Dope use as case study about sin/purgatory/hell

A step by step case study using the example of a marijuana user to illustrate why the action is a sin, how the severity and number of sin occurences grows, and the implications for salvation (how the purgatory process might or might not be available to the sinner).

I’m going to spell it out for you why specific actions, in this first example drug abuse, are sins, what the consequences are, and all within the context of how God perceives these actions. There is nothing in here that is new; anyone with rudimentary religious education of the Bible or Qur’an can figure this out. I am speechless at how self deluding and ignorant people have become, however; it simply has amazed me over the past several decades of rampant sin and ignorance of the severe penalties to come. I am going to use the example of marijuana here in order to have the simplest and most prevalent possible example. Obviously this example can be extended to consumption of any mind or mood altering drug.

1) God’s view of the “smallest” example of drug abuse sin, which is to grow pot plant at home and harvest it for occasional personal use in secret.

Even if you are not purchasing weed, only growing a tiny amount for your own use, and keeping that use secret so that no one knows, this is nonetheless a very serious sin against God. The reason is that a mind or mood altering drug is an artificial barrier placed between the person and God. This therefore violates the first Commandment which is “I am the Lord Thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.” By using a drug with mind and mood altering and addictive properties you are “having a strange god” that is more important to you than God. The mere act of deciding to utilize a joint on each occasion is a decision to use something that is to you more important, even in only that instance, than God. That is the definition of a “strange god,” which is an inanimate object that you give power to over and above the power you attribute to God. Having a joint is exactly the same as picking up a piece of wood and carving an idol. Each and every time that you have a joint is the same as picking up a new piece of wood and carving a new idol. So consuming a thousand personal joints equals one thousand separate and individual violations of the First Commandment just as if you had sat down and carved one thousand wooden idols instead of one.

2) God’s view of “medium” example of drug abuse sin, which is to purchase pot from a dealer. Another example of this “medium” use sin is to endorse drug abuse by smoking the joints in the company of other people.

Everything that I explained under point one obviously by default also applies here. So each and every smoking of the joint is an example of violating the First Commandment. Now however you are adding additional sins by virtue of doing so publically in the view of one or more people in order to endorse this behavior, and/or giving money to people whose job it is to supply drugs. You are therefore in this “medium” example of drug abuse violating more of God’s commandments and prohibitions in addition to already violating the First Commandment because you are subsidizing the industry through even a “small” purchase AND you are setting an example for others, even in front of only one other person, that drug abuse sin is “OK.” By providing money to drug dealers (either professional or personal suppliers) you are violating the First Commandment in yet another dimension, which is to pay for people to carve those wooden idols and give them to others. And by consuming the marijuana in the presence of even only one other person you are “endorsing the carving and use of wooden idols.” I hope this example helps you to see that even the “small” example is a very grave violation of God’s most important Commandment, the First, and how “medium” examples are not only additional occurrences of violating the First Commandment but also “worse” because you are now tempting and enabling others to also violate the First Commandment.

You also need to understand that you become liable for other Commandments that are violated by yourself and others as the result of the consumption of marijuana. “Thou shalt not kill” is liable to be violated when “using” while driving, doing your job, and otherwise being responsible for the public. “Thou shalt not steal” is violated by financially and publically endorsing an illegal activity that is the direct cause of a robbery and crime culture. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is also potentially violated because you are promoting the use of a substance that alters, however subtly, the accurate witness of reality.

3) God’s view of the “largest” example of drug abuse sin, which is to be a drug dealer, whether “small scale” (sold to one person) or “large scale” (block, neighborhood, gang, state or country, anything that involves multiple people).

It should not be difficult for you to figure out right now that hell is full of drug dealers, including the asshole on the block who “just” provides to a few people. A dealer is in the business of not only “carving the wooden idols” but making other people believe in the wooden idols. A dealer’s purpose is to “make a living” off of enabling and influencing people, often using force, of disobeying God and altering not only people’s spiritual reality but also their economic reality. Because the dealer “makes a living” off of pot use, in this case, the dealer is therefore also violating, in addition to all the Commandments listed above, the Commandment “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” The dealer craves money and possessions and so establishes an illegal and immoral enterprise to take money away from other people through their addiction and/or casual use of pot. The dealer not only takes money from the user, since he covets their money, but the dealer often takes the very means of livelihood for an entire family away from the users as they spend money on drugs instead of their own well being, education and livelihood. By transforming neighborhoods into drug zone the dealers suck away livelihood from the innocent around them as companies flee the neighborhood and jobs can no longer be had (except, ultimately, by dealing themselves). Dealers are responsible for the sins of those who emulate them, and they are responsible for the hardships that both the users and the innocent bystanders endure.

It should be clear that only example one, where the person grows their own pot for their own individual secret use, is a situation where the unrepentant person can still hope to “take their chances when judged by God.” A person who is literally a “singular island” of grapping with a sin such as growing and consuming their own pot in secret with their mouth shut about it has the best chance of being allowed into purgatory to be cleansed and eventually achieving heaven. This is because it really is a matter of their own conscience and background, all of which God is, of course, aware of. A parallel is the term “a victimless crime.” This is because literally not a single person or a single dollar is involved in this “pure and simple” example of single use secret consumption of home grown pot. The very minute that someone becomes aware of this usage, however, and that any money is spent in the purchase of the weed, it becomes the MUCH more problematic number two type of example. There are not too many people who smoke weed that they grow on their own and no one at all knows about it and no one benefits financially from it.

But I want to highlight example 1 because it helps people to understand that God is more “understanding” and “flexible” than the anti-God propaganda would have you believe. God recognizes that otherwise worthy people, as a result of their own choices or compulsions, sometimes “take a chance” with his mercy. That’s why purgatory exists. It’s not a matter of God’s “opinion” when he judges, but it is a matter of God revealing to the person the extent of their personal stain, which physically prevents people from entering heaven. I’ve explained this before that a sin stained soul cannot enter heaven because, to use the analogy, it cannot survive in the pure “atmosphere” of goodness and truth. It’s not like a sin stained soul can sneak into heaven through the back door. It’s still attempting to enter an “atmosphere” that a soul stained by sin cannot “breathe.” Purgatory is the process by which souls can cleanse themselves so that they can enter heaven and survive, living for eternity.

Here’s another example. When one dies in a state of sin it is like a person plugging cotton up their nose so they cannot breathe and wanting to enter a room of pure oxygen. Um, it’s not like God is being mean by insisting that people take the cotton out of their nostrils so they can breathe at all! If they do not remove the cotton up the nostrils they will die of asphyxiation. This is the example of a soul that dies in a state of sin. And by state of sin I do not mean they die without regrets. What I mean is they have an unresolved sin “track record.” One’s soul is stained by one’s track record of sin. Sometimes a person comes to their senses and regrets their sin, but what they did cannot be undone. Suppose the person the sinner wronged has died. The sinner can regret their sin, contribute a big check to some charitable organization, and if they are Catholic, obtain forgiveness through Penance and the Holy Eucharist. So the sinner can be forgiven, as if they never sinned, but the reality is that the actions of their sin cannot be fully remediated due to circumstances of time passing. A person can be forgiven of sin but it is not like time travelers erase the consequences on other people of that sin. This is part of the sin staining.

How do we know this? Look at the example of one of the greatest of the Prophets, the most holy Isaiah, who prophesied the very coming of Jesus Christ. What was the reaction of this extremely holy man, the like of whom has never since lived, when he was first called by God? Isaiah saw God appear, surrounded by angels who hailed God’s glory. (These very words of the angels are preserved in the “Sanctus, sanctus” sung portion of the Catholic Mass). Before God or the angels could even say one word to Isaiah, he told them to hold the phone before even speaking to him because:

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5).

Notice that Isaiah does not say he is a sinner, because he knows he is not and is instead a very pious and very holy man. Yet this great man recognized instantly that simply by being a human being, especially living among man who were sinning, that he had “unclean lips.” This is the example that Isaiah gives for the reality of one’s total unsuitability to merit seeing the manifested God with one’s eyes, and obviously this is the condition all who would want to enter heaven will be in. Upon his words the following happens:


Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. “See,” he said, “now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.” (Isaiah 6:6-7).

Notice the angel does not say, oh tut, tut don’t exaggerate Isaiah, you know you are a good man. No, rather the angel immediately acknowledges Isaiah’s insight that by definition he is a man who has “sin” and has “wickedness.” Notice the angel couches the expression that Isaiah possesses sin and wickedness, not that he is a sinner or wicked. This is the stain that I am referring to, where sin that results even from the inevitability of the human condition and living among sinners leaves a stain that must be removed. The angel uses an ember from the altar of heaven. The angel does not light a human charcoal grill, duh. Only an ember from God can purge a person so that they can communicate with God or enter into God’s realm of heaven. So the angel brings an ember from the very heavenly altar where God sits and uses that so Isaiah’s “wickedness is removed” and his “sin purged.” And yes, notice indeed the word “purge.” Whenever someone tells me “purgatory is not mentioned in the Bible” I want to smash his or her mush right into this page of the Bible. I don’t know how this could be clearer, and who thinks that what Isaiah required they don’t require in spades, in orders of magnitude greater than the holy ancient Isaiah? PURGATORY IS MENTIONED IN THE VERY CHAPTER WHERE THE PROPHET WHO PROPHESIED CHRIST IS FIRST PREPARED TO GET THE GOOD NEWS. CAN YOU HEAR GOD NOW? PUT ON YOUR FREAKING EYEGLASSES AND READ YOU MORONS.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?” “Here I am,” I said; send me!” (Isaiah 6:8).

Upon being purged by the angel Isaiah is immediately ready to receive the Lord’s voice in his ears and hear his message of what he should do. After being “purged” by the angel Isaiah is now like an angel in that he is cleaned of the influence of sin and wickedness and now able to be entirely in performance of God’s will.

Going back to our original not so glorious example of man or woman, the pot user, you can see how the three instances of small, medium or large uses will all map to purgatory and, obviously, hell. Even the mildest pot user of the first “small” example cannot hold a candle to Isaiah, so this person had better expect some serious purgatory, assuming all else in their life is just. But people in the second “medium” and third “large” categories of pot use and dealing better think really hard about how they measure up to Isaiah. God will not bother with purgatory at all for those whose souls are so blackened that there would be nothing of decency left anyway due to the great weight and persistence of their sin. They will be dispatched promptly to hell.

What happens in purgatory? Let me talk about the most borderline case, where someone “gets into purgatory but just under the wire.” In other words, they escape hell by the skin of their teeth. I have to be honest with you, for those people there is not much “left” to enter into heaven. Some of these people have to be stripped back to how their souls were when they were infants. So while they achieve heaven they do so as infants or simple souls and do not bring the memory or associations of the world with them. They will not be part of “family reunions” in heaven, nor will they recall or miss their families, since there is no sadness in heaven. But it is not God’s plan that people should be given life in the cradle that is earth only so that they sin so much that the personality and grace that they developed on earth be besmirched and blackened so much by their sin that they lose their individuality and, for lack of a better word, “adultness” in order to gain heaven. Don’t count on seeing a lot of loved ones in heaven if they are in the sin business. Or if you are in the sin business.

I hope this example helps. I don’t know how many times it can be spelled out in dog simple terms.