I won't address your other points since that's not what HN is about, but the person you responded to didn't say tithing. He said amassing money. 100 billion is an absolutely massive amount of cash to keep on hand for any purpose, and I imagine a good number of people think the money would mostly be going towards charitable causes or something of the sort. Tithing doesn't necessarily entail stockpiles that can buy out entire countries.
One is a lot more defensible than the other. Having $100B cash on hand would just be stupid. Having invested $100B could be seen as more like an endowment if they produce income.
Did the parent significantly revise their comment? Because in its current incarnation, it doesn't argue against tithing nor that those who tithe are being exploited. It seems like you're responding to the wrong comment. For posterity, here's the original comment at the time that I read it:
> It always surprises me that wealthy churches pretend to take Christ seriously, when Jesus was not very fond of amassing money. I get why the churches do it (of course they don't believe in Christ), but why do the exploited masses believe them?
And here is your response:
> The concept of tithing is absolutely taught in the Bible. If you believe Christ to be the God of the Old Testament then He absolutely taught it. You seem to be under the impression all religious people who give tithing are merely being exploited. I can promise you are wrong there. The mentality of "I've had no such experience with God so everyone who claims they have is a kook" is quite ignorant. Perhaps you could learn something from those who have.
