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July 16, 2008
Is There a Divine Curse on Our House?
According to J. Grank Swank Jr., there just might be. Here is a section of the top shelf of one bookcase in our living room.
Back in January, Swank wrote,
For instance, I believe there presently is a divine curse on the White House. Why? Because President George W. Bush placed the Koran in that house's library. The occasion was a much-celebrated Ramadan dinner where both Muslim males and females were guests.With much fanfare Mr. Bush announced his placing the Koran in the White House library.
Taking biblical data into consideration, one can conclude that God was very angry at that move. I believe He has brought a curse the White House because of placing the Koran alongside the Bible in the White House library. God cannot tolerate those who place other gods alongside Him.
By the way, we have two other Korans in the house but this is the only one actually alongside the Bible. For those who might not be sure, there are several Bibles visible is to the left of the Koran. I don't care what anyone tells you to the contrary, Wright and Holliday are not Bibles and neither is Gesenius. On the other hand, The Canon of Greek Authors and Works might be. I think it likely that Swank may have been using "alongside" to mean in the same library but one can never be too careful when it comes to curses.
Now, I have suspected for sometime that the White House was cursed, not by having a Koran in its library alongside the Bible but by the person who put it there. I am somewhat surprised that the White House library didn't already have a Koran. If it didn't, then President Bush did something right while in office.
Also, we did not steal the volumes with catalog numbers on their spines. A long time ago, you know, back in the sixties and early seventies, we used a standard card catalog system to keep track of our books. Shirley meticulously pinned each book's catalog number in its spine and glued a little pocket with a proper identifying card inside its front cover. Now we use a specialized electronic database that does not require catalog numbers or 3 by 5 cards to keep track of our books and we use the old author, title and subject cards to take notes on.
Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Posted by Duane Smith at July 16, 2008 1:52 PM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
>God cannot tolerate those who place other gods alongside Him
That statement doesn't make sense, because both Christians & Moslems know & accept that they believe in the same god.
Posted by: Aydin at July 16, 2008 3:38 PM
Yes, you are absolutely correct. But then, this is far from the only thing that doesn't make any sense in Swank's rant. And the fact that both Christian and Moslems claim they believe in the same god is a matter of historical contingency as is the fact that they do. Perhaps they are wrong at some level in this understanding. Some philosophers would consider Yahweh (one of the gods of the Bible speaking philosophically) quite different from Allah because they each require many different things of those who worship them. Now this line of thought can rapidly become rather silly. Is the god that a Baptist worships different from the god of a Methodist? Or is the Sunni Allah different from the Shiite Allah? I think that going along with the historical contingency, and answering these questions "no" is best 95% of the time but once and a while it is useful to think otherwise. This 5% option is particularly helpful when one is discussing the problem of many gods. The number of gods approaches as a limit the number of theists times the average number of gods each of them believes in. This and a couple of other premises, and voilà, atheism by reductio ad absurdum. I don't much like this argument but I have one child, a processional philosopher by trade, who at least once upon a time thought it was the very best argument for atheism. I haven't checked lately. The views of philosophers are subject to change without notice and sometimes without memory of the prior positions.
Posted by: Duane at July 16, 2008 4:50 PM
Isn't the real problem here the fact that the Qur'an in both your house and the White House is not on the topmost shelf, above all other books?
Perhaps Mr. Swank's idea has more merit in a different religious system than his own. ;-)
Posted by: Jim Getz at July 16, 2008 7:05 PM
That explains my misfortune of late!
Mine may not be as bad as yours since my Qu'ran is alongside my BHS and LXX rather than an English Bible and is in fact on the topmost shelf (or at least it was before the move . . . ). However, you have two more than I do, so that probably wins you more points in the long run . . .
Posted by: Jay at July 17, 2008 12:33 AM
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