I found Thomas Roberts RNS piece, "Psychedelic drugs can deepen religious experiences", to be as revealing as it is entertaining. Go ahead and try re-reading the title without smirking just a little. Religion really is fucked up crap. The very notion that screwing with your perception to make it more meaningful is pretty telling. As Robert's notes:
"Researchers at Johns Hopkins reported that 33 percent of the volunteers in their 2006 psilocybin study said their experiences were one of the five most important spiritual experiences in their lives. And 38 percent said they were the single most spiritual significant experience."
This seems to support the position that spirituality is a fabrication of the mind that has little to no real merit.
Roberts piece further comments that:
"But entheogens can provide experiences that help people understand what had previously been only abstract religious ideas. Concepts such as awe, sacredness, eternity and grace can become profound with meaning with entheogens."
It doesn't seem to occur to him or the researchers that intentionally warping your perceptions doesn't make the abstract anymore substantial. What exactly do they mean by "understand"? Can these individuals clearly or adequately explain or quantify their experiences for others? If they can't why should anyone give a shit what these individuals think they've experience through the use of a chemical crutch?
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