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Post 0

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 12:53amSanction this postReply
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This quote isn't entirely clear to me. Is Gates saying that he is wasting his time in Church, even though he attends, or is he saying that he rejects religion and church attendance, because it's unproductive?
(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/27, 12:57am)


Post 1

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 6:16amSanction this postReply
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Would seem to be the former, as he'd otherwise use 'can' instead of 'could'.....

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Post 2

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 6:20amSanction this postReply
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Sunday is a very good time for using the can.

Bob Kolker


Post 3

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 4:41pmSanction this postReply
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The way I understood the quote, is that Bill Gates doesn't go to church (and is probably non-religious) because it isn't a productive use of one's time. Particularly not for Bill Gates, certainly, whom would probably have extremely high opportunity costs.

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Post 4

Friday, March 28, 2008 - 8:10amSanction this postReply
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Here's a bit about Gates's religious views, as well as some context for the quote:

Gates was interviewed November 1995 on PBS by David Frost.

Frost: Do you believe in the Sermon on the Mount?

Gates: I don’t. I’m not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis. The specific elements of Christianity are not something I’m a huge believer in. There’s a lot of merit in the moral aspects of religion. I think it can have a very very positive impact.

Frost: I sometimes say to people, do you believe there is a god, or do you know there is a god? And, you’d say you don’t know?

Gates: In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don’t know if there’s a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.

Gates was profiled in a January 13, 1996 Time magazine cover story. 

“Isn’t there something special, perhaps even divine, about the human soul?” interviewer Walter Isaacson asks Gates “His face suddenly becomes expressionless,” writes Isaacson, “his squeaky voice turns toneless, and he folds his arms across his belly and vigorously rocks back and forth in a mannerism that has become so mimicked at Microsoft that a meeting there can resemble a round table of ecstatic rabbis.”

“I don’t have any evidence on that,” answers Gates. “I don’t have any evidence of that.”

He later states, “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.”
 


Post 5

Friday, March 28, 2008 - 9:38amSanction this postReply
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Gates has read Atlas, and I think he said that he enjoyed it.

- Bill

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Post 6

Friday, March 28, 2008 - 9:09amSanction this postReply
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Possible reasons for Bill Gates' answers:

1) It's hard to believe in God when you are God.

2) He failed to recognize that the Bible is just a primitve form of software designed to run on the human operating system.

3) The human operarting system was created either by: evolution, an intelligent designer or a guy in Redmond, Washington.


Post 7

Friday, March 28, 2008 - 7:26pmSanction this postReply
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Post #6 was so amusing, I had to give him his first Atlas.

Well done, Victor. LOL


Post 8

Monday, March 31, 2008 - 9:25amSanction this postReply
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Thank you Teresa!

Like the reporter Maxwell Scott said in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence": "No, sir. This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."



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