Anti-Smoking Campaign Is Anti-Freedom

Falsely puritanical dictates of a godless state should not be confused with the will of God.

Regarding a responsibility to family which somehow can cause forfeiture of individual rights, HOGWASH!

Luke 14:26
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

AS VICTOR FRANKEL sp?

said every class he taught in his later years . . .

THERE IS NO FREEDOM WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY.

Christ railed at the pharisees who would dedicate money to God so they wouldn't have to use it in taking care of their parents.

Or did you strike that verse from your Bible?

Some people seem to have a genetic . . . lack of ability or some such . . .

in terms of holding seemingly opposing things in balanced tension.

The Lord tends to require us to LISTEN to HIS SPIRIT in guiding us amongst the paradoxes in life--even amongst the paradoxes in His Word.

Many would prefer a simple black/white ALWAYS sort of mentality and world. But actually, I've observed that the people who seem most discomfitted outside of a BLACK/WHITE knee-jerk response to life . . . actually seem to, paradoxically, spend a lot of time trying to manipulate the BLACK/WHITE constructions on reality to THEIR liking and advantage--at least to their view, construction on reality--else they don't feel safe or remotely at peace . . . though, actually, I don't think they seem very much at peace regardless.

Anyway, if any believer construes reality such that they think that God prefers individual hedonism at the expense of putting others first . . . I think they have somehow ended up with a rubber Bible.

Falsely puritanical

is an interesting phrase.

God sets up government to put some boundaries on evil doers.

Of course, when the populace seems to cross some line in deserving an evil government, they sure seem to get it. And that's no small problem.

But in a lot of respects, governmental edicts etc. are very formalized group efforts to limit evil. They are responses to leaders and/or major portions of the group deciding--usually at long last--that something needs adjusting.

I have a hard time calling most of that "falsely puritanical."

Besides, the Puritans had a lot on the ball and were often not near as prissy as they are made out to be. They sure knew a lot more about the differences between right and wrong than the bulk of our recent generations do.

Do you prefer the INFANTICIDE edicts of government to the NO SMOKING edicts?

I don't know that there are a lot of easy answers. But I don't think blackwashing earnest and more or less reasonable efforts to minimize the hazard and discomfort of secondary smoke in public places . . . I don't think such blackwashing is the most Christ-like thing to do, either.

I'll allow hedonism to exist without it affecting me.
Unfortunately, fascism is ever expanding and if unchecked
is bound to affect everyone.

Ro 14:22 Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Blessed is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth.

"Do you prefer the INFANTICIDE edicts of government to the NO SMOKING edicts?"

Hell no! I am against the war on herb as well as being against such nonsense as forcing business owners to police their establishments for people using substances illegally.
A farce of freedom is all which remains when in the guise of keeping government's grip off the individual's body a woman may murder in her own womb a genetically distinct living individual being while another individual is imprisoned for possession of a flower from the garden of God because it may alter the thoughts in that individual in a manner deemed inappropriate by corporate pawns seeking to maintain the efficiency of their chattel.

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