Why claim that smoking is not a sin?

[Bakuryokuso]

Candyland.

Shsssh!!! From now on it's C_ndyl_nd, okay? That way people'll stop googling us up to see what idiot threads we get going here.

Maybe we could just link to the image...

[JacafamalaRedux]

Problem solved! :laughing:

[Grasshopper]

Smoking is like anything else - If you're gonna purposely chain smoke for the purpose of killing yourself, then it's a sin.
Same if you wanted to drink enough water to kill yourself - that would be a sin.

For the record, I don't think smoking is a sin, and don't really have any strong feelings on either side of this issue. I used to smoke, don't anymore, but don't hold anything against those who do.

However, the above is a bad analogy, because you need water to live, and you don't need cigarette smoke. Along the same lines, I've always suspected that overeating is a harder problem to deal with than smoking, because you can quit smoking (hard as it may be), but you can't quit eating. It can be harder to moderate something than to give it up entirely.

[JayneK]

Of course, I agree that it is sinful to smoke excessively.

"The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2290).
ppa
McHugh and Callan's Moral Theology: A Complete Course based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities (two volumes) only mentions tobacco in the context of not breaking the Eucharistic fast.

The same can be said for Rev. Slater's A Manual of Moral Theology for English-Speaking Countries (vol. I, p. 104).

"Immoderate indulgence in food or drink is only a venial sin even though one foresees that he will thereby shorten his life to some extent" (Jone, Moral Theology, sec. 208, IV, p. 135).  The use of narcotics in small quantities and only occasionally is justified for a proportionately good reason, such as to calm the nerves (cf. sec. 110, p. 57).

I think that everyone agrees that the Church teaches it is a sin to smoke excessively.  But apparently many people proceed to make the teaching meaningless by the way they define "excessively".  They define excess as an extreme amount (that is more than they smoke) so they do not have to change their behaviour.  But when we apply traditional principles of Catholic morality to the question, abuse of tobacco means using tobacco in a way that harms one's body.  And we need to make a sincere effort to determine what is harmful to the body.  We should look to medical authorities not to tobacco company propaganda.  For most situations smoking every day would qualify as smoking to excess.  This means that the vast majority of smokers are committing at least a venial sin.

[jovan66102]

We have only recently discovered how unhealthy smoking is for the smoker and others.  Any teaching specifically about smoking would necessarily be recent.  But general principles about not causing harm to self and others go back to the beginning of the Church.

King James I wrote his 'Counter-Blaste Against Tobacco' on the evils of smoking in the early 17th century. The State of Minnesota, IIRC, has required the teaching of the evils for around a century. I'm 63 and there has never been a time in my life that I didn't know that smoking was not exactly healthy. What is 'recent'?

[jovan66102]

Puritanism involves being suspicious of pleasure and beauty.  

'Puritanism is the fear that somewhere someone is having a good time.'

[JayneK]

I find it interesting that so many people have made this point in this thread.  The argument seems to be that eating unhealthy food is as bad or worse than smoking and we eat unhealthy food therefore we can smoke.  Let's try similar reasoning in this sentence: Pornography is not as bad as adultery so there is no need to be concerned about pornography.  I hope everyone recognizes that this statement was incorrect.  

Than I hope you are a vegan and never shove another greasy hamburger down your gullet - because eating red meat, not to mention nearly all of today's processed foods, are just as bad as smoking - and still yet the Church has made no declaration on either being sinful - one is only sinful in the neo-con Church of Modernity under popess JayneK.  Besides, your argument is pointless.  Smoking can obviously be a sin if done in excess to the exclusion of all other things, when one makes it priority number one - but so can just about anything else - including overeating.  There is so much that we do that is harmful to our bodies, especially in these modern times.  Was working in that manufacturing plant that had polluted air a sin too, Jayne? - because I can almost guarantee that the air there was just as harmful as smoking.  What about all of the people who work in places MUCH worse than that?  Are they all sinners too because they knowingly "infect" their bodies with pollutants?

I avoid eating conventionally raised meat (sometimes when I am a guest charity demands that I eat things I would rather not).  When I eat meat I usually eat organic, grass-fed meat that is not associated with the health problems you mention.  I also avoid processed foods. I do not drink alcohol or coffee or soda.  Usually I drink filtered water.  I also work out at the gym five times a week.    I take care of my body because my body belongs to God.  I am responsible to Him for what I do with it.  This does not make me a neo-con or a modernist or neo-pagan or a Puritan or a Jansenist.  I am a Catholic doing her best to figure out what is right and do it.

As I have already stated (more than once), harming one's body is justified when there is a proportionate reason to do so.  Having to earn a living is a proportionate reason.  Harming one's body when it is unavoidable (as in breathing polluted air) is obviously not a sin.  None of these things apply to harming one's body by smoking.  Most people smoke for pleasure which is not a proportionate reason for harming oneself.  Most people have the option of avoiding smoking.

I started this thread because I wanted to understand how Church teaching applied to the issue of smoking.  I did not have anything to prove and was open to the idea that smoking might not be a sin.  And I can see that it is correct to claim that smoking is not intrinsically sinful.  But the arguments being put forth in this thread to justify smoking have been uniformly bad.  My conclusion from this discussion is that probably most people who smoke are committing at least a venial sin.

My point is that there is a matter of culpability in such things.

Since smoking is highly addictive, I would expect that the majority of smokers have reduced or limited culpability.  Judging people's culpability is not any of my business. 

[AndreasAngelopolitanus]

And also on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_and...lic_Church

England and Wales

The current regulations concerning fasting and abstinence for Roman Catholics in England and Wales are as follows.[7]

The giving up of "a particular kind of food or drink or form of amusement" (abstinence) is to be observed by all Roman Catholics 16 years old and older on Ash Wednesday, on Good Friday.
"Fasting means that the amount of food we eat is considerably reduced". It is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday by all Roman Catholics who are 18 years of age but not yet 59.
Catholic "abstain on Fridays from meat or some other food or that they perform some alternative work of penance."

Friday penance may be fulfilled in one or more of the following ways:

by abstaining from meat or some other food;

by abstaining from alcoholic drink, smoking or some form of amusement;

by making the special effort involved in family prayer, taking part in the Mass, visiting the Blessed Sacrament or praying the Stations of the Cross;

by fasting from all food for a longer period than usual and perhaps giving what is saved in this way to the needy at home and abroad;

by making a special effort to help somebody who is poor, sick, old or lonely.

If it were a sin, it couldn't fulfill one's penance... could it?   :smokin:



Edited to add from the Catechism:

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While Wikipedia is not known as an unbiased source, the claims in its article on second-hand smoke (aka "passive smoking") do seem to be well-supported: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_smoking

For example:
On September 22, 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a racketeering lawsuit against Philip Morris and other major cigarette manufacturers.[147] Almost 7 years later, on August 17, 2006 U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler found that the Government had proven its case and that the tobacco company defendants had violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).[6] In particular, Judge Kessler found that PM and other tobacco companies had:

    * conspired to minimize, distort and confuse the public about the health hazards of smoking;
    * publicly denied, while internally acknowledging, that secondhand tobacco smoke is harmful to nonsmokers, and
    * destroyed documents relevant to litigation.

The ruling found that tobacco companies undertook joint efforts to undermine and discredit the scientific consensus that passive smoking causes disease, notably by controlling research findings via paid consultants. The ruling also concluded that tobacco companies continue today to fraudulently deny the health effects of ETS exposure.[6]

[JayneK]

We have only recently discovered how unhealthy smoking is for the smoker and others.  Any teaching specifically about smoking would necessarily be recent.  But general principles about not causing harm to self and others go back to the beginning of the Church.

King James I wrote his 'Counter-Blaste Against Tobacco' on the evils of smoking in the early 17th century. The State of Minnesota, IIRC, has required the teaching of the evils for around a century. I'm 63 and there has never been a time in my life that I didn't know that smoking was not exactly healthy. What is 'recent'?

While there has been anti-smoking material ever since Europeans discovered it, there has been pro-smoking material too and it has been difficult to ascertain the truth.  In the last decade it has been proven in court that tobacco companies were deliberately spreading misinformation and knew that their product was harmful. 

[jovan66102]

We have only recently discovered how unhealthy smoking is for the smoker and others.  Any teaching specifically about smoking would necessarily be recent.  But general principles about not causing harm to self and others go back to the beginning of the Church.

King James I wrote his 'Counter-Blaste Against Tobacco' on the evils of smoking in the early 17th century. The State of Minnesota, IIRC, has required the teaching of the evils for around a century. I'm 63 and there has never been a time in my life that I didn't know that smoking was not exactly healthy. What is 'recent'?

While there has been anti-smoking material ever since Europeans discovered it, there has been pro-smoking material too and it has been difficult to ascertain the truth.  In the last decade it has been proven in court that tobacco companies were deliberately spreading misinformation and knew that their product was harmful. 

You said, 'We have only recently discovered how unhealthy smoking is...'. I pointed out that it's been 400 years. I still want to know what 'recent' is.