quietly influencing you. The mere act of seeing them can lead to doubts and difficult questions from your side. So, the less people see them, the better for their cause.
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ghrue84 said:
And who are these people who you say ended up in mental wards or killing themselves? Did you personally know them? Or did you just read about this in the internet? Was there something in the news?
I know personally somebody, in his early twenties, who was a big fan of magic mushrooms. He took them every week. Then, he got a lot of family problems (not related to his use of mushrooms btw.) He continued his use of the mushrooms. And then he did not return from the trip/kept hanging in the trip as they call it. He was institutionalized in a mental ward for about six months. The last time I saw him, he was living under a supervision, going to a special workplace for people with disabilities, constantly taking in high dosages of tricyclic antidepressants. He complained about feeling numb and emotionless like a plant. He hoped that one day he would be able to step down from the tricyclic’s to a SSRI and start to feel something again. He preferred not to talk about what happened during his (very long) trip, as a mere thought about it triggered a heavy panic response.
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ghrue84 said:
My entire life has been a hell before and I've never murdered or raped anybody. I've wanted to end my life. This happened before doing psychedelics. Back when I used to drink alcohol.
So, it was a healing you were looking for when starting doing psychedelics? Something to let the feelings of sorrow, anger and despair go away? The entities can do that. They can “heal” (conceal from your attention, actually) many (minor) wounds, helping you to kick the bad habits, improve your diet, becoming more happy in general, as long as they can inflate your ego (pride, the mother of all sins), gradually leading your from self-admiration (look how good I am, how I kicked my bad habits, improved my lifestyle, all because of me, me and me) to “I am God!” (a complete opposition to God).
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ghrue84 said:
By the way what do you think about alcohol, is that demonic too? I bet it's not because Jesus turned water into wine, but in my personal experience alcohol has been the cause of so much suffering. From having a drunk uncle bully me, a drunk mother and a drunk father who abused me, and from just seeing people who I considered friends disrespect me and hit me for no reason while under the influence of alcohol. I see alcohol as a way more evil substance than psychedelics. You may not see entities physically, but the behavior of people is obviously affected for the worse. I hung around alcohol enough in my 20s to know how poisonous this substance is to the body and mind. I've seen it first hand. I don't need scientific studies or to read stories in the internet.
Using alcohol or drugs is not evil in itself. But getting addicted to something is a sin (a self-inflicted wound on your own soul). So, you may use any substances of your liking, as long as you do not become a slave to those substances:
1 Corinthians 6:12 said:
All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
It goes without saying that if a certain substance makes you to lose control, become angry and mock or hit others, you are clearly under the power of (a slave to) the said substance, be it alcohol or drugs.
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ghrue84 said:
Yet most Christians are totally fine with drinking alcohol and pharmaceutical pills, yet appalled at someone who ingests psychedelics. And yes, I know I am generalizing, but I speak of personal experience with Christians, the same as I speak of alcohol. I don't speak of statistics, or people I've met on the internet. I speak of firsthand experience. I've hung around racist Christians, misogynists, drunkards, etc. It's not my fault that they denominate themselves as Christians. You might want to say that they're not true Christians or whatever but the fact is that the Old Testament Yahweh condoned rape and murder in the name of "justice". And some people will take this sort of thing literally, and think "Oh if God did it in the name of justice I can do it too".
Christians are sinners just like all other people. And the Old Testamental Jews were a flock of murdering, raping, bloodthirsty barbarians, just like all others at their time. And yes, even today, many so called Christians live their lives according to Old Testamental rules (“an eye for an eye” etc.), which were designed for illiterate barbarians and are clearly obsolete by now. Well, it’s never too late to abandon that backwards way of thinking and become a new man:
Ephesians 4:22-32 said:
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
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ghrue84 said:
Are you really that convinced that the Christian God is love? There are multiple passages in the Old Testament that attest to the opposite of that. The Old Testament is chock-full of murder, misogyny, patriotism, rape, racism and all the "wonders" of Yahweh. I have no inclination to believe in such a piece of excrement "God". Nor do I believe that he is God. But you know, maybe when God condones murders and rapes it is out of "love".
Yes, God is Love, this is not something I read or heard, but something I experience every day myself. The Old Testament is obsolete btw, hence the term “Old”. The only things really worth reading in there are the Psalms and the writings of Solomon. All other books simply provide a historical account of how the Jews, and the humanity in general, transitioned from bloodthirsty barbarians to slightly less bloodthirsty barbarians at the time Jesus was born.
God bless you!
