Ducking under the table he asks ...

I am a Southern Baptist and have never even as much as tried a cigarette. I was raised to believe it was evil (not saying that I still believe that, just telling you what I was taught as a kid by my Southern Baptist parents).

As far as the industry goes, I believe that the government should either make it illegal or leave the industry alone. What they are doing right now is nothing short of a shake down on a legal industry.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Almost every industry is all about money and what they can do to minimize costs and maximize profits.

 

So what?

Joseph Botwinick

 

2/3 of the population are obese. Gluttony is sin. Should we blame that on the food industry? What we buy is our choice. If you go to other countries they see Americans as stupid for buying drugs and eating so much. Should we support the food and pharmaceutical industry? It's called self discipline that we need. You could kill yourself if you drank too much water.

 

Exscentric, your question reminds me of my childhood. My parent raised us very strictly. We were warned that such sins and drinking and smoking would condemn us to hell.

That idea lasted until we moved from outside Detroit MI to the middle of Alabama. We moved from a Missionary Baptist church to a Southern Baptist one. Boy did I get a suprise the first time I saw the deacons head outside in between SS and Preaching for a smoke! How on earth could these be deacons? They SMOKED! My parents had some explaining to do.

Well they didn't have a good explaination although Mother backed down some from claiming it would send people to hell. So it was left up to me at 10 to figure it out for myself. It took a few years.

So this is what I figure and only my opinion. Part of it is cultural differences in Northern and Southern worship. Part of it is differences in the way the different denominations empathize different things. Tobacco is a big part of the south. Less here in Alabama now, than it was when I was a kid. Still a big part of North Carolina where my SIL lives.

For myself, I don't smoke because I believe my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and smoking is a dirty, smelly habit. I did try it once though and figured out that if I once started it as a habit I would keep on smoking. Instead I drink coffee. Coffee can do some bad stuff too, but God put everything on this earth for us to enjoy. He expects us to use reason and comman sense and most of all He expects us to honor Him in all things.

That's a round about way of saying smoking isn't sin unless it harms our witness for the Lord. That makes it a individual decision.

 

I'm Southern Baptist and I've never even pretended to smoke a cigarette. We have one deacon that will sneak out between Sunday School and service to smoke but he goes to a side door so he's not really 'visible'.

We do have a good number of heavy women and most of them are young women. We don't have many heavy men tho. Our pastor and his wife are both in excellent shape. NONE of our pastor's or their wives are heavy.

I don't drink the water.

 

I do see a rise in the use of tobacco products---cigarettes, and mostly chewing tobacco! Here's what I do! When I preach series through 1Cor.6 and such---where the word from the Word is clear that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit---and that its a proven fact that tobacco products abuse our temples---I plead with those who smoke to quit---those who chew, etc---I plead with them to quit, too!! Lives are too precious and valuable--to waste it back and forth to the VA clinic, doctor's offices, X-rays, CT scans---not to mention---I encourage folks---instead of "plunkin' down" $3.00/pack for cigarettes---put that money aside---and at the end of the year---treat their wives/husbands to a Caribbean cruise or a week in the Smokies or something!! Just don't waste their lives and money on stupid cigarettes and tobacco products!!

 

I never seen anyone forced to smoke a cigarette or eat a pecan pie in one sitting.

 

Big difference between food an tobacco GB, We need food to live. Tobacco has only one purpose: addiction.


HankD

 

I hate to see people condemn others by say my body is a temple and I don't abuse it. But then that same person abuses their body in other ways that they do not condemn.( fast food, too high fat content in food,sugar, an occasional candy bar, or potato chips, burgers and fries, not visiting a doctor when needed, etc.) Now a days even the drinking water is bad for your temple, sodas, and even milk has anything it that was given to to the cow(hormons etc.) People use thier 'temple' as a means to bash others over the head, while neglecting to see what they do to their own temple.


People may need food to survive but they do not need hugh amounts of it, nor do they need most everything available in stores and fast food resturants.

About the smoking, I do not smoke either, used too though.
How right or wrong it is morally as I see it is based on culture, as there is no scripture to condemn it. As I said saying it is destroying your temple is not good enough, see all the examples I gave about what people do to destroy their bodies, and you could add many many more. Peopel who think they do not do this probably are, not many ways to keep from it today, the air you breath is even dangerous in someplaces, like living in cities and near some factories.

 

The tobacco companies are forced to finance PSA's condemning their product. The state takes some of that money and basically pockets it and spends it on pet projects within their states that have nothing to do with tobacco (highway programs, educational funding, etc.) In exchange, the government allows them to stay in business instead of shutting them down and declaring the substance illegal, they gov. taxes their product higher and uses the money to fund more pet projects that have nothing to do with tobacco, secretly hope that citizens keep buying cigarettes so they can continue to fund state programs with their tobacco money. In the end, the only real winner is the government who is involved in a ridicilous shake down. Instead of banning the substance, they allow them to stay open and sell their products which supposedly kill people so they can get the tax money.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Big difference between food an tobacco GB, We need food to live. Tobacco has only one purpose: addiction.

HankD </font>[/QUOTE]The point I was making is it is by choice that people do what they do. Discipline allows one to make proper choices.

 

For me, I see that the reason smoking is a problem is b/c it is an addiction. An addiction controls someone and they are then controlled by that substance (cigarrettes, drugs, alcohol, etc.) and they are not being controlled by the Holy Spirit as they should.

Also, it is a poor testimony....