: My 0.02 cents gambled away over the course of about 10 minutes...
Which is the entire value of the relevance of your reply to the topic of this thread.
Farkel - Glad my .02 cents made it into your wallet...
Of course, you missed the entire point and used the topic of this thread to state your own thoughts not related to this thread. Which sin is worse: gambling money, and maybe losing it, or gambling with the lives of others in which MOST have lost it due to the gambling of clueless religious leaders?
hmmm... I missed the entire point or simply failed in my deliver... Let me try again...
I took the topic as making two points simultaneously --
1) JW's don't believe in gambling
2) JW's ARE gambling with their lives
and ok, I will give you 3) Which sin is worse... well, sort of... This statement implies gambling is in fact a sin and it also implies that religious leaders are in fact sinning... we can only confirm the actions of specific men as being sinful and it can be argued that the borg has "saved" numerous lives by giving people a stepping stone to learn the lessons they need to learn before going on... to allow some to escape addictions that are worse for society as a whole, to allow dependency upon a group instead of the health care system or the welfare system... and so on... so, although I am very much against the borg, I am in no position to say that MOST have lost their lives due to it... they may have failed to live the way they later learned was possible -- but then, what would it have taken to learn that lesson elsewhere -- possibly something worse, you never know.
In response to the two points I concluded --
I've been playing cards on-line alot lately... I end up losing money, but chat alot, laugh alot, vent frustration, and scream and holler when I win... even though it will be gone in a few minutes...
So, I worked on social skills (against the borg), laughed without feeling guilty (against the borg), displayed emotions (ooops... they are under control of the borg, i forgot), and all over the course of a few minutes... at which time, I can go back to living a decent, clean, wholesome life of raising children, working, and getting an education.
You can place statistical numbers on nearly every event in life... so tell me, how much did they gamble when they bought the house in the hills, or the stock, or.... Gambling is a state of mind... if it is pleasure and the odds are intelligently utilized, then gambling at a casino is far better than most "approved" stock "investments"...
Agreeing with point 1) above... that JW's do in fact GAMBLE, not only with their lives but in their everyday living. The just do it through means that the government (Cesear) has said wasn't considered gambling... This is hypocritical, at best, in more ways than one.
And like I said... This is life... we are fortunate to live in today's age of worldwide travel... and would argue that gambling is this generations "natural language" when traveling world wide... vs the by-gone years of music being the natural language...
I was making the point that we are living in and part of a society and culture, whether we (or JW's) admit it or not... it exists and no matter how we choose to live our lives, we are gambling... we are taken a chance... believing at all times we are doing what is in our own best interest or societies best interest. And I agree with the point that gambling a few dollars, not my childrens food money, is causing less harm to me and my family than if I chose to be part of the borg and follow sheepishly with their commandments. However, I would still argue, that my gambling does add to an overall social problem that leads to numerous broken lives, crime, and addictions that undoubtly harm families just as severely as the borg.
One Ugly Time - spending all his pocket change.
