Well my E-mail handle is oldhippiedon fact being I was scared sober back in 93 and [ grass as we called it in Nam] in 03. Now it's a few chill pills prescribed by the VA. Liked your comment thou.

Meme theory is awesome way to understand biblical theme. Jesus was the meme cognition organism of the old testiment people that evolved into a person.

I must disagree, respectfully. Drugs were used before organized religion, but, in the torah it says to talk to got you must do it in the smoke of holy incense. Which like it or not was weed. Innebrianys were not seen as bad. So people who figured out what they did used them.

Life was brutal, hard, short frightening. Fevers, diseases of skin and organ were all over. So the right people get exposed to weed/ergot etc. They have visions. They became religion, which ever reductive human kind reduced to religion as we know it. I do know that people everyplace that find mind altering drugs, consume them.

Imagine then a world lit only by fire. There is no understanding of rudimentary science, which could take some of the randomness of bad things away, since you can protect yourself. Some guy pr woman explains to you on a cold scary night as a loved one dies of a fever, about your vision, and the reason for the suffering is (insert you favorite religious bullshit here). Then they tell you pray. they may share some drugs , never telling you what they are from, they control the product. Eventually they have so much market share of scared people , they do not need the chemicals and so it is withdrawn.

Weed was used by the jews and everybody who knew about it. But after their release from Babalonia, it is no longer Kosher, and is not allowed. But the jews were now a cohesive unit with rules and regs, and no weed. They trancended the need. It fell out of favor and becomes banned, (at least in effect)

try

you can also look for Cannabis a lost history

but here is a link that might get you the mother load, (on youtube anyway) of "Chemical Culture" during ancient and pre histories.

Give them a read, believe what you like.

ciao

@praytothemilkjug Yes but I did not say it did not play a part, only that there would have been religion even without it.

@Fernapple Appologies to you. I misspoke. I believe you would then be correct, humans need to do something that stops us from going a little meshuga. religion would have eventually rise for some. But flat out dosing people is way faster.

My feeling is religious people are following the ravings of a long dead stoner.

@praytothemilkjug Certainly your feeling are a good guide.

Yes, agree. Like most books, you can cherry pick parts of the bible to make it seem like a positive. Some vicars choose the nice bits and ignore the unethical/ ‘socially unacceptable these days’ bits every sermon
Good has been done in the name of many fictional works.