Perhaps smoking is the most perfect example to show how inconsistent and contradictory human beings are.
Before I elaborate, let me share this experience with you from some days ago...
I was just exiting the main door of my house one morning when a man ran past me at full speed. He wanted to catch the same bus I was going to catch. So he ran towards the bus stop like crazy, knowing it would be a close call. As soon as he arrived, he lit a cigar, smoked for 10 seconds, then the bus came and he threw his almost unused cigar to the ground.
This is the event that inspired me to write about smokers. To this day, smoking has always been a mystery to me. I understand the basic principle: You want to try it because it's something interesting, something only "cool" people do, right? Then, you get addicted, and then you can't stop. Or, as smokers would put it, they "don't want to stop, but I could if I wanted to".
Now... if only smoking was a bad habit, we could end the post right there. But there is more to it than this. It's more than an annoying habit, and even more than an annoying habit connected to a fatal disease.
Here is what makes smokers so inconsistent: Even religious people do it. I have seen muslim women with scarves who smoked. And somehow, this is what I don't get.
You see, it's extremely clear that smoking is wrong. It's unhealthy, causes disease, and I believe that even the quran somewhere states something similar to the bible's "your body is a temple for God" or something like that.
The logic behind wearing a scarf, praying five times a day and STILL smoking cigarettes is: There were no Marlboro, no West and no John Player Special cigarettes back when Jesus, Mohammed and the rest of the gang were around.
So: No Marlboro, no "don't smoke Marlboro". What a nice logic.
I really don't like it when people just switch off their brains like that. I find it especially annoying when you can't have a sensible conversation with a religious person because of something that's "just the way it is" from a religious point of view, yet when I make a point in religious ways (your prophet would forbid it because it's clearly unhealthy), the defense is simply that there is no religious law against this and that.
This is how religious people always have a foolproof (fool proof!) way of going around things. They can just rely on what is clearly stated, never have to question why they do certain things, but never have to ask themselves whether what they are doing might be more sinful than just wearing too many or too few clothes, for instance.
What's even worse is when I see religious people who smoke AND have children with them. Isn't that extremely irresponsible? No... because there can't be a damage to kids when Marlboro doesn't exist in the bible or quran. And there also was no cancer research back then... but who am I to bring up research in connection with religion?
You know... if I was in charge of things, I would ban smoking without exceptions. Not because of intolerance, but for other reasons: I don't like to walk behind smokers who have no courtesy of me. So why would they have a right to complain that I don't show courtesy towards them by banning cigarettes? And secondly, I also pay taxes and health insurance for people who get cancer because of smoking.
One thing many people agree with is this: If nobody ever started smoking in the first place, they wouldn't feel any lack of cigarettes subsequently. It's only WHEN you've started smoking that you become a defender of cigarettes. And that's a fact... time to admit it, smokers.
