Published in Liberty Free Press, February 7, 2001 [Also available in an Italian version]
Believe it or not, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), God has an opinion on smoking. In fact, WHO is taking the global leadership in the Jihad against smoking. “Religion,” states the Organization in typical Newspeak, “represents a new frontier for public health in terms of partnership opportunities.”
At a meeting on Tobacco and Religion held in 1999 at WHO headquarters, representatives of organized religions explained their doctrines. The religions represented included Bahá’í (God knows what that is!), Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant traditions. Published under the umbrella of the “Tobacco Free Initiative,” the meeting report is available on WHO’s web site (at http://tobacco.who.int/en/religion/index.html [changed to http://tobacco.who.int/page.cfm?pid=52 in November 2001, and to http://www.who.int/tobacco/national_capacity/religion/en/ circa 2004]). It is well worth reading.
Many pronouncements belong to a kind of super mumbo jumbo verbiage which God Himself must be at loss to understand. Witness the Greek Orthodox representative, talking about the antismoking campaign: “Such a campaign can hopefully be effective only if it considers the expansion and success of tobacco in relation to the triumph of that over-powerful and self-justifying deliberation which divides countries into non-smoking and smoking because of fires built by bombs implacably devastating life, dismembering smoking fellow human beings.”
Other pronouncements are clearer. For the Bahá’í faith, smoking is “unclean and unhealthy.” The Hindu representative reaches the pinnacle of science: “Since smoking induces cardiac disease, it should be seen as an assault on this holy seat of God.” Some religions put tobacco, alcohol, and even prostitution, in the same bag of sins. Holy war!
Yet, most religions appear relatively tolerant and, at any rate, opposed to prohibition. The worst indictment the Catholic representative was able to find is that His Holiness Pope John Paul II called all Christians to abstain from tobacco for one day, and donate the money saved to efforts against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I am no papist and don’t want to start a war of religion here, but judging from the WHO meeting report, not all Christians seem quite as tolerant.
Now, wait a minute! This may have something to do with the convenient omission, in the meeting summaries, of a presentation by a Protestant pastor, Professor Jean-Claude Basset (which is however reproduced at the end of the report). Prof. Basset noted that an “overview of Protestantism reveals a broad spectrum of attitudes ranging from complete laxism towards tobacco through more or less stern warnings to outright prohibition.” He argued that the tobacco control campaign cannot totally ignore the fact that “smoke … is intrinsically linked to mankind’s religious history.” Referring to adult smokers, he concluded: “It is possible to propose to them the ideals of good health but not to impose them, if they prefer other values such as relaxation and the sense of well-being that tobacco induces.”
The WHO is working hard to destroy this sense of religious toleration, and we can safely bet that Prof. Basset will not be invited to WHO functions anymore. But the Geneva pastor will probably have the last laugh. For God, if He exists, must have reserved no place at his right for health fascists. They could not bear the incense smoke, anyway.