jehovah's witness smoking ben doctrine.

by pepheuga 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

pepheuga

can any body point me to a well researched webpage about this subject.

pepheuga
Elsewhere

***
Awake! 1986 4/8 pp. 8-10 Facing the Facts: Tobacco Today ***
Facing
the Facts: Tobacco Today
SURPRISED that a demand for cigarettes ever developed, an editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter asks: "Why did a waning vice, subject [in the 1870’s] to a good deal of mid-Victorian opprobrium, suddenly reestablish itself?" Yes, as a recent ad boasts to lady smokers, "You’ve come a long way, baby." Historians credit addiction, advertising, and wars with winning public acceptance of tobacco. "After addiction, advertising is the industry’s most powerful ally in its battle for the hearts and minds of the smoker," reports a recent investigator. True, but is there more to the story?
The
Story Behind the Story
For Bible students the significance of the cigarette era cannot be lightly dismissed. Why not? Because the era—especially since 1914—has fulfilled prophecy. First, in 1914 ‘nation rose against nation’ in world war. Then, as Jesus Christ further foretold, human society was disrupted by ‘increasing lawlessness.’ As war disillusioned people and shattered their Victorian values, it paved the way for this unprecedented acceptance of the cigarette.—Matthew 24:7, 12.
In 1914 the world entered an age of anxiety, and the cigarette industry prospered. Many smokers turned to the habit to combat the tensions of what the Bible calls "critical times hard to deal with." Advertising’s allure and nicotine dependency helped to make self-indulgence the new mood of society. Accurately, the Bible foretold that people in the last days would be "lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God."—2 Timothy 3:1-5.
All of this should help us sense the urgency of our times. Rather than ‘taking no note,’ as Jesus said some humans have done in a time of crisis, we can learn our lesson from history. The Bible encourages us to hope in God’s Kingdom, not in futile campaigns to reform the world—nor in vain dreams that the nations someday will kick their bad habits.—Matthew 24:14, 39.
Can
the World Kick the Habit?
The prospects do not look hopeful for the world to kick its tobacco habit. In 1962 the British Royal College of Physicians first warned against smoking, but 1981 found Britons buying 110 billion cigarettes. The surgeon general of the United States first warned about the health hazards in 1964. But the next year saw record sales. By 1980 Americans were buying 135 billion more cigarettes yearly than in 1964, in spite of the surgeon general’s warning of health risk that appears on every pack! The fact is, the world now buys four trillion cigarettes a year.
Whether you personally smoke or not, the money in the tobacco business these days should tell you that governments and politicians are not likely to end the tobacco trade. In the United States, for example, although 350,000 people die each year due to cigarette smoking, tobacco furnishes $21 billion in taxes. It also supplies jobs, directly or indirectly, for two million people. And tobacco companies are big spenders. Worldwide, they spend $2 billion (U.S.) a year on advertising—dwarfing the combined $7 million that the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association spend on antismoking education.
Or consider two agencies of the United Nations and their embarrassing split over tobacco policy: WHO (World Health Organization) recently announced that stopping the "smoking epidemic" in Third World nations "could do more to improve health and prolong life . . . than any other single action in the whole field of preventative medicine." But the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) holds that "tobacco growing generates large-scale rural employment" in the Third World. The FAO describes tobacco as "a very important and easily tapped source of tax revenue" providing "strong incentives" for farmers "to produce tobacco" and governments "to encourage its cultivation and manufacture."
Facing
the Facts
Yes, the cigarette phenomenon, especially since 1914, calls for facing some hard facts. Some say, ‘If it feels good, do it.’ But the facts linking smoking with lung and heart disease dismiss such a shortsighted view. In England, cigarette smoking is said to kill eight times as many people as die in auto accidents. Worldwide, the habit "has wiped out more people than all the wars of this century," says a report in the Manchester Guardian Weekly.
What about addiction? The hard fact is that nicotine creates a state of drug dependency. And many thinking people feel they cannot afford to ignore the moral and spiritual damage associated with it.
Moral Objections
Christians find the moral and Scriptural objections to tobacco use to be of even more weight than medical or health warnings. Tobacco use originated with animism, spiritism, and worship of man-made gods—all condemned in the Bible as degrading practices that lead one away from the Creator. (See box, "The Sacred Leaf That Caught On," page 4.) (Romans 1:23-25) Smoking is unclean, dangerous, and contrary to Christian standards. (2 Corinthians 7:1) More importantly, addictiveness brings the habit within the scope of "druggery"—a condemnatory term used in the Bible for spiritually damaging and superstitious practices.—See the Reference Bible footnote on Revelation 21:8; 22:15.
Thus, there are serious moral implications in a habit that pleases one’s senses at the expense of one’s health, pollutes the air that one’s neighbor must breathe, and influences impressionable youths to begin doing the same. After some thought and perhaps painful reevaluation, many smokers decide they must quit—for their own sakes and for their loved ones.
Reversing the Process
To break with tobacco addiction, you face pressure from your own body and from your surroundings. As a smoker, your body is dependent on nicotine. You feel the same craving that a century of smokers have felt since cigarette smoke became inhalable. Billboards and magazines dangle the habit before your mind’s eye, always associating it with pleasure, freedom, adventure, beauty, luxury. Your fellow smokers tend to view smoking as normal, safe, innocent, pleasurable, stylish, sophisticated. You have made room for the idea of smoking.
In short, for you to kick the habit, you personally must reverse the process that hooked the world. Practical suggestions like those found on this page can help you buck the world’s trend, but the first step is crucial: Know why you want to quit. "The decision has to be made deep inside," says Dr. C. F. Tate in American Medical News. "Once this decision is made, the biggest part of the battle is over."
And what of the world that seems unable and unwilling to make the changes that you personally can make? No, human society is not likely to end by its own efforts self-destructive practices such as its love affair with the cigarette. But be assured that God promises to "bring to ruin those ruining the earth." (Revelation 11:18) And God’s means for bringing this about—his heavenly Kingdom government—is your solid hope for one day seeing spiritual, moral, and physical health restored everywhere on this earth.—Isaiah 33:24.
[Graph/Picture on page 9]
(For fully formatted text, see publication.)
Cigarette advertising’s $2 billion annual budget dwarfs the $7 million budget of antismoking education
Antismoking Education
7 Million
Cigarette Advertising
2 Billion
(each square equals one million dollars)
pepheuga

many thanks, elsewhere, that's a good start.
pepheuga
Pwned

what i dont get is why dont they ban fast food which is just as harmful
pepheuga

indeed pwned, and many other harmful things too; driving cars, eating sugar etc. what i really want to know is, is it banned because its

a) spiritistic

b) addictive

c) unclean

if it can't be shown to be spiritistic, and can be shown not to be addictive (not all smokers are addicted), then where does that leave the wts. and does the smoking ban extend to all smoking of tobacco, cigarettes, pipes, cigars etc?

pepheuga
carla

Twinkies?
Now What?

How about an old Watchtower instead of a well-researched web page?
*** w54 4/1 pp. 201-205 The Tobacco Habit—Compatible with Christianity? ***
The
Tobacco Habit—Compatible with Christianity?
"Therefore, since we have these promises, beloved ones, let us cleanse ourselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfection holiness in God’s fear."—2 Corinthians 7:1, NW.

IT WAS July 18, 1953, the day before the international New World Society Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses was to open at Yankee Stadium in New York city. Among the eager and curious spectators on the convention grounds outside the stadium was seen a young man smoking a cigarette. Although there were others who were smoking, yet this particular young man attracted attention. Why? Because he also wore a badge identifying himself as one of Jehovah’s witnesses. Upon being engaged in conversation he revealed that he lived in the immediate vicinity of the stadium and had only recently become interested in the work of Jehovah’s witnesses and that the subject of smoking had at no time been broached by the witness who was conducting a Bible study in his home.
Why do Jehovah’s witnesses frown on the use of tobacco? Do the Scriptures explicitly forbid smoking in just so many words? No, they do not. However, the entire tenor of the Scriptures is that the use of tobacco is incompatible with true Christianity.
Christ Jesus summed up true Christianity by saying: "You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength," and "you must love your neighbor as yourself." (Mark 12:30, 31, NW) The use of tobacco cannot be reconciled with obedience to these two great commandments, and that on some ten different counts.
INCOMPATIBLE
WITH THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
To love Jehovah with all our strength means to give to God’s service the very best that our bodies are capable of giving. But we cannot do that if we deliberately engage in practices that harm our bodies, can we? And the use of tobacco is harmful. Researchers, working in four of the most respected research centers in the United States, recently met and went on record that the blame for the rise in lung cancer and certain circulatory or heart ailments must be placed squarely on the increase in cigarette smoking. And a doctor and author, who for ten years was research adviser to a major tobacco company, warns that tobacco contains thirty different substances such as nicotine, arsenic, alcohol and ammonia. According to him "tobacco contains as nice a collection of poisons as you will find anywhere in one small package."
Christians have much and important work to do and need all the strength their bodies can supply. If respect for our bodies should be sufficient to discourage the use of tobacco, then certainly respect for the service of God should be even stronger reason for not using it. The use of tobacco is incompatible with our loving God with all our strength.
Loving Jehovah with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength also means worshiping him with clean bodies. Jehovah and everything associated with him, his Word and his organization, are pure, clean and righteous. Tobacco befouls one’s body, one’s breath, one’s clothing and one’s home. The Scriptures admonish us not to touch or have anything to do with that which is unclean, and this applies to literal as well as figurative uncleanness: "Therefore, since we have these promises, beloved ones, let us cleanse ourselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in God’s fear." "Every defilement of flesh" includes defilement by tobacco. Further, we are counseled to avoid "uncleanness of every kind" and to "put away all filthiness."—2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 5:3; Jas. 1:21; 2 Cor. 6:17; Col. 3:5-9, NW.
Our bodies are vessels for God’s holy spirit, earthen vessels containing the treasure of the ministry, and therefore must be kept clean. Tobacco-stained and tobacco-saturated bodies, clothes and homes are incompatible with Christianity.—2 Cor. 4:7.
Again, loving Jehovah with all our soul means also to love him with all the means we have at our disposal, and that includes our money. Since tobacco is not essential to our well-being, but rather works injury to our health, there can be no excuse for squandering our money upon it. If we smoke a package of cigarettes a day, in the course of a year we will have spent from $75 to $100 for tobacco. Many smoke more than one package a day. How much better to use that money to help spread the truth of God’s kingdom in foreign lands or to support the Kingdom witness in our local territory. Or, money thus saved could be used to pay our way to an international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses, or to provide wholesome entertainment and relaxation for ourselves and our families. Truly, the tobacco habit represents a waste of money that is incompatible with true Christianity.
And further: to love Jehovah whole-souledly means that our wills must be his, subject to him and only to him. The Scriptures show that, by virtue of our having been ransomed by the blood of Christ and by virtue of our having dedicated ourselves to do God’s will, we are his slaves and so we cannot be the slaves of men or of any bad habit. (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23, NW) We must be as free men and yet not using our freedom as a cloak for moral badness.—1 Pet. 2:16, NW.
However, it is a well-known fact that tobacco is a narcotic, the most widely used of all narcotics. Narcotics are habit-forming and bring one into slavery to them. Many persons admit that the only reason they continue smoking tobacco is that they are unable to stop. While some boast they could stop if they wanted to, yet more likely than not such boasts are mere rationalization because of an unwillingness to admit that they are slaves to the tobacco habit. We are slaves to that which we obey, and slavery to the tobacco habit is incompatible with Christianity, which is free.
If we would love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, we must also avoid everything contaminated by his enemy, Satan the Devil. The Israelites were strictly forbidden to have anything to do with pagan demonism in any form, and the law for Christians is not less strict. (1 Cor. 10:19-24) Historical facts show that among the chief uses to which the American Indians put tobacco was in connection with "most significant and solemn tribal ceremonies," which, of course, were steeped in pagan demonism. This original use of tobacco furnishes another argument why its use today is not compatible with Christianity.
INCOMPATIBLE
WITH LOVE OF NEIGHBOR
True Christianity, as expounded by Christ Jesus, in addition to requiring that we love Jehovah God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, also means loving our neighbor as ourselves.—Mark 12:31, NW.
In view of the many injurious substances that tobacco smoke contains, are we loving our neighbor as ourselves, are we doing to others as we would have them do to us, when we pollute with tobacco smoke the air they breathe, although many of them do not smoke but find tobacco fumes very obnoxious? Certainly not! We may blow our own smoke away from ourselves and thus minimize the harm it does to us by not inhaling, but what about others? And all this is especially inexcusable when done in homes, places of employment or public conveyances during inclement weather. Surely such thoughtlessness is incompatible with Christianity’s neighbor love.
Loving our neighbors as ourselves also requires that we set a good example. Just as we would not want others to stumble us or influence us in a wrong way, so we should be careful not to stumble or adversely influence others. Paul would even have refused to eat certain meat if that stumbled another. And as he counseled Timothy: "Become an example to the faithful ones in speaking, in conduct, in love, in faith, in chasteness." (1 Tim. 4:12; 1 Cor. 8:13, NW) Is thoughtlessness regarding the spiritual welfare of our neighbor or fellow Christian compatible with Christianity?
Then again, the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses has gained a reputation for being a clean organization, and it is recognized as a society of ministers. As ministers we should be very jealous of our power to influence others for good. Many who are "conscious of their spiritual need," who are "hungering and thirsting for righteousness," may be prejudiced against accepting aid from us if they note us using tobacco. We are a "theatrical spectacle to the world," we are to follow the example Christ Jesus set, we are ambassadors in his stead. (Matt. 5:3, 6; 1 Cor. 4:9;1 Pet. 2:21; 2 Cor. 5:20, NW) Could we imagine Christ Jesus smoking? Unless we can, we must admit that smoking tobacco is incompatible with Christianity.
And finally there is the hope of everlasting life in Jehovah’s righteous new world. In that new world men will not use any narcotics, for there will be no pain, sorrow or death there. It will be a clean world and its inhabitants will be clean. Shall we be able to enjoy that new world if we enter it as slaves to the tobacco habit? Having this hope of a clean new world should help us to be clean even now, for are we not to live now by the same rules and principles as will prevail then? Smoking tobacco now while holding out to others as desirable the hope of a beautiful clean new world in which there will be no smoking is not consistent, is it?
NO
ARGUMENTS FOR TOBACCO
Some argue that because the Bible does not specifically forbid the use of tobacco there can be no objection to its use. Such, however, overlook the historical fact that until the Western Hemisphere was discovered the use of tobacco was limited to the Indians residing in that hemisphere; so there was no occasion for tobacco to be mentioned or forbidden among Jehovah’s servants.
Then again, some claim that it is inconsistent to be so strict regarding tobacco and yet permit the use of alcoholic beverages, as do Jehovah’s witnesses. However, let it be noted that the Bible tells us that Jehovah God provided wine to make glad the hearts of man, and Paul instructed Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake. Such was fermented wine, for without modern means for preserving it grape juice could not remain unfermented. But if you do not need it there is no need to use it. (Ps. 104:15; 1 Tim. 5:23) Of course, it is wrong to drink too much, even as it is wrong to overeat, and that is why the Bible condemns both gluttony and drunkenness. Certainly the Christian ministers in such lands as France, Germany and Italy who drink wine or beer regularly with their meals are bringing no reproach upon Jehovah, nor are they harming their bodies by following the custom of the people. Moderate use of wine and like beverages is compatible with Christianity, with loving Jehovah God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and loving our neighbor as ourself. But keep in mind, moderation, never once getting drunk!
But tobacco is not a food; it is a habit-forming drug, a narcotic. When first taken into one’s system it usually produces illness, showing that the body rebels against the poison. The tobacco habit injures one’s health, is unclean, is a waste of money, enslaves its users; its origin is associated with demon worship, all of which are incompatible with our loving Jehovah with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. And since it pollutes the air others must breathe, sets them a bad example and gives them a bad impression of the New World society, its use indicates a lack of neighbor love. The fact that smokers are inclined to be indifferent toward the rights of others is indicated by the number of fires caused by careless smokers, some 15 per cent, or approximately 100,000 fires a year, being caused by careless smokers in the United States alone. In Jehovah’s new world there will be no smoking of tobacco.
Some smoke because of tenseness, nervousness or restlessness. Such, however, should endeavor to get at the cause of their condition rather than to take an injurious drug to palliate the symptoms. Self-examination might reveal such traits as greed, competition or ambition; or it may be double-mindedness; or then again the prickings of a guilty conscience may be the cause. For such cases ‘godliness and contentment, or self-sufficiency,’ is the remedy.—1 Tim. 6:6, NW.
Tens of thousands of Christian ministers of Jehovah at one time had the tobacco habit, but, finding it incompatible with Christianity, they dropped it. All who would take Christianity seriously certainly will divest themselves of it if saddled with it. One can stop smoking if he really wants to. The thing is to be fully convinced that smoking tobacco is displeasing to Jehovah God, shows lack of neighbor love and is not good for the one smoking, either physically, spiritually, mentally or morally. Incidentally, until one has overcome the habit, let him show neighbor love by keeping his vice to himself, not flaunting his folly. (Prov. 13:16, AS) As the apostle Paul well said, "For all things I have the strength by virtue of him who imparts power to me." That includes strength to overcome the tobacco habit.—Phil. 4:13, NW.
DazedAndConfused

I know that here is much more to this article than what I read, but I could not get past this one thing said by them"
Do the Scriptures explicitly forbid smoking in just so many words? No, they do not.
Now I believe that smoking is bad for your health. Hell, I smoke. I know how harmful it is. I even wrote an essay for college about the harmful effects of smoking. I KNOW it is harmful!
But what I find most interesting about this article (quote) is that it was written in 1954. My parents started studying with the witnoids in 1966. They decided to get baptised in the infernal 8 day assembly (now called a convention) in 1969. It was rumoured at that time, that in the beginning of 1970 you would have 6 months to give up the habit or be disfellowshipped. Turned out to be a true rumour. I remember stories my mom would tell (even to this day) about her being outside of our tent (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, yes, we camped when we could, which was most assemblies) and smoking up a storm. Apparently she never smoked again, aside from once when she found an old cig and dragged on it once and was sick as a dog for days! LOL Serves her right.
I just don't see how they feel ok with their hypocracy. In 1954 they say smoking is bad, although it is not forbidden explicitly in the Bible. Then in in 1970, it is a disfellowshipping offense? Uh,...HELLO...if it is not written in the scriptures, how can so called christians judge another for doing it?
Sirona

Caffiene and alcohol are OK though?
Alcohol changes your entire consciousness and disinhibits you ! But that is OK? How many dubs have "sinned" when under the influence of alcohol?
They're just hypocrites. Its probably cos the governing body like their tot of whiskey at night.
Sirona
under74

All I know is my grandma got DFd for it and I couldn't speak to her until I was 15 when my mother left.

jehovah's witness smoking ben doctrine.

Share this