I do not know why the christian faith condemns gambling as a sin - does anyone know why they believe this is the case? Actually if someone committs a sin are they evil? what is a sin?, now that I think about that I just cant think what all sins have in common
I am not a staunch christian , but I will try to answer this question. The wealth that you acquire should be from your hard work and perserverance, then that wealth has some meaning in your life. You use this wealth to ease the pain of people who are in difficult situations then that makes God happy. In Gambling, you are all deciding to put your money from your hard work and use it to give alot of wealth to one guy who just gets lucky through random chance. He does not work hard for it, and he is taking the money from some one who worked very hard for that money. God does not like that. If gambling was a game where people just gave everyone equal share of their hardworkings, then it wouldn't be a sin. if you take someone's fruit of a day's labor for your enjoyment and to party, then it is a sin. Therefore Gambling takes you away from compassion and empathy toward other beings, and develops selfish attitudes with in you, which are very bad for your spiritual health.
Anything that hurts your spiritual well being and removes you from God's presence in the process is a sin.
The common thread for all sin is that each and every sin dishonors God. By chosing to act outside of the limitations that God has placed (regardless of whether you agree with those limitations), you have effectively told God that you know better than He does. It is an offense to His honor. There are degrees of sin. Saying that thinking lustfull thoughts and committing genocide are on the same level simply because they are both sins is completely ludicrous. However, both share the common thread of dishonoring God.
If god controls everything how can it be a sin, god would just make people lose. Surely god would know what the outcome of the gamble would be or alter it. In Britain the church benifits from the national lottery by taking a share of the proceeds. So does it condemn the lottery millionaires as sinners?
Well, um... God allows people to sin all the time. He allows all sorts of horrible things to happen all over the world. However, the idea isn't that God knows the outcome, the issue is that the person that does the gambling does NOT. However, we can take it to the extremely ludicrous and say that God doesn't approve of the stock market, but I think that God is really more concerned with the intents of our hearts than in the technicalities of our actions. What I mean is that I don't think having a beer is a sin, but being a drunkard is. Enjoying a pipe or a cigar isn't a sin, but chain smoking to the point of cancer is. There are things that are strictly prohibited (lust, adultery, extra-marital sex, lying, stealing, etc.), but things like gambling, drinking, smoking, these are things that are issues of the heart. I look at it this way, if there is no short term negative side effect, but there are possibly devastating, or lethal long-term side effects (physically, emotionally, or both), then it something to be carefully practiced in moderation. So is gambling a sin? Well, no, a group of guys playing penny poker around a table isn't a sin. However, the man who becomes *addicted*, who let's gambling destroy everything and everyone he loves and leaves him a husk of a man... well, yeah, that would be a sin. Why the second and not the first? An issue of the heart. The guys in penny poker are not being hugely irresponsible or reckless, they might lose more money in the couch than they do at the table. In short, they are in control and keep the proper things in the proper priority. However, the addicted gambler forsakes his sense of priority and gives control over to the addiction. This is the sin. He has broken the priority and elevated the mundane to the highest priority. Does that make sense?
It doesnt make sense because some people play the lottery who are poor and they prefer to do that than buy food so the church then makes its living exploiting those people for money because they take a share of all the combined wealth of the lottery - they benifit by condoning gambling so the church can stuff its pockets full of sinners money - money that they themselves say it is a sin to lose because the people they capitalise from have left themselves, as you say "mere husks"
Huh? Please forgive me, but I don't understand your answer. More than that, I don't understand how the issue of the "church" is at all related to gambling actually being a sin or not.
