'fess up – who keeps & uses face cards?

[mfbukowski]

10 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Yeah, I just tried it again and it wouldn't post. All I typed was (without the dashes, of course):

pok-r, be-r, cig-r, gambl-ng

 

Holy cow I just tried it and had the same result

[Calm]

57 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I think I'm mentioning too many "deadly" words in describing our relatively harmless evenings of hanging out and catching up. Is there some sort of filter that censors posts if they contain certain words? Any reply that mentions the specific type of card game we are playing plus what we are drinking plus what we are smoking and what we are doing with our nickels, dimes, and quarters won't post.

Sometimes Brand names can trigger censor to avoid spammers...mostly happens with medicines though.

Looks like combinations of words trigger it where on their own they don't.

Now if only the search function could be that versatile.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

just experimenting with censor

Edited January 30, 2018 by Calm

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, Five Solas said:

I’ve never been a card player.  Well into middle age, I can barely shuffle a deck.  And the reason is simple, apart from Uno and maybe one or two other non-face-card card games, we didn’t have cards in our home growing up.  They were understood to be inappropriate for LDS homes, maybe I should even say—understood to be satanic. 

My wife’s family, by contrast, enjoy playing all sorts of games with cards (and there are many, many games to choose from).  And now I have a nine year old daughter who can shuffle better than I can.  (I’m not making this up.)
I learned a new game last weekend, Five Crowns.  And as I looked at the cards in my hand and their imagery, I thought about how different life is for my kids than it was for me.  I often have occasion for such thoughts.  And then I considered, as the LDS religion and culture have continued to evolve—do LDS still see a need to abstain from face cards?  I’ve never seen any at my sister’s home (devout LDS with four kids, a little older than mine).  But is she typical?

What say the folks here?

--Erik

___________________________________________

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn't play for the money he wins
He don't play for respect

He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance

--Sting "Shape Of My Heart"

 

While I recall advice against playing cards as a kid because it was a waste of time and could lead to gambling, other than this and a few similar comments on this board I have heard nothing about face cards in the past 60 years including the quotes given earlier. We had marathon “Hearts” tournaments in our Helaman Halls dorm in 1964. We have occasional Bunco nights in our ward. Our extended family plays Uno, Hand and Foot, Five Crowns, D&D, Pokémon, Tensy, a myriad of board games, etc. with impunity. 

My guess is that cards had a bad reputation back in the day because of their association with gambling and a more general societal concern for wasting time with trivial activities.

There are plenty of other ways to waste time  and get involved in gambling such as like watching sports on tv, lottery, raffles, office pools, speculation on mission calls and local and General Authority replacements, video games, playing golf, listening to pop music, participating in internet social media and discussion boards.

 

Edited January 30, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[MiserereNobis]

55 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Holy cow I just tried it and had the same result

The rain falleth on the just and unjust alike

 

[Jeanne]

This all reminds me of the Halloween taboo with masks...I never completely understood that but was still a child when could wear a mask for Halloween Church parties...and then when it suddenly stopped.

[rongo]

One cool thing with this topic is that, while reading the Wesley Lloyd journal in BYU Special Collections for a paper I wrote for FAIR on B.H. Roberts, I found that one of the entries right around the Roberts entry reported on a talk Elder Talmage gave. In this talk, he specifically said that cards are fine, despite what some GAs or people think. This was in 1933, which is contemporaneous with some of the anti-cards people and decades before Joseph Fielding Smith or Spencer W. Kimball. I have a photocopy of these pages because they show before and after context for the Roberts entry. 

The most recent anti-cards statements are approaching 50 years ago. 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

The rain falleth on the just and unjust alike

 

[Amulek]

57 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

This all reminds me of the Halloween taboo with masks...I never completely understood that but was still a child when could wear a mask for Halloween Church parties...and then when it suddenly stopped.

I always understood the mask thing to be strictly about safety. Being able to identify people has real world value. 

[Amulek]

31 minutes ago, rongo said:

The most recent anti-cards statements are approaching 50 years ago.

I had a mission president who relayed council from Elder Oaks that we avoid using playing cards on our mission.

Based on some of the missionaries I knew, that seemed to be good council, so I went ahead and mailed my deck home.

[Brother Bear]

1 hour ago, Jeanne said:

This all reminds me of the Halloween taboo with masks...I never completely understood that but was still a child when could wear a mask for Halloween Church parties...and then when it suddenly stopped.

I think this Chick Tract about the true origins of Halloween solves that mystery:

http://www.chick.com/m/reading/tracts/readtract.asp?stk=0058

[provoman]

12 hours ago, Brother Bear said:

I’d be interested to hear how face-cards got to be on the no-no list for many Mormon families? Were face-cards thought to be satanic by nature? Was it meant as practical guidance to avoid gambling or other addictive behavior?

Answers To Gospel Question, is my understanding how face cards got on the no-no list.

[sjdawg]

16 hours ago, JAHS said:

Attitudes about these kinds of things and what GAs say about them changes over time. I think what would still remain is that we should not be involved in gambling with cards nor become addicted to playing card games to the point of neglecting other more important things in life. 

or most importantly have more than one piercing in each ear.

[Spammer]

I grew up in the '70s in a super orthodox LDS family. Anything a prophet said over the pulpit without exception was interpreted as God's command. When I was little, there was Dr Pepper to drink and we would watch tv or play with friends on Sunday. Then we didn't.  The prophet had spoken. The change in my home was in the early '70s. Face cards were always verboten in my memory.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Spammer

[Five Solas]

Appreciate all the responses and poll participation.  Have to confess I never expected 26 LDS in favor of face cards and zero favoring abstinence (at the time I'm writing this).  The times, they are indeed a-changin'.  Or perhaps it's more an illustration of what someone once termed chapel vs. internet Mormonism.  In which case my childhood experience may not be quite so uncommon today as the poll suggests and my sister & her family not such a seeming anomaly.  But pretty tough to test that hypothesis on an internet message board (which she'd be unlikely to frequent or consider worthwhile).  And whatever else may be said, at least no one will accuse her of being a "cafeteria Mormon."  But whether that's any cause for pride--I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide. 

:0)

rongo - your notion of an expiry date on LDS leadership pronouncements is interesting, and doubtless merits its own thread.  Time permitting, of course.

Thanks again,

--Erik

_________________________________________________

Take a little walk to the edge of town
And go across the tracks
Where the viaduct looms like a bird of doom
As it shifts and cracks

Where secrets lie in the border fires
In the humming wires
Hey man, you know
You're never coming back

--Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "Red Right Hand"

[The Nehor]

My then Stake President grandfather taught me to play pok-r at the age of 6 or 7 an me and my cousins have been playing ever since. Now I make my living at the card table. Thanks Grandpa!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, I do not. I am pretty skilled but not good enough to make money and I never play for cash.

[RevTestament]

On 1/30/2018 at 9:08 AM, Five Solas said:

I’ve never been a card player.  Well into middle age, I can barely shuffle a deck.  And the reason is simple, apart from Uno and maybe one or two other non-face-card card games, we didn’t have cards in our home growing up.  They were understood to be inappropriate for LDS homes, maybe I should even say—understood to be satanic. 

My wife’s family, by contrast, enjoy playing all sorts of games with cards (and there are many, many games to choose from).  And now I have a nine year old daughter who can shuffle better than I can.  (I’m not making this up.)
I learned a new game last weekend, Five Crowns.  And as I looked at the cards in my hand and their imagery, I thought about how different life is for my kids than it was for me.  I often have occasion for such thoughts.  And then I considered, as the LDS religion and culture have continued to evolve—do LDS still see a need to abstain from face cards?  I’ve never seen any at my sister’s home (devout LDS with four kids, a little older than mine).  But is she typical?

What say the folks here?

--Erik

Like just about everything else in life, things and practices can be used for good or evil. S-x can be a wonderful and beautiful thing, or it can be used for evils such as rape. Shall we not learn to procreate as a result? Eating can be a wonderful family bonding time or be turned into a time of gluttony and rapaciousness. Shall we abstain from the evil of eating? The internet can be used for a powerful tool of learning or it can be used to easily access all sorts of sinful, debasing material. Should we abstain from its powers of teaching and learning as a result?  Cards can be used for many fun family games, or can be used for g-mbling. I never taught my kids any g-mbling games such as p-ker. I really don't know too much how to play the game, but we do play a couple of card games which use face cards. There is nothing inherently evil about them. I have many fond memories of playing canasta with my many cousins while on family vacations. I wouldn't trade them for stupid fears that they would turn us into gxmblers - which they didn't.

[RevTestament]

On 1/30/2018 at 1:26 PM, MiserereNobis said:

The rain falleth on the just and unjust alike

 

I had trouble posting mine above - but at least it saved my post in the editor so I didn't have to retype it. So am I just or unjust?

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I had trouble posting mine above - but at least it saved my post in the editor so I didn't have to retype it. So am I just or unjust?

My post was also rejected until I edited. There goes my idea for an MDDB Pok-r league.  

[mrmarklin]

On ‎1‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 8:08 AM, Five Solas said:

I’ve never been a card player.  Well into middle age, I can barely shuffle a deck.  And the reason is simple, apart from Uno and maybe one or two other non-face-card card games, we didn’t have cards in our home growing up.  They were understood to be inappropriate for LDS homes, maybe I should even say—understood to be satanic. 

My wife’s family, by contrast, enjoy playing all sorts of games with cards (and there are many, many games to choose from).  And now I have a nine year old daughter who can shuffle better than I can.  (I’m not making this up.)
I learned a new game last weekend, Five Crowns.  And as I looked at the cards in my hand and their imagery, I thought about how different life is for my kids than it was for me.  I often have occasion for such thoughts.  And then I considered, as the LDS religion and culture have continued to evolve—do LDS still see a need to abstain from face cards?  I’ve never seen any at my sister’s home (devout LDS with four kids, a little older than mine).  But is she typical?

What say the folks here?

--Erik

___________________________________________

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn't play for the money he wins
He don't play for respect

He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of a probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance

--Sting "Shape Of My Heart"

 

I'm an avid P0ker player.  Not necessarily friendly home games.:-)

P0ker is a game of skill, not gambling.

[RevTestament]

34 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

My post was also rejected until I edited. There goes my idea for an MDDB Pok-r league.  

Ok, that's going someplace I can't go....until later....

[MiserereNobis]

5 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I had trouble posting mine above - but at least it saved my post in the editor so I didn't have to retype it. So am I just or unjust?

You must be lukewarm and ready to be spat out

 

[Garden Girl]

I am 77 years old... several times a day I go onto a game website and play solitare... Why?  Because I play as fast as I can, and it is wonderful for the eye-hand coordination as well as the mental exercise...  helps keep the brain firing...

I do not gamble since reactivating into the Church 23 years ago, but there was a time in my inactive years when I enjoyed Black-Jack... however, when I was a teen face cards were not in our home...  that was in the 1950's...

GG