I would say there is not a person on Earth that does not contradict the teachings of Jesus.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/11/reasons-to-be- ashamed-and-not-fan-of.html

Yeah, but I'm not getting up and trying to snooker people out of 20% (When the FUCK did a tithe become 20%?) of their income by invoking his name and supposed divinity, and neither is the vast majority of the rest of humanity.

Gravid: you may or may not have known, but "tithe" is more or less the Old English word for "tenth". So this guy's trying to redefine math.

kamlem: I hate to say it, but that guy's reasons for being ashamed of Jesus are kind of dumb. Half of them involve overly literal readings of the Bible ("look, it says Jesus will have a sword in his mouth!"), and the other half are just kind of weak ("He believed in the Old Testament's stories"). If your goal is to challenge religion, challenge it to live up to the good parts of the Bible, for example the many many many directives about taking care of the poor and not being a slave to Mammon. Either religion will make itself look bad or we get a more compassionate society.

Bort: Yeah, that's what I was commenting on. I suppose if you're basing your theology on the idea that god demands cash up front, you might as well go balls out.

I was also wondering if this self serving lie is unique to this scumbag, or if it's become one of the many self serving lies in the arsenal of lying evangelical scumbags, sort of like the 'Eye of the Needle Gate' or the Rapture or the idea that Proctor and Gamble is a satanic cult.

Gravid: Speaking at Procter & Gamble, here's an interesting article:

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/09/false-witne sses.html

I believe it is legal. Also, churches aren't taxed in America! Yee-haw!

Oops, searched Google news. Normal Google reveals Examiner.com is on the case... and a few blogs blogs. Really? That's it?

I also love how the youtube version of this video was taken down due to a copyright claim by Fellowship Church, even after he talks about uploading this little speech to youtube in the video.

It's not unheard of. Some people use automatic billpay on their bank site to to tithe. They like it because they can miss a week and still tithe.

The church we went to would send us a year's worth of tithe envelopes that said "10%" on the front (not a Church teaching... it's OT) plus an extra set for semimonthly donations to the archdiocese.

Being stupid should cost something. My only objection is that many Americans probably "give" to Walmart churches in lieu of donating to real charities.

Read up on the New Thought movement. This has been going on since the 1920s. Originally it was an offshoot of the Christian Socialist movement, which lost credibility after it sponsored Prohibition and took a hard turn to conservatism during the Roosevelt Administration.

This is hardly new.

Yup. Automatic tithes aren't new, either. What's great about this is how artfully he delivers the pitch.

I'm surprised he didn't do the usual trick of blending "give, and people will give to you" with "No one has left his house... who will not receive a hundredfold." Televangelists do it so often that a lot of people are convinced that there is a line in the Bible saying that if you tithe you will get paid back in multiples.

So many of these churches are trying to construct a form of Christianity where the defect of compassion is absent. The results aren't pretty.

Also, when's Glenn Beck going to ask his audience to do the same thing?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1022

About a year ago.

also http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=86212

Done. I couldn't think of any good tags for this video so suggestions are welcome.

This guy hacks peoples' bank accounts through the word of god. Jesus is his clear powerbook duo.

If only they burned money or ate it instead of giving it to right wing politicians so they can destroy the earth.