southernhybrid

My parents are evangelical Xians who have been giving the required 10% for as long as I can remember being alive. Most of the budget of my childhood church was spent on foreign missions. While that seems like a wasted effort to us atheists, I will at least admit that they were very sincere in their efforts to preach the gospel to the world. I think they used Old Testament scripture to justify their command to give. The Xian I grew up with didn't think the New Testament meant they could ignore the Old one.

Where I currently live, many of the local churches actually do give a lot of money to local charities. For example, we have a free clinic which is significantly financed by many of the local churches. That's a pretty positive use of God's money, I think. I've done volunteer work at that clinic and happily found that religion was never mentioned or used in any way to deny/approve of any services.

So, in answer to the original question, I think that the religious give money to their churches for many different reasons. I think that we atheists probably also have various reasons for supporting the charities of our choice. We may do so out of our love of humanity, because it makes us feel good, or out of a sense of obligation to our community. In any case, the end result is the same.