back to article 'God help our smartphones,' vicar prays

A London clergyman has brought a medieval ceremony of the Church of England into the 21st century by blessing his flock's smartphones, laptops, and iPods. The Revd Canon David Parrott of The City's 17th-century St Lawrence Jewry church told The Times that he wanted to update the ancient tradition of Plough Monday, when farmers …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Disgusting

    I have no love of religion but I hope he gets excommunicated for this idiocy.

    1. Thecowking

      What's so bad about it?

      I mean they used to bless ploughshares and blacksmith hammers and so on. Not to mention swords and the like. It's really not much difference. Unless you have some idea that lumps of iron are somehow more inherently holy than lumps of other materials?

    2. Quxy

      He doth protest too much, methinks

      Get a grip on yourself, dude. As I see it, there are only three possibilities here:

      1. God doesn't exist -- in which case the vicar's action is silly but harmless.

      2. God exists, but doesn't care about humans' daily lives -- in which case the vicar's action is misguided but harmless.

      3. God exists, and cares about humans' daily lives -- in which case the vicar's action is on target.

      Why on earth get upset about something you neither care about nor believe in?

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        You forgot

        4. God exists, and cares about humans' daily lives but isn't particularly impressed by quaint medieval superstitions.

      2. zooooooom
        Happy

        more possibilities....

        1. God doesn't exist -- in which case the vicar's action is silly but harmless.

        2. God exists, but doesn't care about humans' daily lives -- in which case the vicar's action is misguided but harmless.

        3. God exists, and cares about humans' daily lives -- in which case the vicar's action is on target.

        4. God exists and is planning on performing blessings via the app store, just as soon as he can persuade jobs that iBless is an appropriate name... in which case the vicars on the wrong end of a lawsuit real soon.

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Disgusting

      So you're happy with the CofE as long as it's a quaint village cricket / Vicar of Dibley setup with harvest festivals and parables about wine skins but don't want it getting near to real life

    4. heyrick Silver badge

      Not disgusting

      I thought it was quite sweet. I liked the bit at the end - certainly may our websites be accessible...

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      miserable g!t

      Oh come on you misery. The man of cloth means no harm, quite the opposite, and regardless of what you believe.

  2. Nigel Callaghan

    Illiterate Yanquis!

    That's PLOUGH not PLOW!

  3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    OS/2

    Can you get machines with OS/2 exorcised?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does he do exorcisms?

    I'd be happy to pop into his gaff and hand over a bit of dosh for the steeple fund or whatever if he'd exorcise my son's mobile.....the damn thing is on 24/7.

    1. Big-nosed Pengie
      Joke

      Title

      I wonder if he could drive the Microsoft daemons out of my Windows Mobile dumbphone?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Adherents of Shinto

    Would quite likely agree quite strongly with this......

  6. Tempest 3K
    Joke

    Jobs

    I foresee trouble from the church of Jobs over this..............

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Coat

      Church of Jobs

      For the priest will it be more than his "Jobsworth"?

      Ok. Ok. I know its lame.

      Mines the one with a Bakelite phone in the pocket.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    The purpose of a religion

    Is to assist in Man's relationship with God(s). I applaud one that recognizes that the form of that relationship may change over time.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ultimate Sysadmin

    God is really The Original BOFH? Be worried, be very worried.

    AC for obvious reasons.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    I don't think ...

    ... one can bless inanimate objects although one might bless living objects but I may be mistaken.

    One may say: bless all who use such and such devices.

    But as an object, an inanimate object, lacks human life it cannot really be blessed.

    1. lglethal Silver badge
      Happy

      hmm not sure your right

      Funny, but the Shroud of Turin, Holy Water and the Pope's Pointy Hat all seem to be things that are considered blessed so i guess inanimate objects can be blessed...

      *Disclaimer - agnostic - so what would i know? and do i care? =P *

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Halo

      Blessing

      You /are/ mistaken. Blessing is to dedicate persons or things to God's service. You can bless an inanimate object. This notion is common in expressions which everyone is familiar with, for example "bless this house" and "bless this ship and all who sail in her".

  10. OrsonX

    EXPERIMENT

    He could bless 100 Nexus phones and not bless another control group... and see which ones lose their 3G signal first....

    .... if the blessed ones have a stronger 3G signal then I think this would indeed count as ultimate proof of Gods existence....

    1. rciafardone
      Boffin

      "Sadly" God's blessings doesnt work as magic would...

      God blessing is a petition that has attached no obligation on part of the deity in question. This simply means that God may or may not bless the target; we "assume" the target is blessed but we have no possibility to be sure.

      Magic on the other hand is supposed to work always if the rituals and power of the performer are "real" and correct and no “magical counter attack” is performed by other party, like what geeks out there can recognize as protective spells.

      That’s why magic can actually be easily falsified while religions like Christianity and Judaism can’t be subject to scientific process.

  11. Davey Bee

    Good on him

    I am not a christian - not religious at all, in fact - but within the community of his church he is surely justified in updating the prayers traditionally said for the work that needs to be done. Why should that bother anyone who is not a christian?

  12. Jimmy Floyd
    Thumb Up

    Seems emminently reasonable

    If I believed in God (which is still TBC) it would hardly offend me that the tools of my trade were blessed. In any case, I'd doubtless rather take a call from Him rather than T-Mobile customer services - so the vicar emphasising the point that He has a higher communication channel is perfectly sensible.

    If I didn't believe in God, I'd be on PAYG with a workhorse Nokia. And I'd have no business taking issue with the vicars remarks.

  13. Captain Save-a-ho
    Thumb Down

    Please don't bless my phone

    It already does more than it fucking should (I mean, it's a phone, damn it!), and now we have to fuck things up by getting God involved.

    Why aren't there more porn stars in that area, so he can bless all of their "working" implements? Who says God has a sense of humor (tough to have when you don't exist)?

  14. Me Meeson
    Linux

    Linux?

    Obviously Linux is an atheist.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Coat

      Re: Linux?

      I think the word that you are struggling for is "heresy".

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Paul 4

        People

        Na. Linux users just don't fell happy with that much human contact.

  15. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Totally Barking Mad

    Superstition 2.0

  16. Dave Mundt
    Flame

    About that laptop running Windows...

    Did it, by any chance, burst into flames, and release a terrible, sulferous smoke, while the rafters echoed with the distant wails of the Damned?

    Considering what I have to struggle with on a daily basis...that is the outcome I would have expected.

    Regards

    Dave Mundt

  17. Daniel Wilkie
    Megaphone

    Honestly

    It seems harmless enough to me, and I don't really follow in the whole religion thing.

    But why oh why do people feel the need to express their "intellectual superiority" by going off on huge rants about atheism. I mean presumably it's because you're better than those religious types who have to evangalise about their imaginary friend right?

    Which is more or less what your'e doing thus making you just as bad. I mean seriously people get a grip, can't we all just get along?

    1. OrsonX

      "can't we all just get along?"

      Yes - we are intellectually superior

      and

      No - we can't [only difference being we don't kill you if you disagree with us]

      1. Paul 4

        Umm...

        Mao and Stalin did, so don't start that one.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ISTR a story about a temple in Dehli

    (I think it was a Ganesha temple) where you could text a prayer to a priest and he'd perform puja (make offerings to the god etc) on your behalf.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    Linux

    ...doesn't need blessing; it just works. But if you have a kind heart, you could help me out ... http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/linuxsupport/ ... please? ... pretty please?

  20. pctechxp

    Good on him

    I do agree with this.

    @Michelle Knight The government are too busy dreaming up crazy laws and the last thing we want is legislation regulating our tech.

  21. Simon B
    Thumb Up

    Nice

    Nice to see a modern way of thinking in the church :)

  22. M Neligan
    Coat

    medieval?

    "a medieval ceremony of the Church of England" : it is commonly held that the Reformation came just after the Middle Ages.

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