Don't you ever wonder why an almighty god needs so much money?... You got it: His self appointed "representatives" collect the money for "him"...

And these self appointed representatives preach that if you don't donate you are robbing god. These self appointed representatives don't mention that they take a substantial cut of the donation money and keep it for themselves.
http://www.victorious.org/tithe.htm

The above is a portion of a conversation that was posted on Facebook. It differs from the original because I have corrected for grammar.

God likes his bling.

A lot of these preachers preach that god will curse you if you don't donate. It's sort of like a protection racket. If this is true I wanna cut of da action.

I found this article while I was looking for something else. Ugh! Looks like the importation of the prosperity gospel into Africa is worse than I thought. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14573660

Best summed up by noted atheist Robert Green Ingersoll:

Ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll (1897)

Not only that but a god that needs our money to build its brainwashing facilities...errr I mean religious institutions, instead of pooling that money to the poor or sick for example.. is no god worth worshiping. A great song lyric comes to minds from one of KMFDM's songs called Stray Bullet, something along the lines of.. "Even if god really exists, it would be necessary to abolish him!!!" and I think the god-tales of the bronze age fit that notion to a tee.

Wait, did Pat Robertson write that bullshit? Anyone stupid enough to believe that they're robbing god if they're not tithing, deserves to be robbed by god.

(January 20, 2012 at 4:15 am)aleialoura Wrote: Wait, did Pat Robertson write that bullshit? Anyone stupid enough to believe that they're robbing god if they're not tithing, deserves to be robbed by god.

There are many thieves out there who can lay claim to writing that bullshit.

From the article.

Quote:Someone once suggested, “Well, if the tenth already belongs to God, why doesn’t He just automatically withhold the tithe and then give us the rest, like the IRS withholds taxes from our wages? That way God won’t have to depend on us to pay our tithes.”

The response was...

Quote:God has chosen for us to personally return the tithe so that we can demonstrate our stewardship of his property. Stewardship is the faithful and responsible management of something that belongs to someone else. Obviously, if God observes that we are irresponsible to return the small percentage that belongs to Him as He has directed, He knows that we can neither be trusted with any greater responsibilities or blessings in the Kingdom of God (Luke 16:10-11).

Translation: If God took it all himself then my greedy ass wouldn't get my cut and the rest that I skim off the top.

(January 20, 2012 at 12:22 pm)Faith No More Wrote: From the article.

Quote:Someone once suggested, “Well, if the tenth already belongs to God, why doesn’t He just automatically withhold the tithe and then give us the rest, like the IRS withholds taxes from our wages? That way God won’t have to depend on us to pay our tithes.”

The response was...

Quote:God has chosen for us to personally return the tithe so that we can demonstrate our stewardship of his property. Stewardship is the faithful and responsible management of something that belongs to someone else. Obviously, if God observes that we are irresponsible to return the small percentage that belongs to Him as He has directed, He knows that we can neither be trusted with any greater responsibilities or blessings in the Kingdom of God (Luke 16:10-11).

Translation: If God took it all himself then my greedy ass wouldn't get my cut and the rest that I skim off the top.

There's a lot of ways to theologically dance around these questions. BTW the quote from Luke was incorrect unless you are using a seriously weird translation of the Bible.