BAPTISM CANNOT MAKE A BABY A CATHOLIC
FIRSTLY...
The Roman Catholic Church claims that sprinkling water on a baby or an adult
while saying, "I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit" does amazing things. It takes away the sin we are born with,
original sin, and any other sins and grafts us on to Jesus making us his
servants. It puts Jesus and God inside us to live in us and inspire us. The
Church says that baptism heals the inclination towards sin that original sin
causes. Baptism is a sacrament. It pictures cleansing from sin and the effects
of sin and actually does what it pictures.
The Catholic Church counts baptised babies as members of the Catholic Church.
Baptism, according to Catholic doctrine, is supposed to make you a Christian and
a Catholic. We argue that this is only pretend membership. Church membership
conferred by infant baptism is invalid.
Even if baptism could make you a Catholic, it cannot make you Catholic as in
believer. Nobody considers an Anglican a Roman Catholic for believing more
Catholic doctrine than a professed Catholic. Catholic summarises different
ways of being Catholic. It covers living as a Catholic, believing as a
Catholic, going through the rites a Catholic needs, confessing the Catholic
faith etc. Though people deserve respect for what they believe sincerely a
problem arises: is it really their belief or are they conditioned? An idea
is not truly accepted if you are programmed to accept it. Conditioning
means it is not your belief but somebody else's at best.
God could decree that the baptised infant will be treated as a member of the
Church if he or she dies. There is no need for membership to be conferred. It
would be okay if baptism were understood as only conferring not actual but
potential membership. In the light of that, it is unfair to class a baptised
baby as a Catholic.
As baptism removes sin, it is supposed to unite your soul with God. Thus you
belong to him and he to you. There are no rights without responsibilities.
Baptism lays religious responsibilities on you. You must obey what God teaches
through scripture and the Church. Baptism is based on scripture and Church
authority. So to get baptised implies acceptance of their authority and
veracity. Baptism is an oath. God and his people have taken an oath based on,
"You will be my people and I will be your God". It is a two-way oath. The Church
requires an oath of commitment from baptised babies before they know to what
they are committing. That is outrageous...
It is hard to label many people who claim to be Catholic. The Unitarians
sometimes say, "It is okay for me to say I'm Christian as long as in the next
breath I say I am other things too. I'm a Jew and Muslim and an Agnostic." They
mean that part of you will fit Christianity and part of you will fit Judaism.
The point is that as it is hard to put labels on adults that REALLY describe them
how can you put labels on babies?
The baby is not a Catholic. Whether its baptised once or forty times a week its
still not a Catholic. If anything, babies and young children are the best
secularists there is. They are not interested in doing what a God or religion
wants but what they want as human beings.
A religion is a community but only in the sense of faith community. Belief
causes real membership of the community for it defines a community. You have to
agree with the doctrines in order to belong to the community. If belief does not
matter, then somebody who believes in Islam not Catholicism can still be a real
Catholic and should have the right to be bishop or pope. The defence of the
belief by theologians and apologists is also about defence of the community.
What happens is, if you depart far enough from the faith the Church will not
regard you as a member. If you believe nearly all what you are supposed to
believe, and have some deviations the Church will regard you as a heretic and
disciplinarily action may be applied.
If baptism marks your baby as belonging to the Church, that does not necessarily
mean he is a member of the Church. Belonging only means that you have a duty to
be a member not that you are a member. But conferring the duty is unfair.
Conferring the membership is worse. And that is what the Catholic Church does
with baptism!
Becoming a Catholic is said to be more important than becoming a priest or
getting married and your consent is needed for the latter. But to say that is to
imply it must be needed for the former too. Therefore Church law contradicts
itself by saying your consent is not needed to make you a Catholic when you are
a baby. The law then is invalid. The consent law conflicts with other canons.
BAPTISM ALLEGEDLY MAKES BABY MEMBER OF CHURCH
You may say a child can be a member of a particular race and so he or she can be
a member of a particular religion. But the two are not the same. You can be a
member of any race without being a member of any society. You can have a white
recluse or a black or whatever one. But you can't become a religionist without
joining some society. You can't exist or be human without being of some race.
But you can exist and be human without being a member of any religion or group.
Religion is divisive. It puts up barriers. No decent parent would want to make
their child a part of all that. Baptism when valid according to Catholicism,
gives the right to take communion. It is hideous how the Church may invite
baptised and unbaptised schoolchildren to Mass and even to Lourdes and
distribute communion only to the baptised! What kind of message does that give
out? Take a stand for equality and do not get your baby baptised.
It is complete arrogance to suppose that if you baptise a child that the child
will be a Catholic for all eternity whether he or she grows up to believe in
Catholicism or not. It is a bigoted supposition and can only lead to bigotry. It
implies that being baptised a Catholic is like some kind of default. It implies
that being anything else means nothing and is somehow bad.
The Church says that Adam was our representative when he said his "No" to God.
Why does God let us suffer for Adam's sin? For the same reason that if you
declare war on a king, you declare it on his citizens even the babies. Baptism
takes away the hostility between God and the baby. It follows then that the baby
can be represented by parents and the nation. In baptism, it is represented by
the Church. When the Church teaches its foolishness and harmful morals, the baby
is made complicit in this by baptism. If God comes first, it follows that the
Church is the dominant representative. And it's above the state or nation. And
above the parents. Baptism then tries to give the baby a form of responsibility
when the Vicar of Christ, the pope, goes to Africa and urges women to prefer
catching AIDS to using condoms. You could not make your baby an enabler of evil
and error and superstition.
Our infant baptism did not make us members of the Church though our parents and
godparents consented on our behalf that we would be made Catholics by the
ritual.
If the church and state can annul marriages - that is, decide that no legal
marriage took place - that is making it law that people must know what they are
doing in order to make a legally binding decision. Children cannot do this.
Consent made by a baby to become Catholic is invalid because the baby can't make
choices.
The claims of Catholicism are so huge that each person needs evidence of
exceptional quality to really be able to become a member of the Church.
The consent would be invalid even if the child were grown up for the Church
manipulates the evidence so that people do not become Catholics by making an
informed decision. A person who converts to their perception of Catholicism is
not converting to Catholicism. Same with a person who "confirms" their
affiliation.
Laws are intended to compel people. Nobody wants a religion forced on them so
the consent to become Catholic or remain Catholic is invalid. It is true that
Canon Law doles out non-punishments and laughable "penalties" so it is a
laughing stock not a law. But still, in claiming to be law, it is saying that
forcing a person to live as a Catholic and to believe is okay.
The Church says that you get baptised into Catholicism. It makes more sense to
say a person is baptised into Christianity but not necessarily Catholicism.
Infant baptism is exploitation. The Church responds that the sacrament is such a
great gift that it is not exploitation. It says you don’t ask a child if you can
give her all your money should you die. You just give.
Catholic parents are encouraged to bring their child for baptism. But the Church
keeps many dark and sinister doctrines from them. It is manipulative to have
people entering their child into a religion without telling them the whole
truth. It is foolish to trust the Church and its clergy.
CONCLUSION
Baptism confers pretend membership of the Church on a baby. You cannot make a
baby a member of a sports club so why would you think a baby can be made a
member of the Church? And if the baby is inclined to rebel against God from
conception as the Church says and needs baptism to heal this trait, surely you
are forcing your will on the baby by baptising it or having it baptised? If the
baby had a choice it would most probably choose what is called evil by the
Church - namely a normal life that doesn't worry much about God or popes or what
the Bible says. In other words, it doesn't want baptism for it doesn't want to
be healed.
If enrolling your baby in the gym cannot make it a true member of the gym but
only a nominal or pretend one, surely trying to enrol him or her in the Church
is far sillier if it is true that our nature is to live without God? It is
really down to a refusal to accept anybody as a person, they have to be accepted
as a Catholic.