Generally liquid LSD varies in actual LSD content, but let's call it "one drop contains 100mcg", which is a common expectation.

100mcg is considered a typical dose of LSD for anyone to experience a trip (some people will trip on less; some require a little more. Also generally, for more experienced users or people wishing to have a 'heavy trip' for self-discovery or other such purposes, much higher doses are used; but we'll go with just 'experiencing a trip' for the purposes of calculation and so 100mcg is acceptable).

One 'drop' from an eyedropper is around 0.1ml (varies a lot with different eyedroppers and users, but that'll do). So, for each 0.1ml, we've got enough to get one person tripping.

A gallon contains 3785.4ml; so enough to get 37854 people tripping. 200 gallons is therefore enough for 7570800 people. A little less than the population of New York City.

Of course, if you were talking 200 'gallons' of LSD in salt form rather than liquid, it's harder to judge. I'm not quite sure about the size/volume of LSD salt crystals in relation to exact weight; I get the feeling LSD salt is probably a little more dense than water, but it also doesn't stack so perfectly and so there'll be empty space between the crystals in the container. So for the purposes of just calculating it out for fun, let's go with a 'simplistic' (and quite possibly horribly wrong) calculation and say it's 1g per ml volume as with water. In that case, 200 gallons would be enough for 7570800000 people - a half a milliard or so over the current population of the earth.

And while my wife identifies as Christian, "Christians" would identify her as as apostate.

See how that works?

I would honestly love to discuss it further with you, because you seem to be really knowledgable on the topic (probably more so than me), but I've got a business trip over the coming three days and am not really one for reviving four day old discussions on slashdot (unless you really want to, in which case, reply to this in three to four days so that it's fresh for me!). I could have written out a quick off-the-cuff reply now, but I think I'd prefer to actually sit and think about my answers with you on this topic, which I sadly just don't have the time for right now.

As for your OT comment to my homepage link (and also sig) - I would strongly disagree with your friend. People who like to really examine things both deeply as well as broadly (thinking around all aspects of a topic), which it seems you are, are exactly the kind of people who should try LSD at some point in their lives (preferably in the right kind of environment and frame of mind of course... hence the topic of my book)

While I agree that true Islam demands extremism, I would also argue that true Christianity does as well. It just happens that Christian extremists are not quite as common (or perhaps not quite as vocal or noticeable if they are) as Islamic extremists at this particular point in history.

I know quite a few people who describe themselves as 'Muslim' but pay very little attention other than observing a few things here and there because "that's the way they were brought up". To me, these are about the same as the lip-service Christians who go to church once or twice a year, don't pray, don't really examine the tenets of their religion and so forth but nevertheless profess to be 'Christian' (these are very common; my wife is (unfortunately) one of them).

While his religion is certainly debated, I personally believe that this quote and the evidence does point towards him being religious...

I'm not quite sure if you misread my post though - you seem to be backing up my point (that I don't think it is true that atheists have slaughtered more than religious folks have), but in a way that sounds like you're disagreeing. Sorry if I misinterpreted though.

Whether true or not (actually, I don't think it is) it's also totally irrelevant to my point. Those people were for the most part not slaughtered "in the name of atheism". It seems quite certain that more people have been slaughtered 'for believing something different to the thing the slaughterer believes' than 'for believing something when the slaughterer has no religious belief'.

Or to quote Steven Weinberg:

I'm not entirely sure you even read my post... or if you did, you read a hell of a lot in to it that I didn't write.

I never said "religion should be banned", nor did I say "religion enables people to kill people" (I did say "religion can motivate people to kill people" though... the difference being quite an important one)

If you think that was my argument, then you're right to call it wrong. I agree with you 100%.

That however was not my argument. My argument was that both Christianity and Islam in general and according to their own beliefs are equally as bad. The way it is practiced in the 21st century shows a clear difference; however there are passages in the Bible that could (and have been in the past) interpreted to also mean that followers of it should murder non-Christians. This interpretation isn't actually a particularly larger leap than the passages in the Qur'an that are used to justify the same behaviour.

I agree that one should not conflate the religion of the perpetrators with the act; however it is an important point to make if the act was performed in the name of the religion (regardless of what the majority of believers think).

If a Christian man kills someone because he was pissed off at work, bringing his religion in to the discussion is irrelevant. If however a Christian man kills someone because "God told him to", then bringing his religion in to the discussion is very relevant.

It would be wrong to say that "Christianity promotes killing" (based on this event alone), however it would NOT be wrong to say that "Christianity can be used as an excuse or reason to kill", because it quite clearly was so.

There are a lot of people that are anti-Islam because of the acts of a number of Islamic extremists. The religion itself (from my atheist perspective) is about equally as dangerous and violent as Christianity. There certainly are people that use it to justify violence towards others and there is a strong community ethic bound to the religion that brings other people in to commit the same acts when they previously might not have.

Christianity is currently going through a 'reasonably quiet' period as far as violence goes (although definitely not completely quiet) but history (even relatively recent history) shows that it's not always so. There's nothing inherent in Islam that makes it any better or worse.

The problem is that if you can take something so 'directly said' as being metaphor, then you can essentially pick and choose any part of the text to be metaphor the moment it disagrees with reality. By doing this, you no longer have a text with any meaning whatsoever.

If you don't do this and have pre-decided that 'these parts are metaphor', 'these other parts aren't'; then would you change your beliefs when a part that you believed to be statement of fact is proved wrong?

That depends on the kind of withholding, the period of it and the type of information. I withhold information from the public such as my bank card's PIN, my password, and so on.

I think it's at the very least an arguable case as to whether these researchers should withhold this. By releasing it, there would be a non-zero danger that it would be used for harm with little to no positive gain. The exact value of this non-zero danger vs the value of the positive gain is what they likely thought about before making the decision.

Whether you agree or disagree with their decision, surely you must see the merit in this kind of evaluation?

While it's true the physical withdrawal symptoms of heroin are pretty bad, that's not actually a good indicator of the addictiveness. People don't (only) fail to quit or avoid quitting a substance because they can't handle the withdrawal, they do so because they 'feel they need' the substance - that's what addiction is.

That aside, these other substances aren't without their withdrawal symptoms as well:

• - Tobacco withdrawal can cause constipation, depression, sleep difficulties, and energy loss.
• - Caffeine withdrawal is pretty mild in general, but can include headaches, depression, anxiety, nausea, vomiting and muscle pain. I've experienced this first hand, going from a regular habit of 20 strong cups of coffee per day to zero (I later resumed at around 4 to 5 mild cups per day). The initial symptoms were very unpleasant and lasted around two days, with minor symptoms continuing for around another week after that. The worst part was the intense cravings for coffee, which I didn't expect (far worse than my cigarette cravings when I quit smoking, which themselves were pretty bad).
• - Alcohol is the worst of the three by far. Withdrawal for a serious alcoholic can include hallucinations, anxiety, shakiness, seizures and delirium tremens (DTs). DTs are characterised by fever, rapid heartbeat and severe confusion. They can be fatal (estimated 1% to 5% of cases). Alcohol withdrawal for a serious alcoholic can be as bad or worse than heroin withdrawal for many junkies.

Also note that the symptoms you listed for heroin withdrawal are 'worst case' - not everyone goes through that, just as many alcoholics can quit without all of the nasty symptoms I just listed.

Psychedelic psychotherapy is an interesting new field... combining it with online therapy might make for some interesting experiences!

(honestly yes, I am joking... please don't take that as a serious suggestion)

I was HOPING in this second part, he'd say something new; but in essence it seems his entire argument comes down to various themes of "targeted advertising (online) is cheap and therefore anyone can and will advertise anything and you can't trust it".

Is that really it, or did I miss some insight as his voice made me doze off?