The Celestial Shakedown.
Fire insurance.
Club dues.

Man, what a racket. It must be great to be loved and admired by the people you’re screwing over. By the highly educated professionals cleaning chapels and doing busy work instead of advancing their careers. Life is precious. Time is precious. But not your time. But don’t worry, if you pay your tithing the Lord will compensate you for frittering your life away on what TSCC thinks is important. I mean, if they could think.

They don’t care that you’ll never get that time back. Ever. Because you’re aiming for the CK. I’m pretty sure they actually believe that, because zealous credulity is how ladders are climbed in TSCC. It’s not cream that rises to the top, but something else.

Paying tithing is like hiding a talent under a bushel, except that it’s more like a rat hole. You would do more to build up the Kingdom of God by giving it to single moms at the local strip club.

In the last few years before I left, I was refusing to do the cleaning. I still paid tithing until the last year, when I started paying according to surplus instead of gross or net. I have been free of tithing now for three whole years!

I donate money now to causes that mean something to me: Humane Society of the U.S., for example (what would you expect from the catnip??) or funding research against Multiple Sclerosis, which killed my best friend 3+ years ago. These are joyful gifts, not begrudged ones that are guilted out of me.

In the time since my best friend passed away, there have been some astonishing leaps in scientific knowledge about MS. I'm happy to have helped. I like to think that my donations may help parents not to lose children, people not to lose spouses, or others not to lose dear friends.

catnip Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I donate money now to causes that mean something
> to me: Humane Society of the U.S., for example
> (what would you expect from the catnip??)

this has absolutely nothing to do with the post, but I adopted a cat last month from the Humane Society and in the adoption paperwork they stated that if the cat does not work out they want me to find her a home rather than returning her to them. I have never heard a rescue organization take that stance. They always insist that the animal be returned to them. I wondered if you know anything about the Humane Society - is that a National mindset that they have now or if it's just local. It doesn't matter, the cat isn't going anywhere, it's just the principal of the thing!

But then, it has been ages since I have adopted an animal from a shelter. Since I have a marked preference for tortoise-shell cats, I tend to ask around for torties if I am in the market.

Since DH and I are getting "up there" in years now, we have decided no more new kittens or puppies. We don't want our furbabies outliving us. We spoil the daylights out of the two torties we have, as well as Georgy the dog.

That IS weird. All the rescues I’ve adopted from, Humane Society included, required us to return the animal to them if it didn’t work out. Might be a local thing???

Instead of that guilt driven, oppressive tithing, I get to donate to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and my local NPR station. I believe in their value, and I hope they poke that rotten church right in the eye.

Tithing is a gullibility tax.

Perhaps it is the membership dues for the elite club of "better-than-you-s"

Tithing was the price I paid for not being a critical thinker.

Tithing was the purchase price of my freedom. Who can put a price tag on that? Prisons exist to be annihilated. Was bond, but now I’m free. Amazing grace indeed.

The church tries to convince the "sheepie" that they will receive great rewards for their sacrifice. Meanwhile, the elite and GAs go on their merry way in working to ever make more money off of their investments. I find it a sad comedy that most GAs are likely multi-millionaires telling the folks to pay up. The GAs go back to their upper class homes and enjoy the fruits of their labor.