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I was watching a TV program...Pokerstars.net's Million Dollar Challenge. They had a young Catholic priest playing and in case you have never heard of it the program is divided into segments where they go for a $1000, then a trip, then $25,000, then $100,000, then a million...or something like that. If they decide to gamble what they have won they progress to the new level and finally go for the whole ball of wax.
He blessed the deck of cars before the dealer ever shuffled. He rubbed his rosary at least three times as the thing progressed. After he had won $25,000 and had to decide about going for $100,000 he commented that the $25,000 wouldn't even pay for a stained glass panel in the chapel of the new church they were building and which he hoped he would win the million dollars and donate for so he chose to continue to gamble.
He played against the host professional of the show in the $100,000 segment, Daniel Negraneau(sic) and went all in with the worst hand and drew three cards to a flush and won. Stay tuned...he will play another professional in the million dollar segment.
This was not Nature because the system was stacked by emotion and money which had selfish (rather spiritual; I know science can talk about the physical draw on necessity) motives.
anyone, else believe in the source of empty promises, if there is a choice.
This was not Nature because the system was stacked by emotion and money which had selfish (rather spiritual; I know science can talk about the physical draw on necessity) motives.
anyone, else believe in the source of empty promises, if there is a choice.
Catholicism doesn't prohibit gambling the way the Protestant churches you grew up did. In Catholic thought gambling can become sinful when it leads to a neglect of religious duties, other sins (drunkenness, sexual sins), or endangers your family finances.
I have to admit in some ways Protestant opposition to gambling does intrigue me as it seems to me it should lead, as it originally did, to opposition to all games of chance that involve money. For example if you are of a denomination that prohibits gambling it seems like you should also prohibit arcade games, carnival games, and most stock market investing. Now the colonial Puritans and Quakers did prohibit all card-games as potential occasions to gambling or sloth. I know of folks back in the Arkansas mountains who also prohibit all card games. Still I'm not sure I know of many modern Protestants who forbid their children to go to the arcade or carnival even though that's pretty much a form of gambling. (You put your quarter in, you watch things spin around, and then you may win tickets you can exchange for items. Or you throw something at something in the hopes of winning a prize)
All that said this priests behavior does sound potential excessive and there was traditionally an expectation that a priest would not engage in things which, although they may not be sins in themselves, could lead to sin or excess. For example I think I read a Medieval council or Papal Bull that prohibited priests from sports-hunting. Presumably because hunting might lead, for some men of that era, to unwholesome activities. (Drunkenness, excess aggression to other men, sex, etc)
So the point is supposed to be that the priest had an unfair advantage, right? You'd think God would assure exactly the opposite. Unless...unless...God favors Catholics!
(I get an extra cookie with my milk for figuring that out, don't I?)
Maybe he should do the "fast offering" thing the mormons do in my neighborhood instead. Once a month, the 12 year old boys in the church go door to door begging for money...
...But we do give buck or two whenever we can. Hopefully they are using it to feed hungry people and not for fancy stain glass windows.
I was watching a TV program...Pokerstars.net's Million Dollar Challenge. They had a young Catholic priest playing and in case you have never heard of it the program is divided into segments where they go for a $1000, then a trip, then $25,000, then $100,000, then a million...or something like that. If they decide to gamble what they have won they progress to the new level and finally go for the whole ball of wax.
He blessed the deck of cars before the dealer ever shuffled. He rubbed his rosary at least three times as the thing progressed. After he had won $25,000 and had to decide about going for $100,000 he commented that the $25,000 wouldn't even pay for a stained glass panel in the chapel of the new church they were building and which he hoped he would win the million dollars and donate for so he chose to continue to gamble.
He played against the host professional of the show in the $100,000 segment, Daniel Negraneau(sic) and went all in with the worst hand and drew three cards to a flush and won. Stay tuned...he will play another professional in the million dollar segment.
What are you trying to say here...that god is blessing his greedy gambling
Maybe MG will become a Catholic then. Nah probably not.
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