Imagine meeting a wizard who claims to be able to appear anywhere, and to turn rocks into bread and grass into money. Now imagine that same wizard claiming he needs your financial donation to carry on his good work of feeding the poor. Would you believe such a wizard? Perhaps you might conclude he just wanted to test your empathy. But what if millions actually gave him money to feed starving children, yet millions of starving children still died while this omnipresent and omnipotent wizard looked on? Could you conclude anything other than that feeding starving children was not an actual interest of the wizard? What if the wizard claimed your generous donation or obligatory tithe would help others travel around the world to spread the good news about the existence of this wizard who can appear anywhere in the world at will? Would you not then begin to doubt that this wizard was truly who he claimed to be?
There are several Christian sects that do not suggest financial donations are a necessary part of God’s program. This argument will not apply to them.
However, the vast majority of Christian denominations claim that you are helping God’s will advance when you financially donate. Undoubtably, some of the money donated is spent by individuals with good hearts intent on helping those truly in need. A great deal of it is spent on homes and amenities for those who claim to have been called by the Christian God to minister to the spiritual and physical needy. What is the probability that an actual God of the universe would require such a financial infrastructure to accomplish his will? What is the probability an actual God of the universe would operate with the same modus operandi as do all the other alleged Gods? Would not the real God, were one to exist, simply employ a fraction of his power to fully accomplish his will, whether that be protecting the from hunger and harm those he claims to love, or communicating to them his existence and will? Why would any actual God avoid demonstrating his might and make his divine project as dependent on human contributions as any wholly human enterprise? Is this what an actual God of the universe would do?
It appears that nearly all the candidate Gods proposed today need your money to get things done. Or perhaps the Christian God is merely testing the faith of Christians…just as the Muslim God is claimed to be testing the faith of Muslims through their willingness to donate. Who can say? Does this sound credible to you?
Remember, we are talking about the alleged God of the universe, fully omnipresent and omnipotent, needing your financial donation to save the needy. And if you come up short, those needy suffer in spite of this alleged loving and omnipotent God standing idly by. Does this sound credible?
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Is it too demanding of us to expect an omnipresent and omnipotent God of the universe to fully accomplish his will without a dependence on the financial support of humans? If God were teaching us a lesson of some sort, do you think he would unnecessarily teach that lesson when suffering and dying children were the consequence of our failure to learn? Are we justified at this point to abandon our duty as honest seekers to scrutinize the coherency of our beliefs, and to simply invoke the mysteriousness of God?
Would it not be more noble of us to refrain from belief in a God for which there are apparent incoherencies until we resolve those incoherencies? And if no resolution of those incoherencies is uncovered, are we not rational to dismiss the relevant God claim?
P1: No actual God needs financial support to accomplish his will.
P2: Many Christians claim the Christian God needs financial support to accomplish his will.
Conclusion: Either many Christians are wrong about what Christian God needs to accomplish his will, or the Christian God is not an actual God.
{P1 & P2}
Sufficient Reasons To Consider Leaving Christianity 