My religion forbids gambling or games of chance.

[mikever]

"Just fyi, the Bible never forbids gambling. Basically, all it says is to be responsible with your money, and you can be a poker player and be responsible with money."

Obviously many Christians would disagree with me on this point. It's just my take.

[poker-penguin]

[ QUOTE ]
If you enter a tournament for a fee with the winner receiving a prize, and every entrant was as skilled as each other, what would happen? Wouldn't they pretty much win the same amount of games? And if they played the tournament 100 times over, the only clear winner would be the tournament organizer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most likely one of the equally skilled players would win something like 4 tournaments, and write become an expert and (ghost)write a book about pool.

But seriously, the only person who can really answer the question is your chosen spiritual advisor / leader.

Personally I don't think the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) was down with poker but that's not an expert opinion at all.

[Megenoita]

I'm a conservative born-again Christian. I believe the Bible and all that it says. When I started playing poker, I talked with a lot of pastors and leaders. While the Bible does not condemn or even mention gambling, gambling has in church history been considered a sin worthy of church discipline. This doesn't make it sin, only that it historically has been treated as such. The church has been wrong on a lot of things. What matters is what the Bible says.

The Bible teaches against valuing money too much, desiring to get rich quickly, being greedy, being a poor steward. If you can play a skill game and win consistently, and have none of these issues reigning in your heart, then you can play poker in faith.

Personally, poker for me is not gambling anymore than any other business investment. I don't believe I'm greedy or worship money. So my conscience is clear.

Something you'll have to consider if you are a Christian is how this venture affects other people. You don't want to tempt someone to play and lose their money, and you don't want to anger brothers. I have a friend who is also a 2.2er who plays professionally, and his church is like mine--they don't call it sin, but they'd rather we not do it. Still, they don't condemn it since the Bible doesn't. Most people don't have the luxury of such pure thinking. Most people are in churches where it's about "religion" and not God's word.

Regards,
M

[roxtar]

[ QUOTE ]

This is a question for your pastor.

[/ QUOTE ]

How would his pastor know whether or not poker was a game of skill or not?

[Splossy]

Poker is a game of skill and chance. So if your religion says you cannot play games of chance then you can't play poker - if you decide to do what your religion insist upon. Personally I don't let some old book tell me what to do. I'm an adult - I make my own mind up about what's right and wrong. I mean, if your religion told you to go jump in a fire would you do it.....OK forget I asked.

[stigmata]

Maybe you need to take a less literal intepretation of religion, and allow yourself to be flexible with the intepretation of religious texts.

I wish the Bush administration would have, anyway.

Many key concepts have stayed relevant, but other ideas have lost meaning due to the changed context.