Smoking Cigarettes. A sin of gluttony?

[thewanderer]

Wanderer,

Moralia et job lists Gluttony as food…the Church enlarged that to include Food/drink…

You may want to consider that beer and alcoholic beverages are safer to drink than water and in the middle ages beer was a staple since water was not safe to drink…and today

torontosun.com/life/healthandfitness/2010/10/07/15614431.html

Here I used widipedia because it compliments what is known already…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_England

Look, I am in no way trying to say that alcohol is bad. Nor am I advocating smoking, I think it is terrible to smoke and I will never pick it up and I will continue to discourage all those who I know from smoking. I just think that your previous argument made a false jump. You were trying to say that because it is necessary to drink something but it is never necessary to smoke therefore drinking a specific beverage automatically has less of a moral dilemma attatched to it than smoking. The problem is that the necessity resides in the more general grouping of (beverages) and so you cannot argue from the necessity of a more general group to something about a more particular group (alcoholic beverages) within that general group.

Also, I don’t understand why you brought up the definition of gluttony… I have suggested that excessive smoking is a sin of intemperance, (although, of course, addiction can reduce culpability) not a sin of gluttony.

 

[CopticChristian]

Look, I am in no way trying to say that alcohol is bad. Nor am I advocating smoking, I think it is terrible to smoke and I will never pick it up and I will continue to discourage all those who I know from smoking. I just think that your previous argument made a false jump. You were trying to say that because it is necessary to drink something but it is never necessary to smoke therefore drinking a specific beverage automatically has less of a moral dilemma attatched to it than smoking. The problem is that the necessity resides in the more general grouping of (beverages) and so you cannot argue from the necessity of a more general group to something about a more particular group (alcoholic beverages) within that general group.

Also, I don’t understand why you brought up the definition of gluttony… I have suggested that excessive smoking is a sin of intemperance, (although, of course, addiction can reduce culpability) not a sin of gluttony.

Wand,

The Church made gluttony Food/Drink…

Now we must eat.

We must drink…water…however you can overdose on water, juice, soda, and alcohol not necessarily needed is not a bad thing in moderation and may be a good thing when considered for the health effects and the heart…so alcohol can be considered an essential drink…

I think as I think…You think as you think…what is it you don’t understand about what it is you ask. Ask a direct question for a direct answer.

I believe that the Church has no moral stance on smoking cigarettes since it is legal…but that doesn’t make it healthy…and you would be correct intemperance combined with ignorance…in my opinion…

 

[thewanderer]

Cloud,

You don’t have to go to journals, studies, peer review…wow, folks on this thread have this peer review thing out of whack…this is all public information…just go to the CDC. Facts are facts. You don’t need peer review, you don’t need journals, you don’t need studies…they have all been done…Cigarettes kill you…

cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/health/attrdeaths/index.htm

cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5802a2.htm

Now if I tell you that no animal eats tobacco because they know that it is a poison and if I tell you that tobacco is a natural insecticide or herbal DDT that kills Aphids and that the smartest animal on the planet, the Orangatan won’t eat it…

If I tell you that the Bible tells us to have dominion over the animals and if we eat and smoke this stuff that they won’t touch…how can we, smarter than they are, eat or smoke this stuff and have dominion…those monkeys will be laughing at us…

Is that medical advice…?

CopticChristian, I am well aware that smoking causes all sorts of serious health problems. The sites you linked to seemed to only say that smoking causes health issues, including death, which I already know and agree with. That is not at all the point I brought into question. I was suggesting that from what I have heard it is a possibility that the vast majority of the health problems associated with smoking come with those who smoke around a pack a day or more. However, I know that so far I have not seen this idea substantiated and so would love it if people provided links to studies which show otherwise so that I can correct my misunderstanding on this matter.

 

[CopticChristian]

CopticChristian, I am well aware that smoking causes all sorts of serious health problems. The sites you linked to seemed to only say that smoking causes health issues, including death, which I already know and agree with. That is not at all the point I brought into question. I was suggesting that from what I have heard it is a possibility that the vast majority of the health problems associated with smoking come with those who smoke around a pack a day or more. However, I know that so far I have not seen this idea substantiated and so would love it if people provided links to studies which show otherwise so that I can correct my misunderstanding on this matter.

Wanderer,

This assumes that lungs come to the cigarrette as lungs that are of one kind…

Lungs with asthma
Lungs with cysts
Lungs with diabetes
Lungs with autoimmune disease
Lungs with heart failure
Lungs with chronic alcohol use
black lungs
yellow lungs
female lungs
one lung
two lungs
lungs with family history of cancer
lungs with personal history of cancer
lungs with personal history of lung cancer
and on and on…

What is it you really want to know?

 

[thewanderer]

Wand,

The Church made gluttony Food/Drink…

Again, why are you pointing this out? I have conceded that point and I agree with this. However, the Church talked about excessive smoking being sinful in the CCC under the section on intemperance so it seems reasonable to say that excessive smoking falls under the sin of intemperance.

Now we must eat.

We must drink…water…however you can overdose on water, juice, soda, and alcohol not necessarily needed is not a bad thing in moderation and may be a good thing when considered for the health effects and the heart…so alcohol can be considered an essential drink…

I’m sorry, but it is absolutely false to claim that alcohol is an essential drink. Yes, alchol can provide health benefits, but just because something has health benefits does not make it essential. Alcohol is in no way shape or form a necessity for human life. Is it beneficial? Absolutely, when imbibed moderately. Is it a good thing? Absolutely. But is it essential? Absolutely not.

I think as I think…You think as you think…what is it you don’t understand about what it is you ask. Ask a direct question for a direct answer.

I believe that the Church has no moral stance on smoking cigarettes since it is legal…but that doesn’t make it healthy…and you would be correct intemperance combined with ignorance…in my opinion…

Did you see the quote earlier in this thread from the CCC? The Church has clearly stated that smoking in excess is sinful, just as drinking excessively is sinful and eating excessively is sinful. Here is the quote again

2290 The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine.

As for asking a direct question, well, I wasn’t trying to ask you a question necessarily, I was just pointing something out for people in general to consider, namely, that I believe your point about food and drink being neccessary isn’t really relevant to determining the morality of alcohol and cigarettes. I tried to explain why I don’t think it is relevant. If you think my reasoning is incorrect or are confused about what I was saying please feel free to say so.

 

[thewanderer]

Wanderer,

This assumes that lungs come to the cigarrette as lungs that are of one kind…

Lungs with asthma
Lungs with cysts
Lungs with diabetes
Lungs with autoimmune disease
Lungs with heart failure
Lungs with chronic alcohol use
black lungs
yellow lungs
female lungs
one lung
two lungs
lungs with family history of cancer
lungs with personal history of cancer
lungs with personal history of lung cancer
and on and on…

What is it you really want to know?

Well of course smoking will have different effects on different people, because smoking is not the only factor for those health issues. All I was saying was that I had heard that the studies that showed a link between smoking and lung cancer only showed a significant rise in the risk of lung cancer for those who smoked around a pack a day or more. I never double checked to see if that was true, so if anybody has a link to a study that shows a significant rise in the risk of lung cancer for those who smoke less than a pack a day I would love for them to post it both so that my current understanding can be corrected and so that no one reading this thread will be left with false information. Itss not as if I am desperately seeking out proof that this statement is wrong, but rather just that if it is incorrect I would love for someone to correct me on it because I don’t like believing false things to be true

 

[thistle]

Again, why are you pointing this out? I have conceded that point and I agree with this. However, the Church talked about excessive smoking being sinful in the CCC under the section on intemperance so it seems reasonable to say that excessive smoking falls under the sin of intemperance.

I’m sorry, but it is absolutely false to claim that alcohol is an essential drink. Yes, alchol can provide health benefits, but just because something has health benefits does not make it essential. Alcohol is in no way shape or form a necessity for human life. Is it beneficial? Absolutely, when imbibed moderately. Is it a good thing? Absolutely. But is it essential? Absolutely not.

Did you see the quote earlier in this thread from the CCC? The Church has clearly stated that smoking in excess is sinful, just as drinking excessively is sinful and eating excessively is sinful. Here is the quote again

As for asking a direct question, well, I wasn’t trying to ask you a question necessarily, I was just pointing something out for people in general to consider, namely, that I believe your point about food and drink being neccessary isn’t really relevant to determining the morality of alcohol and cigarettes. I tried to explain why I don’t think it is relevant. If you think my reasoning is incorrect or are confused about what I was saying please feel free to say so.

Of course alcohol is not a necessary drink but it was good enough for Jesus and so is fine with me too.

 

[CopticChristian]

Well of course smoking will have different effects on different people, because smoking is not the only factor for those health issues. All I was saying was that I had heard that the studies that showed a link between smoking and lung cancer only showed a significant rise in the risk of lung cancer for those who smoked around a pack a day or more. I never double checked to see if that was true, so if anybody has a link to a study that shows a significant rise in the risk of lung cancer for those who smoke less than a pack a day I would love for them to post it both so that my current understanding can be corrected and so that no one reading this thread will be left with false information. Itss not as if I am desperately seeking out proof that this statement is wrong, but rather just that if it is incorrect I would love for someone to correct me on it because I don’t like believing false things to be true

Wanderer,

Try this…

cdc.gov/excite/classroom/smoking_a.pdf

O 16. What does this odds ratio tell us about the relationship between smoking and lung cancer?

Answer:
The odds of being a smoker are 9.1 times higher for case-subjects (cigarette smokers) than for controls (nonsmokers). Assuming that this study is not biased, one can infer that the risk of lung cancer is 9 times higher for cigarette smokers than for nonsmokers.
O 17. Complete Table 2 by calculating the odds ratio for each category of cigarette consumption.

Answer:
1–14 cigarettes: (565/7) ÷ (706/61) = (565 x 61) ÷ (706 x 7) = 7.0
15–24 cigarettes: (445 x 61) ÷ (408 x 7) = 9.5 25+ cigarettes: (340 x 61) ÷ (182 x 7) = 16.3
All Smokers: (1350 x 61) ÷ (1296 x 7) = 9.1

If you smoke 1-14 cigareetes a day your risk for lung cancer is 7 times greaer than a non smoker

when compared to

someone smoking 15-24 cigarettes a day that has a risk 16.3 times greater for lung cancer than a non-smoker…

Ok…

 

[thewanderer]

Wanderer,

Try this…

cdc.gov/excite/classroom/smoking_a.pdf

If you smoke 1-14 cigareetes a day your risk for lung cancer is 7 times greaer than a non smoker

when compared to

someone smoking 15-24 cigarettes a day that has a risk 16.3 times greater for lung cancer than a non-smoker…

Ok…

Thanks.

 

[thewanderer]

Of course alcohol is not a necessary drink but it was good enough for Jesus and so is fine with me too.

Like I said, I am not trying to make an argument against alcohol. I already said that alcohol, in moderation, is good and beneficial, so I’m not really sure why you are bringing this up.

 

[jimmy]

Wanderer,

Try this…

cdc.gov/excite/classroom/smoking_a.pdf

If you smoke 1-14 cigareetes a day your risk for lung cancer is 7 times greaer than a non smoker

when compared to

someone smoking 15-24 cigarettes a day that has a risk 16.3 times greater for lung cancer than a non-smoker…

Ok…

Those ranges are so large that it means nothing. How can you clump someone who smokes one cigarette a day in with someone who smokes 14? How can you give the same odds for both? The way the data is presented implies that if I smoke one cigarette per day I am 7 times more likely to get cancer. But if I smoke 14 I am still 7 times more likely.

 

[thewanderer]

Those ranges are so large that it means nothing. How can you clump someone who smokes one cigarette a day in with someone who smokes 14? How can you give the same odds for both? The way the data is presented implies that if I smoke one cigarette per day I am 7 times more likely to get cancer. But if I smoke 14 I am still 7 times more likely.

Its still not completely meaningless. obviously the less you smoke in a particular range the less your chances will be, but the post certainly helps with the claim that I had heard that significant rise in risk only starts when people smoke about a pack a day or more, I don’t know about you, but I would consider a 7% increase to be significant, sure not nearly as bad as a 16% increase, but still significant.

 

[thistle]

It seems pointless arguing about how many cigarettes per day cause whatever amount of health damage. The bottom line is that any cigarettes daily (even one) is not good for you. It is even proven that passive smoking can damage your health.

The thread title is asking if smoking is a sin of gluttony and the answer to that is no.

 

[CopticChristian]

Those ranges are so large that it means nothing. How can you clump someone who smokes one cigarette a day in with someone who smokes 14? How can you give the same odds for both? The way the data is presented implies that if I smoke one cigarette per day I am 7 times more likely to get cancer. But if I smoke 14 I am still 7 times more likely.

Jimmy,

Glad you found it unhelpful. Guess you did not ask for help. Meaning nothing, then you should ignore it, yet you chose to criticize help you did not ask for that you found unhelpful. This suggests that the information had purpose since you took the time to weigh it judge it as unhelpful, then took the time to register it as meaningless and then thought about what it might mean. Why did you put so much energy into something meaningless and unhelpful?

These are not my odds. The implicaiton is risk that you found unhelpful and meaningless. Why didn’t you ignore it?

Go buy a carton of cigs…

 

[jimmy]

Jimmy,

Glad you found it unhelpful. Guess you did not ask for help. Meaning nothing, then you should ignore it, yet you chose to criticize help you did not ask for that you found unhelpful. This suggests that the information had purpose since you took the time to weigh it judge it as unhelpful, then took the time to register it as meaningless and then thought about what it might mean. Why did you put so much energy into something meaningless and unhelpful?

These are not my odds. The implicaiton is risk that you found unhelpful and meaningless. Why didn’t you ignore it?

Go buy a carton of cigs…

Oh so now a scientific study is uncriticizable? Thanks for informing me about the rejection of the scientific method. All join the new religion we call science, even though we no longer accept criticism.

 

[CopticChristian]

Oh so now a scientific study is uncriticizable? Thanks for informing me about the rejection of the scientific method. All join the new religion we call science, even though we no longer accept criticism.

Jimmy,

There was nothing Scientific about it, in the sense that it was not necessarily a scientic point of information other than to say that it is based on science. If you open the document that it came from you will find that it says…it is a teaching tool. It was not meant to give you access to scientific data that it is based on just an educated understanding of what smoking might do based on data already collected.

The teacher note says this…

*This exercise is adapted from a case study used each year in CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Summer Course, which trains incoming EIS Officers. This adaptation was created by Dr. Natale A. Carasali while at CDC in spring 2001, fulfilling a medical epidemiology elective during his final year of training at the University of Nevada School of Medicine.

*Cigarette Smoking and Lung Cancer

A Disease Detectives Exercise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Teacher’s Guide and Answer Key**

The teacher note explains…

Teacher’s Note:
The odds ratio measures the association (relationship) between an exposure and a disease. In general, the greater the value of the odds ratio, the stronger the association. In this study, the odds ratio compares the odds that a person who has lung cancer smokes cigarettes with the odds that a person who does not have lung cancer does not smoke cigarettes

and

Teacher’s Note:
A correlation such as this, in which an increase in exposure to a risk factor increases the odds of disease, is known as a dose-response relationship. This relationship indicates a strong association between the risk factor and the disease.

and again

Teacher’s Note:
As a general rule, we like to see response rates of 80% or better in epidemiologic studies.
However, a 68% response rate is good for a survey conducted through the mail. If
possible, investigators characterize the nonrespondents as best they can, to determine
whether they differ from respondents on important factors.hospitalized patients, and hospitalized patients are more likely than the general population to smoke and to consume alcohol, a selection bias exists. In this case, the bias would cause underestimation of the risk associated with smoking.

Information bias occurs when case-subjects and controls recall their histories with differing degrees of accuracy. Such bias is not highly likely in this study, for two reasons. First, since the hypothesis linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer was not widely known at the time, neither group was more likely than the other to focus primarily on their smoking histories. Second, both case-subjects and controls were hospitalized, so each person had the same chance for introspection about previous exposures or events.
Confounding can occur if a variable is 1) associated with, but not a consequence of, an exposure and 2) associated with the outcome independent of its association with the exposure. Age is a possible confounder in this study because it is associated with an increased likelihood of smoking, but is not a consequence of it, and it is associated with lung cancer independent of its association with smoking. It is, therefore, possible that the observed association between smoking and lung cancer might simply reflect an association between aging and lung cancer.

Investigator error due to faulty data entry or inappropriate analysis is always possible, although it is unlikely in this study because the authors were well known for careful methods and proper analysis.

If you want to criticize something then criticize the attempt to teach someone as they are doing.

and

If you see it is a problem, then a problem without a solution remains a problem.

How would you teach it?