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
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)