July 10, 2002
Jihad And Tithing

Since WarbloggerWatch has chosen to make me an enemy, let's try fact-checking the fact-checkers' asses. Here's an interesting comparison, from Roy Edroso (link not working as I write):

My guess is that, like most religionists, Muslims are lazy about their sacred texts, and till recently thought of jihad as some vaguely noble thing they really ought to look into sometime -- you know, like tithing.

What's wrong with this argument? Start with the fact that millions of Christians, almost certainly tens of millions in the U.S. alone, do in fact tithe, and have been doing so for years. It's a sin to brag about it, so the scale of the phenomenon tends to escape the notice of the irreligious. Sometimes the dirty little secret is revealed, for instance when government regulations or political pressures force Christians to publish their tax forms and reveal precisely how much of their income they give to charity. It appears that George W. Bush tithes, since his charitable contributions have been about 10.2% of his income two years running. (Thanks to the TurkeyBlog for first noticing this.) It would be amazing if that figure were coincidental.

If, on the average, Muslims are as serious about jihad as Christians are about tithing, and I think they are, we are in great danger, and it has nothing much to do with September 11th, which was quite obviously more a result of jihadic tendencies than our reaction has been a cause of them.

Update: (July 13th, 8:02 AM)

For further thoughts, objections and replies, see this post.

Posted by Dr. Weevil at July 10, 2002 11:39 PM
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