Vlad the Baptist

[Cartoonist]

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. Are they suggesting baptism under duress still conveys some sort of spiritual benefit?

[edhopper]

2. Or baptism while dead

we could ask the Mormons.

[Voltaire2]

3. Have you watched a traditional infant

baptism? The kid is generally livid about the situation. Obviously duress is the standard.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. Touche.

[Bretton Garcia]

4. Eucharistic Blood-Drinking, and Dracula, Vampires

They are related.

Even historically.

The character Dracula was based on a "Vlad the Impailer ." A Christian who impailed non-believers on wooden stakes. Causing blood and death, to achieve eternal life for himself..

Eventually the story merged with the Eucharistic idea that we have to drink blood - the blood of Jesus - to be good.

Long before all that, relating to that? Some tribes believed in ritual cannibalism: that consuming parts of the bodies of fierce enemies (and deceased friends?) allowed you to gain some of their energy, power.

(The story about the pigs in Pennsylvania was interesting too.)

Mythicists note that myths and religions often borrow bits and pieces of earlier stories, and put them together in odd surreal ways.