Vatican launches $110 'click to pray' wearable rosary

engadget.com

20 points·ductionist··7 comments

I thought from the headline that this was going to involve paying someone else to pray the rosary for you, or else just clicking and having it count as having prayed a rosary.

But it looks like it's more like a gamified app to teach people this prayer (albeit at pretty high cost and risk of obsolescence).

I think it's interesting that in parts of Buddhism there is a sort of substitute for personally reading or reciting religious texts such as sutras and mantras: the prayer wheel and the prayer flag, where just having a copy of the text move is considered to generate some kind of spiritual merit or benefit. I'm not sure how universal this is in Buddhism or what the differences are between personal recitation and, say, turning a prayer wheel.

My grandfather is a Buddhist and told me he saw solar powered versions of those prayer wheels while he was in Asia as a tourist souvenir. I like the idea of having a solar powered machine do the praying for you ;)

Let's just hope all this spiritual automation doesn't lead to a "Nine Billion Names of God"-style ending.

Certain religions that require slaughter to be paired with a certified religious leader praying over the animals often save money by just looping a recording of one in their stead.

I find it fascinating that people find it easy to believe in an almighty god that is so easily pacified by human machinations.

Press 'F' to pay respects.

Interesting juxtaposition between generic tech companies/apps that have stupidly lofty goals like changing the world, and this app that has the lofty goal of world peace.

Not to be cynical, but as the first sentence in the article suggests, I think the goal is really more aligned with “attracting tech-savvy youngsters to the Catholic Church”.

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