Expect a vampire real estate boom in Arizona if this works out
May 11, 2007 3:34 PM Subscribe
A question about geology and vampires.
Last summer, some of my friends and I had a long discussion about vampires, holy water, and the hydrologic cycle. Is the modern earth even habitable for movie vampires?
You might have noted this already, but this was a road trip conversation. Consider the following propositions:
Firstly, the vampires in this thought experiment are your standard movie vampires: bloodlust, sunlight-averse, ill-tempered around garlic and crosses, wounded by silver and holy water. The latter bit is the important part for the purposes of this question.
Secondly, officials of the Catholic Church (among other churches) have been blessing water since at least the 5th century.
Thirdly, the vast majority of the water that has been blessed has been cycled through the hydrologic cycle countless times.
So in theory, the Earth, after a certain point, would be rendered uninhabitable for vampires just through routine blessings and the water cycle alone. Any rain storm or bottle of Poland Spring could conceivably contain molecules of previously-blessed water, which would then be lethal to a vampire. This leads me to the questions.
1) What are the nuts and bolts of water blessing? When water is blessed and becomes holy, do the individual molecules acquire the properties of holiness, thus retaining them through the subsequent phases of the water cycle after evaporation?
2) Is there a way to estimate the total volume of water that has been blessed heretofore? Is there a way to measure what percentage of the total amount of water in the Earth's closed system that accounts for?
Last summer, some of my friends and I had a long discussion about vampires, holy water, and the hydrologic cycle. Is the modern earth even habitable for movie vampires?
You might have noted this already, but this was a road trip conversation. Consider the following propositions:
Firstly, the vampires in this thought experiment are your standard movie vampires: bloodlust, sunlight-averse, ill-tempered around garlic and crosses, wounded by silver and holy water. The latter bit is the important part for the purposes of this question.
Secondly, officials of the Catholic Church (among other churches) have been blessing water since at least the 5th century.
Thirdly, the vast majority of the water that has been blessed has been cycled through the hydrologic cycle countless times.
So in theory, the Earth, after a certain point, would be rendered uninhabitable for vampires just through routine blessings and the water cycle alone. Any rain storm or bottle of Poland Spring could conceivably contain molecules of previously-blessed water, which would then be lethal to a vampire. This leads me to the questions.
1) What are the nuts and bolts of water blessing? When water is blessed and becomes holy, do the individual molecules acquire the properties of holiness, thus retaining them through the subsequent phases of the water cycle after evaporation?
2) Is there a way to estimate the total volume of water that has been blessed heretofore? Is there a way to measure what percentage of the total amount of water in the Earth's closed system that accounts for?
This post was deleted for the following reason: thought experiments are not really right for AskMe, no matter how sciencey they sound. plus this threatens to diverge into LOL CATHOLIX
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