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followingtheway
Guest
A couple of my friends, unfortunately, smoke marijuana (I don’t, of course) but they keep on making the argument that “God made it”
How would you respond to this?
How would you respond to this?
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bearer
Guest
This comes up quite a bit. Yes, God made marijuana. However, man is fallen in nature, and has a tendency to abuse God’s creation, which is harmful, and thus sinful.
Marijuana use by and large tends to be for purposes of self-gratification. It arguably has limited medicinal uses, but most users do not consume it for legitimate therapeutic purposes, nor use it under a doctor’s care. They smoke it to get a buzz, to escape everyday discomfort, etc.
And even if it were used therapeutically, there are other (legal) alternatives for various conditions. Of course, they won’t get you high, but if you’re strictly looking for healing and medical treatment, that wouldn’t matter.
Not to mention that the vast majority of marijuana is cultivated and trafficked by criminals who don’t care about the end user and will engage in other crimes (many of them violent, including murder) to maintain their shares of the illicit market. There have even been cases in which gangs like MS-13, which has a major hold of the marijuana trade in Central America and the Western US, have cursed marijana in satanic rituals designed to increase sin among users.
Plus, you can go to jail for possessing it. God didn’t create us to break the law and end up incarcerated. He commands us to respect authority and obey justly passed and enforced laws.
Consuming marijuana is bad for your health and the health of those around you. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we must respect our bodies as such.
The Catechism sums it up nicely:
Marijuana use by and large tends to be for purposes of self-gratification. It arguably has limited medicinal uses, but most users do not consume it for legitimate therapeutic purposes, nor use it under a doctor’s care. They smoke it to get a buzz, to escape everyday discomfort, etc.
And even if it were used therapeutically, there are other (legal) alternatives for various conditions. Of course, they won’t get you high, but if you’re strictly looking for healing and medical treatment, that wouldn’t matter.
Not to mention that the vast majority of marijuana is cultivated and trafficked by criminals who don’t care about the end user and will engage in other crimes (many of them violent, including murder) to maintain their shares of the illicit market. There have even been cases in which gangs like MS-13, which has a major hold of the marijuana trade in Central America and the Western US, have cursed marijana in satanic rituals designed to increase sin among users.
Plus, you can go to jail for possessing it. God didn’t create us to break the law and end up incarcerated. He commands us to respect authority and obey justly passed and enforced laws.
Consuming marijuana is bad for your health and the health of those around you. We are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we must respect our bodies as such.
The Catechism sums it up nicely:
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odile53
Guest
God made the chemicals arsenic and cyanide, too, because they are useful components of other compounds found in this world. I don’t think He intends us to use them as is, however, since as they occur, they are powerful and deadly poisons.
I think your friends’ logic betrays the possibility that they just may be smoking a wee bit too much of that weed–LOL!
I think your friends’ logic betrays the possibility that they just may be smoking a wee bit too much of that weed–LOL!
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GEddie
Guest
Ask them, “God made the element mercury, too; care to drink some???”
God made everything, but not everything is to be put into our human bodies!
Also, we are to render under Caesar what is Caesar’s, according to Scripture; this means that we obey the civil law unless there is a serious reason not to. Saving human life, or protesting a hideous injustice, might be such a reason; getting high is not. It also means that we are not to contribute financially to criminals.
ICXC NIKA.
God made everything, but not everything is to be put into our human bodies!
Also, we are to render under Caesar what is Caesar’s, according to Scripture; this means that we obey the civil law unless there is a serious reason not to. Saving human life, or protesting a hideous injustice, might be such a reason; getting high is not. It also means that we are not to contribute financially to criminals.
ICXC NIKA.
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Tietjen
Guest
Recreational use of marijuana is illegal in the U.S. (IE - your friends are disobeying a law). Refer them to Romans 13 for the Biblical argument.
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Cryptic1
Guest
The problem with marijuana or the problem with any kind of substance abuse is that they are all forms of escapism and do not help people deal with their issues. God creates only good things but man (because of his sin nature), tends to turn God’s good gifts into evil in using it for his own self gratification.
Sometimes it’s the peer pressure of wanting to belong so badly that enables others to begin smoking marijuana or doing drugs or drinking alcohol. Unfortunately, once you go down that road, it’s not that easy to get off.
Jesus came to show us a better way. You’re a good friend to be concerned about your friends, but sometimes you have to take a stand if you don’t agree with the choices they make. When we stand behind our convictions and don’t condone a particular lifestyle (smoking marijuana in this case), then maybe your friends will start to really see the harm that they’re doing to themselves and one day have the courage to walk away from it.
Jesus Rocks
Sometimes it’s the peer pressure of wanting to belong so badly that enables others to begin smoking marijuana or doing drugs or drinking alcohol. Unfortunately, once you go down that road, it’s not that easy to get off.
Jesus came to show us a better way. You’re a good friend to be concerned about your friends, but sometimes you have to take a stand if you don’t agree with the choices they make. When we stand behind our convictions and don’t condone a particular lifestyle (smoking marijuana in this case), then maybe your friends will start to really see the harm that they’re doing to themselves and one day have the courage to walk away from it.
Jesus Rocks
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Newbie2
Guest
Exactomundo. Just what I was thinking…
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havana1
Guest
God DIDN’T make the marijuana your friends are smoking. What has happened in the last few years, as any law enforcement agency can confirm, is that because “standard” weed didn’t get you “high” enough, dealers went back to the drawing board, so to speak, and tweaked (no pun intended) the THC. In other words: pure, “organic” weed really isn’t sold on the streets anymore. You’d have travel in a time machine back to 1969 to get the God-grown stuff because dealers don’t sell it anymore in 2011.
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puzzleannie
Guest
he made all kinds of natural substances which are poisonous to humans and other animals, including the toxic vegetable alkyloids, does that mean we should ingest them as well? Illogic is to be expected however from folks who persist in damaging their brain cells willfully.
and btw the mj on the open market today is GMO like most big business agricultural commodities, and NOT as God made it.
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havana1
Guest
This is correct. God DIDN’T make the mj being sold on the streets today.
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GEddie
Guest
GMO? You mean that biotech laboratories have worked on pot?
Wouldn’t it be much more expensive then??
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yamo
Guest
what about alchohol? I think it can be classified as a drug also. it has also been manipulated into many different liquids in" laboratories".
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stringbeanduck
Guest
I believe the arguement that “God made it” is quite fallicious on it’s own, yes.
However last time I checked, ingesting mercury or vegetable alkyloids will significantly harm your body, but ingesting pot won’t. At least nowhere near the scale of the poisons mentioned. You simply can’t by logic, akin pot to something like Datura(a member of the nightshade family which contain dangerous levels of poisoness alkyloids).
If you ask me both arguements are on par with each other.
I also wouldn’t make an agruement that pot damages brain cells when there is no conclusive evidence that it does. If a person sits around and smokes weed all day, and doesn’t engage themselves in any mental exercises of course they’re probably gonna act stupid. But that’s not because they’ve damaged brain cells. It’s because they sit around and do nothing that requires them to think. Or they choose not to engage themselves in thinking, because they feel like doing nothing and smoking pot instead. Your brain is a muscle and it’s gonna atrophe if you don’t use it. For some people smoking pot is one big excuse for saying I’m not gonna use my brain.
Very much so they have. In fact there is a goverment facility in the state of MS that does experiments with many different strains of marijuana. And yes they are more expensive than your typical street weed that’s grown poorly and sprayed with chemicals, However you won’t typically see these strains sold by your traditional drug lord. Most are created as medicimal marijuana which produce different “highs”. Some prone towards treated overall pain, others made to help insomnia etc…
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John21652
Guest
God also made the Opium Poppy, from which we obtain morphine, codeine and noscapine.
How we utilise the Opium Poppy depends upon the exercising of our free will. God doesn’t interfere after the harvesting process.
How we utilise the Opium Poppy depends upon the exercising of our free will. God doesn’t interfere after the harvesting process.
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Bezant
Guest
Are these close friends?
If they’re not, why do you want to reason with people who get high? Doesn’t this sound like rubbish? If I were you, I’d make myself look as boring and busy as possible, and steer clear of them. It’s the best answer you can give.
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Barbkw
Guest
Tokers are so manipulative in their addictions. You as a third person would help them share the daily cost of getting high and help lower their risk of arrest.
I’ve been them.
My advice to you - pick two new “friends” - and be more selective than before.
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SwissGuard25
Guest
Genesis 1:29:
"Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;”
He gave us every plant for food not to smoke.
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stringbeanduck
Guest
Dealers didn’t do anything. Rich pot gurus and seedbanks are mostly responsible for most of the potent strains of pot today. They invented these strains for the same reason we grow hybrid corn, tomatoes, soy means. They produce more, usually higher quality, disease resistant buds. Just like you may want to grow a strain of tomatoes that are resistant to TMV(tobacco mosaic virus) some pot geek maybe looking for a strain that produces high that’s better suitible for insominia or tastes like blueberries. Yes there are pot strains that taste like blueberries. Now some dealers have gotten a hold of these strains and grow and sell the pot from those in their basement or it’ll come from illicit. Also people from the 1969 didn’t go around smoking things like Maui Wowie. You were the cat’s meow if you could get a hold of that stuff. Most people smoke generic mutt strains that was easily cultivated and transported by the drug lords of the day.
Furthermore 1969 didn’t hold the “God made” strains of pot. Those strains were selectively breeded by the the strains of it’s yesteryears. I don’t believe God even made pot. God simply allowed pot evolve from some sub-set of the Kingdom Plantae.
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GEddie
Guest
It’s true that pot PROBABLY does not damage our naturalbodies to the same extent that ingesting arsenic, mercury, etc, will. However, someone who uses pot is likely to put much more of it into his/her soma than anybody is likely to ingest of those chemicals over a lifetime.
And, in general, smoking ANYTHING is a bad idea. Breathing is a rather important function of our bodies
and our breathing mechanism is NOT designed to absorb combustion products on an ongoing basis. Getting high, again, is not a good enough reason to do that.
ICXC NIKA
And, in general, smoking ANYTHING is a bad idea. Breathing is a rather important function of our bodies
and our breathing mechanism is NOT designed to absorb combustion products on an ongoing basis. Getting high, again, is not a good enough reason to do that.ICXC NIKA
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Barbkw
Guest
Smoking pot is a mind altering intoxicant.
When you smoke enough of it, you end up with an “I don’t give a dam attitude.” The drug inhibits the natural drive in humans to rise above a situation.
Pot is the convenient “escape button.”
When anxieties mount up - escape and get loaded.
When outside pressures clamp down - escape and get loaded.
When people have a problem with the attitude - escape and get loaded.
Eventually, your mind loses the ability to cope, to adjust and to overcome.
When you smoke enough of it, you end up with an “I don’t give a dam attitude.” The drug inhibits the natural drive in humans to rise above a situation.
Pot is the convenient “escape button.”
When anxieties mount up - escape and get loaded.
When outside pressures clamp down - escape and get loaded.
When people have a problem with the attitude - escape and get loaded.
Eventually, your mind loses the ability to cope, to adjust and to overcome.
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