AN ESSAY AGAINST BABY BAPTISM

People when they hear that baptism makes the baptised person, usually a baby, born again usually think it is not as drastic as it sounds. It is not a repeat birth but the first birth in the eyes of God. You are a literal creation there and then. He cannot tolerate you as you are so you are just born - it is not "another" birth. This implies a very severe rejection of how we are humans with original sin. To the atheist it is a rejection of human nature.

The doctrine of the Church is that baptism is not a right but a gift from God. Yet some seem to think they have a right to get their babies baptised or the baby has a right to get baptised! If the baby has a right parents have less right.  Things could be very different if society would just realise that baptism is not an entitlement.

When it is pointed out that baptism seems a cynical or manipulative way to get recruits people point to the parents and the culture they are part of some say.  "You can’t really divorce your religious background.  A person raised say Catholic will always have to live with aspects of Catholicism.  It will affect how they feel and think to some extent." What kind of argument is that for infant baptism being acceptable and even desirable? You are a product of the religion and culture you are born into but that does not stop them allowing you to make your own choice!  Mormons do not become Mormons until they are eight.  Indeed how could they? And if you being a product of your culture happens in the long years after your first birthday how could that justify baptising you before any of it even starts?   It bans it actually!  And you are more than just a religious product of your culture.  If you are gay that may mean everything to you while your Catholic formation means little.  You are a product of loads of things not just religion.

The Catholic Church has sinister teachings about baby baptism. It does not emphasise the nasty side too much for it wishes to attract the people. Most baby baptisms these days happen for the sake of marking the child’s birth, because most of the family or neighbours get their babies baptised and as an excuse for having a big day. None of these reasons justify the baptisms.
 
Babies are, according to Catholic doctrine, spiritually dead and don’t have a link with God. Baptism is held by Catholicism to be essential for fixing this. The main effect of baptism is the new birth. This doctrine highlights how important and serious baptism is.

Baptism seeks to put an occult influence in the child to veer its life towards superstition and prejudice. If you believe in the occult, then baptism is clearly a violation of the child.
 
Committing a child to a religion without its consent is wrong. But committing it to a bad religion that cannot give proper guidance or teach sensibly is far worse.
 
Original sin says we are spiritually blind when we are born and we want to be that way. If so, is it not more likely that baptism does not work than that it does? Is it not likely that it is just something we want to delude ourselves with to be able to think that we don’t have a problem?

Parents do not have the right to decide if they should have their child baptised. If they have the right to raise a child in a particular faith, that does not mean they should enrol the child in that faith. What they should be doing is encouraging the child to freely adopt that faith which means letting the child see some alternatives.

The Church says that baptising a child is not taking advantage of the child for baptism heals the child of original sin and steers the child towards becoming a holy human being. It will say that the benefits of baptism far outweigh the obligations conferred by baptism.

The Church will say that you are made a member of your family and your country without your consent. But the answer is that you have to have a country and a family but who says you have to have a Church? The Church cheats people by ignoring evidence - a child would need to give informed consent before it could be right for the Church to make a member of the child.
 
Justice says that a decision made for me as a child even if binding is not as binding as a decision made by me when I am old enough.
 
If God can undo the effects of Adam’s sin by baptism, he can do it without baptism and indeed should. The obedience of Jesus reversed the damage in the same way that Adam’s sin harmed us. The Church says we come into existence in sin because Adam made a decision for us. But the Church says Adam made such a decision for Mary too but God managed to protect her from it. If God is really good, no baby will need baptism. He will not estrange himself from a baby until it is baptised. If he does then he is not worth knowing and you shouldn’t be trying to dedicate your child to him. It is obvious that the doctrine about the need for baptism to get saved or into Heaven is make-believe and intended to bully people to bring their children to the Church which seeks to impose Church membership on them.

The Church says that though there is no salvation without baptism, if you are preparing for baptism and die suddenly, God will give you some of the effects of baptism and save your soul because you intended to be baptised and it wasn’t your fault it never happened. But this teaching only applies to adults.

If parents are going to encourage their child to have baptism when he or she is older and so refuse to have the child baptised as an infant, surely an understanding God would apply the baptism of desire by proxy to the child should the child die? The Church vindictively and cynically denies this.

Baptism is just a scaremongering tactic used by the Church to force membership on vulnerable children and so to enhance its own growth and power.
 
The Church says babies are not born children of God but have to be made his children by baptism. The translation of this is that the Church is saying that a baby is the worst kind of bastard until it is “fixed” in baptism.
 
If it were not for the custom of drinking and partying when the baby is baptised would there be as many baptisms as there are?
 
Baptising children tells the children that the Church, at least in the form of the parents, has the right to make decisions for them. The Church claims to make babies members of the Church by baptism without their consent.
 
Baptising the child tells the child that he or she needed the baptism to be a good person which is dangerous for it implies the unbaptised are bad or in some way inferior. What kind of message is that to be giving a child?
 
Baptism is a promise to get the child to believe in the message of the Church. It is nobody's business, not even the parents's, what a child believes. Parents might condition their children to live and think like Catholics but that is not making them real believers. It is nobody's business what a child believes for no amount of conditioning can make a child truly believe. It may make the child think he or she believes. Conditioning means you are hypnotised into agreeing with something while belief means you came to agree through thinking and considering valid evidence and logic.  Real belief comes from freedom and free inquiry. Baptism is child abuse.
 
Baptism is nonsense but it is a big deal in its meaning and intention. That is why nobody should say that if an atheist parent objects to his child being baptised that he is making a silly fuss.
 
The dreadful notion of children being born with original sin and needing forgiveness in baptism can only be believed if you take an attack of low self-esteem and mistrust with regard to your own mind and experience for it makes no sense.
 
Baptism is about a passage to the Eucharist. The unbaptised are barred from communion. To tell children that Holy Communion is Jesus Christ is telling them to value bread above people which gives the message that religion and its theories and rules matters more than people. Even if the Church does not ask one to kill a person who is about to desecrate the Eucharist to save it, it can. Indeed it should!
 
Is that what you want marking the birth of your child by christening her or him to be about? That?



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