BAPTISMAL PERJURY WHEN ONE SWEARS TO THINGS ONE DOES NOT MEAN

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.



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