From: Dresden, Germany
About me: This blog is about my travels in different countries. In this blog I put pictures I took during my travels, recent or older pictures.
Thursday, July 31, 2008,5:27 AM
Smoking and Religion
Reading the Bible (or its other counterparts), in spite of all that smoke and fire, God seems to be a non-smoker. But, in reality, there's no mention in Bible, at least, where smokers stand. Or, as a matter of fact, whether smoking is a sin or not. There's not "Thy shall not smoke" commandment. And God doesn't get pissed off on any smoker, drowning him/her in floods that last 40 days nor strikes him/her with the mighty lightning. One could say that God gave them smokers lung cancer, as a punishment, but this would be plainly dumb.
I smoked for 14 years, and quited and restarted several times, as any true smoker does, usually. Now, I consider myself as a non-smoker, since I've quit almost 3 years ago and haven't started again. But, as a non-smoker, I prefer not to lecture anyone about the evilness of this habit. Each of us has that thing called freedom of choice, and they should use it. But what I'm not clear about is how religion goes with smoking.
Yes, there's this part where we're required to take care of our bodies, because they are like temples. But how do we take care of them when we are putting in them all that fast-food, all the bio-food that grows or lives on more or less contaminated soil, when we breathe an air filled with all sort of exhaustion gases?
Only this question would lead to a long (and endless) debate, but this isn't what I wanted to start here. There's something else I wanted to get to, something that happened recently. Some of the people that used to work for our company still collaborate with us, from time to time. So is this guy, who is very religious, a gnostic. He used to ask for hours off so he could attend some of these religious meetings, not often, only from time to time. On his time off he did volunteer work for this orphanage with kids with different sort of behavioral troubles (violent, etc). When we had this client that wanted us to create a dating site for them, this guy asked not to be put to work for this project, because it was against his religious beliefs. He's the very quiet type, very conscious about his work, etc, listens to classical and choir music.
Anyway, after few months, he's here again, helping us with a project. But... surprise, surprise: he's started smoking!!! Of course, I didn't comment anything (I'm sure many others comment on him about that, and I'm certain that it annoys him even if he doesn't show it), but I really wonder how does this goes with his religious beliefs.
I smoked for 14 years, and quited and restarted several times, as any true smoker does, usually. Now, I consider myself as a non-smoker, since I've quit almost 3 years ago and haven't started again. But, as a non-smoker, I prefer not to lecture anyone about the evilness of this habit. Each of us has that thing called freedom of choice, and they should use it. But what I'm not clear about is how religion goes with smoking.
Yes, there's this part where we're required to take care of our bodies, because they are like temples. But how do we take care of them when we are putting in them all that fast-food, all the bio-food that grows or lives on more or less contaminated soil, when we breathe an air filled with all sort of exhaustion gases?
Only this question would lead to a long (and endless) debate, but this isn't what I wanted to start here. There's something else I wanted to get to, something that happened recently. Some of the people that used to work for our company still collaborate with us, from time to time. So is this guy, who is very religious, a gnostic. He used to ask for hours off so he could attend some of these religious meetings, not often, only from time to time. On his time off he did volunteer work for this orphanage with kids with different sort of behavioral troubles (violent, etc). When we had this client that wanted us to create a dating site for them, this guy asked not to be put to work for this project, because it was against his religious beliefs. He's the very quiet type, very conscious about his work, etc, listens to classical and choir music.
Anyway, after few months, he's here again, helping us with a project. But... surprise, surprise: he's started smoking!!! Of course, I didn't comment anything (I'm sure many others comment on him about that, and I'm certain that it annoys him even if he doesn't show it), but I really wonder how does this goes with his religious beliefs.
