By "intoxication", I am referring to being drunk with any form of alcohol or being high on any sort of drug. Please note that I have nothing against alcohol or drugs (with the exception of drugs designed only for intoxicating). My argument is strictly against intoxication itself.
For those of you who have been following me, you have seen my argument against intoxication in my Battle Against Modern Ideals post, which basically argues that you shouldn't do it because it ruins your body. But perhaps some of you may not be convinced? Or you want to change, yet do not have the mental ammunition to shake off the addiction? Whatever your reason, here are some more of my points against intoxication.
Allow me to kick off the argument with a scenario. Picture a sober man and an intoxicated man. Both of them kill someone; the sober man while he is sober and the intoxicated man while he is intoxicated. Both of them would be punished under the law of our nation, and with this I certainly have no quarrel. But I am not here to discuss politics or legal structure. I am here to discuss theology and ideals. On the count of murder, how would their own conscience find them? Well I think you and I both know that, as much as I am loathe to conclude, the intoxicated man is innocent and the sober man is guilty. The intoxicated man had no control of his actions. He did not have the ability to choose otherwise, and so cannot be held responsible. Punishing the intoxicated man would be the equivalent of punishing a puppet. Just as the puppet was under the control of the puppeteer, so too was the intoxicated man under the control of the alcohol.
How, then, can the intoxicated man be punished and for what action should he be punished? I argue that he should be punished for intoxicating himself. This is not my secret way of saying that intoxication should be illegal. Remember, this is about morals, not politics. Anyway, I argue that intoxication is immoral. Why? Picture this analogy: a law requires the people to pay taxes. Someone has discovered some clever way to get around having to pay taxes. Is not the law then required to denote that clever action as illegal? If it did not, everyone would do it and the law would be unable to do anything about it. There would be chaos. The clever action has to be illegal.
Is this "clever action" any different from intoxication? The man did something immoral in such a way that he could not be held accountable for the immoral thing he did. Does not the Moral Code that decides that murder in cold blood is evil have to account for this and punish it? He evaded the law through intoxication. Therefore, the law must account for and punish it.
Be mindful, friends. Free will is a precious gift with which all of humanity is blessed. We all can choose between right and wrong. Intoxication is not just wrong; it takes an individual entirely out of the moral equation. It is a rejection of that most precious gift which makes all of us human. An intoxicated human might as well be an animal (and I mean that literally, not disrespectfully).
No comments:
Post a Comment