My husband and I really enjoy playing cards with each other and other friends. Our neighbors are TBM and we have invited them to play. They say they will, but when we invited them over the other night for chowder and cards, the husband said he wasn't up to it that night.

I was just wondering if he is feeling guilty about playing cards. What was the reasoning behind this anyway? I remember people saying playing with "face cards" was bad, but you could play Uno all you wanted. Were the face cards evil?

Just curious and in need of a refresher course on the evils of card playing.

My sister, who is ultra tbm, will not play with face cards either. I don't remember any specific teaching about avoiding face cards, but it is possible that I wasn't listening too.

I seem to recall something BY said about how in order to be a good card player you have to learn to be a good liar, and that was not a trait saints should develop. I think there was also some folk beliefs connecting face cards and the occult like fortune telling. But I think primarily it was to keep men from spending their time and money in gambling halls.

...the Marriott hotels in Vegas have casinos.

+1

Gotta top this :D

Marriotts also have porn....

I've only ever heard it from the most extreme mormons, and passed it off as "false doctrine."

I once had a 19-year-old blazer teacher who was pretty edgy. He promised us if we were good we'd get to play poker for class at the end of the year. True to his word, the last Sunday he wedged the door shut and pulled out the chips and cards. We spent the whole Sunday School hour bluffing and betting (not actual money of course).

We must have been laughing too loud, because towards the end there was a knock at the door. Our teacher sheepishly opened it to see the bishop. They had a talk behind a closed door, and when he came back the chips went away.

Light-mindedness and loud laughter...must crush...must destroy!

Like LOTS of LDS 'doctrine', it depends who you ask!

IOW, that's being diluted, as are Lots of other 'beliefs'

So that Mormons don't get involved in gambling, because if they did, their potential tithing contributions would go to gambling debts.

Same thing with the W of W. If Mormons were allowed to drink and smoke etc., a chunk of their income would go to booze and cigarettes, leaving little for tithing "donations"

really had a lot to say about the evils of playing cards (which comes from Christianity, actually, as my minister relatives preached the same thing), however, he is dead and I bet a lot of members now days never heard of him!

Playing card were considered: The Devil's Workshop - or so said the ministers in our family~! Non the less, the next generation had a great time playing cards, usually Solitaire, and Pinochle (no betting of course.) As kids we played: Go Fish and other children's card games. I was not LDS at the time, but it was still a bit "iffy"....
Had to stay out of the Devil's Workshop!
Idle hands ... and all that!

I don't know if there is an official position on playing cards. I have not found one. Probably someone else can find it.

I worked in the JW Marriott in Las Vegas for 10 years. True, it has a Casino but is not owned by Marriott. I guess that exceptions are made when not owned by.

In his "Man: His Origin and Destiny."

It was definitely "tickets to the Devil" stuff...

That's the same book where he said one couldn't believe in evolution and "the Divine Mission of Jesus Christ." It's definitely not canonized scripture, but remember the prophet's "word was law" while he held the Presidency.

I knew a mathematically-inclined sort who taught at BYU-Hawaii and played in card tournaments.

He played under an assumed name because his name would often appear in newspapers under the winners...

The only person I knew of who was dead set against card playing was that cwazy Cleon Skousen. He lost his job as chief of police of SLC after being overzealous and busting the mayor for card playing.

true, but he had the (cwazy LDS-inspired) ordinances of SLC/Utah statutes to back him up; he was 'only doing his job', haha.

As far as I know, and I don't believe it was ever established he was playing in the "friendly poker game."

I'll try to find out if the event happened at the old Ambassador Club, but there aren't many alive from those days who might remember...

Skousen also raided a bingo game where Brack Lee's mother was playing...

Card Playing

See APOSTASY, GAMBLING, RECREATION. President Joseph F. Smith has stated the position of the Church with reference to card playing in these words: "Card playing is an excessive pleasure; it is intoxicating and, therefore, in the nature of a vice. It is generally the companion of the cigaret and the wine glass, and the latter lead to the poolroom and the gambling hall. . . . Few indulge frequently in card playing in whose lives it does not become a ruling passion. . . . A deck of cards in the hands of a faithful servant of God is a satire upon religion. . . . Those who thus indulge are not fit to administer in sacred ordinances. . . . The bishops are charged with the responsibility for the evil, and it is their duty to see that it is abolished. . . . No man who is addicted to card playing should be called to act as a ward teacher; such men cannot be consistent advocates of that which they do not themselves practice.

"The card table has been the scene of too many quarrels, the birthplace of too many hatreds, the occasion of too many murders to admit one word of justification for the lying, cheating spirit which it too often engenders in the hearts of its devotees. . . .

"Card playing is a game of chance, and because it is a game of chance it has its tricks. It encourages tricks; its devotees measure their success at the table by their ability through devious and dark ways to win. It creates a spirit of cunning and devises hidden and secret means, and cheating at cards is almost synonymous with playing at cards." (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed., pp. 328-332.)

Members of the Church should not belong to bridge or other type of card clubs, and they should neither play cards nor have them in their homes. By cards is meant, of course, the spotted face cards used by gamblers. To the extent that church members play cards they are out of harmony with their inspired leaders. Innocent non-gambling games played with other types of cards, except for the waste of time in many instances, are not objectionable.

Wow! What a load of crap!! My husband and I have finally found a way to bond with my son who has social anxiety problems. This has been the only way we have been able to sit down with him and have a great conversation, laugh together, and just enjoy each others company.

So much better than sitting like a lump on the couch watching T.V. and having little to no conversation.

It helps develop social and conversational skills and provides that "something to do" while talking that my son ABSOLUTELY requires in order to relax enough to talk.

I see as a totally positive thing! We also play poker and use chips but don't attach any money to them. We just play until you're out of chips.

I just cannot believe the number of ways the church dictates behavior to the members. Outrageous!

Thanks for posting that, now I don't have to.

The basketball court
> "has been the scene of too many
> quarrels, the birthplace of too many hatreds,... to admit one >word of justification for the lying, cheating spirit which
> it too often engenders in the hearts of its players."

Or dressing up to watch the same movie over and over and over.

NOPE!!!

It's yet another damning product-of-the-times practice that has been swept under the rug and never mentioned again.

Bruce R. McConkie must be spinning in his grave like a lathe after the scathing condemnation he gave face cards in Mormon Doctrine.

No, I play cards with my member neighbors all of the time....

the fact that people pay (paid) attention to these items of trivia/minutae are the most telling truths.

ChurchCo specializes in distractions away from Love for God & Neighbor, 'Face Cards' is only one of a long list.

it coincidently demonstrates the persistence of Sillyness!

I don't remember any Mormon rule about card playing. I think it's one of those "extra" rules Mormon members make up to create deeper levels of righteousness. In any case, offer a deck of playing cards to a Mormon. If he recoils, you should avoid him. He's a schmuck.

"We can pick out Elders in Israel right here who can beat the world at gambling, who can handle the cards, cut and shuffle them with the smartest rogue on the face of God's foot-stool. I can produce Elders here who can shave their smartest shavers, and take their money from them." -- BRIGHAM YOUNG 2nd LDS Prophet Journal of Discourses, Volume 4

It takes a con man to know a con man.

What about putting money into a slot machine (because I saw a member of a famous MO family do just that in a Tahoe casino, ca. 1983)?

I suppose it was okay, because he wasn't looking at a face card or anything.....

If I remember the Discourses of BY, which is the only manual I ever recall going into debt about this, Young was most worried about the amount of time people wasted playing cards. Remember, in Young's day they did not have TV or the internet, so a big part of the day was for the men to gather, and spend many hours gossiping and socializing over a game of cards, as they discussed the business of the day, often for hours at a time. Moralist like Young would have seen this as time wasted that could have been better spent reading about and praying to a fictional God, or working on one of the various of many home labor projects that the church had in place in order to raise money.

-building/working on the U.P. RR
-'enlisting' in the Mormon Battalion
-working in one of BY's other enterprises, say, like his liquor franchise.
-maybe, if you were a Close Friend, he'd let you be a clerk in his Divorce business.


BY was a TURD; I can't understand why the church lauds him.
Oh Wait, I guess I can.

Mountain Meadows Massacre, anyone?

when current Mormons say 'you can't judge those people by our standards of today' I want to invoke projectile vomiting in their direction...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2012 01:55AM by guynoirprivateeye.

Being older than most of you, I remember when "face cards" were considered evil. It was similar to drinking Coke. If you did it, it showed you were a "liberal Mormon" and flirted with danger. It was one of those things that everyone "knew" was against Church doctrine.

"Good Mormon" households did not have "face cards" but UNO and Rook were considered OK. Sort of like Coke vs. root beer.

In those days if you came from a "good Mormon" home you played strip poker with UNO cards.

The Church (officially) is against 'gambling' by which it means games of chance played for money.

I know some zealot type Mormons who won't allow any games of chance in their home - no Monopoly etc.

But that isn't the Church, that's just them.