“But you are those who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for Gad, and who furnish a drink offering for Meni.” (Isaiah 65:11)
There are many who will say that an anti-lottery column belongs on the editorial page, not on the religion page. I have never understood how you separate your faith from your opinions. It’s not the only thing that helps frame what I think, but it’s one of the most important.
We are often taught that there isn’t a verse in the bible that deals directly with the issue of gambling. But the above verse disproves that claim. Depending on the particular translation you’re using, the words “Gad” and “Meni” might read “Fortune” and “Destiny,” or “troop” and “number”. What do these words mean? They were gods that the ancient Babylonians worshipped. It was the ancient Babylonians that introduced the whole notion of gambling to the Jews when they were in captivity. Gad was the giver of good luck and Meni, the giver of bad luck.
So you see, since there really is a connection between gambling and the Bible, I guess I can move forward with why a state lottery is bad for North Carolina, right here on the religion page.
When you get behind the image that the broadcast media have created for a state-run lottery (Remember, they stand to make a fortune in advertising) and look at the facts, you quickly realize that a variation of something Shakespeare said is the truth if ever told: “All that glitters ain’t gold.”
The truth is a lottery is one of the most inefficient ways to raise money for state and local needs. Think about it. Only 50 cents of every dollar collected will actually be available for the need because 50 cents of every lottery dollar goes to the winners. But then you have to take the cost of running a lottery out of that amount, which leaves only 34 cents out of every dollar spent on the lottery. In other words, only a third of what is collected will actually be available for the intended purpose. I don’t know about you, but if I were selecting a source of revenue to use, I think I’d choose one with a higher rate of return.
“Come on,” you might say. “What real harm is there in a lottery? I’m not going to plunk down a fortune for lottery tickets. I just want to have a little fun with it every now and then.”
No, you’re probably not going to throw too much money away on a game of chance, but you’ll see a lot of your neighbors, friends, and church members do it. Did you know, for example, that five percent of those who purchase lottery tickets generate fifty-four percent of the money? You might not be willing to put a lot of money on the hopes of becoming one of North Carolina’s newest millionaires, but there are a lot of others out there who intend to do just that! And many of the players will be some of our poorest North Carolinians. In fact, a Duke University study found that individuals with incomes of $10,000 or less spend three times as much on lottery tickets than individuals with incomes of $50,000 or more. In other words, lotteries are victimizing the poor. David Mills of North Carolina’s Common Sense Foundations refers to it as “Robin Hood backwards.” The poor will be giving to the rich.
More important that any of this is the message we’re sending to our children. We’re teaching them that getting ahead at someone else’s expense is okay. That it must be okay to gamble with your education because you can do it at the mall, in the grocery store, at the gas station—just about anywhere.
How many biblical principles do we have to mention before we realize that a lottery violates every one of them? God’s principles do not support the financial ruin, family brokenness, hopelessness, and despair that will come from a state-run lottery. After all, how many millionaires do you recall from the thousands of North Carolinians who have been playing the lottery in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, or Virginia?
Call or email your state representative today and ask him to vote against a lottery.
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