Cigarette Smoking Christians

[Drew]

An excellent treatise on the subject. Are we doing what is permissible or what is edifying?

I don't think this is the right question, since it implies that smoking is "permissible". For reasons I have gone into at some length, I do not see how smoking can be properly seen as being anything other than sin. So I do not see how it is even "permissible".

The addiction dimension should, of course, fill us with compassion for the smoker. But its still sin. We would not say that a person who is addicted to promiscuous sex is not sinning simply because the person is addicted, would we?.

 

[Drew]

I trust we all understand that Jesus did not die on the cross just so that "we get to go to heaven when we die". He died to deal sin and death (and decay) a decisive blow in this very present world. Jesus healed people physically. Do you think He did this to "show off" or to demonstrate "He was God"? I doubt it very much. These acts of healing function to tell us what the Kingdom of God is all about - it is about healing, physical healing, along with a lot of other stuff. Remember, Jesus is the "second Adam" - the new prototype representing true human-ness, as constrasted with fallen Adamic humanness. And what does the second Adam do? He heals.

So when we smoke, or do anything that destroys, damages, or mars the world God is in the process of trying to heal and restore, I do not see how that cannot be "sin".

 

[stovebolts]

Drew,
I agree that smoking is a sin. I even got kicked off another forum one time because I said it was a sin.

What amazes me the most Drew, is that people take more offense at calling smoking a sin than they do the to the action of being rude or courteous of others who can't stand being around it, or the detriment to their bodies that smoking causes. Which, by the way jacks up the cost of our health care in the USA.

Seriously, I saw an amount one time a few years ago what smoking costs both the insurance companies for those who are paying monthly premiums whether they smoke or not, and the cost that we, the taxpayers in the US pay for the uninsured smoker...

But for some reason, we don't get mad that we're flipping the bill for somebody to take care of something that is self inflicted.. Kinda like, here, take this gun and shoot yourself in the foot stupid. Don't worry, I'll take care of the medical... but we scream when we're told it's a sin.

 

[Drew]

But for some reason, we don't get mad that we're flipping the bill for somebody to take care of something that is self inflicted.. Kinda like, here, take this gun and shoot yourself in the foot stupid. Don't worry, I'll take care of the medical... but we scream when we're told it's a sin.

As you can imagine, I agree.

Someone told me this joke:

"The husband and wife have just finished making love. The wife then says the following as she lights up the traditional post-coitus cigarette: "Honey, that was great,....and now I will slowly kill myself....."

Funny and sad at the same time.

 

[stovebolts]

Was it because of the gun :toofunny

Bang! :waving

Ohh goodness, I think I need some rest :biglol

 

[jasoncran]

the church of god teaches smoking as a sin. it also in general teaches agianst any alcoholic consumption.

 

[Mike]

Cheap? I wouldn’t say that. On more than one occasion I have felt that stopping at a fast-food joint has cost my family more than it would have at a regular café or restaurant. I can guarantee beyond any doubt that it would be less costly and much healthier to buy groceries and prepare a meal at home than it would be to buy a fast-food meal. Fast-food is just a quick and easy way out and nothing more plus there’s a price paid that goes beyond the monetary.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
What about all the chemical pollutants we put into the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat? I believe that is every bit as damaging to each of us as cigarette smoke. The differences are that first these pollutants are out of sight and out of mind for the most part, second cigarette smoking adds to it, and third we think we “need†all these things. We justify these pollutants to ourselves so we can dismiss them as not being sinful while we judge smokers as committing sin by polluting their bodies. We are all polluting our bodies much more than we need to. But the smoker is a worse sinner and that makes what we do okay, right? It would appear we are as hypocritical as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes Jesus spoke to over 2,000 years ago. <O:p</O:p

Fast food isn't expenses when all you order from is the Dollar Menu. I don't know anyone who would say that smoking is edifying or inherently good, but again I have to ask if it is sinful to smoke if it's occasional or not habitual. In this case, I don't believe it would necessarily be a stumbling block. I agree with your post. I'm grateful that this was never an issue for me. I think I may have smoked 1/2 a cigarette in my life, and it was N-A-S-T-Y!!

 

[Lewis]

 

[Classik]

I see!! Great pic!

The Federal Ministry of Health warns that smokers are liable to die young.


But that pic says: Smokers live in a casket:biglol

 

[farouk]

Took this ol pentecostal gal years and years to grasp that a person can be a christian and smoke. I smoked for about 11 years quit in 1971. Smoking is not good for anyone and folks should not smoke. I do believe it is one of those things that God will convect if that christian need convecting.

We have heard folks say ya cant smoke in God house.... 'No ye not ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost'.....


Good for you Mr. Stovebolts

reba:

Hello. I quit too.

While you were a smoker, did you find it relaxing, though?

I guess relieving stress is a key, though there are other ways, too.

 

[reba]

No Sorta like what Stovebolts posted they are always on your mind... Dig though the sofa to find change for a smoke... The were about a dollar a pack then.. making sure i had some here and there nope not relaxing not at all.. They are nasty, there are still times when i fight :fight the urge to have one. Praise the Lord He and i keep winning the fight!

 

[farouk]

No Sorta like what Stovebolts posted they are always on your mind... Dig though the sofa to find change for a smoke... The were about a dollar a pack then.. making sure i had some here and there nope not relaxing not at all.. They are nasty, there are still times when i fight :fight the urge to have one. Praise the Lord He and i keep winning the fight!

reba:

I see, so cravings still for a smoke, after 40 years?

 

[reba]

Very cool Lewis!

 

[WIP]

I'm grateful that this was never an issue for me. I think I may have smoked 1/2 a cigarette in my life, and it was N-A-S-T-Y!!

Ditto for me too. It irritates my sinuses just to be in a room with an active smoker. My father died after his third heart attack at the age of 58. He was a heavy smoker (2-3 packs a day). Tried to quit after his first attack at age 50 but couldn't. Suffered a severe attack exactly a year later on the same date. His heart stopped in the hospital. He remembered that he could hear everything that was going on but couldn't move. He heard the nurse report to the doctor, "We lost him!" Then something happened and he was back. That scared him enough to quit and he survived for another seven years.

 

[jasoncran]

IRREVALANT rant

thank you american govt for giving me smokers lung in effect. ever since my service in the supposed search of ubl i have contracted asthma that comes and goes and be sure that you (the va ) will pay for all related injuries.,

 

[Lewis]

I think February the 3rd will be 4 years since I quit. Yup I use to surf this board with a Newport in my fingers or mouth. And as for that picture I first saw it in a drug rehab I think in 1995. And I never forgot it, but when I first saw it I laughed my head off, it was a big picture hanging on a wall.

 

[Classik]

I have never smoked before.

But my uncle made a firstclass in smoking degree. He is going for his professorship

I always tried to discourage him from smoking. At times I did this with furrows of anger on my face (I never insulted him - and he understood my heart)

At times in order not to provoke my mom or the entire family he smoked outside, somewhere in the street.
But there is no going out into the street at midnight. Trust him. He smoked in the toilet during night hours.
He laughs idioticaly whenever you catch him in the act and is deeply remorseful.



He deeply appreciates me whenever I frown at his habit.
'I will stop'...but he never does.


The truth is this: if he misses smoking for a day - he will still live.


He has children, and I know how he barks at his kids whenever one of them goes near his cigar: 'Do not even go near it.' That thing is destructive - He implies.

That thing is destructive yet he takes it.
We know we are doing the wrong thing. We just want to satisfy the flesh

 

[Mike]

Ihave said it before and I will say it again cigarettes in 2011 are good. What they do is help remove stupid people from our human gene pool.

Every time I see a teenager smoking I trust cigarettes are helping with cleaning up the gene pool so in the future intelligent people will populate the earth. IT saddens me every time I see it, but the lord knows why he makes some dumber than others...

i am the dumbest but I dont smoke..

Chris, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you were a Darwinian agnostic. So, cigarettes are a way of thinning the herd?

For the 1000th time, I've never smoked, but we should be nice while we're direct about it. Or we could call all people who eat snack food pigs that need to be carved out too.

 

[Pizzaguy]

If you want to compare snack foods to cigarettes, try attending the autopsy of a long time smoker. A friend, as a Major in a sheriff department in the 80's, attended several autopsies. He says that at one, when the doctor opened the lining around the lung and reached in, he HEARD the air sacs breaking, saw dust fly up and SMELLED the filthy smoke's aroma. He also mentioned the blackened air sacs...

We have no smokers here at work, the last two died before age 60. But we still have two tobacco chewers.


I'd rather work with a smoker than a chewer.

 

[reba]

:toofunny Chris that is just plain ol ugly