Should I baptize my child?

[wiseguy]

I think it was my great-grand mother who insisted on my baptism (Roman Catholic - I cherish the papers to this day!). My parents agreed, just to keep the peace, I believe. Since I was a pre-natal atheist, the baptismal waters just washed over me! Irritating as 'believers' often are, sometimes, amongst work mates, neighbours, friends and family, compromise can be mutually beneficial.

[Orphia Nay]

Glob's clever sleuthing beat me to it. I was going to point out that most, if not all churches will expect you to vow that you will raise the child as a member of their religion.

My mum is very religious (Anglican), and nagged me about getting our son baptised, however she backed off when I told her choosing his name and getting his birth certificate in the mail was all the confirmation we needed.

Later, I let her take him to Sunday School, so he could learn about religion, since we never talked about it at home. He didn't like going often, but when he was about 13 he wanted to be baptised so he could get confirmed.

We agreed to that, but found out to our surprise (during the ceremony!) we had to vow to raise him a Christian. We really couldn't say no at that point without upsetting the whole family!

(Luckily, about two years later, he became an atheist, all of his own free will.)

To get to the point, unless you're willing to lie about raising the child into a religion, you're going to have to find another way to appease your mother-in-law than baptism.

[DanDare]

Just wanted to add the political consideration here.

Baptism = +1 catholic on the books. The number of catholics is a big number that the church tries to frighten the pollies with. They purposely avoid any quality level (practicing, non-practicing etc.)

[edit] Also note the number of baptised catholics that spend time and effort getting themselves off those books later in life. Its like lumbering the kid with a future debt burden. [/edit]

[Roger]

No.


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[Sten]

Originally Posted by odd

It never ceases to amaze me how impervious to the obvious fiction-that-their-religion-is cat'licks (and the rest I suppose) are. The concept of unbaptised babies going to hell finally became so unpalatable that the church decided to change the rules. Did god send them a memo? or did they just make it up?

How this type of thing doesn't set off alarm bells is beyond me. It takes effort to be that deluded.

Well you have to see odd that the man with the funny hat has a direct line to God so knows about every whim. It goes even further than that because the man with the funny hat can make his own judgments on things and tell God what to do:

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Pretty clear to me. What the Pope, or his

[Strato]

It's funny, I've difficulty remembering yesterday, but can remember my christening, in England, aged two. Sitting in this forbidding large old church, saying, "when are they going to do me, mummy?" and my voice echoing through the vaults. And then, being whisked up by the minister in funny clothes and having the pronouncement spoken three times, "in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost" with my forehead crossed with his wet finger. Trippy shit.