Christening....which religion.....

shortchanged_2

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

And.... gladly, some people use their religion to inspire them to help others - Salvation Army and Christian Aid for example.

Religion doesn't corrupt in itself - bad people use some ideologies to corrupt - there is a BIG difference.

I don't think a person's religious beliefs should be of interest to anyone but themselves - it is how they conduct themselves and how they relate to their fellow man that counts.

This is spot on.

However unfortunately pretty much all religious groups have some form of extremist element. These are the dangerous ones where their religious beliefs are so strong they then in fact become totally intolerant of others.

erichamster

cazziebo wrote: »

I can't explain properly how I know my children love me, I just know that they do. In the same way, I know there is a God.

You know your children love you based on the evidence for it. They are (presumably) emotionally attached to you, they run to you when they are upset or afriad, they look to you to teach them about the world, they (when they are old enough) vocalise their love for you. On an evolutionary level your children need to love you because they are dependent on you for their survival. You need to love them as you are dependent on their survival for the propagation of your genes.

You are deluded that there is a god based on no evidence whatsoever. The only reason that I can think of that sane adults persist in a belief in god is for some level of comfort that there will be something after death. Though why grown adults need such comfort on such a beautiful Earth within a profoundly wondrous universe is beyond me, I can only think that religious people retain a childish selfishness that can never be satisfied. How can you look around you at so much beauty and petualntly cry "There must be more".

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful, do there have to be fairies at the bottom of it too?" Douglas Adams

I didn't "know" this until I was around 30 when I only went inside a church because my 3 year old daughter wanted to go to Sunday school. It was easier to go into the service than it was to hang around outside when I had no idea how long it took. I found the sermon intellectually stimulating, the fellowship of the congregation heartwarming, and I started to look forward to going. No flash of lightning, no Damascene conversion. My life is so much richer now - in a way that is hard to explain - I know it is.

But how? As an atheist (I would even go as far to say I am an antitheist but as that is not yet as accepted term I will use atheist here)I am better equipped to appreciate my life without constantly searching for a reason for its existence or something better in an afterlife. This life is all I have and I intend to have the best time that I can.

As for the baptism, in our church, we would welcome anyone who wanted to baptise their children. Our minister's view is that if people only come into contact with us very rarely, we have a responsibility to make that contact as rich and meaningful as possible.

Why label children at such an early point in their life, If you believe so much in the validity of the message let them come to it in their own time as rational adults when they are old enough to think for themselves.

erichamster

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

And.... gladly, some people use their religion to inspire them to help others - Salvation Army and Christian Aid for example.

Religion doesn't corrupt in itself - bad people use some ideologies to corrupt - there is a BIG difference.

I don't think a person's religious beliefs should be of interest to anyone but themselves - it is how they conduct themselves and how they relate to their fellow man that counts.

It is not religion that inspires people to do good, it is their morality, which does not come from religion (as I have mentioned earlier).

Religion does corrupt people as it closes their minds and teaches them to blindly follow against what all rational people would call reason. Religious people who do great evils, such as suicide bombing for example don't do it because they are bad people, they do it because they genuinely believe the religious message they have been taught.

Oh how I wish the religious people would keep their beliefs to themselves and stop trying to spread it around, not only to their own children which is bad enough, but also by trying to wield their power in government.Think of the huge and growing power and money the christian right has in America and the constant calls for shariah law to be introduced by muslim groups, I am hugely worried about this for the future of us all.
When asked whether he though atheists should be considered citizens or patriots, George Bush had this to say:

“No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.”

Now that is scary.

Catapa

There are no catholic children (or anglican, atheist, muslim et al) children, there are only children of catholic parents (or anglican, atheist, muslim at al).

As you don't seem to adhere to any such denomination you simply shouldn't Christen your child. If your child wants it, it can decide to get christened (or whatever) at a later stage.

Oldernotwiser

Person_one wrote: »

Its pretty impossible to know how many people would convert if they truly had no exposure to religion as its so integrated into our culture that even children of atheist parents get a constant trickle of baby Jesus, good Samaritan, the concept of Prayer, even the exclamation of 'Oh my God!.

It would be very difficult to convert to anything if nobody ever told you about it!

Anyway, what about the numbers of indigenous British people who convert to Islam - that doesn't happen by a cultural trickle effect.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343954/100-000-Islam-converts-living-UK-White-women-keen-embrace-Muslim-faith.html

Oldernotwiser

Catapa wrote: »

There are no catholic children (or anglican, atheist, muslim et al) children, there are only children of catholic parents (or anglican, atheist, muslim at al).

As you don't seem to adhere to any such denomination you simply shouldn't Christen your child. If your child wants it, it can decide to get christened (or whatever) at a later stage.

If you mean babies then I would agree. If you mean older children then I think that's a point of view that's very disrespectful.

King_Nothing

I was christened cofe and I'm an athiest, but I promise, I'll never ever christen any children I have, why would I want to do something to them that they might not want to chose to believe in. I'll leave them to decide when they're old enough.

Tiddlywinks

erichamster wrote: »

Oh how I wish the religious people would keep their beliefs to themselves and stop trying to spread it around.

Oh how I wish the non-religious would leave alone the people that have a belief in a higher power - why the need to have a dig at them?

shortchanged_2

I think all this argument shows now that religion is very much only surviving in the UK due to tradition rather than actual beliefs.

I think in a generation or two the CoE will no longer exist and the main Christian denominations in the UK will be odd bod evangelists and RC's (which is being helped by the influx of immigrants).

Tiddlywinks

King_Nothing wrote: »

I was christened cofe and I'm an athiest, but I promise, I'll never ever christen any children I have, why would I want to do something to them that they might not want to chose to believe in. I'll leave them to decide when they're old enough.

How many people have their children's ears pierced before they are old enough to make that decision for themselves?

I see nothing wrong in parents passing on their faith to their children - but this thread is about a non-believer asking about christening a child which is very, very different.