Is smoking a sin?

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It can’t be a sin if there is no willful cooperation of evil. I quit because it’s much better for people not to smoke. We have evidence that it is harmful. I also smoked out of habitual necessity, so it wasn’t as an enjoyment that God put on this earth, like having an occasional brandy and cigar with good friends after a meal, and being thankful to God for the company, and the celebratory mood, or having a couple pints of beer in celebration. I didn’t smoke in celebration. Did that make it “sinful”? I don’t think so. I never, even before my conversion smoked “at” God, with a sneer, or some such thing. I wasn’t bent on suicide. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, or anyone else. I liked it for a couple years, then had a heck of a time quitting it when I decided it wasn’t an enjoyment for me. That doesn’t make tobacco, and it’s consumption evil. Tobacco has a place, for those who are able to smoke a pipe or a cigar once in a while in appreciation of God’s gift of tobacco, and in happiness and serenity. Wine isn’t sinful. Beer isn’t sinful. Intentional drunkenness is sinful.

I never saw this kind of stuff during my conversion, and I’d already been a non-smoker for well over 10 years before coming to the Church. It didn’t occur to me in my first confession to discuss my ex-smoking, and seek absolution. If I was still smoking now, I’m not sure it would have occurred to me to seek absolution until seeing this poll, and even then I have my doubts. Maybe I smoked more innocently that others? Who knows? I never approached it with an attitude of sin. Ever, that I can recall. My conscience never bothered me. Only my understanding that I was hurting my own health. And so I quit. I don’t look down on people who still smoke, and I think it’s just awful sometimes the way they are being treated by society now. As if they were sinning. It’s sad.

Do I wish everyone would quit? Sure. Do I think smoking should be legislated away? No. Do I think that smoking is sinful? No. Not unless one is intentionally TRYING to destroy their body.

I’m curious now about the actual church stance. I’m going to go check out the catechism. Since I do surrender my will to the teaching of the Church, if we have a specific teaching on this, other than the elements of sin, which I already know, then I my opinion has changed to that of the CCC, as my desire is to be obedient to my Lord and my Church. I’ll be glad that I quit then, for more reasons than my health, and I’ll bring up my ex-smoking in confession. If, on the other hand, it is one of those areas in which the Church leaves an idea open to personal understanding, then I will maintain that it is not sinful in and of itself, unless it meets the criteria of sin.

Blessings to all,

Steven

PS - all of the RCIA team when I went through were smokers, and a couple priests I’ve met. Just saying…

🙂
 
I think it is a sin as much as complaining about what edible food you got is a sin. “When Israelites escaping from Egypt complained, “Who shall give us flesh to eat ? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers and the melons, and the leeks and the onions and the garlic,” God rained fowls for them to eat but punished them 500 years later.[Num 11:4]” . It’s not a grave sin, but a venial sin (like lieing about someone’s appearance to comfort them). As such it’s really more about the earthly practical reasons to not sin then the spiritual ones (which i’m trying to quit).
 
If it’s true that only the good die young, why then, so the experts tell us, do smokers die younger than they otherwise would?

Does smoking make you gooder? :rolleyes:
 
StevenFrancis said:
It can’t be a sin if there is no willful cooperation of evil. I quit because it’s much better for people not to smoke. We have evidence that it is harmful. I also smoked out of habitual necessity, so it wasn’t as an enjoyment that God put on this earth, like having an occasional brandy and cigar with good friends after a meal, and being thankful to God for the company, and the celebratory mood, or having a couple pints of beer in celebration. I didn’t smoke in celebration. Did that make it “sinful”? I don’t think so. I never, even before my conversion smoked “at” God, with a sneer, or some such thing. I wasn’t bent on suicide. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, or anyone else. I liked it for a couple years, then had a heck of a time quitting it when I decided it wasn’t an enjoyment for me. That doesn’t make tobacco, and it’s consumption evil. Tobacco has a place, for those who are able to smoke a pipe or a cigar once in a while in appreciation of God’s gift of tobacco, and in happiness and serenity. Wine isn’t sinful. Beer isn’t sinful. Intentional drunkenness is sinful.🙂
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I liked this response. I smoked for 24 years and I quit 4 months ago. For me, it *became *sinful behavior; I abused it. Being a chain smoker should be a sign to a person’s close friends that an addiction has occured and your friend needs a serious intercession. In the end, I couln’t quit for myself; I wanted to quit for my son, and for my sister’s newborn daughter, my first niece. And I would still be smoking if not for my new found poverty. Unemployment benefits ended for me about a month before I quit, and with no new money coming in, I had to quit. It’s the hardest thing I ever did, and my dad (God bless him) gave me the money for nicotine gum to help me get off of it.

Pathetic, right? Of course it is. But I thank God. It’s hard to think maybe God has actually kept me unemployed to force me to quit when I couldn’t do it myself. I’ve known others that can smoke for a while and quit right away and never think about smoking again. That wasn’t me. I’ll tell you that I voted “it depends” because it’s sinfulness lies only in the individual’s ability to resist the addiction or not. I have, once, lit a pipe after a meal, after I was off the gum, to help mitigate an excruciating craving. With pipes/cigars I have no addiction–they actually smell nice as opposed to cigarettes (which smell like hell for some reason! After having smoked for 24 years, during the first week that I quit I walked into store and smelled something awful. It took me a second to realize that the person came into the store after having smoked a cigarette. I was in shock with regard to the reek! :eek:)
 
followingtheway said:
Is it?
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I’ve only just noticed that this thread was started August 28th, 2011. I had been smoke free for only three weeks then.

Also, the way cigarettes are made today, it’s not quite the “natural” tobacco from God’s green earth. One of the things that truly enables addiction is the mass production of tobacco. There would be less addicts if everyone had to roll their own, as it were.

Just saying.
 
.

I know for certain that for me it is sinful. I smoked for over 25 years. Allowing such things to have control over our lives is sinful.

I thank God every day for his grace, and the blessed virgin Mary too for helping me stop that terrible habit. Thank you Mary, you are so sweet!!

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Amen
 
I voted “no but I don’t do it.” Although I have done it before, it is a rare thing for me.

Actually it’s kind of pointless for me to comment since I’m just going to say what has already been said, but I’ll say it anyway - smoking in itself is not a sin. I suppose it could potentially become a near occasion of sin, since you might become addicted and then harm your body significantly (although addiction lessens culpability). Overall though, there is nothing wrong with just smoking a cigarette or whatever every once in awhile.
 
Any thing that becomes an addiction is an attachment to the things of the world. When it comes to smoking—which actually does harm to the body— it is sinful to be addicted to it, as it an offense against the 5th Commandment: Thou Shall Not Kill.

There are clear warnings on cigarette boxes which warn people that it contains ingredients which can cause Cancer and lead to death.

I find it rather ridiculous that people keep doing something that may cut 30 years off your life, since LIFE is a gift from God. But I wonder how many people would keep smoking if the warning labels said it caused facial warts and male pattern baldness.🤷

http://smokerslungs.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/smokers-lungs-pictures-11.jpg
 
Smoking in moderation is not sinful. Foolish, perhaps, but not sinful.
 
followingtheway said:
Is it?
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The catechism teaches us:

2289 If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value.
It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for it’s sake, to idolize physical perfection and success at sports.
By its selective preference of the strong over the weak, such a conception can lead to the perversion of human relationships.

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine…​
The CCC regards excesses as working against the virtue of temperance. You will note that tobacco is in the middle of the list; therefore, it warrants no special consideration. It would seem, from what was written, that the product, in of itself, is not seen as being problematic, rather the excessive use of it. Further, you see that it is identified as a violation of temperance. In other words, the excessive use is essentially the vice of gluttony.

1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called “capital” because they engender other sins, other vices. They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.

You will also note that the CCC rejects the notion of the cult of the body in the paragraph 2289, the one immediately preceding the only mention of tobacco in the CCC. In my book, a lot of the modern societal pressures to ban practices that are seen as unhealthy (because of their perceived unhealthiness) is just a manifestation of this “cult of the body.” For example, banning transfats from restaurants, banning Happy Meal toys, extra taxes on sugary sodas, and so on.

Whatever happened to simply teaching moderation?
 
On my 4th day of being tobacco free. The Lord is my inspiration… I just have a hard time grasping the fact that Christ would be okay with me harming my body, even in ‘‘moderation.’’

Please, brothers and sisters, don’t try to find loopholes by which you can harm the Temple of God!

If in doubt… who loves you more, God or tobacco companies? 😃
 
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