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A friend of mine attends a rather conservative Christian university, and in one of the mandatory bible classes, a professor said "My wife had a misscarriage, and I know the baby didn't go to heaven."
Why would a fellow believer assume a miscarriage is doomed to hell? I guess this has something to
do with a tragic head-on collison between the doctrines of life beginning at conception, and salvation based on baptism, or some other post-birth profession of faith.
What are the faithful to do? Not to worry! My new religious movement, the Agape Republic, is now fully ready to remedy this situation with the Sacrament of Fisting. Here's how it works:
At, or soon after conception, the pre-birth child, and it's parents visit the priest in a safe, sanitary, and totally private setting.
The priest dresses in his best sacramental green scrubs, specially modified for wear with a cross and clerical collar. Other vestments include a sacramental hair net, a sacramental face mask, and a pair of sacramental surgical gloves.
Vestal "virgins" dressed in white, and equally bedecked with crosses, hairnets, facemasks, and gloves direct the mother of the child to divest herself of garments which could cover her nether regions. These vestal virgins then assist her in comfortably sitting at the sacramental table, place her legs in the sacramental stirrups, and cover areas not to be examined by the priest with a green cloth.
One vestal Virgin then holds open the book of sacraments for easy reading, and turns pages as needed. The priest begins reading from the baptismal covenant, while the other vestal virgin passes him his sacramental instruments.
While reading the baptismal covenant, the priest uses these sacramental instruments to massage the labia, vagina, and cervix of the mother until she has dilated enough for the ceremony to continue.
Once the mother has dilated, the priest dips his gloved hand in a sterilized baptismal font, containing sterilized batismal water from the sterilized holy sterilized land. The priest then inserts his gloved hand all the way into the womb of the mother to be, feels around for the forming blastocyst, fetus, or embryo, whichever it be at this stage in the mother's pregnancy, and makes the sign of the cross upon it with the holy water, saying "Blastocyst, fetus, or embryo, whichever you be at this stage in the mothers' pregnancy, I baptize you in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit."
If the couple so desire, A laporoscopic camera is then inserted into the cavity to show the newly baptized individual, and a CCTV image is shown to the church, as the priest introduces the new member to the community of faith with appropriate liturgical words. If the couple prefers to remain anonymous for the time, this step will be omitted. For couples desiring more public display, an operating theater, or a pornographic studio can be rented in which to hold this ritual.
At this point, the ceremony is over, the priest retires to ritually cleanse himself, and the vestal virgins ritually cleanse the mother, help her out of the sacramental stirrups, and when she is ready, they depart from the inner sanctum of this ritual space.
Undoubtedly, there will be situations where a young couple desires the blessing on their unborn child when there in fact is no such child. Better safe than sorry though, we always say!
It appears to be a problem for some:
http://forums.catho...hread.php?p=3078195
I REALLY don't like your solution. [gnomethang, May 20 2009]
Hanover fist.
http://www.youtube....watch?v=cq6_Q7gIaBE
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 22 2009]
Catholic Priests and Nuns abuse of tens of thousands of Children in Ireland
http://www.guardian...-child-abuse-claims
harrowing stuff... All done with the tacit approval of the Irish state, which is still to a large extent under the thumb of Opus Dei fanatics. I loathe the Catholic Church with a vengeance [xenzag, May 24 2009]
[link]
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Seems reasonable if your definition of reasonable includes mystical, invisible beings. Though I really don't think this idea will fly on the HB. |
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Wouldn't it be easier to just bless the uterus? |
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bad science? How exactly does one get the
pregnant woman to "dilate" to the extent of
reaching your arm into her uterus? |
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//I really don't think this idea will fly on the HB.// Croissant. Airmail. |
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"reaching into the womb" or uterus would be an exceedingly painful process, and would be comparable to the discomfort of childbirth. Since this is nearly impossible and life threateningly dangerous for the mother and fetus I have to say that this isn't a good idea. Horrifying and yet innocent in its naivete. (oh, and "religion" makes this idea somehow more palatable, f'in stone age world view IMHO) |
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Every sperm is sacred,
Every sperm is good,
Every sperm is neeeeeded,
In your neighbourhood. |
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[marked-for-excommunication] |
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[marked-for-deletion] bad theology - of course, we all know that everyone is *born* in sin. The unborn are therefore entirely free from sin and as a consequence guaranteed heavenly residence. |
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No fisting required, your professor (and his wife) can breathe a sigh of relief. |
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Whew! I'll be sure to let him know. |
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As far as the bad science accusations go... Do you folks really want anyone with this sort of religious belief to be reproducing anyway? For the sake of my religion's reputation, I'd prefer that the amniotic sack was ruptured. |
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He's just failed to take into consideration the intermediate, sinless gap between conception and birth - if he were a physics professor, he might have forgotten to convert from feet to meters and caused a million dollar space probe to smash into Mars - same thing - both a bit rubbish, just different lines of business - I wouldn't suggest either of them be sterilised though. |
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My irony detector has gone "ping". |
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[-] This is just totally wrong on so many levels. |
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//ping//
The real irony is how something like this or similar could be baked. |
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//Wouldn't it be equally effective to bless the father's cock//
That would bless only half the chromosomes of boys. Depends on admission criteria to heaven I suppose. Is 50% considered a pass? |
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Im never sure how to vote for ironic, sardonic sarcastic witty social/cultural/anti-religious commentary. |
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me thinks xiv wishes for fishes. |
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from gnomethang's link:
//why do we wait for birth before baptizing children?
Because the minister of baptism must be able to sprinkle, pour, or immerse the baby in water for the baptism to be valid.// |
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If immersing is sufficient, it seems to me (and I have no experience in the field; IANAPriest) that the foetus could be immersed in holy water by the simple expedient of the Mother-to-be drinking it for several days.
In fact, immersing the mother must also immerse the baby, so unless she objects to being baptised again that should be possible. |
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[marked-for-excommunication] = [marked-for-tagline] |
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Hee hee but no. The problem here is that "baptism in no wise appertaineth to infants", so if you're a Protestant you may have difficulties with this. However, one way round it, i think, is to have some kind of oecumenical council declare that amniotic fluid is holy water and to have the process of gestation made a sacrament of some kind (in Catholic terms). |
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The Catholic Church already do this, so what's the new idea? |
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//The Catholic Church already do this, so what's the new idea?// |
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Wait, WHAT? Did you even read the idea? |
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Do you honestly believe that the catholic church has a ceremony in which catholic priests insert their hands into pregnant women in order to baptize children in utero? |
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...I'm not too up on catholic churches, but I'm not familiar with any religion that fists pregnant women to baptize fetuses. |
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It's not women that they fist.... it's the children, and they go to any lengths to get them. see link |
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Pentecostal moves to pentadactyl. Ouch! |
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Can't we rather suggest a range of holy water-based lubricants. If holy water needs to be applied with some incantation, perhaps you can sell a little flash disk with said incantation recorded in mp3 format, or perhaps an iPhone app? |
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Most believers agree that infants going to hell for lack of baptism is a load of crap. Sadly, for every thousand sane believers, there's a nut job with a heresy and a press agent. |
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Remeber, religious affilitations (or lack thereof) are not connected to intelligence levels. |
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The devil needs those aborted fetuses to snack on though. It's how we keep him underground, he will surface if he's recieving insufficient amounts of dead babies. |
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"for every thousand sane believers, there's a nut job with a heresy and a press agent." |
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The thing of it is that religious nutjobs are easier to spot, as they are part of some organization, which often claims to have a shared belief. (This claim is usually wrong... I certainly don't believe that the unborn go to hell!) However, due to the exitence of a "community of faith," the insane ones, who suppose God will take them to heaven if they don't raise a gazillion bajillion cotillion dollars every Sunday are assumed to have thrall over a "congregation" of "Followers," the size of which can be measured based on the number of books sold, and individuals who have attended the church of the insane. |
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An atheist, or agnostic who makes a public ass of himself, or herself will be assumed to have done so in a vacuum. Regardless of the book sales, or lecture attendance of such a person, it is assumed that while disbelief in deity may be shared by others, those who came were all skeptical, and reasonable individuals, who were curious to see what the person had to say. |
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In reality, this is not the case at all. Book readers of both stripes can make up their own minds, and people listen to speakers for any number of reasons. Often people who disagree entirely with an insane individual will continue attending a church they speak at due to social connections, and the curious, but not devoted are always drawn to controversial figures. |
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