A point about drinking and smoking and sex

[Clovis]

I wonder if smoking and drinking are really that bad of sins. I am even curious of if it wasn’t more the idea of moderation which was important. Things such as food and drink generally have great taste and we can also very much desire them when we have gone without. Would it not be similar for smoking and drinking? What I am saying is good things and enjoyable things aren’t bad unless they have hold over our life. Sex is similar in this respect, as it is generally sexual deviants who truly have problems in this area. If a person wishes to remain single, simply so he can test the waters without commitment, he is proving himself uninterested in the deeper connections between men and women, therefore he is sexually depraved without realizing it.

 

[LilyM]

Drinking in moderation is very much OK - after all, we wouldn’t have wine at Mass if it weren’t!

Smoking - sorry, but there’s no beneficial aspect to it at all. Tobacco is poison pure and simple, in small doses or large, unlike food and alcohol. There’s no ‘safe’ level of smoking. Doesn’t mean it’s a mortal sin, but it is pretty serious.

Sex? Different ballgame entirely. God’s first word to his creation was about reproduction, and sex is important enough to be included among the ten Commandments, and many other places in black-and-white OT law, unlike overeating, alcohol or smoking.

 

[Other_Eric]

I wonder if smoking and drinking are really that bad of sins. I am even curious of if it wasn’t more the idea of moderation which was important. Things such as food and drink generally have great taste and we can also very much desire them when we have gone without. Would it not be similar for smoking and drinking? What I am saying is good things and enjoyable things aren’t bad unless they have hold over our life. Sex is similar in this respect, as it is generally sexual deviants who truly have problems in this area. If a person wishes to remain single, simply so he can test the waters without commitment, he is proving himself uninterested in the deeper connections between men and women, therefore he is sexually depraved without realizing it.

I wasn’t aware that either smoking or drinking were sinful in and of themselves. If done to excess, then either could be gluttonous or similarly intemperate but there is nothing inherently evil about either activity. In all, the activities are rather frivolous.

Your attempted parallel between those appetites and that of the sexuality therefore fails. The sexual appetite is anything other than frivolous since it is the means by which we form bonds of communion with others and participate with God in His creation. This matter is so grave that your analogy is self-evidently lopsided.

The decision to remain single is a grave one and must be made through prudence and prayer. I’m not sure if by “test[ing] the waters without commitment” you mean fornication as that would be obviously sinful in itself. If instead you mean an individual who remains single to confirm within himself a pathological aversion to society or an extreme sort of misogyny then you would indeed have identified a very serious and sinful depravity.

 

[LilyM]

Drinking in moderation is very much OK - after all, we wouldn’t have wine at Mass if it weren’t!

Smoking - sorry, but there’s no beneficial aspect to it at all. Tobacco is poison pure and simple, in small doses or large, unlike food and alcohol. There’s no ‘safe’ level of smoking. Doesn’t mean it’s a mortal sin, but it is pretty serious.

Sex? Different ballgame entirely. God’s first word to his creation was about reproduction (‘be fruitful and multiply’) which shows how important it was to Him.

And sex is also important enough to be included among the ten Commandments, and many other places in black-and-white OT law, unlike overeating, alcohol or smoking.

 

[Clovis]

I think when I mentioned these things together, I was trying to show how they all can become ruinous to an individual, though I also know they are quite different. Will power is what I’m talking about. The morality of sex is vastly more complicated, but a person either a believer or not, must find the opposite sex more than a desire based on attraction. Many people who are non-believer still take marriage very seriously, but unfortunately without any religious moral, are left hopeless when things become sour, instead of feeling commit no matter the circumstances.

I personally have smoked for years and need to quite, but I always find the possibility of will power towards the problem just as convincing as quiting. Drinking is as much an addiction, but comes a problem with some people, when stress or depression enter there lives, it is almost soothing in a way, how drinking some alcohol relaxes and blurs tensions.

 

[melensdad]

Drinking in moderation is very much OK - after all, we wouldn’t have wine at Mass if it weren’t!

Smoking - sorry, but there’s no beneficial aspect to it at all. Tobacco is poison pure and simple, in small doses or large, unlike food and alcohol. There’s no ‘safe’ level of smoking. Doesn’t mean it’s a mortal sin, but it is pretty serious.

Lily I will tend to agree with you basic points on all you wrote, but there are many priests who smoke and don’t consider it a sin, in moderation. Further some doctors actually recommend to obese people that smoking will help them curb their appetite and the nicotine also has a calming effect on the nerves and is used to relive stress. I’m a non-smoker, as is my wife, but I try to be open minded to all things. I’d never advocate anyone take up smoking, but I’m not one to criticize those who choose to smoke in moderation.

Alcohol is very similar in a different way. It too can be addictive, it to can cause serious health issues, it too has some marginal health benefit in some people. But it can also be easily abused, leads to countless deaths, often of those who are not doing the drinking (drunk drivers killing others on the road, etc).

I think when I mentioned these things together, I was trying to show how they all can become ruinous to an individual, though I also know they are quite different. Will power is what I’m talking about.

I know many people (my mom & my wife included) who’ve quit smoking cold turkey. I think you are correct that will power is the biggest issue in giving up any personal vice. The question is how strong is an individual’s will power. That is where prayer can help!

 

[Photon]

Clovis, your original post was good and sensible.

 

[Scottgun]

Smoking - sorry, but there’s no beneficial aspect to it at all. Tobacco is poison pure and simple, in small doses or large, unlike food and alcohol. There’s no ‘safe’ level of smoking. Doesn’t mean it’s a mortal sin, but it is pretty serious

Sure there are benefits. Pleasure being one of them. We have been indoctrinated to believe any amount of tobacco use is harmful, but the simple fact is that tooling around in our cars is exponentially more risky than moderate smoking, yet no one is suggesting getting rid of cars.

 

[FelixBlue]

As the Greeks said, Moderation in all things. But, as Aristotle, that most important Greek said, there is no moderation in adultery.

So, regarding drinking and smoking, by all means, moderation. As for sex, it must be regulated by the principalism–which means, in marriage, for its proper end (unity and procreation), etc.

Cheers

 

[puzzleannie]

could you provide an authoratative citation for claims that smoking and drinking are sinful in and of themselves? without that, not much point in debating topics which have been covered here so frequently.