BAPTISMAL PERJURY
The Bible says that an oath is calling on God to back up what you say and about
calling curses down on yourself should you be a liar. The commandment
forbids taking the name of God in vain and refers to oaths first and foremost.
An oath with no curses is not an oath at all. It is hardly binding when
you have no fear of God striking. Oaths are making a contract to tell the
truth and the contract is made with God and contracts have penalties for being
breached.
The Catholic Church claims that when Jesus said nobody gets into God's
kingdom without being born of water he meant that anybody who is not baptised
cannot be saved. The Church argues that if you are preparing for baptism and are
hit by a truck and die then God will understand and count you as baptised. But
even then you intend to be saved by water.
As baptism is about a baby embracing God for life vows are involved. Parents and
godparents take the vows for the child - the parents and godparents are thought
to take the vows and oaths to be loyal to God by proxy for the child. Vows imply
you must suffer a punishment or penalty if you break them. So if the child gets
bigger and rejects any part of the vows he or she calls on God to punish her or
him. What kind of loving parents would have their child baptised in a sceptical
world?
The Church sees baptism as a huge deal and even more important than marriage for
baptism marries you to God. Yet priests baptise merely because they are asked
to. It is hypocritical. And more so when the priest knows that parents don't know
enough about the religion to make a responsible decision. And even worse when
the child of anti-religion parents is baptised. People are not told the truth
about the meaning of baptism by the Church. The priest is facilitating the
parents taking false and invalid and unfair vows to make a good Catholic of the
child which is really perjury.
To take a child for baptism while not intending to make her or him a believing
Catholic as opposed to a dishonest cherry-picker is akin to perjury and should
be accepted as perjury of a kind.
Church teaching is that a child that fails to seriously live up to baptism will
be damned forever in Hell. Ultimately you go to Hell for defying the baptismal
commitments. Is it really right to imply that people can be accused of being
capable of such an evil when there is no hard evidence for anybody going to
Hell? Also, is it really right to raise a child in a religion when you have made
little or no effort to make sure the religion in terms of morality and honesty
and evidence really is the best to raise the child up in?
The Church says that if there is no God then you cannot have any reason to
believe in right and wrong. Baptism puts God in you. Perjury - taking a lying
oath - is a grave sin in Catholicism. It says it is calling on the God of truth
to witness to and support a lie. It follows then that the notion of perjury
being sinful is based on the notion of being obliged to have a relationship with
God and this relationship starts with baptism and baptismal grace maintains it
throughout life. In short, baptism and the sinfulness of perjury are
inseparable.
Taking the baptismal vows for a child lightly or in ignorance or for the sake of
pleasing the grandparents is perjury. You cannot claim that such behaviour is
fine and perjury is not.