Ignoring threats to your health a sin?

[Angel7]

Me, I really like seafood. but since the gulf oil spill & since I found out that many imported seafood are VERY unhealthy (use of anti-biotics that I think are illegal in some countries/cancer causing/etc… [only way for the animals to survive, cause the water is disgusting (sewage i think)]) would it be sin to ignore all these risks to eat seafood.
I’ve asked a similar question before and i believe the response was mainly ‘damaging/risking damage to yourself isn’t a sin’.

in the other thread i was talking about smoking/drinking/sports risks, etc…
but since the risks i mentioned about the seafood sound more serious, is the answer different?

thank you

 

[grasscutter]

Gosh, I don’t know about the sin part, but why on earth would you find that particular seafood appetizing?!?

I also love seafood! Are there alternatives for you? Products sourced elsewhere? Maybe from Alaska or the pacific northwest? Although perhaps that might be contaminated in other ways.

Either way it’s a bummer for people who love seafood.

 

[baltobetsy]

Your parents pay a lot of taxes to the government for services like the Food and Drug Administration. I think you can trust them to do their job. Seafood must pass many inspections before it can be sold.

 

[grasscutter]

Your parents pay a lot of taxes to the government for services like the Food and Drug Administration. I think you can trust them to do their job. Seafood must pass many inspections before it can be sold.

Do you mean my parents? Do you mean the FDA that approved Vioxx and Prepulsid? In any case you must be referring to the OP, since I’m Canadian and middle-aged.

(This is definitely not American bashing, the Canadian government has also been remiss on safety relating to food and drugs.)

 

[thistle]

Me, I really like seafood. but since the gulf oil spill & since I found out that many imported seafood are VERY unhealthy (use of anti-biotics that I think are illegal in some countries/cancer causing/etc… [only way for the animals to survive, cause the water is disgusting (sewage i think)]) would it be sin to ignore all these risks to eat seafood.
I’ve asked a similar question before and i believe the response was mainly ‘damaging/risking damage to yourself isn’t a sin’.

in the other thread i was talking about smoking/drinking/sports risks, etc…
but since the risks i mentioned about the seafood sound more serious, is the answer different?

thank you

None of what you say is a sin.

 

[Angel7]

Your parents pay a lot of taxes to the government for services like the Food and Drug Administration. I think you can trust them to do their job. Seafood must pass many inspections before it can be sold.

I’ve heard that the FDA doesn’t have the resources to check everything

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Me, I really like seafood. but since the gulf oil spill & since I found out that many imported seafood are VERY unhealthy (use of anti-biotics that I think are illegal in some countries/cancer causing/etc… [only way for the animals to survive, cause the water is disgusting (sewage i think)]) would it be sin to ignore all these risks to eat seafood…

The question you ask depends on your level of certainty that the activity in question (eating seafood) really is harmful to your health. In the particular case mentioned, that level of certainty is by no means assured because you do not have incontrovertible evidence that harm is certain. A more proper question would be “is eating seafood really harmful to my health”. And that question you would probably have to ask in a different forum - not here - because it is not a question about morals. And even if you were relatively certain that it was causing harm to your health, then it would still be a matter of personal judgment on your part if that was a risk you were willing to take. Take for example the numerous threads on cigarette smoking that appear from time to time in this forum. In that case the medical evidence for harm is much stronger. Yet even there the question of right and wrong is still left up to individual judgment.

 

[IBombAtomically]

About the smoking/alcoholism thing, I’d say it is a sin because it is a direct act which destroys one’s body (a temple of the Lord, which is pretty big stuff). Also, it falls under the Thou Shall Not Kill commandment, because blah blah blah you’re pretty much slowly injuring your body to the point where it could die, or something to that extent. Not trying to be rude, I just forget the exact reasoning.

How we’re punished for these sins is another thing entirely. A bunch of things can affect our culpability. The Catechism explains this nicely but I can’t remember exactly what the “extenuating circumstances” were. Still a sin, though.

Sports injuries, man I don’t even know. Really, there’s risk involved in anything you go (Is it a sin to drive a car because there are so many traffic fatalities? Probably a stretch.) I guess if you’re going out on the field with the INTENTION of getting seriously and potentially fatally hurt, rather than scoring a goal, God might be like “ummm NO.”

The fish thing, I don’t think is a sin, because

1. eating fish is supposed to be very healthy, so you’re trying to do something that’s good for you
2. the intention is nourishment, not to, I dunno, purposely eat swordfish 3 meals a day to get high off the mercury (or whatever!) ;
3. we have no way of knowing if the particular fish we’re eating is contaminated. Since it passed whatever regulations to get on the store shelves, we can only trust that it’s relatively safe.

I’d say, when in doubt, maybe avoid the fish species we KNOW to be really jacked-up. Don’t stress about it too much. Sorry if I got anything wrong! Much love