Salvia

For those of you that haven't heard of salvia, it's a member of the sage family which contains a chemical called Salvinorin. Salvinorin is a hallucinogen and will blow your head to Mars if you do something silly with it, such as smoke it. Anyway.
Hypothetically speaking, if a rather foolish blog-taking student was to inhale said smoke through a home-made bong made out of a smirnoff lid, coke bottle and blu-tack bad things would undoubtedly happen, hilarity would surely ensue. This is the tale of what would happen if such an event were to take place:

Two students would sneak out of halls and across a field into a small ditch full of dead leaves and overlooking a greenhouse in the dark, dark night. one would fumble in his pockets for about five minutes trying to find a lighter and a small vial of Salvia that set him back four pounds or so. This accomplished, he would empty the tea-like substance into the socket of the bong and light up. He'd pull at the thing for a bit to fill the chamber with smoke before taking a long drag. he would hand said bong to his friend afterwards, no doubt.
He would find himself on a bright yellow boat rocked by a stormy sea, it would sway port, then starboard port then starboard. 'oooh. pretty colours' he would think. He'd soon jump overboard and into the wide sargasso sea; only to realise that it was a giant green and blue monastery. after exploring the halls and strange, hive-like protuberances a bong would find it's way into his hand and he'd take another, longer pull and hold it in.

He'd find himself in a gigantic warehouse and everyone would call him 'sir' and tell him that the new shipment had arrived - only to throw him in chains and fly about the room on blue triangles. Suddenly the escalator of time would catch the young student's proverbial shoe-lace in it's cogs and drag him out of this reality and down a drain, as though an invisible man had hold of his skin with magical hooks there would be a burning evil glow down the drain, and stuck at the grate said student would look up at the horrified warehouse faces. "Oh fuck! help me! they're taking me back to the nineteen eighties!!!!!" or some similar variation would escape the lips of the student and jar him back to reality. Confounded, he would lie back on the damp leaves and giggle inanely at the absurdity of the thing. Help his friend out of his exceedingly bad trip, stagger back to halls and collapse on the floor for a while. They would wake up and eat 19 mince pies and 6 sausage rolls to stave off the munchies. One would say "that stuff fucked me up." the other "yeah yeah. pretty cool". then one would stagger back home at three in the morning and be forced to reconsider the direction his life was going in; concluding with: "what the fuck am i doing?!". thinking all the time that it was a damned good thing that noine of this ever happened, not even the time travelling scientist in the submarine, explaining the wonders of the universe to his young nephew: that this reality was merely a dream - a subservient drama created as a cruel joke for an alien's entertainment.

In a nutshell, i expect that salvia is a very bad drug indeed and should not be taken by anyone, ever - as it may very well be more potent than many illegal drugs. but i wouldn't know any of this for sure, having never touched the stuff in my life.

Secular Religion

Richard Bloody Dawkins, Biologist and Atheist.

Much attention has come recently of his book "The God Delusion" in which he espouses the virtues of Atheism as opposed to the nasty old habit of Religion. One would have to ask: "Why is he right, then?" and I would have to answer "well, he's not actually"

You see, for all the god-bashing with one hand, and the handing out laurels to science with the other; the comparison of Religion to a virus of the mind and the general witch-hunt he himself has created on behalf of the exalted dogmas of biology. For all of this, I say, he's been a bit of a prat and overlooked the cause of it all: his own self-loathing.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines Religion as:
1) The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods > a particular system of faith and worship.
2) a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.

and good grief, there it is. Right there in two bold statements that would describe Dawkins's habits quite well I think.

The man has hundreds of followers, they have their ironically named bible: The God Delusion; they have their theory as to the origins of the universe, and they hate, hate, hate people of other beliefs. That's not to say that all religions hate other people of course, Buddhism is perfectly peaceful (and doesn't belive in a god even!) and Christianity is one renowned for 'love thy neighbour' and 'turn the other cheek'. in fact, i'd be hard pressed to find any religion that doesn't preach these basic human fundamentals. The desire to do good is fundamental to humanity, it's only when people see other people as things (like crazy religionists, blacks, terrorists or whatever) that fuck ups like 9/11 happen.

an easy comparison to make is such:

Atheist "I don't believe in God"
Evangelist "oh dear, you're going to Hell - there are none so blind as those who will not see"
Atheist "Gosh"
Evangelist "Read The Bible, Heathen"

WITH

Evangelist "I believe in God"
Atheist "your faith is analogous to a carnivorous gene complex"
Evangelist "Gosh"
Atheist "Read The God Delusion, Faith-head"

The point is: it isn't peoples faith that makes them different (and I include Atheism as a faith) it's their attitude - Dawkins clearly has become, or always was the thing he hates. He seems to me to be just as self-righteous as the archetypal religious nuts that he berates.
He flatly refuses to even discuss issues like Creationism (something I don't personally believe in, but each to their own) just as some of the people he interviewed on 'The root of all Evil?" did also effectively close their eyes and go 'la la la I can't hear you'.

On a closing note, Dawkins often refers to the 'Russell's Teapot' argument about God, essentially if one makes an assertion that something exists and it cannot be proved or disproved; then the fact that it cannot be disproved is no good reason to believe it.
A valid point, but the point that it cannot be proved is no reason to disbelieve it, either.
And even less of a reason to write an inflammatory book that objectifies people of different beliefs, all in the name of "Let's now stop being so damned respectful!"