Anna's Philosophy

I’ve lived with a smoker all of my life, not counting a college roommate or two. I’ve even tried a few as a teen, but really, inhaling smoke on purpose was something I could never bring myself to do. I mean really, it just seemed like a stupid thing to do. Being downwind from a campfire is bad enough, though I did next to no camping as a kid.

But I’m not talking about me quitting; I’m talking about my husband. I feel sorry for him. He’s going through such a very hard time. I don’t know what is in cigarettes, but I do know that it’s much more than just nicotine.

Over the last few years he’s tried to quit, and he picks this time of year to do so on purpose. If you can’t get to the store or the post office, you can’t buy any tobacco. Usually we get some to get us through the need to cut our first tree or so, or whatever early fall chore that may need doing, but this year my last order of supplies was never ordered. I order most of my supplies through the lodge and I was trying to spread out my orders between paychecks; it turned out there wasn’t going to be another order – I screwed up (sorta).

In the past, we also stocked up on things like Nicorette gum or more recently, some little mints that do the same thing. They help, but only some. It’s the other toxins he’s withdrawing from that have him so badly screwed up.

He gets dizzy. He runs a fever in waves. He can’t think straight. And those cause him to be short tempered to say the least. The Nicorette helps some with the thinking, but that’s about it. It keeps his brain happy(ier) while his body still goes through contortions.

This year, he’s run out of it all, so it’s cold turkey, and sometimes I’d like to strangle him. I think there’s a reason why guys make poor patients in hospitals (so I’ve heard). There are times I wish I could put him in an artificial coma for a couple months.

All day he’s moaning and shivering, and whining and complaining. Not that I begrudge him that, he’s miserable – horribly miserable, but then some of the things that come out of his mouth really make me feel guilty. He’ll say it too. “It’s all your fault. You’re killing me. Just shoot me. I’ll just go find an iceberg.” And others along the same vain. Supper comes around and he’ll complain about that for one reason or another. Here lately, he’ll eat what he can, hand me the plate (mostly empty), and then ask what’s for dinner. Yeah, I know, a lot of people who quit smoking gain weight, but he just ate a whole supper (minus the crunchy stuff he can’t chew). I’ll ask him what he wants. I’ll fix it for him. I’ll do whatever I can to make this ordeal easier, but he won’t say. He just gets snippy. I know and fully understand; he’s probably not really hungry, but yet again, he is. His stomach is full but his brain isn’t satisfied and the only thing he can think of is food. The real satisfying agent isn’t to be had.

I wish I could get my hands on the person (or people) who decided to put whatever into (or onto) tobacco that makes it so addictive. If someone were to go on a shooting spree, why is it they never go to the tobacco places? I’d sure shoot me a few of the chemists. My husband tells me it’s WAY worse than quitting any of the hard drugs and I guess he’s tried his share of them. From what he tells me, he’s tried them all, and when he got tired of them, he just quit and that was that. But this, this legal drug, is running him through the ringer, quite literally.

Oh and this second hand smoke that I’ve lived with all of my life, that I blame for my bronchitis, why am I not going through the withdraws too? Probably because I’m just getting the smoke. Everything else was left behind in the other person’s lungs. Then again, the air quality overall isn’t all that great, but you won’t catch anyone blaming lung cancer on air pollution regardless of how many nonsmokers die from it. Nope, that’s all secondhand cigarette smoke. In a closed environment – maybe. Overall – I don’t think so.

I could probably go on but rant over for now. Gaaa

Yep, that has come to be my conclusion. All religion, as it is interpreted today, has become bad. Man is, by nature, a selfish creature, and he has sculpted his religions to suit his nature.

Thanks to an argument between friends of mine, over Muslims, I have reached my limit on tolerance of religions, the Muslim religion as taught by the Koran, and the christian religion as taught by the Bible in particular.

The argument revolves around good people vs extremists. Yes, good people abound in both religions, but in truth good people don’t do anything to change what they know is wrong with their religion. Not doing evil is simply not good enough. Condoning wrong is not doing good, it’s looking the other way.

So, let me compare these two religions as I have come to understand them, and bear in mind, I have done some research on both sides, but I am not a scholar of either side, so if there’s something I’ve missed, I extend my apologies in advance.

Christianity: I can see Jesus looking around at the religions of his day and seeing the wrong in them, so he managed to create his own religion. It became so popular that it turned into a major religion even today. His first followers then compiled a collection of his teachings into what is known today as The Bible. The foundation of this is the ten commandments, and they are:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

> as copied from http://www.godstenlaws.com/ten-commandments/#.UjOCYbzHRMg <

But then there was Muhammad. As I understand it, he wrote the Koran supposedly as Allah told him.

As it turns out the Koran has very similar commandments:

1. There is no God but one God
2. There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him
3. make not God’s name an excuse to your oaths
4. Be kind to your parents if one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not a word of contempt nor repel them but address them in terms of honor.
5. As for the thief, male or female, cut off his or her hands, but those who repent After a crime and reform shall be forgiven by God for God is forgiving and kind
6. They invoke the curse of God if they lie. (and) Hide not the testimony
7. If anyone has killed one person it is as if he killed the whole mankind
8. Do not come near adultery. It is an indecent deed and a way for other evils
9. Do good to your parents relatives and neighbors (Saying of the Prophet Muhammad, “One of the greatest sins is to have illicit sex with your neighbor’s wife.”)
10. When the call for Friday Prayer is made, Hasten to the remembrance of God and leave off your business

> as copied from http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0705-3281 <

But without knowing more, and with what I do know, I believe that these are not the only commandments in the Koran. I read an article the other day where an eight year old girl was killed by her brand new husband, not by his hand, nor in anger, but by his having sex with her with no regard to the fact that her tears and cries were of very real agony and not just little girl fears. To put it bluntly, he gutted her with his penis. Further in this article it was mentioned that the government tried to make it a law that girls could not be married until they were seventeen, but one of the priests put up a fuss saying it was against Muhammad’s teaching. Guess what, the law was repealed, not that the majority of the populous would have followed it anyway, nor would any of the enforcers have enforced it.

It is a known fact that Muhammad was what is called today a pedophile, but to indulge his sick craving for little girls, he wrote it into his Koran; he made it law. Those who chose not to follow this teaching were therefore less holy.

There are other places where killing is blatantly printed out in the Koran. In order to attain heaven, something apparently incredibly hard to do, one must die a martyr. One definition of a martyr is “a person who is killed because of their religious beliefs”. How can you be killed because of your religious beliefs if you are not fighting a religious war? And who could you possibly fight a religious war against and keep it a religious war? Why, the Christians of course. Pick a ‘big’ enemy so you can die a grand martyr taking out many of the infidels with you – the more the better.

Now don’t get me wrong, Christianity isn’t much better. While the Koran teaches to kill the infidel, the Bible teaches to save their soul pretty much at all cost. Those who wouldn’t convert, were, of course ‘saved’ and therefore judged by God. Yeah, rather sickening, but that is the fault of interpretation more than anything else, whereas in the Koran, it is actually written down. Die a martyr by killing all the infidels you can find and go to heaven where you can get all the wine, music, and virgins you want. If you don’t, you go to the Muslims’ version of purgatory and burn for the rest of eternity.

Am I interpreting this too bluntly? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Does everyone follow either religion to the letter? Fortunately no, but do they change anything? Again, no.

Way too many Christians believe there is no hope for those who believe in another religion, no hope at all and therefore see it as their personal mission in life to ‘save their soul’. Any more, most of them will not kill their target if they fail, but they have made it an art to make you feel guilty for being so lost. They simply can’t see that all religions are so very much alike, nearly identical in their foundation, in fact.

Most Muslims are the same. They may be very nice, trying hard to live their lives the best they know how, but do they make any effort to change the things that are wrong? No, not even when it comes to the death of an eight year old girl, not even when it comes to the subjugating of half of their population for no better reason than they might be pretty and someone else might enjoy the view. Not even when wannabe martyrs abound, knowing full well they intend to kill infidels wherever they find them. No, they just look the other way.

Like too many, if not all, of our governments, religions have become corrupt, and like our government, they need to be purged.

I firmly believe that the Muslim religion, as taught in the Koran, is a religion of killing. I also believe that Jesus saw this and was successful in changing things, but then human nature took over and people, hungry for power, perverted that too. Therefore, it is my conclusion religion is bad.