Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community (https://thetfp.com/tfp/)
-   General Discussion (https://thetfp.com/tfp/general-discussion/)
-   -   My friend won Powerball...sort of (https://thetfp.com/tfp/general-discussion/67049-my-friend-won-powerball-sort.html)

SaltPork 08-26-2004 08:48 PM

My friend won Powerball...sort of
 
One of my friends, who is pretty much a confirmed atheist, prayed the other night that he would win the lottery for this past Saturday's drawing, Powerball to be more precise. He won three dollars. Now he's conflicted. He wasn't specific about how much he wanted to win, but he won nonetheless. So he took his "God" money, as he puts it, and bought three more tickets.

Today, he checked his numbers again and won again...three dollars. He's starting to think that there may be something going on that he doesn't understand and is taking his winnings as some sort of sign. Funny stuff, not sure what I think about it.

What do you think, random chance or divine intervention?

Trisk 08-26-2004 08:51 PM

If every person that asked God to help them win the lottery won, the world would be pretty crazy. Random chance.

I doubt God (if there is one) cares that much about each individual person's day-to-day doings and if he was going to reward someone, why a confirmed aethiest?

Church 08-26-2004 08:51 PM

Well as much as I think this thread is going to have a divine intervention and be moved to Tilted Philosophy, I find this interesting.

I think though, this may just be coincidence. I'm not saying he should renounce any new found... religion, (for lack of a better word), but see if it happens again. :)

moonstrucksoul 08-27-2004 08:16 AM

every time pray on a simple scratch ticket, I lose. :(

i lose when i don't pray too.

the_marq 08-27-2004 08:19 AM

I think god is probably too busy helping highschool football teams win games to worry about every powerball player. :rolleyes:

ShaniFaye 08-27-2004 08:22 AM

I'm of the belief that god cares about atheists too.....If I were god I wouldnt pass up the chance to "rattle the cage" of a person that swore they didnt believe in me

World's King 08-27-2004 08:29 AM

I need three bucks for smokes.

Glava 08-27-2004 08:30 AM

I am of the firm belief that it was a random occurence. If your friend wins a few million within a short amount of time, maybe I'll believe in "divine interventon".

Stare At The Sun 08-27-2004 11:53 AM

Three dollars, and the Holy Trinity. I always thought that the number 3 had a lot of significance to religion.

Who knows..

Journeyman 08-27-2004 01:42 PM

Being omnipotent can have you getting a person's faith in you for a cool million. Being omniscient can set you up to get their faith for only three bucks. Pretty neat, huh?

basmoq 08-27-2004 05:37 PM

I don't believe in three, I believe in one, me!

smooth 08-27-2004 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stare At The Sun
Three dollars, and the Holy Trinity. I always thought that the number 3 had a lot of significance to religion.

Who knows..

haha, I wanted to say that :)

MSD 08-27-2004 09:57 PM

I don't believe in divine intervention, I don't belive in most things attributed to "God," but if I were a supreme being, I would do something like that to get someone to think about it and reconsider what they thought was absolute truth. No self-interest, more to help someone become more open-minded. Would a coincidence like that get me to start believing in a God who intervenes in our lives? No, but it would make me think.

carrot glace 08-27-2004 10:17 PM

if he does it again and wins then, wow, 3's are lucky

guthmund 08-27-2004 11:49 PM

Nobody ever thanks the holy spirit?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by the_marq
I think god is probably too busy helping highschool football teams win games to worry about every powerball player. :rolleyes:


That and taking all the pro-jock, actor/actress, politician "shout-outs" messages to Jesus.

I would imagine their are bigger fish to fry if indeed God does dabble in the universe. I would imagine that, in the grand scheme of things, if God wanted to grab your atheist friend's attention, it'd be something...I don't know....bigger than gifting him six bucks in the powerball.

Now if your buddy starts hearing voices from a burning bush....then...you know...probably we should all sit down and pow-wow.

Until then, however, I'm going to vote "random chance."

Stompy 08-28-2004 12:10 PM

Hahaha $3?! Do you realize the odds are 1/70? I wouldn't exactly call that divine intervention :lol:

Maybe if he won $10 million, then bought 3 more tickets and each of those tickets won $10 million... but yeah, even then it'd still be random chance so..

eyeronic 08-28-2004 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Original King
I need three bucks for smokes.

You lucky bastard, I need $7.50 in NYC.

dnd 08-30-2004 11:25 AM

gotta love coincidence and statistics, can turn atheists into total believers!

SaltPork 08-30-2004 12:43 PM

well, his God money didn't play out. He lost on Saturday...not even a free ticket. He's off the God-wagon for now. It seems like all of you were right...it was merely coincidence, go figure :)

He just bought another ticket today, he's going to see how this one plays out.

mb99usa 08-30-2004 12:52 PM

Why do luck and God get intertwined? I've one the $3 prize a few times. God had nothing to do with it. The random number generator in the lottery machine did.

maleficent 08-30-2004 01:09 PM

Please let me win the lottery
A blond woman named Brandi finds herself in dire trouble. Her business has gone bust and she's in serious financial trouble. She's so desperate that she decides to ask God for help. She begins to pray...

"God, please help me. I've lost my business and if I don't get some money, I'm going to lose my house as well. Please let me win the lotto."

Lotto night comes and somebody else wins it. Brandi again prays ..."God, please let me win the lotto! I've lost my business, my house and I'm going to lose my car as well."

Lotto night comes and Brandi still has no luck.

Once again, she prays..."My God, why have you forsaken me?? I've lost my business, my house, and my car. My children are starving. I don't often ask you for help and I have always been a good servant to you. PLEASE just let me win the lotto this one time so I can get my life back in order."

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light as the heavens open and Brandi is confronted by the voice of God Himself: "Brandi, meet Me halfway on this. Buy a ticket."
------------
Unless God has told him to buy a ticket -- I think it was just dumb luck

Cynthetiq 08-30-2004 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maleficent
Please let me win the lottery
A blond woman named Brandi finds herself in dire trouble. Her business has gone bust and she's in serious financial trouble. She's so desperate that she decides to ask God for help. She begins to pray...

"God, please help me. I've lost my business and if I don't get some money, I'm going to lose my house as well. Please let me win the lotto."

Lotto night comes and somebody else wins it. Brandi again prays ..."God, please let me win the lotto! I've lost my business, my house and I'm going to lose my car as well."

Lotto night comes and Brandi still has no luck.

Once again, she prays..."My God, why have you forsaken me?? I've lost my business, my house, and my car. My children are starving. I don't often ask you for help and I have always been a good servant to you. PLEASE just let me win the lotto this one time so I can get my life back in order."

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light as the heavens open and Brandi is confronted by the voice of God Himself: "Brandi, meet Me halfway on this. Buy a ticket."
------------
Unless God has told him to buy a ticket -- I think it was just dumb luck

ooh... that's why I've never won...

The Phenomenon 08-31-2004 02:52 AM

God is not a spare tire that fixes stuf for you.

animosity 08-31-2004 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mb99usa
Why do luck and God get intertwined? I've one the $3 prize a few times. God had nothing to do with it. The random number generator in the lottery machine did.

Perhaps we should be praying to the lottery machine? Why use a third party when you can go right to the source.

Your friend should not put so much faith in random occurances. Sometimes when we pray we get what we want, sometimes we dont. It isnt because god chooses to help us sometimes and then other times he chooses not to. It is because things are random, no one is there to help you or hurt you. It is all up to you & the random number generator.

SaltPork 08-31-2004 11:15 AM

ALL HAIL THE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR, FOR HE IS POWERFUL!!!!! For what it's worth, I'm going to try the prayer thing just as a scientific test. I bought two tickets for Wednesday's drawing. This week I will pray to God, next drawing I will pray to the Random Number Generator. I will post my results along with some graphs.

thespian86 09-01-2004 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trisk
If every person that asked God to help them win the lottery won, the world would be pretty crazy. Random chance.

I doubt God (if there is one) cares that much about each individual person's day-to-day doings and if he was going to reward someone, why a confirmed aethiest?

maybe an aethiest to change any idea he has about God. I honestly think this would be a stupid way to tell someone "I beleive in God because I won the lottery" but God works in mysterious ways.

amge 09-03-2004 11:16 PM

I read in a Vegas paper about one of the latest Progressive slot machine Jack pot winner.

The winner said that god told her to go to the casino and have fun at the Wheel of Fortune Slot machine. And after several minutes she won the the Jackpot.

So do you think she will give the church any of the winnings? Or "would god tell her to keep it?"


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 05:52 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360