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[valkotukka]

1. Why do people always say that taking drugs like LSD is like a "religious experience"? You are introducing extremely powerful chemicals into your brain. Of course your perception is going to be drastically affected. Saying that taking LSD is a religious experience is like stabbing nails into your hands and then saying you have stigmata

Comments

[1way_ticket]

congrats on the license that is pretty cool.

i would not call my experience religious, but that is mostly because i'm not a religious person. that being said, i could see how the two might be comparable. its hard to explain i guess. i suppose if you viewed the drug as a channel through which you were connected to some higher power than it could be viewed as a religious experience. just like how people think that by praying or eating a wafer and drinking wine they are connected to the divine. i think it is hard to have a good dialog about such drugs because either you judgment is skewed by your experience with them, or it is skewed by your ignorance of those experiences...

[1way_ticket]

correction: i could see how using LSD would compare to what i would imagine a religious experience would feel like. i already stated that i'm not religious so i can't make the direct comparison i did earlier...

also, plenty of cultures have been using psychedelic drugs in their religious practices for hundreds, if not thousands of years. i would assume they use them in such a way because they consider the experience to be religious...

[valkotukka]

I don't think it has to do with being a "religious person". To use the same analogy again, saying "i would not call my [LSD] experience religious, but that is mostly because i'm not a religious person" is like saying "I know that these self-inflicted nail wounds aren't really stigmata, but maybe I would think so if I were religious!"

[1way_ticket]

what i'm trying to say is that i can see how if i believed in some divine power i might be able to interpret the experience as having been religious. i think that analogy oversimplifies the LSD experience.

obviously most religious people wouldn't believe that self-inflicted wounds were stigmata. i think it is pretty clear however, that many religious people do view the psychedelic experience as legitimately religious.

[explodethestars]

agreed; on the unreligousness of the 'LCD religious experience':)

[msnowstorms]

congrats on the license!