Catholic 'media ministry' defrocks AWOL AI priest after it told faithful you can baptise babies in Gatorade and that, sure, it can totally perform your wedding
Come to think of it, it’s a bit surprising that a more woman-centric sect of Christianity hasn’t risen to any level of prominence in the US. I suppose it’s easier to transition into agnosticism or atheism than to form a belief system, but its absence is still surprising in the modern era. Or is it as simple as demographic shifts and the absence of power during relevant periods? Religion is gradually waning in most of the west, after all. The patriarchy potentially stole The Mome from us, and that’s kinda lame tbh.
I don't think the vast majority of American Christians are anywhere near ready to accept a Christian denomination founded by and led by women. Which is a shame. I think such a denomination would have some interesting and probably beneficial perspectives to share.
But given how Christianity has been male-led from the very beginning, how it stemmed from another male-led religion, and how engrained into American Christian society it is for women to be docile, obedient child production machines... Yeah, that ain't happening for a looong time!
The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.
Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and had started to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It was even beginning to believe things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City. It had never heard of Salt Lake City, of course. Nor had it ever heard of a quingigillion, which was roughly the number of miles between this valley and the Great Salt Lake of Utah.
Does AWOL mean something other than "Absent without leave"? Cuz that's a weird way to describe a computer algorithm.
...aight so I'm definitely not a theologist, but... according to christianity, or catholocism specifically... is there actually any rule against using gatorade for a baptism? I'd assume it just says "water", but there's water in gatorade. Sure there's also other shit in gatorade, but there's other shit in tap water too. Even distilled water isn't going to be 100% pure.
And if gatorade's cool, where do they draw the line? Could you baptize a baby with honey? Or drop a steak onto the kid's face (there's water in those too!). Does it even have to be liquid water? Like what if you just threw some icecubes at the kid, or blasted some steam in its face??
It's not just any water, it's holy water. If a priest has cast Ceremony to create the holy water on whatever, sure. But why when you probably have liquid water tk hand? God might wonder if it's very sincere if you're just basically doing it for a laugh. Might take away your spell slots.
@Sterile_Technique
Not catholic, so I don't know their official position, but as I understand, in extreme circumstances any liquid will do.
Part of it involves the idea of "washing", or "being washed", so solid water or water in solids would not count. And also the idea of purification, but many use dirty river water.
the idea of “washing”, or “being washed”, so solid water or water in solids would not count.
You could make a solid (HA!) argument for exfoliative or percussive removal of debris from the kid's head via scraping or knocking the nasty-bits free via the holy projectiles.
There was a picture going around during the pandemic of a religious leader performing a baptism with a super soaker. So, at least in some Christian denominations, that's totally cool. And if Gatorade is okay...
Can you baptize people with a supersoaker full of piss?
To answer your first question, AWOL is also used colloquially to describe people wildly or destructively ignoring the responsibilities of their job. So it'd be an apt descriptor if it was talking about a REAL priest but in this case it's just flowery wording (presumably for alliteration)
If my hasty checking is valid, there's nothing in the Bible about holy water. There's holding a baptism, but nothing about holy men blessing water to imbue it with the Holy Spirit.
As such, I assume that any liquid blessed by a priest might be considered holy.
Something something Godly Gatorade, Blessed Baja Blast etc.