So take the risk, live your life according to certain your chosen principles, and have the best impact you can on your family, community, and more if you can

If God exists, and I believe my personal version of God does, One Shared God of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and more, that our one God's expression is in our shared history, books and beliefs

That God has driven our quest for an understanding of our place in this amazing universe we continue to learn about, and helped create our collective cultures that have achieved and enriched each other in key areas from medicine, mathematics, chemistry (alcheny is Arabic I believe), philosophy, poetry, and more plus important systems of belief with truly noble human hearts.

Not totally sure about the entire story as presented about Jesus myself, but he was a true historical figure whose life has had a profound impact. Christians who say Jesus is the Only way assume too much in my books but again as long as they live their faiths and harm no one all is fine by me.

But the commandments and demands and lessons in all major faiths are common and it is in all these commonalities I see a striving to undertand our One Shared God and bring Him into our reality

I also love Aristotle and his Golden Mean..to learn the extremes and walk between them. Stoicism was mentioned earlier...I lean towards Epicurian and the enjoyment of pleasures life can bring

If when I die, and I ultimately wake up on Judgement Day, I will face the consequences of my actions, knowing full well today I am far from a passionate believer such as a Mr Theresa, or any figure in history whose life reflects their faith and who we've come to know about because of the exemplary lives they led when alive. I also believe our\my God will forgive human fallibility and as His love is unconditional, I cannot see Him abandoning those who struggled to believe or were agnostic or somehow unable to believe due to reasons beyond their control.

If not and my life's biological energy dissipates into my immediate last proximity and that's it, I go knowing I will have led a life that has had a positive impact on those around me and beyond,

Oh and yeah counting cards is illegal in all casinos. They catch you, they throw you out and can ban you. It's like VNORTH2 says, it skewes the odds because the counter can actually figure out odds of the next card being a ten or higher or lower by keeping track of the number of high cards and low cards played already. If the object is to get to or as close to 21 without going over is the objective, having insight into those odds is an advantage the casinos will not allow and they are entirely within their rights to set their gaming rules

Now people do it and get away with it and Kevin Spacey had a good movie ermm dealing with it...but good croupiers can spot it and pit bosses also keep an eye on it as does a video feed that can hone in on tables based on playing data.

But some faiths object to all forms of gambling, as do some agnostics it appears. Things will change in Texas Marty only when the government decides to use it to generate cash. I expect the Powerball and other lotteries are legal in Texas so it is not like there is a proscription agains gambling as it is, just casinos ,,,because a gambler's odds of being rubbies is the sum of the teeth their missing ...get a bad rap.




If writing ever becomes work I think I'm going to have to stop