You’re Doing It Wrong… My Beliefs on Church, Tithing, and Smoking Christians

I don’t talk to deeply to many friends about religion because they’re from all across the spectrum. I believe that’s the way it’s supposed to be and makes for interesting discussion if others are actually secured in their beliefs. I am. A lot of people really aren’t, as much as they try to portray that they are. Especially a lot of my atheist friends, I come to find. To me it’s just weird how they react when they find out in fact that I am actually a practicing Christian. They seem to think, but dimensionthe5th, you don’t run around speaking in tongues and whipping people upside the head with a bible like whack-a-mole. You smoke, and drink, and have fifty-eleven tats and piercings and I did NOT just hear you say that your major used to be in Religious Studies and you almost decided to go officer to become a Chaplain. WTF?

Well, hmm. All that is very true. But all my tattoos are religious themed. My piercings, eh, I just like decoration and I don’t believe it to be a sin. Have I endangered others or my own body/temple by them? Nope. Smoking and my bottle of Riesling, pfft, everyone has sins. No one is perfect. And my bible is on my Kindle… Right along with all my sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books. It fits right in ;-)

Another note on smoking Christians, why do they (non-smoking Christians) try to treat smoking like it’s worse than them needing 2 seats on a plane to sit comfortably? I swear the next time a portly fellow or lady says “You should quit. It’s bad you health,” I’m going to say “so are those donuts around your stomach.” DIABEETUS!

Anyway… Sidetracked. Yes, I’m a Christian. Meaning I believe in a person that died for my sins, whatever his name is. I use the bible for knowledge and thinking, but I do not believe that word for word it is God’s written word. I think it’s been in too many hands of men over the years with different agendas to be anything close to what was original long ago. I believe if God was put in front of a human psychologist, his actions would be considered insane, psychopathic, because we’d go crazy trying to grasp all of the beginning and end. I’m not Catholic, Baptist, Holiness, any denomination. I’m just me.

That may weird some of you out. But I’m not trying to convert you. In my opinion its your job to seek knowledge to come to a conclusion of what you believe. Mine took me here. I have friends that are Muslim, Wiccan, Atheist, Buddhist, and even some believe in aliens. That’s good on them. I don’t judge them. I don’t sit and wonder if they’ll go to heaven or hell. To me that’s not my job. Probably why I ended up dropping the Chaplain dream.

I also can’t deal with the antiquated ideas of giving money to the church to get yourself in Heaven. Otherwise known as Tithing.

Let me explain for those that are not in the know. Every church has some kind of collection plate, no matter which denomination I’ve attended in the past. And there’s two types of donations, tithes and offerings. Now, many of these churches cite the Old Testament saying that we must give 10 percent of our earnings to the church, and that if not, we are cheating God. My home church likes to use this verse from Malachi Chapter 3, Verse 10: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

I call BS on the church. Why?

Because going by the same bible, when we lovely little saved sinners go to heaven at the end of days, we will be judge by our works. Not how much money we donated to the church. Works mean the good things we’ve done in life. Helping those that couldn’t help themselves, giving time and energy (and money in those cases you want to) to those around us, the less fortunate. I interpret it to mean not only giving my money to the church, but to the charities, to taking the time out to work for free and help elderly, the sick, heck even being a good girl scout volunteer, especially when they have mothers behind bars. I think God cares more about my unselfish acts than how much I gave to the church of my bank account (Check out New Testament 2 Corinthians Chapter 8). What in the heck is God going to do with a man-made thing like money anyway? Fix up the throne room in heaven? Hire some janitors so he can sit back and chill? Maybe the angels need some spending money when they hit places like Vegas to watch over the gambling sinners… Pfffft.

So, I give, what I want to the church, when I want. And when they call for tithers to stand I do. I may not give ten percent of my money, but I try to give more than ten percent of my soul. With all my varying beliefs, I guess we’ll see one day if I was totally off the mark. About everything. I don’t feel like I am, but well, if not, I guess this little black chick will finally know what tanning feels like – extreme style.

***For anyone that’d like to read more about theologians that share my belief on tithing, check out this website: http://www.tithing-russkelly.com/ Interesting read, even if you don’t agree.***