Using the causation=correlation rule of the enemy (and remember, they wrote the rules of engagement) we can only conclude that the smokophobe Dr. Ronald Crystal speaks for all Presbyterians everywhere, present, past and future.
Yes, in the real world we know that he is only interested in boosting money for his pretend research but we are not fighting in the real world. We are fighting in the Righteous world by Righteous rules.
Therefore all Presbyterians are the enemy. It's no good commenting 'I am Presbyterian and I am not an antismoker' because Dr. Crystal speaks for all of you. Correlation equals causation. Your rules, Righteous. If you are Presbyterian you are the enemy. No exceptions. No compromise. Dr. Crystal is one of you and you are homogenous. Again, your rules. Deal with it internally, it's not the smokers' problem. It's yours.
If you smoke and are Presbyterian it's time to choose. Stop smoking or find a Christian religion that doesn't regard you as filth. There are a few left. Anglicanism is pretty cool about most things and as a religion, they're pretty laid back. So far. Leave the diktats of Dr. Crystal and embrace a faith that is forgiving and genuine, without the fake science and extensions to the Bible that the Presbyterians sinfully encourage.
Dr. Crystal is extending the remit of the Bible and as any Christian knows, that is downright evil and will condemn him and all who follow him to the lowest depths of Hell. There is absolutely no mention of smoking in the Bible at all. Not a word. Yet Dr. Crystal has brought every Presbyterian into the clutches of Satan with his personal dislike of something that God has never mentioned at all. This is the same God who created tobacco, by the way.
Oh, Presbyterians, your time is up now. You have endorsed and paid for a man who has gone beyond the Bible's remit and you have encouraged his personal rewriting of what is right and what is wrong.
Let's hope you can all sleep at night now - because there's no sleep where you're going.
Hey, it's not all bad news. If you smoke, at least you'll get a light.
15 comments:
What never ceases to amaze me LI is these people's aim to stop smokers smoking.
Why do they want to do that? Can't they see there would be more room in this country if smokers popped their clogs around the age of 60?
They're hypocrites of course because they know if all smokers stopped right now, the tax revenue would plummet. But it feels good to humiliate them because we've seldom fought back.
The only way to stop bullies is to beat them at their own game.
You will, of course, remember the classic definition of Presbyterianism?
"The nagging feeling that someone, somewhere, might be having fun."
There are a number of “religious” frameworks masquerading under the auspices of Christianity that require no tobacco or alcohol as a condition of membership – Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, Salvation Army.
Anon1 - I second that.
It's all about detracting from the real message of the gospel, which is that we are saved through faith, not works, so that none can boast.
These religious frameworks however, promote a saving through works and behaviour. In other words, if you don't smoke, don't drink, don't do drugs, don't kill anyone, don't have any points on your license, in fact don't even breathe, just in case you sin...then you are a 'good' person who will make it into heaven.
If only these religious nuts could be bothered to read the Bible, they might find that the truth really does set them free.
'And from this weakness it precedes that many in this kingdom have had such a continual use of taking this unsavory smoke, as now they are not able to forbear the same no more than an old drunkard can abide to be long sober without falling into an incurable weakness and evil constitution. For their continual custom hath made to them habitual alter am natural [habit alters nature]. So, to those that from their birth have continually nourished upon poison, and things venomous, wholesome meats are only poison.'
King James I of England, VI of Scotland, A Counterblaste to Tobacco, 1604
Almost completely off topic, Mr. Iron, but as you are a bug expert please would you look at this Your Freedom nomination.
"With the realization that the particulate found in cigarette smoke is much too large to pass freely into the bloodstream by inhalation, it then becomes attached to the phlegm which keeps your lungs protected and moist and is eventually expelled from the lungs, having no or entirely limited physical effect on those who inhale it.
The years we have seen a 50% reduction of smoking, we have also seen a huge six fold increase of a number of so called "smoking related diseases" as well as many that are not related to smoking, in particular a marked increase of communicable diseases in our hospitals. Foreign biologicals are traveling to new regions in significant numbers, while consistently blamed on an increase in air travel. But never really mentioned as a possible unintended circumstance, of banning smoking on all international air flights."
It's what the Edwardians believed (except for the aeroplanes, obviously), back in the days when tobacco was smoked 'for the good of your health.'
I would love to know if there are antiseptic or anti-biotic qualities to cigarette smoke as I remember someone linking the rise in super-bugs in hospitals to smoking bans in hospitals. We do know that limited exposure to cigarette smoke stimulates the immune system of children, though which may explain why asthms has increased fivefold in recent years while smoking has been banned virtually everywhere....
http://www.jillstanek.com/cartoon%2011-30%20david%20horsey.gif
Agreed.
The above commenters are making a big mistake if they think that facts and logic have got anything to do with this. We are way into the realms of policy-based evidence here.
Dear Mr Leg-iron
Seems the ambitions of the truly entrepreneurial bureaucrat knows no bounds - dust is to be banned by the US EPA...
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100820/tsc-environment-us-epa-dust-regulation-011ccfa.html
DP
Subrosa - there are already towns where the ageing population is approaching equal numbers with the young, working population.
In order to pay for it all, councils will have to crank up council tax. the younger workers will move away, council tax will go up more, more will move away until all that are left in town are pensioners and of course the benefits brigade. And no means to pay for anything.
Those on benefits then dare not work - as soon as they do, they become liable for massive council tax bills.
They will, of course, still have a 'smoking control officer'.
Anon1 - yes, many religions forbid smoking, drinking and all sorts of things but that's not an issue for me. I simply won't join their religions. Those who do join, know the rules and if they don't like those rules, they can leave.
It's when they try to force their beliefs on those who have not agreed to them that the trouble starts.
The JW's don't forbid drinking, by the way. They forbid drunkenness. An occasional beer is okay with them. They do have a serious downer on smoking, which is odd because it's not in the Bible at all.
DP - they are going to regulate dust in the countryside?
Next they'll complain it's dirty out there and must be washed down to lovely shiny bedrock.
How do they imagine the human race survived before the loonies with clipboards hatched out?
There was once an opinion among many doctors that smoking had a mild antiseptic effect which helped to prevent or soothe throat infections.
Any doctor saying it now would be burned as a heretic.
Niacin, vitamin B3, has another name. Nicotinic acid. The name was changed so that nobody would associate vitamins with nicotine.
If you smoke, the burned nicotine in your saliva becomes nicotinic acid. Vitamin B3. From a cigarette.
You'll have trouble getting your doctor to admit it.
It's perfectly possible for charged smoke particles to stick to airborne bacteria and spores and either increase their mass enough to make them settle, or possibly even damage them by blocking the attachment sites they use to stick to you before infecting.
Viruses could be blocked in that way too.
But I don't have evidence for that, it's speculation at this stage. Unless someone knows of evidence?
Medicinal Smoke Reduces Airborne Bacteria
http://www.agri-history.org/pdf/Medicinal%20smoke.pdf
Validation of smoke inhalation therapy to treat microbial infections.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18778765
I would very much appreciate your thoughts.
Rose
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