Christian Hypocrisy on Smoking and Drinking
Like Jesus, the world says that life is worth more than food and pleasure. If
the Christians really believe that life should not be put at risk by pleasure
then they should forbid smoking. Smokers reason, “If I or anybody else gets lung
cancer over smoking then so be it and I am putting this moment of pleasure
first”. That is not a very caring attitude is it? They don’t care about those
who care about them. But in the double standards of the Church this is okay!
The Bible says that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which seems to be
against things like smoking.
But smoking very few cigarettes would seem to be harmless except that it does
give bad example. Nobody after all started smoking wanting to smoke more than 5
or so a day!
The Catholic Church forbids contraception because it is treating God’s gift of
fertility like there is something wrong. It is forbidden under all circumstances
so the Church slanders people who know they have no choice but to use
contraception for a pregnancy could kill the wife by saying they are sinning.
Yet the unnatural use of the lungs which God made to breathe air to live is
accepted! The popes have smoked and their cardinals.
Laughter is said by some to be irrational “for it is finding pleasure in what is
irrational and in coincidences. There are many coincidences that we don’t laugh
at. We laugh at the mistakes of others which is taking pleasure in their
weakness and sin. To laugh when a man finds his wife in bed with another man is
taking enjoyment out of sin. Irrational means wrong so laughter is finding
pleasure in evil. It is being glad that evil has happened. The person who is not
offended by laughter is letting you degrade her or him. It is a sin to laugh at
yourself. When you laugh at a comedy on television you have to feel that what
you see on the screen is true before you can really enjoy it so you are still
laughing at and celebrating evil”. If there is a God then this is true. God says
we are all sinners and we must hate sin above all evil. Jesus said that if your
eye makes you sin gouge it out – this was to tell us that we must hate sin
totally. If you love God with all your heart as he commanded then you must hate
sin with all your heart for it is the opposite of God. If there is no God then
it is more important for us to gain pleasure from irrationality than for us to
hate it when it can be found amusing. If you think only of God who is so unlike
a person that it is amazing he has any fans you will not be able to laugh. But
don’t Humanists say that what is irrational is forbidden? But life is a matter
of deciding between what is most rational and least irrational. Laughing is
rational for we are made to laugh. Would it be rational not to let yourself
laugh when nature wants you to?
When you laugh at a comedy it is because you temporarily suspend disbelief and
think that it is really happening in front of you. If laughing at others is a
sin so is this.
Laughter is good for you and that is the strongest reason for permitting it –
God would disagree for he says you must give your whole self to faith in him
meaning you should be ready to die for him if necessary. If there is a God he
will see to it that you can do without it so it would be a sin if there were a
God. He does not allow lies though they are often good for you so he will not
like anybody who does not walk around with a face like a lost eternity.
Laughter is a sin.
ON DRINK
The Bible teaches that drunkenness is a sin that terminates your friendship with
God. It is not a sin because it leads to violence or may start off alcoholism
for it does not have to. Precautions can be taken. It is a sin just because it
takes away freedom and makes you less of a person or perhaps because you enjoy
it. It makes you into a puppet of a drug not a real person if one has too much.
One does not need to drink a lot for that to happen so being tipsy must be a sin
as much as full drunkenness. It would be worse for the person who is totally out
of it on drink does not know what they are doing and that they should not be
drinking any more unlike the tipsy person.
If you believe that human life and human existence matter more than pleasure
then drinking must be always wrong except for medicinal reasons for it is trying
to artificially change your personality. It reflects that you are not entirely
happy with yourself. If you are not happy with yourself then you should change
by effort and doing good works.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that drunkenness is a mortal sin that results
in everlasting torment. If the person who commits this sin dies without
repenting it that person will be thrust down into the flames of Hell to suffer
forever and ever. The person who causes another to commit this sin is willing a
mortal sin to happen which is, in justice, a mortal sin. It is a sin for anyone
to buy a drunk person a drink or for the bartender to serve them drink for that
is helping a person to commit a serious sin.
Jesus however miraculously provided good wine for guests at a wedding in Cana
when it was time for giving them the bad wine for they were too drunk to notice.
Christians sometimes surmise that the good wine was alcohol free or contained
too little to make any impact. But we are told it was good wine and real wine
has alcohol in it. Even if it had no alcohol, the guests thought it had alcohol
and so Jesus led them into sin by providing the wine. This shows that Satan must
have been helping Jesus do miracles if he really did miracles! Yet Jesus in the
gospels had the gall to imply that publicans were bad.
Proverbs says that God made wine to gladden the heart of man. This certainly
permits being slightly drunk. Would you say that God made grape juice to gladden
the heart of man? No but some tee-total Christians say that the verse is not
referring to fermented wine but to unfermented.
Bible or not withstanding, drinking must be a sin if there is a God. Are you
putting God first as Christ demanded if you change your feelings and personality
with a drink and not by prayer? Prayer would be your delight and your pick me up
if you really cherished God enough.
Should Christians stand against the door of the pub like human walls to keep the
customers out? They could let them in if they could trust them not to drink
heavily or much or at all.
Would it be a sin to fail to stand again the door? No. It would be a sin to
stand at the door only when it would lead to violence and there is no need to be
provocative. Otherwise, if the human walls are hit it is not their fault. Some
might say the drinkers have already decided to sin mortally by wanting to enter
the pub so letting them in makes no difference. But to let them in would be
encouraging them to prolong and worse, promote, the sinning attitudes. And bad
example has to be stopped. Even Christians who are not drinkers or publicans are
as bad as they are unless they prevent people from going to the pub. They could
force the state to shut them down or at least try and keep trying.
To buy any drink in a pub even a lemonade is to support a business that spreads
wickedness and suffering. It is assisting in the promotion of mortal sin. It is
a sin to buy anything from a company that supplies or brews alcoholic drink. Yet
Churches use venues with bars to run Church functions and so on.
The Catholic Church teaches that those who are guilty of mortal sin cannot
partake of the Holy Communion. It is the mortal sin of sacrilege to take it. Yet
all who are the cause of the sin of drunkenness are welcome to it. The New
Testament speaks badly of publicans and yet the Church accepts them as good
standing members and communicants. The Catholic Church is too much interested in
getting fans so that it neglects the honour due to the bread and wine that it
calls the body and blood of Christ. God rejects worship like that.
The Church won’t even tell drunks and publicans not to come. If the Church would
not let a man take the Eucharist to defile it physically then it should not let
anyone take it to commit the spiritual version of sacrilege against it. Physical
defilement of the Eucharist is not as bad as spiritually defiling it. To receive
Jesus’ body into a heart that is full of sin and selfishness mocks and defiles
it. The Eucharist in Catholicism is the body of Christ in the form of bread and
wine. But to burn or defile communion cannot touch Christ, it only affects the
appearances of bread and wine. But spiritual defilement attacks the body of
Christ directly. It really gets to him which physical defilement cannot do. Such
is the hypocrisy of the Church that physical defilement is considered to be the
most serious and only the Pope can forgive this sin.
It is the same with other religions which praise the prayers and good works of
the sinners or let them come to the communion table. A person who refuses to
repent a sin cannot sincerely want to please God. Accordingly their good works
cannot be praised. To praise them is to encourage them to stray from God and
prefer shoddy goodness to the pure goodness of serving God for his own sake in
pureness of heart. You do not please your family when you let a big stain stay
on the tablecloth.
The Catholic Church and any other religion that treats publicans as members in
good standing is a religion to be avoided.
Drink is fine in moderation. The law should be sterner against excessive
drinking so the damage that drink does is not a justification for refusing to
support pubs and breweries. Don’t condemn anything because it is misused. If
most of us stop buying vodka that won’t stop its production. We should try to
stop the abuse but it is stupid to think the only way to do that is by banning
drink altogether. The Bible does seem to ban drinking for entertainment. Paul
condemned drunkenness but did not say how drunk you had to be to sin so going by
the rule to interpret things the safe way we see that he must have thought that
tipsiness was wrong as well (Ephesians 5:18). Proverbs tells us all not to look
at wine at all (23:31). When all of us are to go that far it must be a sin to
drink for entertainment. Israelite priests had to totally abstain from drink to
be allowed to officiate at religious ceremonies.
Some would say that our rationality is the most important thing we have so to
change the way our minds work by using drugs or taking strong drink is therefore
degrading. We should be training ourselves to be happy without their assistance
which is a better idea. But there is no harm in giving up rationality within
reason. We like to daydream and lose rationality. Some argue that we cannot ban
knives for some people kill with them for knives are needed but drink is not
needed and so should be banned. It is like religion, something that there is no
need for and accordingly is something extra to be abused and to cause hurt over
only religion is worse for it is far less necessary than drink. But we can allow
drink and still take legal steps to scare anybody off taking too much. It is
only people who get violent with drink or who drive that we should be worried
about.