More Americans favor the legalization of marijuana than not. 40% of Americans think recreational marijuana should be legal whereas only 32% disagree. The shift in public opinion is clearly ideological and generational as support for legalizing marijuana is supported mainly by the non-religious, the liberal, and the young.
August 6, 2016
Thinking to Believe 
August 6, 2016 at 1:53 pm
Also supported by Doctors and Medical Professionals, Police, Politicians, Educators and opponents of mass incarceration and in a democracy the majority wins
The Drug Cartels and criminal gangs using Fentanyl, the king of all opiates, and causing a killer drug crisis, are also against its legalization as that will diminished their income, an unlikely bedfellow for the religious but then religion is always against change in any manner because they thrive on never changing anything dogma.
Religion was against women voting, against modern technology, against the automobile preferring the horse and buggy like the Amish, against radio, television, against allowing women to enter taverns, desegregation, against anything sexual outside religion’s approval, against marriage outside church sanctioned marriage, against homosexuals, against sexual activity without religious consent, against prostitution, against forgiveness. There is very little in this modern era that religion is actually for but plenty they are against.
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August 10, 2016 at 4:01 am
Hi Jason,
I’ve enjoyed listening to your teachings on the Godhead. When will the fourth message be posted on your church’s website?
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August 11, 2016 at 3:17 pm
Jason, even though I am absolutely against recreational marijuana,(which your question is about, but I am compelled to speak) until anyone who has a debilitating painful disease such as cancer, I feel it is judgmental and unfair (such as our minister’s) to treat one of God’s most powerful, healing plants on the face of the earth, like it’s the most sinful, shameful, and ungodly plant that God created. Until one has researched the history and it’s powerful use, please, I beg of everyone NOT condemn those who desperately need it. If you go into the government involvement, ther are several theories why they declared it illegal, It’s a shame that the Hippie era misused it and really brought condemnation on this incredible plant. It was used in Bible days for so many variety of things. When one juices it’s leaves, it has incredible healing properties. It can reverse so many illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, epilepsy, etc. Even though in my state, medicinal marijuana is illegal.at this time, once it is legal, I will be the first one to use it, but until then, I have to be content to use the CBD from the plant, which is LEGAL in ALL states.. There is virtually little THC in juicing the leaves. This does NOT get you high, but helps with pain and as I reiterate, has such an amazing healing power. I believe this plant has been misused as most things are such as computers, media, etc. – it’s why and how you use it.
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August 11, 2016 at 3:40 pm
dale::
I believe your criticism of the Hippie movement is misguided. You see the marijuana plane was already condemned by the prudes of society especially the religious prudes and it was the Hippie movement that dared to intercede and bring some respect to this incredible plant. The condemnation of this was so pervasive that governments refused to allow the fibres to be used for rope as it was previously. These same prudes caused alcohol to be banned that lead to the top criminal elements to thrive when prohibition went into effect but prudence ruled and it was again made legal.
The same prude forces are still at work and still insist they know what is good for everybody else on the planet; the religious mentality.
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August 11, 2016 at 3:52 pm
PS. Although their is much controversy with smoking the plant regarding it causing cancer, I think it is a mistake to smoke it, not just because it might cause lung cancer, but because anytime you heat this plant, it triggers the THC – which will get you ‘high’ – hence – recreational marijuana. Even in using it in a medicinal brownie or candy THC is higher because of heating it – that’s why juicing it is the best option.
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August 12, 2016 at 6:33 pm
Whatever oil/oils the disciples used for praying over the sick, it would NOT have worked within seconds – herbs don’t work that way. In other words, whatever healing properties in the oil, it takes time to start healing, if at all. When Peter’s fevered mother-in-law was raised up, it was miraculous and not from the oil!! All the other miracles in the Bible were miraculous.
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August 12, 2016 at 11:16 pm
dale:
Following this, the Gospels report that at sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness or were demon-possessed, and laying his hands on each one, Jesus healed them and cast demons out of them (Matthew 8:16–18).
In this day and age there is no such thing as a demon possessed diagnosis.
In Jesus’ day there was also no such diagnosis as demon possession although many ailments were called that because in the ignorance and lack of knowledge people believed that sin was a cause for sickness and in the absence of knowledge demon possession was a useful catch all assumption.
On the front of human health and disease; you know, it use to be that you could get a diagnosis of demonic possession.
I mean that was a reasonable thing to believe you had if you were having seizures but now we have the science of neurology and we know about epilepsy so now when your kid has seizures, you know you don’t go to the church to get him diagnosed and treated by exorcism and so that’s a good thing. I’m just saying that religion is losing the argument on every front. On every other front, it’s losing the argument ethically and will lose the argument spiritually.
So dale you need to modernize your thinking; miracles do not happen no matter how much you believe they do.
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August 20, 2016 at 1:01 pm
Leo, you will never convince me that miracles do not happen today! I have had several in my lifetime! I have heard many other testimonies, You are talking about situations such as demon possession being none other than seizures or another illness for lack of a better term.. Wish you could talk to Bug and Nona Freeman, former missionaries to Africa. They could have told you stories of true demon possession that would make your skin crawl. I understand your thinking that every sickness has it’s reason with a solution such as when British sailors were dying from scurvy in the 18th century, but when they began to eat limes, it all changed. I believe that we need to do our best to use natural solutions that God has given us to help with illness, hence the cannabis. We do the possible while God does the impossible. I feel that you are firm in your belief, as I am in mine – therefore I will no longer communicate with you on this subject. I wish you the best, but when you need or a loved one needs a miracle and nothing or no one can help, please remember that the LORD is our Healer, Provider and Savior and He has ALL the answers!
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August 20, 2016 at 2:28 pm
dale:
It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, most people who can’t defend their belief systems feel the same way because they have “nothing” to hang their hat on…..it’s just belief.
A miracle is when several people are saved while 3000 perish as in the Twin Towers tragedy.
A dozen or so are saved and 250,000 perish in the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.
Survivors attribute their survival to a miracle but the dead? They are dead nonetheless.
Scurvy is a disease caused by a diet that lacks vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Patients develop anemia, debility, exhaustion, edema (swelling) in some parts of the body, and sometimes ulceration of the gums and loss of teeth. Left untreated death usually occurs by bleeding.
Spirit or demon possession is a belief system like religion possession is a belief system; i.e. the Gods possession, the Oracles of Divinity.
Demon Possession occurs around the world and is especially dominate in Africa and is part of their belief system as an adjunct of their religious beliefs regardless of their denomination: Nympholepsy was the belief of the ancient Greeks that individuals could be possessed by the nymphs.
Demon possession form part of the tradition in many tribes. It is prevalent in Africa, mainly because of low-to-no education :
In Sudan and certain East African cultures the Zār cult conducts ethnomedical healing ceremonies involving possession, typically of Muslim women by a Zār spirit. This is also found in North Africa as well.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
See also: Zebola
Ethiopia
See also: Zār……..Among the Gurage people of Ethiopia, spirit possession is a common belief.
Sideman people, Digo people, Giriama people,
Mayotte
In Mayotte, approximately 25% of the adult population, and five times as many women as men, enter trance states in which they are supposedly possessed by certain identifiable spirits who maintain stable and coherent identities from one possession to the next.
In Mozambique, a new belief in spirit possession appeared after the Mozambican Civil War.
Uganda, South Africa, The Sukuma people of Tanzania believe in spirit possession,
Zanzibar, A now extinct spirit possession cult existed among the Hadimu women of Zanzibar, revering a spirit called kitimiri. This cult described in an 1869 account by a French missionary. The cult faded by the 1920s and was virtually unknown by the 1960s.
West Africa
See Hausa animism
Haitian Vodou, Umbanda, Buddhism, Certain sects of Taoism, Korean shamanism, Shinto, some Japanese new religious movements, and other East-Asian religions feature the idea of spirit possession. Chinese traditions, Indian tradition, Rajasthan, Tamil women in India are said to experience possession by peye spirits. The animist traditions of the island of Bali (Indonesia) include a practice called sanghyang,
Sulawesi, Misaki, Female workers in Malaysian factories have allegedly become possessed by spirits, and factory owners generally regard it as mass hysteria and an intrusion of irrational and archaic beliefs into a modern setting.
Sri Lankan traditions, Melanesia: The Urapmin people of the New Guinea Highlands practice a form of group possession known as the “spirit disco” (Tok Pisin: spirit disko). Men and women gather in church buildings, dancing in circles and jumping up and down while women sing Christian songs; this is called “pulling the [Holy] spirit” (Tok Pisin: pulim spirit,
Micronesia,
Christianity, Islam, Judaism
Wherever religion abounds, demon possession abounds..it is a belief system and when you have people who live in a belief system all sorts of anomalies are given rise to in the human cultures and traditions. This results from the unknown and from the unknowable and it scares people into frantic, frenzied fanaticism.
This is what religion does to the minds of those too weak or too indoctrinated to know better. It is a sad commentary for mankind that has yet to move out of the mired muck of religious supernatural stupidest.
Spirit possession is not recognized as a psychiatric or medical diagnosis by the DSM-IV or the ICD-10. People alleged to be possessed by spirits sometimes exhibit symptoms similar to those associated with mental illnesses such as psychosis, hysteria, mania, Tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy, schizophrenia, or dissociative identity disorder, including involuntary, uncensored behavior, and an extra-human, extra-social aspect to the individual’s actions. In cases of dissociative identity disorder in which the alter personality is questioned as to its identity, 29% are reported to identify themselves as demons. Physicians regard this as a mental disease called demonomania or demonopathy, a monomania in which the patient believes that he or she is possessed by one or more demons.
You can refrain from discussing the issues but you remain still in the grips of the tyranny of religion. Ridding Mankind of this Mind Meme from the ANCIENTS will be the biggest civilizing feat the world will ever know when it happens, and it will. And isn’t it odd that it was someone who had no part of religion and who was not himself religious, Jesus, who tried to revolutionize bizarre religion by teaching the world that the beauty of the natural and the beauty of the normal lie within you and that the supernatural and supernormal never existed despite the magical appeal of the so called miracles which Jesus himself never performed but which got Moses off to his start as a leader of his people back when he used a magic trick that turned the staff into a snake and back again but then Pharaoh kicked Moses and Aaron out of his court when Pharaoh’s own magicians mastered the trick shortly thereafter and performed the same feat.
Jesus was a natural man; a common sense man. Jesus was normal. Most of his followers are abnormal.
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August 24, 2016 at 6:43 am
Mat 15:29 And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.
Mat 15:30 And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them:
Mat 15:31 Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.
Jesus was not “normal” unless you just want to throw out these verses, if so, you can’t trust anything written in Matthew or the rest of the bible for that matter.
Naz
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