Revlgking wrote:
...Yes. I've smoked stuff that gives me that feeling as well.
Dare I suggest it: If you're not joking, keep on smoking
But watch out for the carbon monoxide, etc.
But seriously, some people can get high simply pondering the awesome nature of things.
BTW, this brings up the whole question of religion and addictions. To what extent is smoking, drinking, whatever, sins against God and humanity? Mormons even eschew, avoid, coffee and tea. I certainly agree that, psychologically, religion can be addictive.
Currently, I take a drink or two a day, not to get high, but the opposite: I take a drink--usually a gin, or a wine--to relax, to come down, as it were. If I ever find myself getting addicted to the point of having to have it, constantly, I pray that I will have the moral strength to kick the habit as I did pipe and cigar smoking.
NOW, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY ADDICTION
When I was growing up--in the thirties, and forties--smoking, at it worst, was just considered a dirty habit and manly habit. Non-smokers, mostly women, were rare. My sisters and mother didn't smoke. It was only considered a sin by certain of the smaller religions like the Salvation Army, the Mormons and the Pentecostals.
The mainline religions did not preach about "demon rum" or the sin of smoking, as long as it was done in moderation. Even some clergy in the mainline churches smoked and drank. Later, in life, I worked with a senior colleague who smoked the pipe, and he was raised in the Salvation Army. He told me, half serious: "I left it so I could smoke without sinning".
My father smoked the pipe, and all my older brothers smoked home-mades.
After all, even doctors and nurses smoked, especially in the movies. And the movie stars. Humphrey Bogart, in most of his movies, was never without a cigarette in his hand. The tobacco companies recruited actors, doctors, nurses and other scientifically trained professionals as part of their advertising programs.
Looking back, I am amazed that it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I actually took up the habit. Feeling the need to do something to relax me, I took up smoking the pipe, and cigars. I believed what I saw in the movies; I believed the advertising that smoking was the relaxing and cool thing to do. And, after all, the Bible did not condemn it, so it must be okay with God, right?
At the time, I had the idea that the tobacco industry was just another industry doing honest business. It never occurred to me that the owners of the tobacco industry--they are all probably all very addicted to wealth and power--who, even when they became aware of the dangers of smoking, were willing to sell poison, if necessary, in order to get wealth and power.
Boy! did I ever find out what a pack of lies it was that they told about the "relaxing" habit of smoking. Smoking did not relax me, it addicted me. As time went by I had a feeling that it was actually affecting my health.
It was around that time that certain serious, moral and ethical scientists began to blow the whistle on what tobacco smoke was actually doing to public health; and that it was killing people. They were condemned, at first, as alarmists given to preaching nonsense.
One of the things that really inspired me to look into the science of what inhaling smoke does to the lungs and the body was the way it affected my young daughter's health. Her doptors at Sick Childrens' Hospital daignosed that she was extremely allergic to tobacco smoke, among other things. It, and other things, almost killed her.
Quite a story about how she got well. Because of this, even though it wasn't easy for me, I decided to quit smoking. With the consent of my GP, on myself and my daughter, I used what I call PNEUMATHERAPY--a prayer-like form of self-hypnosis without the hocus pocus associated with the stage brand of hypnosis.
Looking back, I Thank GOD I did not get addicted to cigarettes, which addiction. I understand, is a most difficult addiction to quit.
So here is the point of my sermon: Even when serious scientists demonstrated the deadly effect that tobacco smoke has on all people who inhale it, the wealthy and powerful heads of the tobacco industry campaigned, with the help of their "scientists", against any ban on smoking.
They fervently preached that, in moderation, tobacco does no real harm and only provides many people with much pleasure. And look at the employment it creates, and the money we give to sports and the arts. So "what's the problem?" they pleaded. Let us get on with our honest business.
One final point here: In the light of this, if we have a problem believing in gods we need have no problem believing in devils--people who are willing to make, sell and do anything for personal gain, regardless of who gets hurt, or even killed.
Maybe we should think about this and--using the sciences--take as sharp look at many of the things we do to one another in our search for wealth and power.
For example, How about the looking, scientifically, into our food, energy transportation and WAR industries with the same kind of moral and ethical concern?
How many other human beings are we--the wealthy and powerful few of the world--willing to keep in poverty and bad health, and destroy in war, in order to maintain our wealth and power?
To paraphrase the Christian and Russian writer, Dostoevsky: http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/dostoevskybio.html
Food, health and wealth for myself is a physical question; but food, health and wealth for my fellow human beings in all the earth is a spiritual (religious) moral and ethical one.
Think about it.
