Family, Religion and Poker

[wilson_wilson 0]

I am religious and yes, someone will always be wrong.  I have my beliefs...

Ooops! I apologize Jim. Sorry if it sounded like I was trying to cram my views down yours or anyone elses' throat. I did not intend to come off sounding like some non-believer out to tell everyone else why they are wrong and vice versa. Anyways, I could go on and on about what I said and why but that's out of the scope of this forum. Good luck on resolving everything and Happy Holidays!

[pgec3 0]

Hey everyone, long time reader/first time poster. This subject has always interested me, especially as a presbyterian minister's son, whose whole family on my father's side would gather around the kitchen table on holidays, and watch as my grandmother would clean us out playing poker and boo-ray. :cry: I think some good points have been made already. The thing I often compare it to is golf. People are willing to spend hundreds even thousands of dollars learning, improving, and playing golf. You go to a nice course, pay some rediculous fee like $100 or $200 to walk on somebody's grass for four hours getting pissed off at a little white ball. Where is the benefit? Is this being a "good steward" of money? Yet how many preachers, elders, and general church members participate on at least a weekly basis?I think in tournament poker especially, you are basically doing the same thing? Pay a green felt fee :wink: play your tournament and that is it. Except, in poker I see the benefit in that you can actually make money.Anyway, I think the bottom line is this: The bible may not say "do not gamble" but it talks about doing things in moderation, and I think that is a pretty good lesson in poker and life whether you care what the bible says or not. Later PC

[Mashchit 0]

Interesting thread.My mother doesn't approve of me playing poker, which isn't a religous thing, it just seems to be a dislike of the game. We had a talk about it last Christmas and I asked her why she disapproves. The answer was because it is gambling. I disagreed and said, sure, something like roulette is gambling, because it's purely luck (and the odds are obviously against you), but I would disagree that activities like poker, where there is (potentially) skill involved as well are gambling. Besides, she plays bridge for money, so I mentioned that as well. She retorted with the fact that she only plays for very tiny money (a dollar up or down for an evening). However, to my mind that's hypocritical. Bridge is a game of skill, but also some luck with the cards - either you disagree with putting money on such a game or you don't. Her response was that it was a minimal amount and she could afford to lose it. Well, yes, and I play with money that I can afford to lose (not the rent money etc.) and over my time playing I'm up a decent amount. That didn't convince her either. I couldn't make her approve via any argument - she just doesn't approve, for whatever reason, and I don't think that she ever will do.I agree with other posters - you won't get many people who disapprove of the game to change their minds. Most of them will be engaged in things that are as much, if not more, gambling, like having pensions or mortgages that are based upon stock markets or more every day things like breaking speed limits when driving, changing jobs, moving house or starting a relationship. None of that matters though, and it won't convince people to view poker more positively. Poker has a bad image, for whatever reasons, and no amount of logic will break through that (I think uninformed) perception. All we can do is keep fighting the good fight and hope that it changes one day. But I'm not holding my breath!

[adamkadmon 0]

I wonder if your name was barry greenstein if they would still feel the same way?

[Duff_Man 0]

I wonder if we'll ever see the day when a player thanks GOD/JESUS after winning a big time televised poker tournament, kinda like athletes do after winning a big game? That might cause quite the up-roar.

[ACtom 0]

Let me preface by saying I was raised Catholic, I consider myself spiritual but not religious and I mean no disrespect to anyones religion.However, as best as I can tell with the possible exception of Menenites and Amish all people regardless of their religion are in some way hypocritical in that everyone does something that is frowned upon in some section of their religious doctrine. Its simply a matter of the times we live in. Is there a Catholic in this country who has never had sex for any reason aside from procreation. I would dare anyone to show me where poker/gambling is said to be immoral or a sin.If you want to get your inlaws to back off I would merely ask them if you won a substantial amount of money in a poker game and tried to donate it to their church, would your money be turned away. I think not. You can also ask them which night is Bingo night.

[Eclypse 0]

Daniel, et all.    It's Christmas and my wife and I have her family in for the holidays.  They're devout Christians, as are my wife and I.  However, I feel they don't really approve of my poker playing and have a hard time with gambling in general.  Now, I've been playing poker successfully for the past two years.  Meaning, I've got an exclusive poker bankroll that is for poker only, no household or extra money needed to be put into it.  How have you dealt with family/friends that don't approve or don't understand your poker lifestyle?  Poker is not my full time job, but it is a significant part of my life.  How do you deal with those family members that believe it's not very Christian to play poker?  Thanks!Jim

Dear LockDown,Here is what I would do: Sit down with your in-laws and tell them that you sense they don’t approve of your poker playing and would like to talk to them about it. It is always best to confront issues with relatives rather than guess, or wonder what they might be thinking. Firstly, listen to their concerns. You may find that it has nothing to do with their religious beliefs and that they are simply afraid you are playing with the rent money; in which case you have good answers (a separate poker bankroll, etc.).It seemed to help with my in-laws when I explained to them that I think of poker as more of a mathematical/psychological game of strategy like chess or backgammon. Then I showed them some math and threw in some enthusiasm. It really seemed to help.If it turns out that they really do disapprove on religious grounds, tell them that you respect their beliefs and will consider their recommendations.That’s all you can do.

[Metaphysician 0]

Being Agnostic has helped me...  The aforementioned implications are why I have a problem with religion.  As long as religion exists, someone else will always be wrong.

Then you ought to have a problem with science, logic, mathematics and philosophy as well.As long as 2 + 2 = 4 anyone who believes 2 + 2 = 11 will always be wrong. The only good reason not to be religious is that you think no religion is true. I have no problem with people offending me in my religion because I'm a philosopher and people telling me I'm wrong and then arguing against me is the business I am in.As for gambling being a "sin" I find this highly coincidental. I've been thinking over the matter for quite some time, and just over the last two days had a discussion on it with a person I recently met(he has a masters in theology and a masters in philosophy, working on his Ph.D in philosophy) and asked him what he thought of it. He's both a Christian and a poker player. Here's a paraphrase of what he said.There are three reasons why gambling is often considered a sin.1) Matt. 24:14-30 encourages a person to be a responsible steward with the things he has.2)The love of money is considered a sin.3)Gambling can often lead to other sins, like the two above.But the thing is... none of these makes gambling a sin. A person can gamble and be a good steward. A person can gamble without a sinful love of money. A person can gamble without falling into other sins.Moreover, I think you can change peoples minds about gambling. Not only have I changed my mind about gambling, I've perceptibly started to soften up my family's staunch views on it. Perhaps you have to be as stubborn as a philosopher though. As most good epistemologists would tell you, people have very little control over most of what they believe. If you take the time to make something clear enough, belief follows.An extra note. Anyone who holds moral or ethics views that conflict with what he sometimes wants to do will be hypocritical at some point. The only way to avoid this is to ignore ethics and morality altogether, or to simply define right and wrong according to what you want to do. But, of course, that is completely arbitrary.

[ivan 0]

As in Chinese philosophy, the yin and yang represent the right and wrong. Right cannot exist without wrong. They are there to balance each other.

This is a pretty limited, and not very appropriate extension of the yin/yang principle, which arises originally from Taoism, btw. Because the appropriateness of the right/wrong duality depends very much on a certain class of defnitions, a specific framing of perspectives, it's not a dichotomy one would actually find much in Taoism, or in nature, for that matter. In other words, if you chose to always frame things in moralistic terms in which right and wrong are ineluctable to such a framework then you will always have a right and a wrong. But Taoism is one the least moralistic, judgemental worldviews one can find, and there are reams of volumes available in which Confucious and Chuang Tzu "debate" various questions, with Chuang Tzu always making Confucious, the moralist, look like an ass. Yin and Yang appropriately reflect the great subtleties inherent in nature; between shifting shades as it were.

Now before I started playing poker I was addicted to online chess for about a year, playing about as frequently as I have played online poker in the last two years

I wonder if you've yet been exposed to Go. Go is the most sophisticated and profound game on the planet, and perhaps the only perfect thing. I am always glad of the opportunity to introduce it to people.Here are some necessary Go links:Interactive beginners teaching tool:http://playgo.to/interactive/More comprehensive site:http://senseis.xmp.net/The Ultimate Go Links site (including links to IGS Go server, etc.):http://www.goban.demon.co.uk/go/main.html