When it comes to using illicit drugs, my policy has always been “Just say no.” When it comes to hamburgers, though, my mantra has always been, “Supersize that for me.” While Nancy Reagan’s advice was keeping me off horse, that square-patty pusherman Dave Thomas was hooking me on the beef.
Although I knew junk food wasn’t good for me, no one ever warned me that eating a cheeseburger is just like shooting up smack. Why didn’t the current First Lady warn us? Why am I just now hearing about this from the Australians?
Now that we know the truth about burgers we need to make some changes. If you care about the kids at all, Ronald, you’ll do the right thing and have McDonald’s start adding methadone to the Happy Meals.
(Via: The Daily What)
September 30th, 2010 | 10:39 am
Let’s see….get addicted to heroin, and you get irresistible cravings and life-threatening withdrawal symptoms when you don’t get it.
Eat too many hamburgers, and you can decide, “Hmmm…I need to eat something healthier tonight” and you eat your better food, then go about your business while missing your favorite food.
Yep, just the same thing. Great analogy.
September 30th, 2010 | 11:30 am
They’d better not try that in America. They’d get sued for slander. Remember Oprah and the mad cow flap?
Unfortunately, they’re probably just sending the message that shooting up is no worse than eating a hamburger.
September 30th, 2010 | 11:33 am
My first reaction was “There oughta be a law!” Then, the more I thought about “hamburger prohibition,” the less attractive that alternative seemed to me. A black market for high fat burgers would arise almost immediately, and criminal organizations bent on filling the demand would proliferate. Health inspectors would be corrupted by bribes to look the other way, and our jails would fill with non-violent contraband burger eaters. No thanks.
September 30th, 2010 | 11:54 am
I know a lot of conservative Christians are “law and order” on illegal drugs; but what is the theological justification for this moral position.
I know my friend Dr. Gregg Frazer (of The Master’s College) pushes the John MacArthur position that when government legislates, the Bible (in Romans 13 and elsewhere) demands you obey UNLESS obedience would be a sin.
Drugs in this sense is like going 55 mph. Unless you can argue you need to exceed the speed limit to AVOID sinning, it would be a sin to exceed the speed limit simply because government says don’t go over 55.
Are there any other texts of the Bible that argue doing “illegal drugs” are, in and of themselves, sinful?
September 30th, 2010 | 1:48 pm
Jon Rowe,
I trust it isn’t your meaning, but some people could construe you to infer, given the context of the attached video in question, that you think it should be legal to inject children with with an intoxicating drug.
September 30th, 2010 | 1:52 pm
‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body,’ 1 Cor 6:19-20 NIV.
September 30th, 2010 | 1:55 pm
Welcome to the age of over-the-top sound bite advertising. Another reason to greive the passing of the age of literacy. In our MTV media saturated culture, thorough and nuanced handling of important issues have gone the way of the dinos. The makers of this video have a point to make, but it is lost in the shock treatment approach of this clip.
September 30th, 2010 | 2:02 pm
There are literally dozens of places in the Bible that warn against drunkenness, especially Proverbs and Isaiah. Even if drug use were legal, a Christian could still not get high in good conscience.
September 30th, 2010 | 2:43 pm
Tony,
I have to check the video.
Mike,
The body as a temple passage says nothing specific about illegal drugs. Smoking cigarettes is more toxic to the body than marijuana and many other illegal drugs.
Likewise the Bible speaks against drunkeness and some Christians interpret that as a categorical prohibition on boozing. However, others interpret to prohibit drinking not in moderation.
What about illegal drugs in moderation. And please don’t answer with “there is no such thing,” because there is.
September 30th, 2010 | 4:09 pm
Jon Rowe,
The law recognizes the distinction you are making. Certain crimes are “malum in se,” wrong in and of themselves quite apart from the positive law. Other crimes are “malum prohibitum,” which means they are wrong only because they are prohibited by the positive law. The speed limit is the classic example of malum prohibitum.
You are suggesting that the use of illegal drugs is malum prohibitum. Others have suggested that the use of illegal drugs invariably results in intoxication and therefore runs afoul of the Biblical proscription on drunkenness and hence is malum in se.
Still others have suggested that even if the use of drugs is malum in se, not everything that is malum in se is also illegal (e.g., gluttony), because we make prudential cost/benefit decisions when we enact (or refrain from enacting) criminal laws. They argue further that the costs of drug prohibition outweigh the benefits (often drawing an analogy to alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s) and therefore as a matter of prudence we should legalize the use of drugs even if it wrong.
This argument has been going on for some time now, and I sometimes despair that we’ll ever strike the right balance. Maybe some problems really are intractable. Maybe that’s why we have the word “intractable.”
September 30th, 2010 | 4:16 pm
“The makers of this video have a point to make, but it is lost in the shock treatment approach of this clip.”
Not just lost, defeated. Since the message is “hamburgers are substantially like heroin,” and that message is false, then the commercial is false, and should not be taken seriously. The kernel of truth of “they’re both bad for you to some degree” isn’t just missed, it’s popped beyond recognition.
September 30th, 2010 | 4:36 pm
“Others have suggested that the use of illegal drugs invariably results in intoxication.”
There is also the problem with the term “illegal drugs,” at least in reference to them being “malum in se.” Pot is not coke is not heroin is not speed is not acid and is not mushrooms. They are all different in terms of effects on the mind & body, physical and psychological addiction and so on. We don’t interchange coffee with alcohol when we speak of legal drugs and neither should we with “illegal drugs,” other than the fact that they are illegal (which means following government’s arbitrary lines).
September 30th, 2010 | 5:16 pm
There are many reasons why a Christian should not use drugs, most having to do with being a good witness and protecting ourselves from temptation. However, if any Christian was seriously struggling with that issue, I would suggest praying about it. Talk to God and see what your heart tells you. Probably He has something better for you to be doing with that time.
September 30th, 2010 | 10:44 pm
I was once told that fasting heightened the religious experiences of the prophets of in part because of the biochemical mood altering nature of the act.
I wonder whether there is an “orthodox” argument to be made in favor of hallucinogens for facilitating religious experience.
October 1st, 2010 | 12:26 am
Yeah, J.R., from the Saint Carlos Castaneda.
October 1st, 2010 | 5:49 am
Cigarette SMOKE is more toxic than marijuana SMOKE? That is false on the face of it.
October 1st, 2010 | 11:43 am
No Mark, you are just plain wrong. People don’t get lung cancer or any other lung disease from pot.
October 2nd, 2010 | 1:08 pm
[...] Beware the savage jaw of 1984 — it got that way because it confused hamburgers for heroin: [...]
October 4th, 2010 | 9:51 am
Morons. Scientific evidence shows hamburgers, sans bun = health. It’s carbs that will kill you, causing the insulin secretion that puts on fat (per Gary Taubes, quoting 150 years of evidence-based dietary medicine).
October 4th, 2010 | 11:44 am
Amy has it right. There’s nothing wrong with the meat, but that bun, whole wheat or otherwise, will slowly kill you. When I eliminated processed foods and grains from my diet, I cured my pre-diabetes. I sense a vegitarian agenda here, just in time for vegitarian awaremenss month, which started October the first.
October 4th, 2010 | 1:00 pm
Junk? They’re talking about the sugar/HFCS added, gluten and lectin filled, refined carbohydrate, breaks down into glucose bun, right? Because I’m constantly trying to get my toddler to eat grass-fed, organic raised beef.
…just read some other comments. I see I’m not alone here.
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