My Muslim Brothers were Smoking

    I had a good Sabbath, despite the work, I was able to have some religious discussion and conversation about laws, economies, the nature of life and balance and the way that history and society develop and progress, or digress. Or continue and perpetuate in cycles. We get hard and fight, we get soft and get into trouble because we are squishy and weak.

    I spoke to two brothers who are Muslim, outside, while they both smoked their cigarettes. I saw a few of my colleagues over the weekend vaping, but not smoking actual butts. I also saw at least one guy spitting his dip. Tobacco can be bad in any form, most of us know. It almost killed my step brother-in-law. He got really bad throat or tongue cancer after doing chewing tobacco for many years. He is in early retirement now, after other health problems after surviving the tobacco cancer-related scare.

    Do Western, and more Christian people in 2025 not smoke than Easterners, to include Turks, Arabs, Persians, Indians and Pakistanis, into the Far East? I think so.

    It is not just the Muslim predominant populations that smoke too much. Many Christians and atheists and Hindus and Buddhists do, too.

    Are there things within some cultures that lend to more tobacco consumption? For more people to feel the need to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, inject heroin, pop pills, snort cocaine.

    How about caffeinated products in teas and coffees?

    Anyway, we all know that smoking cigarettes of any kind is destructive, and specifically causes all types of immediate and long-term problems.

    Are Muslims more fatalistic than others? More stressed?

    What am I getting at? What am I saying?

    Food for thought, tobacco for your soul. Or not.