I want to discuss specifically the financial implications of my parents faith and how it has negatively impacted my life. I had a very happy and warm experience with religion growing up but in hindsight I find myself resenting my parents financial decision to tithe. I ran some rough figures and I determined my parents have likely easily paid over $100,000 (that's a conservative number) to various churches through tithing alone since I've been alive. We are middle class and I don't have many complaints financially. However I can't help but realize the implications of that decision. My siblings and I have all had to pay for our own college. Now, I don't expect my parents to pay for my college but the government factors in an assumed amount of parental contribution to your higher education when figuring financial aide. Now since my parents are middle class and the fasfa doesn't factor in loss of income to religious institutions I was shorted in many ways on my financial aide which has left me with a considerable amount of student loans. I can't help but think that if my parents had been a little more financially responsible and put that money aside instead of giving it away, my siblings and I may have had more opportunities in life. Because of this I find myself holding some minor resentment towards my parents for their decisions much in the way I imagine someone resents a parent for a gambling problem.(not a good analogy but seems like they are both growing their money away and hoping for a return) Now given my explanation above I'm wondering if anyone feels my feelings are justified or if I'm just being a first world problems baby. Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions.
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Certainly not my place to tell you how to feel about your parents, but one option might be to think of them as victims of a scam.
Do you think your parents owe you once you've hit the age of majority.? It's their money. Would it be different if they had spent their money (emphasis on 'their') on lotto tickets, hand tied rugs, designer clothing, Mediterranean cruises? The notion that they are 'throwing their money away' is completely a matter of opinion. They earned it...they get to do whatever they want with it. Your and your siblings opportunities in life are up to each of you. You were fed, clothed, cared for...anything beyond that is frosting. If you want it, you may want to consider getting it for yourself.
Preachers claim that tithing brings families together and heals breaches between family members. They talk of tithing as if it had magical powers that attract divine blessings like a magnet. Perhaps you can heal this intergenerational breach by donating 10% of your income to secular causes like the ACLU.
Yes, your parents could be considered as victims of a scam, but I personally think that parents have a major responsibility towards the children they bring to the world and who, of course, didn't ask for anything. Charity begins at home.
I too have no advice to offer, just opinion.
I think the weaker the state-provided social security net the more incumbent it is on the individual to protect the less fortunate. I think a tithe is reasonable in Western societies, but it shouldn't be paid to religious groups....
http://www.givewell.org/about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism#Cause_prioritization
If only I could always live up to my rhetoric.
I support some groups of non-believers such as the local humanist association but I don't call that philanthropy or charity. It's a membership fee or a collection hat to cover costs. Charitable giving is additional. If only religious organizations were as transparent.
For me, resentment is a feeling that is a precursor to depression, so I try to distract myself from those feelings, but I can certainly identify with your story. I wasn't raised in a fundamentalist church, but a very conservative synod of the Lutheran Church. Tithing was encouraged, and it makes me sad to think that my intelligent and hardworking farmer parents were duped by the oldest and longest running scam in history. In turn, they did as their parents did; they taught their children that it is good and proper to believe stories about supernatural entities and that the bible is a divinely inspired document, and therefore true. In all other aspects of their life they were pragmatists and realists. Somehow, I got the message that the Christian God wanted me to search for truth and love. My search for the truth led me away from truth claims that lacked evidence. My search for love led me to places where people, who didn't believe priests and shamans, still had a great capacity for love and doing good in the world. My parents are both dead. They were good people who did the best they could with the knowledge they had. I don't resent them at all. I resent the scam artists, child molesters, crooks and thieves who use religion to manipulate and cheat people out of their money and who steal their desire to search for what's real and what's fake. I resent the sincere priests and clergy who out of a desire to do good things still end up manipulating people because they are perpetuating a system that provides bad explanations for reality and encourages people not to question. Don't resent your parents, resent the systematic dismantling of people's natural curiosity about the world and the system that perpetuates supernatural explanations instead of reality based explanations. Then, let it go and work to find better explanations for reality.