Religion and alcohol

A monk samples wine

The world's religions have had differing relationships with alcohol. Many religions forbid alcoholic consumption or see it sinful or negative. Others have allocated a specific place for it, such as in the Christian practice of using wine for Communion.

Research has been conducted by social scientists and epidemiologists to see if potential links exist between religiosity and alcoholism.

Indian religions

In Hinduism, wine as medicine is documented in the ancient Indian healing system of Ayurveda. Arishthas and Asavas are fermented juices, and herbs. Ayurveda, the oldest, documented system of medicine does not recommend wine for everyone. Wine is a potent healer for specific health conditions, on the other hand drinking wine without getting a pulse diagnosis done by an Ayurvedic doctor, may work the other way around. For instance, wine is recommended in specified quantity for Kapha body types.

Jainism is strictly against alcohol. Jainism, which preaches nonviolence and vegetarianism, does not allow alcoholic beverages because their fermentation depends on microorganisms which makes the alcohol non-vegetarian.

Buddhists typically avoid consuming alcohol (surāmerayamajja, referring to types of intoxicating fermented beverages), as it violates the 5th of the Five Precepts, the basic Buddhist code of ethics and can disrupt mindfulness and impeded one's progress in the Noble Eightfold Path.

An initiated Sikh cannot use intoxicants, of which alcohol is one.

Judaism

Alcoholic consumption is not prohibited by the Jewish faith and appears within biblical text in several instances. For example:

In Gen. 9:20-27, Noah becomes intoxicated from his wine and lies unclothed in his tent where his youngest son discovers him while Noah is asleep.

In Psalms 104:15, it is written that wine "gladdens human hearts".

Excessive consumption and drunkenness, however, is discouraged yet is still not considered a condemnable action. Leviticus 10:9 reads: "A Kohen [priest] must not enter the Temple intoxicated." According to the thirteenth century Orchot Chaim, as quoted in Beit Yosef "there is no greater sin than drunkenness" and it is "the cause of many sins".

Consuming alcohol to carry out religious duty (such as sanctifying the Sabbath with wine) is prescribed and regularly practiced within Judaism.

Anecdotal evidence supports that Jewish communities, on the whole, view alcoholic consumption more negatively in comparison to Protestant Christian groups. The small sample of Jewish individuals viewed alcohol as destructive while a sample of Protestants referred to it as "relaxing".

Christianity

Main article: Christian views on alcohol

Alcoholic beverages appear in the Bible, though drunkenness is condemned (by the stories of Noah and Lot).

In the Catholic Church, the wine becomes the blood of Jesus Christ through transubstantiation. In Protestant denominations, the wine is simply a symbol of the blood of Christ. Monastic communities have brewed beer and made wine.

Some Christians, including Pentecostals , Baptists and Methodists, today believe one ought to abstain from alcohol. Alcohol consumption is prohibited by Mormonism's "Word of Wisdom". Temperance and prohibitionist movements have often had religious elements: the movement which led to prohibition in the United States was started by Methodists and other Christian movements (see, for instance, Woman's Christian Temperance Union).

Islam

While specifically alcohol is forbidden in the Qur'an, there is a consensus among theologians that alcohol consumption is prohibited by Islam because it weakens the conscience of the believer. However, this has not prevented inhabitants of Muslim majority countries from producing alcoholic beverages such as rakı in Turkey, boukha in Tunisia or wine in Iran, Morocco and Algeria.

Wine was even celebrated by the 12th-century Muslim Sufi philosopher Omar Khayyám.

In the Qur'an, intoxicants, i.e. all kinds of alcoholic drinks, are variably referenced as incentives from Satan, as well as a cautionary note against their adverse effect on human attitude in several verses:

O you who have believed, indeed, intoxicants, gambling, [sacrificing on] stone alters [to other than Allah], and divining arrows are but defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it that you may be successful.

(Surat V, 90).
Two others find that wine can be a great blessing and a curse. But the latter is often superior to the good.

They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit." And they ask you what they should spend. Say, "The excess [beyond needs]. Thus Allah makes clear to you the verses [of revelation] that you might give thought.

(Surat II, 219)

And from the fruits of the palm trees and grapevines you take intoxicant and good provision. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who reason

(Surat XVI, 67).
The last two surats about wine make it one of the delights of paradise promised by Muhammad

Is the description of Paradise, which the righteous are promised, wherein are rivers of water unaltered, rivers of milk the taste of which never changes, rivers of wine delicious to those who drink, and rivers of purified honey, in which they will have from all [kinds of] fruits and forgiveness from their Lord, like [that of] those who abide eternally in the Fire and are given to drink scalding water that will sever their intestines?

(Surat XLVII, 15)

Contrary to popular belief, alcohol has not always been forbidden by Islam and theories on this subject have often varied. The verse "And from the fruits of the palm trees and grapevines you take intoxicant and good provision. Indeed in that is a sign for a people who reason." (Quran, 16, 67) is subject to many interpretations

Islam's teaching that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad over a period of twenty years, it is by seeing the actions that people committed under the influence of alcohol (wine) that alcohol was gradually forbidden by Islam.

Other religions

Bacchus pours wine from a cup for a panther, while Silenus plays the lyre, circa 30 BC.

In Ancient Egyptian Religion, beer and wine were drunk and offered to the gods in rituals and festivals. Beer and wine were also stored with the mummified dead in Egyptian burials. Other ancient religious practices like Chinese ancestor worship, Sumerian and Babylonian religion used alcohol as offerings to gods and to the deceased. The Mesopotamian cultures had various wine gods and a Chinese imperial edict (c. 1,116 B.C.) states that drinking alcohol in moderation is prescribed by Heaven.

In the ancient mediterranean world, the Cult of Dionysus and the Orphic mysteries used wine as part of their religious practices. During Dionysian festivals and rituals, wine was drunk as way to reach ecstatic states along with music and dance. Intoxication from alcohol was seen as a state of possession by spirit of the God of Wine Dionysus. Religious drinking festivals called Bacchanalia were popular in Italy and associated with the gods Bacchus and Liber. These Dionysian rites were frequently outlawed by the Roman Senate.

In the Norse religion the drinking of Ales and Meads were important in several seasonal religious festivals such as Yule and Midsummer as well as more common festivities like wakes, christenings and ritual sacrifices called Blóts. Neopagan and Wiccan religions also allow for the use of alcohol for ritual purposes as well as for recreation.

Sake is often consumed as part of Shinto purification rituals. Sakes served to gods as offerings prior to drinking are called Omiki or Miki (お神酒, 神酒). People drink Omiki with gods to communicate with them and to solicit rich harvests the following year.

See also

• Dionysus
• Kosher wine
• Noah's wine
• Trappist beer
• Religion and drugs