I was told by a mormon classmate throughout elementary and middle school that the reason for the ban on caffeine among other things is that the mormon religion is intolerant of the consumption of any drug that might alter one’s personality or perception. Caffeine enhances cognitive abilities and memory, increases the rate of speech and might cause one to think a thought different from one’s normal baseline. Therefore it’s banned. Same goes for alcohol. It alters one’s mental state.
Of course the same can be said of sugar. Or food generally. Or fucking just talking with someone. Every-fucking-thing alters one’s mental state. So I personally don’t see what the hell the prohibitions are about. Caffeine alters one’s mental state significantly less than a good philosophy teacher. So what’s the problem with caffeine?
Oh, I just remembered that during his bid for the presidency, Mitt Romney was spotted in a coffee shop of some kind, and he explained he was just having a hot chocolate. So, that’s at least one Mormon who thinks hot drinks are ok.
The Mormons call the prohibition the “Word of Wisdom” and according to a few QAs on Mormon websites the reasoning at worst is “because Joseph Smith said god said so”. At best it’s a dietary restriction similar to those in the old testament saying it’s to preserve one’s health.
Really it all boils down to the doctrine that human bodies in no way belong to the minds that occupy them and to go against god’s will is akin to scratching up a car you borrowed.
Also, hot chocolate has plenty of caffeine in the prodrug theobromine.
Am I getting this right @slybevel? I can’t say I’m an expert on mormonsim, but at least in my fundie upbrining the reasoning seems like it parallels well. Humans in no way own their body so whatever they do to “harm” it is the same as dinging up and harming god’s property. That’s why my parents rarely drink. It hurts god’s property so they don’t do it.
Damn. I got it mixed up. Theobromine is a pharmacological analogue of caffeine and xanthine, they all are structurally similar and built using the same and similar enzymes, while acting on the same receptors in the CNS and rest of the body.
Doing comparative analysis of drugs on Wikipedia is a dangerous game to play. But using library resources, like the ability to search databases of academic journals and reading the full text of studies that way can give a better picture of the literature on any given drug.
Joseph Smith didn’t know about ephedra. He died before the mormons got that far west. So he had nothing to say about it. Since he made up everything he had to say about god using just his own personal experience. Just like any “prophet” or “holy man.”
My parents (my dad, at least) were always more liberal about drinking, as long as you didn’t get drunk or close to that point. My youth group was much more hard-line though. One of the good things about reading the Bible for yourself is that you learn verses like this one:
It is not for kings, Lemuel—
it is not for kings to drink wine,
not for rulers to crave beer,
lest they drink and forget what has been decreed,
and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.
Let beer be for those who are perishing,
wine for those who are in anguish!
Let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
So there you have it: the Bible says that poor people should be able to down their sorrows.*
Paul teaches that you shouldn’t drink in the presence of a “weaker brother” who may have an addiction, which I think is a good rule of thumb. If a Christian ever objected to me drinking alcohol, I just said that I’m sorry, I didn’t realise they had a problem.
So did Martin Luther, apparently. He wrote to a young man with feelings of despair about hell that he should just get drunk, as that’s what he did when he felt despair. Luther also thought that husbands who couldn’t satisfy their wives should be OK about them taking on lovers.
I didn’t miss the point, except in a very narrow ‘oh, but this isn’t for you; it’s a local fillum, for local people’ sense. Just because ‘don’t judge’ was the filmmaker’s point doesn’t mean it’s the only point or even the best point.
I saw two kids who’d been brainwashed to judge people who drank coffee, even those who had demonstrated that they were otherwise upright citizens. That they were hasty in their judgement is neither here nor there; had they been correct in their assumption, their cult would have held them to be righteous.
A long, circling shot from a helicopter of one of the boys holding out a cup of coffee to a silent Sister Whats-Her-Face would’ve improved this effort. At the very least it’s a match for the pacing, and it has close to the same quality of dialogue.
These were originally slide show presentations that Mormons could rent from the church library for Family Home Evening on Monday night. When I was young my friends and I would cut out or replace some of the slides with slides of Batman or Superman.
Hmmm. Most common grocery store canned coffees will say “100% coffee” for the ingredients, and nothing else. The fact that they don’t specifically say “Arabica” implies “Robusta” or a blend of the two, and I think only Folger’s “100% Columbian” variety is actually all Arabica.
It could be worse. In Japan, instant is the standard form of coffee drunk. UCC(Ueshima Coffee Company) brand instant will put hair on your tongue and is good for repelling small rodents.
That seemed to be the standard in the Gulf countries. If you wanted coffee, you asked for Nescafe, because that’s what was offered & available (e.g. in an office).
Starbucks in Oman sold a tall coffee for 1.80 – except 1.80 over there is US$4.67.
