Should Babies Be Baptized?

A controversial subject throughout the ages and the debate still rages on. Are you for or against the baptisms of infants?

I think it's inappropriate to force religion on infants. They can't understand theology.

I don't see any harm in having your baby baptized if that's what you want to do.

Nystyle709 wrote:I don't see any harm in having your baby baptized if that's what you want to do.

Ditto. I don't see the harm in baptizing a baby....even if I do wish parents would be liberal enough to not enforce (expose....ok....force? I don't always agree) religion on them as they grow up.

Marc wrote:

Nystyle709 wrote:I don't see any harm in having your baby baptized if that's what you want to do.

Ditto. I don't see the harm in baptizing a baby....even if I do wish parents would be liberal enough to not enforce (expose....ok....force? I don't always agree) religion on them as they grow up.

Same here. As an infant the baptism is purely for the parent's peace of mind acting in the tradition of their church.

I know a lot of Protestants don't baptise until the kid is 12.

I was baptised as a pre-teen. Lot of good that did.

It's up to the parents. No biggie either way. It kind of bugs me when people do it because the "should".

I concur with the most of the opinions above. It’s a non-binding ceremony for the adults. As long as there’s no danger of drowning.

I'm not against it, I just don't believe in it. The idea of salvation is every person must come to it on their own accord, you can't have somebody else do it for you. And for that to work, you have to understand about it, and babies can't understand it, and I can't see God damning babies to hell just because they died before they could understand about Jesus and His sacrifice. So to me, a baby's baptism is just all for show and probably symbolism too because the way I see it, if, God forbid, something should happen and the babies would die, they're going to go to Heaven anyway.

Sure - it's more for the parents at that age, anyway. As for forcing a religion on your children? By not choosing a religion, you're also forcing those atheist or agnostic beliefs on a child, unless you are exposing him or her to every relgion out there and giving him or her a chance to experience various religions and beliefs.

Exactly, I don't see anything wrong with being raised the same religion your parents are. When a person's old enough to make decisions for themselves, they can decide if they want to continue following the religion or not, not every person who believes in God is brainwashing their children to always be mindless zombies incapable of thinking for themselves. Hell, there are a lot of people who do that and they don't even bother trying to hide behind God or a religion.

Only if the parents actually practice their faith. The baby cannot accept the faith on his own so the parents make the declaration of faith for him. If the parents don't believe what they say, they shouldn't be getting the kid baptized. It does more harm than good. However, if they are devout, then yes, they should be baptizing their kid.

The "don't force your faith on your kid" argument is crap that would not be applied to any other area of life. Parents force their beliefs on their kids, almost each and every one. Maybe not religiously, but I never heard somebody say "I'll let my kid decide for himself whether or not he will adopt racist beliefs." Yeah I know, it's "different." It always is, right? Well I say it's not. Those with religious beliefs have a strong belief in the necessity of their child accepting their religion. If a parent believes that something is essential to a child's eternal salvation but avoided giving that to the child because they didn't want to force beliefs, what kind of parent are they?

It's one thing if you don't believe in the necessity of Baptism. But if you DO, WHY the hell wouldn't you do it in infancy?

I don't have anything against it. If the parents decide that what they want to do, then go for it. I don't see any harm in it, as the child really isn't forced into religion by this action alone, since they're so little at the time. You could baptize me today and I wouldn't mind, but I wouldn't follow the religion.

Nystyle709 wrote:I don't see any harm in having your baby baptized if that's what you want to do.

ditto

Since baptismals are symbolic, IMO it doesn't hurt. When the baby grows older, he or she can decide whether or not they want to continue pursuing said faith.

Chris wrote:Since baptismals are symbolic, IMO it doesn't hurt. When the baby grows older, he or she can decide whether or not they want to continue pursuing said faith.

You do realize not all faiths consider baptisms symbolic right?