Why is Smoking Sinful?

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Lawrence178

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First off, no, I am not even a smoker, but this irks me.

I know it harms your body, but people who smoke don’t do it for that reason, they do it to relax. As long as harming your body isn’t the intention, I don’t see how it could be sinful.

In the same way, eating certain foods is bad for your body, but I don’t think anyone would say that the consumption of a Big Mac is a matter for the confessional.

The list of churchmen that smoked or took snuff is too long to list. But since I think the main objection will be that it is harmful to the body, and a great majority of them did not know that, I won’t bother. But briefly, Saint John Bosco, Joseph of Cupertino, and Teresa of Avila.
 
Gluttony is one of the deadly sins, so that Big Mac is not always innocent.

Serious and knowing failure to take care of your health in any respect is indeed sinful - whether one fails by consistently eating a very poor diet, failing to take necessary and available medicine, doing illicit drugs or indulging in nicotine. The extent of the neglect determines the seriousness of the sin.

Saints are not always perfect, nor did people in the past understand the dangers as well as we do today.
 
Smoking is not a sin. I continued to smoke after I became a Catholic and no priest ever told me it was a sin. When I quit, it was because it was expensive and bad for my health, and most importantly, bad for my childrens’ health. That last was what really gave me the will power to quit.
 
Smoking is not a sin. Drinking is not a sin. Being obese is not a sin. No reason to confess them as such.
 
KrazyKat said:
Smoking is not a sin. Drinking is not a sin. Being obese is not a sin. No reason to confess them as such.
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Depends on how and why you smoke, drink or become obese. If you have a low income and spend so much on booze or cigs that you can’t pay your other bills, then yes your smoking or drinking would be a sin.

If you are morbidly obese or afflicted with smoking related illness and still refuse to stop overeating or smoking (which is different to trying to stop but failing due to human weakness) then your continuing to overeat or smoke are in essence a form of suicide and sinful.
 
LilyM said:
Depends on how and why you smoke, drink or become obese. If you have a low income and spend so much on booze or cigs that you can’t pay your other bills, then yes your smoking or drinking would be a sin.

If you are morbidly obese or afflicted with smoking related illness and still refuse to stop overeating or smoking (which is different to trying to stop but failing due to human weakness) then your continuing to overeat or smoke are in essence a form of suicide and sinful.
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Agreed, this relates to anything in life that you do to excess. Or anything you buy that you do not need when the money could be used better elsewhere. The list could go on and on and on… In answer to the OP, no, smoking is not a sin. Sorry I brought up the other possibilities as they are endless.
 
Is it a sin? No.
Is it sinful? Hmmmm… We have the knowledge that it’s an addictive drug, that people find it very difficult to quit, even when they want to quit. It’s giving your will over to slavery and the cigarette is the master. It’s a master that ruins health, burns up cash, and affects the health of others and mostly the young and vulnerable who are sharing a household. Having this knowledge, then taking up the habit in spite of this knowledge, is at the very least, not very smart.

If a person is considering smoking to relax, I would ask them to try the rosary first. 😉 Hopefully the Mysteries of our faith would be addictive!
 
PennyinCanada said:
Is it a sin? No.
Is it sinful? Hmmmm… We have the knowledge that it’s an addictive drug, that people find it very difficult to quit, even when they want to quit. It’s giving your will over to slavery and the cigarette is the master. It’s a master that ruins health, burns up cash, and affects the health of others and mostly the young and vulnerable who are sharing a household. Having this knowledge, then taking up the habit in spite of this knowledge, is at the very least, not very smart.

If a person is considering smoking to relax, I would ask them to try the rosary first. 😉 Hopefully the Mysteries of our faith would be addictive!
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Good point! It seems to be a lot more addictive, expensive and more immediately impactful on health - and harder to reverse those impacts - than many of the other things that we might do to excess.
 
As soon as you cease to control the pleasure and the pleasure begins to control you, there is a problem.

While it is easy to have the knee-jerk reaction that tobacco is disgusting and unhealthy so why would someone ever enjoy it, that is only the opinion of a given person. Some people consider McDonald’s disgusting, others consider alcohol disgusting, others consider video games and comic books disgusting, and a great many in our modern society have their reasons for considering smoking disgusting.

But this disgust alone does not justify a moral position. Only when we

a) Persist in an action merely to spite others (probably very rare among smokers)
b) Allow a pleasure to gain control of our mind

can we begin to fall into sin.

One big problem people tend to have with smoking is their perception that “there is no good amount” and “any is too much.” In fact, I have found that with a little discipline it is quite possible to enjoy tobacco, be it in a pipe, a cigar, or a cigarette, in moderation and enjoy the mild buzz of relaxation that it grants, which can lead to excellent fellowship with fellow smokers. This is likewise the case with a good drink, a bout of gambling, or a couple hours of video games.

Yet, all these things are to be treated with caution because it is treacherously easy to cross the line and begin smoking not out of pleasure but out of a sense of duty, or when one drinks to drown out the sorrows of life or gambles because conscious decisions are difficult or plays video games because fantasy is preferable to reality.

God gave us all the wonderful pleasures of the world (sex, games, drinking, athletics, etc.) to be enjoyed in their proper context. When these things fill the partaker with genuine Joy by virtue of their proper, balanced enjoyment, the devil is driven away. But when the pleasure is sought for its own sake and not for the purpose of community (drinking, smoking, games, etc.) true sacramental marital love (sex) and so on, the devil rejoices.
 
NovusAugustus said:
As soon as you cease to control the pleasure and the pleasure begins to control you, there is a problem.

While it is easy to have the knee-jerk reaction that tobacco is disgusting and unhealthy so why would someone ever enjoy it, that is only the opinion of a given person. Some people consider McDonald’s disgusting, others consider alcohol disgusting, others consider video games and comic books disgusting, and a great many in our modern society have their reasons for considering smoking disgusting.

But this disgust alone does not justify a moral position. Only when we

a) Persist in an action merely to spite others (probably very rare among smokers)
b) Allow a pleasure to gain control of our mind

can we begin to fall into sin.

One big problem people tend to have with smoking is their perception that “there is no good amount” and “any is too much.” In fact, I have found that with a little discipline it is quite possible to enjoy tobacco, be it in a pipe, a cigar, or a cigarette, in moderation and enjoy the mild buzz of relaxation that it grants, which can lead to excellent fellowship with fellow smokers. This is likewise the case with a good drink, a bout of gambling, or a couple hours of video games.

Yet, all these things are to be treated with caution because it is treacherously easy to cross the line and begin smoking not out of pleasure but out of a sense of duty, or when one drinks to drown out the sorrows of life or gambles because conscious decisions are difficult or plays video games because fantasy is preferable to reality.

God gave us all the wonderful pleasures of the world (sex, games, drinking, athletics, etc.) to be enjoyed in their proper context. When these things fill the partaker with genuine Joy by virtue of their proper, balanced enjoyment, the devil is driven away. But when the pleasure is sought for its own sake and not for the purpose of community (drinking, smoking, games, etc.) true sacramental marital love (sex) and so on, the devil rejoices.
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This is the most Christ like, non-judgmental post I have read. 👍
 
As a heavy smoker my self, and I should know better, I did ask about this, and the answer was a blank no. (CCC 2290) But, gluttony is. Only one small obstacle is making me wonder, what is a reasonable amount of cigarettes? Ten, twenty…?
 
Lawrence178 said:
First off, no, I am not even a smoker, but this irks me.

I know it harms your body, but people who smoke don’t do it for that reason, they do it to relax. As long as harming your body isn’t the intention, I don’t see how it could be sinful.

In the same way, eating certain foods is bad for your body, but I don’t think anyone would say that the consumption of a Big Mac is a matter for the confessional.

The list of churchmen that smoked or took snuff is too long to list. But since I think the main objection will be that it is harmful to the body, and a great majority of them did not know that, I won’t bother. But briefly, Saint John Bosco, Joseph of Cupertino, and Teresa of Avila.
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Smoking per se is not sinful (at least not a sin of grave matter) but excessive smoking is a sin of grave matter. You don’t have to be deliberately trying to harm your body. You simply have to know that it does harm your body.
Nobody nowadays (different in the past) can claim not to know that smoking is bad for health.
 
Doing anything that brings harm to the body is sinful. But sometimes it the matter of the lesser of two evils, such as taking anti-depressants, which may harm the body, but save a person from living in misery. Just because priests of today do not consider smoking to be sinful does not mean that priests 10 or so years down the line will also see it that way.
 
I look at it this way. We all know smoking is bad for our health and eventually we will get a disease or something from it and it will kill us. The bible says the wages of sin is death.

Is the devil happy that we smoke? Absolutely because there’s another excuse for him to give us an illness that will kill us and in the meantime make our lives less enjoyable once we get sick. What is the devils Job? To kill, steal and destroy. Having us sick is a way of stealing life from us. Therefore it must be a sin of some kind. Probably along the lines of our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and we are poisoning it with tobacco.

The pleasure we get from smoking is among the pleasures of this world that have nothing to do with spirituality or Jesus so therefore it’s a lure of the devil. Smoking gives a sence of relaxation which is a counterfeit for what the Holy Spirit gives us. Like drinking alcohol. “Be drunk not with wine but with the Holy Spirit.” It’s not in line with what God wants for us so it MUST be sinful.
 
Aussieman88 said:
I look at it this way. We all know smoking is bad for our health and eventually we will get a disease or something from it and it will kill us. The bible says the wages of sin is death.

Is the devil happy that we smoke? Absolutely because there’s another excuse for him to give us an illness that will kill us and in the meantime make our lives less enjoyable once we get sick. What is the devils Job? To kill, steal and destroy. Having us sick is a way of stealing life from us. Therefore it must be a sin of some kind. Probably along the lines of our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and we are poisoning it with tobacco.

The pleasure we get from smoking is among the pleasures of this world that have nothing to do with spirituality or Jesus so therefore it’s a lure of the devil. Smoking gives a sence of relaxation which is a counterfeit for what the Holy Spirit gives us. Like drinking alcohol. “Be drunk not with wine but with the Holy Spirit.” It’s not in line with what God wants for us so it MUST be sinful.
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However, that is not what the Church teaches. The Church teaches that excess smoking is gravely sinful, and not that any smoking is sinful so you have to be careful about saying something MUST be sinful. In this case that is not correct.
 
Lawrence178 said:
First off, no, I am not even a smoker, but this irks me.

I know it harms your body, but people who smoke don’t do it for that reason, they do it to relax. As long as harming your body isn’t the intention, I don’t see how it could be sinful.

In the same way, eating certain foods is bad for your body, but I don’t think anyone would say that the consumption of a Big Mac is a matter for the confessional.

The list of churchmen that smoked or took snuff is too long to list. But since I think the main objection will be that it is harmful to the body, and a great majority of them did not know that, I won’t bother. But briefly, Saint John Bosco, Joseph of Cupertino, and Teresa of Avila.
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Would it be sinful if secondary smoke gave other people cancer?

What do you think?
 
Smoking every once in a while is not a sin. However, if you become addicted, it is sinful because gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins.
 
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