Warren Buffett “Agnostic,” Bill Gates Rejects Sermon On The Mount, Not “Huge Believer” In “Specific Elements” Of Christianity
In his interview with Charlie Rose on Public TV, Bill Gates has said he is “doubly blessed” to have worked at Microsoft and now at his Foundation. But, “doubly blessed” by whom? By what? What is the religion of Bill Gates? What is the religion of Warren Buffett?
Well, in a succinct email to me, Debbie Bosanek, Assistant to Warren Buffett, says: “Mr. Buffett is agnostic.”
And Bill Gates? In a November 1995 interview of Gates by David Frost, this exchange took place:
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.
On January 13, 1996, in a “Time” magazine profile of Gates by Walter Isaacson, there was this exchange:
Isaacson: Isn’t there something special, perhaps even divine, about the human soul?
Gates: I don’t have any evidence on that.
Isaacson wrote: “Gates face suddenly becomes expressionless, 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.”
Isaacson also quotes Gates as saying: “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.” – J.L.
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