Exactly. Just as many hobbyists are probably religious married men in private family life, but yet enjoying this hobby at the same time.

-- Modified on 7/25/2002 5:44:19 PM

You're precisely right, BigPapasan.  It probably does not conflict with his religious views.  The Bible is a very different matter.  It repeatedly weighs in against economic sins and oppressions, vastly more often than it weighs in against any sexual irregularities or even all of them put together.  For instance, when Job's comforters assume he must have sinned in secret in order to deserve his suffering, what they assume is that he  has oppressed the poor--not that he has dipped his wick where he shouldn't have (as for instance into any of his seven thousand sheep, or five hundred "she-asses").

But once the Christian religion became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, it was remarkable how that emphasis on economic justice all but disappeared, in order to accommodate the power structure.  This sort of thing is why many enlightened Christians support the separation of church and state more fervently than any atheist, and regret that "In God We Trust" replaced "E Pluribus Unum" on our money (which is precisely where Jesus said to look for the image or name of Caesar and not that of God).