Athiesm, religion, and drugs...

[Paul the Human]

I don't see any correlation between religion and lack of religion when it comes to doing drugs. Most of my tattoos were given by a guy that was a self proclaimed 'Jesus-Freak' and he has been in and out of jail for cocaine and heroin use/possession. I, on the other hand, have never touched the stuff.

Pot is a different story. I (we'll say used to) smoke it quite regularly with my best friend, who happens to be the exact opposite of me (Christian Conservative Republican). From my experience, it is only the VERY religious that do not at least smoke pot for religious reasons. For everyone else it seems to be a personal choice. There are plenty of atheists that are into health and fitness and consider drugs of any kind to be counter to that.

This is not unlike asking if theists or atheists are more likely to be vegan. Religion plays very little, if any, role in the decision in most cases.

[Zhalentine]

Are we talking about drugs such as alcohol? Or illegal substances such as cocaine and marijuana?

[Dotard]

Please define "Drugs".

[EggSpurt]

I don't know about this particular poll you're running, but I think that the results of a large poll would show that atheists are more prone to illegal drug use than Christians. My reasoning behind this has to do with me being convinced that if you're religious, you're more likely to be genetically predisposed to conformity and authority, meaning that you crave both in your life in order to feel most comfortable. Is it just a coincidence that we call most people "sheeple"?

Now I think all humanity is strongly influenced by our genetic predisposition to conform, so christian or not, you're probably smokin', drinking' or hitting the bong in highschool or college. Smoking, drinking, and even weed smoking are considered, for the most part, socially accepted activities. Even extacy is socially acceptable now in a lot of places, though it still has a long way to go to have marijuana-level acceptance.

So what about the harder drugs? Well, i think here's where we'll start seeing some divergence. As the social acceptance of the drug decreases, the percentage of theists who use it will go down. The social pressures to use it won't be there, so the need to conform will not be sparked. Also, since the harder drugs are designated illegal (meaning a body of authority forbids it), the religious person's desire to follow high authority will further reduce their desire to experiment with the drug. Now, the religious person's high authority is of course God, and in that sense the Church. But in the case of hard drugs, i'm not aware of any church doctrine that teaches that illegal drug use is permissible. It's both illegal AND shunned by the church. Quite convenient.

Now, of course, when there is a conflict between government law and church law, the believer will most likely side with the church (imagine if eating pork was compulsory by law in a jewish state? My money is on there being a lot of lawbreakers.)

As for the atheist, well, i'm not too fond of the term atheist so much as a rationalist, or someone who tries thinking for themselves, but i'm guessing that most atheists ARE rationalists and therefore would be less affected by authority. As a result, there would be more atheists taking illegal drugs (specifically the harder illegal drugs), as their desire to obey authority is secondary to choosing for themselves.

Lastly, i have no data to back this up, but now i'm really tempted to research the subject and see if evidence for this exists.

[Rhizomorph13]

I'm not from Titan, nor am I purple, or a unicorn. I feel that I have done too many drugs both when I was religious and when I was atheist. Currently I am not religious and I don't do drugs... that often . Your poll is not nearly specific enough so any conclusion you come to will be wild and meaningless. I also agree with the heavily biased sample opinion.

Rhizo

[Autumnlicious]

I do marijuana every day.

So far, my outlook on life has improved.

[Dotard]

I quit smoking marijuana a very long time ago.

Let's see.... it's been at least 4 hours!

[Loki_999]

How do you feel about drug controlled soldiers?

Erm, probably with my hands...

Really, what his this to do with the topic? It would be nice if we could all get along nicely without wars, armies, etc. I'm not sure what drugs they could give to "control" the soldiers. Any drug they gave them that would make them more compliant would presumably make them poorer soldiers. There was the story about solider in the Vietnam (i think?) war being given LSD. Perhaps not the most clever of ideas. Giving soldiers something like cocaine may work well, they really will do stupidly heroic things then and probably frighten the crap out of the enemy at least for a short while until their body realizes they have been shot a dozen times.

Do you mean have done drugs on a regular basis or just once in a blue monday when there was no R in the month?

Before I met my wife I was smoking at least one joint a day, usually several more, and at the weekends could quite happily smoke away most of the day unless was going out shopping or something.... sometimes would go out to friends houses and would smoke there or sit in the park on a nice day and have a smoke or two.

At the weekends if we were planning on going out then usually someone would get in a stock of something a little stronger. Ecstasy, LSD, Speed, and rarely Coke. Never did Heroin though. I went through an LSD phase for about a year. Never had a really bad trip but witnessed a couple of people having bad ones, but there again, when taking LSD you need to be careful about your surroundings and companions. Ecstasy and Speed were my two favorites. On Ecstasy you love everyone and everyone loves you (or so you think) and on Speed you can dance the entire night at a club.

Overall I was taking Class 'A' drugs on a regular basis for about 5 years starting after university, only later i calmed down a little with those. Was smoking weed since university until about 7 years ago (overall >10 years), although as I said very occasionally will smoke a joint with friends.

I wouldn't do Class 'A' drugs these days. Not because I think they are bad, but i'm not as young as i used to be and don't feel the desire to go out and dance half the night away and spend half the night talking crap to random strangers. They were good days and i'm glad I took part in that culture, but sooner or later we all need to grow up :-(

[leo-rcc]

Do you mean have done drugs on a regular basis or just once in a blue monday when there was no R in the month?

---

Before I met my wife I was smoking at least one joint a day, usually several more, and at the weekends could quite happily smoke away most of the day unless was going out shopping or something.... sometimes would go out to friends houses and would smoke there or sit in the park on a nice day and have a smoke or two.

At the weekends if we were planning on going out then usually someone would get in a stock of something a little stronger. Ecstasy, LSD, Speed, and rarely Coke. Never did Heroin though. I went through an LSD phase for about a year. Never had a really bad trip but witnessed a couple of people having bad ones, but there again, when taking LSD you need to be careful about your surroundings and companions. Ecstasy and Speed were my two favorites. On Ecstasy you love everyone and everyone loves you (or so you think) and on Speed you can dance the entire night at a club.

Overall I was taking Class 'A' drugs on a regular basis for about 5 years starting after university, only later i calmed down a little with those. Was smoking weed since university until about 7 years ago (overall >10 years), although as I said very occasionally will smoke a joint with friends.

---

I wouldn't do Class 'A' drugs these days. Not because I think they are bad, but i'm not as young as i used to be and don't feel the desire to go out and dance half the night away and spend half the night talking crap to random strangers. They were good days and i'm glad I took part in that culture, but sooner or later we all need to grow up :-(

Great story, and I largely agree, but not a real answer to my question. For me to answer the poll that would be pretty important.

[Loki_999]

Ah, understand your question now. Its a valid point. I would say if you have tried drugs with an open mind for the experience is enough to say yes. Although I suppose you could have tried due to peer pressure or something similar, or maybe involuntarily.

I think the point I'm getting at is some people do drugs because they want to see for themselves rather than listening to negative propaganda whereas other simply don't try because "drugs are bad".

I think maybe you can see where I'm going with this in relation to religion.

Saying that, I think i started with the idea that some people may also have became atheist (or religious) after doing drugs. Could be some interesting stories there.