Religious underpinnings of online gaming bill (long).

[sarsen]

Phil,

Let me preface my remarks by saying I am not a Catholic nor do I belong to any church/denomination.

I do know for a fact that the Catholic Church does not consider gambling to be a 'sin', just gambling to excesses that hurt yourself, your family, or your 'relationship with god'. or something on that order.

S

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
Division of assets by random chance.

[/ QUOTE ]Not quite. They believed that the Lord was speaking through the casting of lots, not that they were dividing assets by random chance. Casting of lots is different from wagering money over outcomes. Passages like this cannot really be used to show the Bible supports gambling.

[ QUOTE ]
Any religious person saying gambling is a sin is misinterpreting the Bible BADLY.

[/ QUOTE ]Only if they claim that the Bible says that gambling is a sin explicitly. Most will appeal to the moral question of taking money and giving nothing in return or participating in an activity the preys on the weak for profit. So while gamblings is not expressly prohibited by scripture, they believe that scriptural principals would lead you to conculde that God does not like gambling.

As a conservative Christian poker player I could go into a deep discussion as to why I think these arguments against gambling are flawed, but the issue isn't quite as simple as what the Bible does/doesn't explicitly say about gambling.

I WILL say that there are plent of conservative, evangelical Christians who aren't against gambling or poker. On a side note, a coworker told me that he hosts a weekly Bible study and got into a Hold Em discussion when one of the other members noticed HoH2 on his bookshelf.

[zipppy]

[ QUOTE ]

The christian base (as I think the NYT reported yesterday) does not see the Foley scandal as anything but Foley's problems. They don't believe in collective guilt and never have. The fact that he's been ejected from the GOP seems to be good enough for the fundamentalist base. The Dems have had their congressional sex scandals too, but then they never have claimed to be the party of 'morals'.


[/ QUOTE ]

are you trying to imply that Foley's Scandals ARE a problem with the GOP? Traditionally I've been conservative, but I certainly don't want to have sex with teenage boys just because Foley does.

Are you also implying that it's okay for Dems to do whatever they want because they aren't a party of 'morals'? I can appreciate that the GOP would be more hypocritical that Dems concerning certain scandals, but some scandals (foley, for example) are wrong no matter what your partys' 'morals' are.


All I ask is that agnostics/atheists on this board not generalize too much when it comes to Christians. There are a lot of us that don't fit the 'mold' that the media wants you to believe about religion. I often feel unfairly attacked (I'm NOT referring to this thread) on 2+2 by people who are just as judgemental as the groups they are criticizing.

thanks all,
zip

[DonT77]

Why are you people reading about poker on an internet message board - you should be spending quality time with your family. Next I will attempt to ban all online discussions of gambling on the internet any maybe even the internet itself!!!

-BF et al

[smoore]

Very good cliff's notes about the neo-con movement and it's underpinnings. One thing you did mention but I'm not sure if it's really clear to people who haven't really been educated about the movement:

The conservative Christians were never really a major voting block until the neo-cons started pandering to them. THIS is why Regan and both Bushes were elected. These people didn't really vote much before they were specifically targeted. They were always there, always holding strong moral convictions... they just never had a candidate to stand behind.

Brilliant political move on the part of the neo-cons.

[sarsen]

[ QUOTE ]
are you trying to imply that Foley's Scandals ARE a problem with the GOP? Traditionally I've been conservative, but I certainly don't want to have sex with teenage boys just because Foley does.

[/ QUOTE ]

nope. I'm saying that the NYT reported that the Christian base sees Foley's immorality as evidence of his problems/sins, not as a broader brush of the GOP's problems.

[ QUOTE ]
Are you also implying that it's okay for Dems to do whatever they want because they aren't a party of 'morals'? I can appreciate that the GOP would be more hypocritical that Dems concerning certain scandals, but some scandals (foley, for example) are wrong no matter what your partys' 'morals' are.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree Foley's actions are wrong no matter what. I'm implying that there are differing reactions in certain cases. Say Mel Reynolds in the 90's, or Gerry Studds. Studds had a relationship with a 17 y.o. capitol page in '83 and all he got was a censure and then reelected.

That's all.

EDIT: by no means am I saying Studds (or Foley's) actions are anything other than abhorrent.

[AJackson]

Jeff,

Exceptional piece of writing. WTF is it doing on 2+2?

The last 6 years have felt like we were in an arms race when it comes to spending.

My only hope is that as each faction pulls their party away from the center a third party canidate will be able to capture the vast majority in the middle. Until then we can only hope for shared power where they spend their time battling each other rather than wasting our money.

[TomVeil]

[ QUOTE ]

are you trying to imply that Foley's Scandals ARE a problem with the GOP? Traditionally I've been conservative, but I certainly don't want to have sex with teenage boys just because Foley does.

Are you also implying that it's okay for Dems to do whatever they want because they aren't a party of 'morals'? I can appreciate that the GOP would be more hypocritical that Dems concerning certain scandals, but some scandals (foley, for example) are wrong no matter what your partys' 'morals' are.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that the Foley incident are indictative of the GOP, but the GOP covering it up (For it seems 6 years now), is. The lesson is: morals are ok for you, but for our own, it's strictly a cover-up. And that message comes at a much higher price from them, because they DO want to control the moral discussion in this country.

Now to me the wars, the torturing, and the rest of the crap that the GOP has done resonates more with me. But I'm in the "live and let live" camp, and don't agree with a lot of their moral "lessons" anyway. Life is your own to live as long as you don't hurt anybody while you're doing it. So for them to preach one thing during elections, and then turn their back on it after it's over....yeah I think that's a GOP problem.

[MarathonMath]

Very interesting post. As a conservative Christian and registered Republican voter, I am extremely disappointed at how this bill was passed. Unfortunately, the party aligned itself with the religious right that has taken a scripturally flawed position in regards to gambling. While I've seen leaders of the church do this with several other issues within the religious community,(drinking, dancing) now we are beginning to see them actively lobby our legislators as well. If the members of the religious community actually did their own homework rather than blindly follow their leaders, I think many would come to the realization that the religious right may represent their values on several key issues(abortion being one), but misrepresents the values that the scriptures teach. I am disappointed that the community I belong to has decided to legislate what they believe is a moral issue. And the fact that it was attached to a bill as important as Port Security rather than put out separately for open depate is even more disappointing.
Please keep in mind that these leaders don't always represent the views of all us in the church pews!

[grapabo]

The pro-family groups that pushed for this bill weren't doing it because they had scriptural reasons for it. They did it because they believe online gambling (and most other forms of gambling, for that matter) have social costs. In this respect, they're no different than any other special interest group.

If you all can't even be honest with the terms that the social conservatives pushed for legislation, the longer you will remain in the dark in the debate over this issue.