Nah - he lost the Infinity Gauntlet.
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If I was gonna rob God, I’d go for more than 10% of my salary. That guy is loaded.
There is little that is more saddening than watching an elderly person on a fixed income scrape up another $100 for a charlatan like this.
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Giving less to the Temple Moneychangers is not robbing God.
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When confronted by assholes like this, I try to think of people like Fred Rodgers, or my friend Leta. People for whom Christianity informed and was a basis for their caring attitudes for others. So fuck this guy, and others like him, but not all Christians.
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THIS. It was social welfare before there were governments and financial institutions to do the redistribution a safety net needs. Where does this pastor’s 10% go, one wonders, while noting that it ought to be 100%.
ETA: Darn - @anon61221983 said that too. Must stop coming late to these long threads.
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In my family history is a story of the original Anton (came here from Germany in 1843) One of his sons was killed in an accident. He took the body to his catholic church and asked for a decent christian burial, the priest said he would be happy to do that “as soon as you pay your back tithes”. Anton then took his dead son’s body down the road and asked at that church if they would give his son a decent christian burial. The family became Methodists that very day, and many still are.
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Ah yes, the tithe. The last thing left that’s deemed OK to hand over to “God” since, ya know, gutting hoofed animals and spreading their entrails around the altar just isn’t seen as advantageous to the preacher’s wallet any longer.
That’s okay, no one else seems to have listened to me in this thread, either! 
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Yeah, any religious group has it’s share of assholes and its share of saints. Like many other things, it’s a complicated history, which includes both oppression and resistance to oppression.
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The number of FIRST baptist churches, at that. But the first first baptist church in the US is up north:
Alas, I think it is the only first baptist church in the city.
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I’d rather hear a sermon by Desmond Tutu.
Not sarcasm, I really would like to hear him talk. Christian socialism interests me even though I don’t believe in any god.
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Did you catch this?
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Really just about any group has it’s share of assholes and saints. But because religions* claim moral authority the assholes can be especially destructive.
*Of course it’s not just religions that claim that. Communism, free-market ideologues, radical literary deconstructionism, any group that claims a special insight into reality and authority over morality will at times end up being used by assholes for bad ends.
And it’s appeal to moral authority can also prove a powerful tool in defense of equality and justice.
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