Bizarre, International, Religion

Ugandan Official Asks For Wads of Cash To Be Placed Into Casket To Bribe God

300px-god2-sistine_chapelCharles Obong, 52, a deceased Ugandan government official, appeared to be quite concerned about being called to account for his life and actions. Accordingly, he instructed that at least $5,700 (roughly P280,000) be placed inside his casket as an “offertory” to forgive God for his sins and “save him from hell fire.” Given his view of not only the susceptibility or ease of bribing the Almighty, I expect he has good reason to be concerned. While I am still a bit confused of why the Almighty would want Ugandan dollars or where he would use the cash, such attempted bribes are generally viewed as beyond the reach of criminal codes — even ones with really really really long-arm jurisdiction.

I am intrigued about his reliance on his relatives or counsel to honestly place the wads of $100 notes in the coffin. Not that I would be tempted, of course. I am an honest lawyer. I would take the cash and place a personal check for the full amount in the casket to be cashed anytime that God wants the money.

36 thoughts on “Ugandan Official Asks For Wads of Cash To Be Placed Into Casket To Bribe God”

  1. I wonder what form of legal tender God takes? If the good old greenback, must it be changed to read “In Me We Trust” before it will be accepted? My guess is God doesn’t deal with fiat of any sort.

    1. ” My guess is God doesn’t deal with fiat of any sort.”

      On the other hand, why would God deal with commodity money of any sort – after all he can make as much of any commodity that he wants – gold, silver, what ever.

      It would be my guess that the only reason God would accept money is as an indication of the intentions and beliefs of the supplicant. In that sense fiat money ought to serve as well as any other form of money – perhaps better.

      Besides the complaints against fiat money are based on confusion about the function of money.

      Money can serve as a store of value. Fiat money is not so good for that purpose. That is why we have stocks and bonds and other financial instruments.

      Money can also serve as a medium for exchange. Fiat money is great for that purpose, although it is my guess that plastic money will replace the folding kind real soon now.

      If God cares about money at all it has to be due to the meaning it has in the minds of men and women, not because of how much it weights or how pure it is.

  3. This is not a new thing. In fact, it is a very old custom. From Wiki, “Charon’s Obol”:

    Charon’s obol is an allusive term for the coin placed in or on the mouth[1] of a dead person before burial. Greek and Latin literary sources specify the coin as an obol, and explain it as a payment or bribe for Charon, the ferryman who conveyed souls across the river that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. Archaeological examples of these coins, of various denominations in practice, have been called “the most famous grave goods from antiquity.”[2]

    The custom is primarily associated with the ancient Greeks and Romans, though it is also found in the ancient Near East. In Western Europe, a similar usage of coins in burials occurs in regions inhabited by Celts of the Gallo-Roman, Hispano-Roman and Romano-British cultures, and among the Germanic peoples of late antiquity and the early Christian era, with sporadic examples into the early 20th century.

    Although archaeology shows that the myth reflects an actual custom, the placement of coins with the dead was neither pervasive nor confined to a single coin in the deceased’s mouth.[3] In many burials, inscribed metal-leaf tablets or exonumia take the place of the coin, or gold-foil crosses in the early Christian era. The presence of coins or a coin-hoard in Germanic ship-burials suggests an analogous concept.[4]

    The phrase “Charon’s obol” as used by archaeologists sometimes can be understood as referring to a particular religious rite, but often serves as a kind of shorthand for coinage as grave goods presumed to further the deceased’s passage into the afterlife.[5] In Latin, Charon’s obol sometimes is called a viaticum, or “sustenance for the journey”; the placement of the coin on the mouth has been explained also as a seal to protect the deceased’s soul or to prevent it from returning.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon's_obol

    There is a whole lot more at the link about this widespread custom.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  4. Everybody gotta pay the light bill. Hope this works for him. I can see the relatives and others rushing to buy shovels right now. And what if the minimum offering is $6K? Buena suerte, senor.

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