Friday, February 17, 2006

Religion is a Drug?

My gods, I have a pondering to post. And I wasn't sure if this counted as Living One's Faith, so it's here. ;) On another forum (where I serve as an Admin), the comment was made "religion is the opiate of the people", which is so often taken out of context it makes me twitchy. The context of the post isn't that important, but it was clear the reason for the post was to suggest that religion = bad. (The person making that statement stopped posting at all once I pointed out that we don't make blanketing derisive statements about religions - it's a rule and such.)

Another user, seemingly in defense of the other person, posted to the effect that religion *is* a drug, for good or ill.

Now, I don't know about you folks, but I still took exception to that. To me, the effect of a drug is an altered state from one's 'norm' as it were. And I tend to be the same person whether I'm doing something involving my spirituality or not. I know the whole thing about using a drug to acheive higher consciousness and I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is the seeming insinuation that religion takes things out of one's control, in a sense.

Am I making any sense? And am I simply seeing red because this person decided to try to undermine my reprimand to another user? What does that statement (religion is a drug) conjure for you?

Template by - Abdul Munir | Daya Earth Blogger Template