Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing over Drinks - As colleges drop drinking bans, some see alcohol as a moral good.

[Lee]

[SuzanneT]

Marijuana and alcohol are not in the same in same category per this discussion. Not even. Believe me, pot is a whole nuther beast.

True that. Marijuana doesn’t even get a mention while alcohol enjoys a very unique Scriptural status. It is the only object/element since the fall that is defined as having an intrinsic morality (Prov. 20:1) and that will definitively determine the moral outcome for those who use it—“Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.”

Lee, you are wrong on three counts.

1) Alcohol is not given intrinsic morality in Proverbs 20:1. It is described with personification.

2) Alcohol is not the only object/element treated this way. For example, money is characterized as a slavemaster (Luke 16:13). However, money is not always evil. It is evil when it controls a man (1 Tim 6:10). There are others…but I don’t feel like providing an exhaustive list.

3) Alcohol will not definitely determine the moral outcome of those who use it. The majority of Christians around the world use alcohol in some form. The majority of Christians in the US also drink. Whatever these moral outcomes are, you can be sure that they are not true of all of us.

I think that we all agree that the Bible clearly forbids drunkenness. Right?

Outside of medical use, there is no reason to smoke weed unless you are intending to get high.

There are several reasons to drink alcohol (even whiskey *gasp*) that doesn’t include drunkenness. In fact, for the true beer/wine/Scotch lover, too much ruins the reasons for drinking it in the first place.

To compare weed and alcohol within this debate is puzzling.

That being said, we need to be careful that we don’t conflate everything. Undiscerning young people can be left with the impression that if I do this one thing, I may as well do this other thing because they’re both equally wrong. (For the record, I believe that the legal age for alcohol consumption should be 25.) I used to teach a substance abuse awareness program, and was continually shocked with the bad information and the conflation of substances that many teens had received as a result of bad teaching from parents, churches (even liberal churches), and their schools. I don’t want teens, or anyone, smoking weed. But I really, really don’t want them huffing paint. They need to know the differences.

The body is not made to inhale smoke. Period. Under no circumstances is it advisable. We have the advantage of knowing that now, so I think that’s off the table.

Since we like to lean on the Bible, can you prove this from the Bible? And what do you do with the fact that many people of past generations smoked in good conscience? Aren’t you limiting something that Scripture doesn’t limit?

[Todd Bowditch]

Actually Jay, Mike, and James, this is still slippery slope, in my opinion. There is no connection whatsoever between a Christian’s personal, controlled use of alcohol and the legalization of marijuana usage by some states. It is neither necessitated by logic, argumentative flow, or actual held positions.

The point of some contention in this forum is whether the Bible ever mentions alcohol positively…I believe that the majority consensus is that there are at least a few passages. There are at least passages that can or have been interpreted that way by good men. There is no such scriptural foundation for marijuana usage.

I am not arguing slippery slope at all. By the way, you really want to cram logic down the Bible’s throat? Have fun with the trinity on that. Admit the limitations of your logic skills imposed on Scripture.

The connection is that they are both drugs, both have major, harmful problems to society as a whole, and both are derived from the work of man upon God’s creation.

Scroll back up to read Bob Hayton’s response to me about pot. He does actually hold it. Are you even reading this thread?

There is no scriptural prohibition against pot either Todd. You will just have to decide how much you want to be controlled by outside substances. I do think the scripture does address that.

To compare weed and alcohol within this debate is puzzling.

Why is that puzzling?

The point of discussion is that alcohol is mentioned positively in some instances and the abuse always condemned (of course, we are still discussing this)

Speaking only for myself, that was not part of the discussion I was attempting to have on this thread.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1104848

“With up to 7 joint-years of lifetime exposure (eg, 1 joint/d for 7 years or 1 joint/wk for 49 years), we found no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function.”

I am not arguing prohibition of alcohol in scripture, I am arguing the inconsistency of application of various drugs.

[Todd Bowditch]

Lee, you are wrong on three counts.

1) Alcohol is not given intrinsic morality in Proverbs 20:1. It is described with personification.

2) Alcohol is not the only object/element treated this way. For example, money is characterized as a slavemaster (Luke 16:13). However, money is not always evil. It is evil when it controls a man (1 Tim 6:10). There are others…but I don’t feel like providing an exhaustive list.

3) Alcohol will not definitely determine the moral outcome of those who use it. The majority of Christians around the world use alcohol in some form. The majority of Christians in the US also drink. Whatever these moral outcomes are, you can be sure that they are not true of all of us.

Au Contraire!!

Yes, it is personified, but it is personified in the same manner as is the scorner whose definition is a moral one. A scorner is not a scorner by what he does but by what he is on a moral level.

OTOH, a slave master, to use your example, is a positional personification that has no moral element. He may or may not be moral/immoral, and his morality/immorality has no bearing on his position. He can act morally in his position, but a scorner will, by definition, always act immorally.

A feather dropped from the top of the Empire State Building will not definitely hit the ground, but gravity determines that it will definitively go downward. “Alcohol will not definitely determine the moral outcome of those who use it,” but it will, according to Scripture, definitively direct toward a specific moral outcome—“Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.”

Larry?

It’s puzzling because it’s comparing apples and milkshakes.

1) RE: Marijuana

There are clear differences with what this thread is debating. Marijuana is outlawed in most of the country, and only allowed for limited circumstances in most of the rest of the country. I am not advocating breaking the law. Under-age drinking, drinking and driving, I do not advocate that in any way. Additionally the health benefits of moderate alcohol vs. marijuana are different. And finally one smoke, one small dose of marijuana has an instant effect that alters the mind. That kind of loss of control seems cautioned against in passages that warn us to “be sober,” etc. By contrast, a moderate enjoyment of alcohol does not have that instant loss of control.

2) RE: Alcohol’s innate morality

On Lee’s point about Alcohol being an inanimate object that is endowed with morality, this flies in the face of all of Scripture’s teaching on creation. Man alone is moral. (Demons aside). It is man who can interact with any natural object in a morally good way or not. Man is instructed to do all to the glory of God, so the very way we drink orange juice (as John Piper has argued) is up for grabs when it comes to morality.

Furthermore, drunkenness is consistently pointed out as a lapse in judgment and the cuase is at the feet of the drunk. I would hope that we don’t buy into the naturalism which says that the alcoholic can’t help himself and that the drink made him do it. He’s a helpless victim, let’s berate the substance not the person. Sounds like the opinion that all we need to do is educate and feed everyone equally and we will have utopia. Sin always starts in the heart - Jesus taught this clearly and his teaching is directly applicable to this question:

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. (Mk. 7:15, see the entire passage, 7:14-23)

3) RE: Prov. 20:1

We have to interpret the Proverbs according to their genre and if you miss the poetic device of personification you are missing the point. Similar to alcohol’s treatment in Prov. 23, Solomon is warning us all that alcohol can be deceptive, we must be on guard. Living for a little fun and not watching out for the errors of drunkenness can lead to us being bitterly deceived and led astray. But his admonition is to the human person reading to heed his words, not to watch out for some inanimate object that has power in itself to do things to you. I get into this argument and how to interpret Proverbs more in “Proverbs 23 And a Universal Prohibition of Alcohol.”

It’s puzzling because it’s comparing apples and milkshakes.

With all due respect, that’s not an answer to the question. It is merely a restatement of what was questioned to begin with. You have to make an argument for this assertion. It may be true, but it is not prima facie. Simply declaring them to be different does not actually make them different, and such declaration will not (or at least should not) be satisfying to any participant in the discussion.

Why is it puzzling? What is the basis for claiming that it is comparing apples and milkshakes?

… the one about drunkenness. I’m fairly confident that we all agree that the Bible condemns drunkenness. You smoke weed to get high. Period. No other reason, except medical use. (If you’re going to apply the strictures about drunkenness to medical use, then I’m assuming that you reject the pain meds you’re given after you’ve had surgery.) That being said, in medical use, the thc has been isolated and chemists are able to create a pill that gives the medical benefits of weed without the high. The pro-medical pot crowd often doesn’t care. They want to get HIGH. Neither I nor any of my friends drink alcohol to get drunk. We don’t want to get drunk.

Smoking weed does not equal drinking alcohol.

[John E.] I’m fairly confident that we all agree that the Bible condemns drunkenness. You smoke weed to get high. Period. No other reason, except medical use…..

Neither I nor any of my friends drink alcohol to get drunk. We don’t want to get drunk.

I don’t know John, but that is my experience as well. I have not sought out to get drunk, and have not done so in several years of intentionally seeking to enjoy and appreciate the wide world of wines and craft beer. I have enjoyed God’s good gift responsibly, and aim to model responsible, moderate, thankful drinking for my children, as opposed to a prohibitionist stance that stands upon tenuous implications from the text and personal wisdom conclusions alone.

I contrasted weed and alcohol in my original post. The reason I’m puzzled, is that I find it hard to believe that the contrast was needed. People who smoke weed, always (with the exception of terminal patients) smoke with the intent of getting high (drunk). People (my friends and I) drink for reasons that have nothing to do with getting drunk.

Once again, (and this is important, because I’m afraid that one day I’m going to walk into a classroom and some teenager is going to say to me that smoking a joint and drinking a beer are the same thing. Wait, that’s already happened.) There are no reasons for non-terminally ill people to smoke weed outside of getting high. There are many reasons to drink alcohol besides getting drunk/high.

[James K]

[Todd Bowditch]

Actually Jay, Mike, and James, this is still slippery slope, in my opinion. There is no connection whatsoever between a Christian’s personal, controlled use of alcohol and the legalization of marijuana usage by some states. It is neither necessitated by logic, argumentative flow, or actual held positions.

The point of some contention in this forum is whether the Bible ever mentions alcohol positively…I believe that the majority consensus is that there are at least a few passages. There are at least passages that can or have been interpreted that way by good men. There is no such scriptural foundation for marijuana usage.

I am not arguing slippery slope at all. By the way, you really want to cram logic down the Bible’s throat? Have fun with the trinity on that. Admit the limitations of your logic skills imposed on Scripture.

The connection is that they are both drugs, both have major, harmful problems to society as a whole, and both are derived from the work of man upon God’s creation.

I believe the the Bible will be internally consistent. I am not intent on cramming my logic anywhere.

I believe that arguments should be logical. I make no apology for that.

I have no problem with the Bible’s logic…only with the direction of your argument.

Your position has so many well-reasoned approaches and arguments…it can stand on its own feet without the aid of fallacies.

[James K]

Scroll back up to read Bob Hayton’s response to me about pot. He does actually hold it. Are you even reading this thread?

[James K]

There is no scriptural prohibition against pot either Todd. You will just have to decide how much you want to be controlled by outside substances. I do think the scripture does address that.

Yes, I’ve posted that comment several times on this thread. I have also posted the process that I have used to determine my use of alcohol and my non-use of marijuana.