You may want to take this up with some of your fellow Christians: the Prosperity Theologists. From what I’ve read it’s quite popular.
How about “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
It goes without saying that, in Jesus’ worldview, something that will make it hard for you to enter the Kingdom of God is a bad thing. Jesus says having lots of money will make it hard for you to enter the Kingdom of God. Therefore the Bible says having lots of money is bad. Q.E.D.
I find it more credible that a god from a pagan pantheon would help you win the lottery than the Christian God. It seems kind of mean that Jesus would ignore the desperate prayers of so many, but come through so some dufus can afford to buy and restore the General Lee. Is this the act of an omnipotent, all-loving God?
Now the old pagan gods were not omnipotent, and they were petty, capricious and vain. This sort of thing is right up their alley.
It sounds like I struck a nerve. With a name like Diceman, I bet that you occasionally indulge in a bit of gambling. I hope you didn’t blow too much on this one. I bought five dollars’ worth, in the final round, hitting only two or three numbers over the five tries. (Clearly, Lady Luck, or God, or the gods were not with me, or maybe they tend to favor those who spend a lot more on tickets, which is what the math suggests.)
The tone of waggish glee in my thread-originating post was meant to underscore the absurdity of the religious faithful ascribing what happens to them as a signifier of Divine approval (or disapproval) in an uncritical, statistically selective, and subjective, one-sided way. The lucky pagan lottery winner was simply behaving as countless mainstream believers have in matters ranging from beating cancer to scoring touchdowns. Substitute a few key words signifying the identity of his faith, and his statement would be absolutely identical with that of, I’ll bet, at least a few Christian lottery winners. A Christian who is prepared to praise Jesus for winning the lottery would have to question God’s Will in the outcome of this one, especially since the Wiccan claims he bargained with his gods and promised to devote his life to promulgating his pagan faith in others, should he win. And speaking of God’s gifts, it would appear He short-changed you when He was handing out our ability to appreciate irony.
Incidentally, if you knew more about The Bible, you’d know it gets the capitalized treatment as a sign of respect. And for the record, I’ve read it from cover to cover. (You’d be surprised how many self-identified Christians have never managed, or bothered, to do this.) Once in a blue moon I still delve into it, to research a point of contention. I waited until after completely reading it and pondering its implications before concluding that I could live with my persistent doubts about the Judeo-Christian tradition [at this point, Islam was beyond the pale of consideration or inclusion], and eventually follow my line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, which for me is atheism. I simply would not consider the outright rejection of my inheirited church affiliation (Presbyterianism, and my particular church was very evangelical and conservative) until after doing so.
To address the main point of your post, you’ve only got that partly right. In the real world, it tends to work the other way around: the greedy, selfish, materially-driven people are the ones most likely to get rich in the first place. I happen to agree with the generalization that, on the whole, God frowns upon the greed of the rich, although, as with virtually every other issue, the text equivocates on this with arguably contradictory passages – like the bit about “rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” – and the omission of positive, specific statements regarding what would constitute God’s ideal – in this case, what would make for a truly just society.
It’s an easy enough to warp the original message (such as it was), though. If God had promised the Israelites that he hears their prayers and will answer them, and if various prophets promise the same, the rest is rather predictable, isn’t it? Kinda makes me wonder why God wasn’t clearer in the first place by what He considers suitable subjects for prayer, and what constitutes a possible answer on his part – mindnumbingly, repetitiously so – so that there wouldn’t be any room for ambiguity about what He allegedly really meant…
“wow! i got the number from the ouija board!”
then proceed to set up a shop selling the game.
For one, I am just delighted that the guy gives this kind of props to the alternative deities, just as a nice, no-real-harm tweak at the nose of the conventionals, both religious and non-religious. Now some fundies in his town are probably all in a lather that the pagans are about to take over… AND the hardline antirreligious are likely going “oh, man now THIS bunch, too?”
Me too. I mean, I’ll have to, if for no other reason than I don’t buy tickets.
Being an atheist doesn’t make you better than everyone else, or give you the right to act like a self-righteous jackass.
I saw our lottery winner on the news this morning, and frankly I agree with the suggestion that stopping in for Twinkies every day probably had a lot to do with his winning 
Apparently, he’s already bought a new truck, and he wants to buy a large house with a lot of land, so he can walk out the front door totally naked, and go swimming without the neighbors getting offended. I swear he actually said this.
Actually, I hardly ever gamble. Every now and then I’ll buy a scratch-off ticket, but that’s about it. My username comes from an old high school nickname which refers to Andrew Dice Clay.
I guess it does bother me when some guy thanks God for winning the lottery, or an actor thanks God for winning an Academy Award, or something like that. God isn’t in the business of making people rich, or famous, or powerful. The quote that RTFirefly mentions is, IIRC, the same part where Jesus tells a rich guy that he should give away all his posessions. Plus, I can think of at least two parables which involve a rich guy going to hell. Really, you can’t read the Gospels without getting the impression that Jesus had nothing but contempt for rich people. With all due respect to the Prosperity Theologists (and the Calvinists) I think they’re trying to read something into the Bible which simply isn’t there. (Incidentally, the quote about giving to Ceaser what is Ceaser’s is a response to people asking Jesus if it was wrong to pay taxes to the Roman empire. The answer was “no.”)
That’s why I said harder, not impossible. It so happens that I think both Bill Gates and Oprah are good people, but they’re the exception to the rule. Both are known for giving extremely generously. Gates has said that he intends to give away his fortune before he dies, and Oprah, in addition to her giving, tries to use her celebrity status to draw attention to problems like domestic violence. As for what constitutes “generous” giving, consider this example: Let’s say a wealthy billionare gives a million dollars to charity. Sounds pretty impressive, but that million only amounts to 0.1% of that person’s wealth. 0.1% of my wealth is something like 5 bucks.
Just to throw a wrench in the cogs of the religion arguments here, can we consider Job, who was rewarded for his faith by God making him extremely wealthy?
Random factors seem to have opperated in my favor.
What gods are these? I’ve read quite a bit about Wicca, and there is no pantheon of “pagan gods.” It’s just “the Goddess,” and perhaps (depending on the particular coven) the personification of Nature itself.
So far, my favorite suggestion has been shijinn’s. Attribute your win to something, and then set up a shop selling those somethings.
I’ll tell you what I can do:
I’ll sell you a ticket from that drawing for half price. Think about it: your odds of winning have been reduced only infintessimally, but your required investment has been halved. What a bargain!
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. We have more gods and goddesses than you can shake an athame at. Many (but not all) Wiccans believe that all the gods are one god with lots of names and personalities and all the goddesses are one goddess likewise, and most (but not all) believe that the uber-Goddess and the uber-God are themselves but two faces of one supreme Divine It, but certainly we address many gods and goddesses by name as if they were individuals. You can find plenty of love spells calling on Aphrodite or Venus, or Samhain rituals dedicated to Hecate or the Drawing Down of the Moon to the lunar goddess(es) in a basic Wiccan primer.
ETA: Spread it to “pagans” and it gets even messier. I’ve had to step up and refuse to cast a circle where people wanted to invoke terribly conflicting gods and goddesses. “Uh, no, I’m not going to let you call Thor and Diana into the same sacred space while I’m priestessing, thank you very much!”
his deal with the universe for winning about 30+million after taxes, was that he would give up the day job of accounting and teach wicca full time.
i don’t think i would give up the accounting know-how just yet.