I put this out there once before about baptism (on my other blog), but that was before we got pregnant. The daddy & are not practicing any organized religion, and do not feel it is right to baptize our children into an organized religion that we are not practicing. We will not start practicing just so that we can baptize our child either, that just seems silly.
Having grown up with the Catholic guilt, and working hard to shed that guilt, I struggle with the fact that we will be "expected" to baptize our children. The daddy and I have spen much time talking about this over the years, and now that in another 5 months there will be a child in our lives we have to decide just how we want to approach this.
I know that not baptizing will be upsetting to some family members, but we have talked about doing a Family Baby Blessing instead. I am reading up about it. We do want to raise our child to have faith, be spiritual, and strive to be a good, honest person in all that they do. We don't need an organized religion to teach that to our child.
We believe in the basic fundamentals that most religions (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Jewish) have in common. These religions just might use different words or names to describe them. We plan to teach our children these fundamentals.
A lot of our beliefs will probably have a Christian influence, as that is what we were raised, but we do not discount the beliefs of parellell religious influences. If later on in life our child chooses to be baptized or join an organized religion they will have the learned they core fundamentals from us and can make a choice that is best suited to them.
6 comments:
Perfectly said.
Just one thing to think about, and then I'll shut my mouth. Heaven forbid, but if something should happen to your child and they need serious medical attention, there used to be a mindset among some doctors that they would not preform surgery on a child until it was baptized. Something to think about ahead of time and not have to decide when a child is in crisis.
I don't think that any hospital can refuse service to a patient. I will ask my doctor to make sure, not ease your mind. I am not worried about it. But there was a big thing in the news recently about this Catholic Hospital being sued (I believe it was in NY) because they refused to give the Morning-After pill to someone stating it went against their religious beliefs of the hospital, although the state requires it. The state won, the hospital lost.
I could not find it anywhere online the internet where a hospital or doctor refused to treat a patient because they were not baptized, but I DID find where parents refused the treatment until their child was baptized.
I do not believe a child will go to hell if they die and are not baptized. It is that guilty mentality that plagues the Catholic religion that I work so hard to free myself from and think for myself.
I am not going to believe or do something because I was told to or "that's what you are supposed to do" or that's what everyone else has done.
If I wanted to live with the Catholic guilt we would have been married in the Catholic church -- but we weren't. We received our marriage education from a Baptist minister and were married in a Methodist church. We wanted a blessing on our marriage and chose to go the church route, but were not opposed to going another route -- which we almost had to. We could have "married ourselves" in WI.
Anyways - we believe that God does not punish children or adults for that matter because they were not baptized.
PLus - I read an interesting argument online that someone had regarding "original sin". They said, If Jesus was supposed to have died to atone for our sins, then why does that not count for the 'original sin'. Actually - this argument is found in many places online.
Other issues I have with orgainzed religion is the use of stories in the bible as fact and the use as symbols being absolute.
I can not acticulate all of my beliefs and how they differ or are the same with orgainzed religions. As I am still learning what I believe and what I am about. It takes a while to sort out what it true for me or what was taught to me as fact at a young age.
I am blessed that I feel independent and choose to explore my faith and where it differs from my family and what I was taught in Catholic school might be upsetting to some, but I am doing this for me, for my husband, and for my children.
The doctor said that they would never not do any type medical procedure if the baby wasn't baptized.
And he said if in the case something happened, any of the doctors or nurses can baptize.
FROM MIL (sent to me in email):
Also my 2 cents on baptism. I was raised in the old Catholic tradition and would never consider not baptising a child because I am sure it is going to never get to heaven and would feel bad for any grandchild that wasn't baptized but those are my beliefs and this is your child. There are many nondemonational churches our there that don't require you to become one religion or another. In a child's life there are many times that a baptism will come up again. Most children have godparents which may be a passe thing as far as bringing up the kids, but they are people that are special to a lot of kids growing up. Also if they decide to be confirmed or married in any church the first thing they are going to be asked for is a baptismal certificate.
Now, having said that, this is your child and, while I may not always agree with your decisions, I will respect your right to make them for your own family. What I will do, is add any thoughts or information I have so you can make informed decisions and I will feel like I have done what I could to express my beliefs. While we listened to the feelings of others while raising our family, the final decision was ours as all your decisions for your family will be yours. Good luck making those decisions, they are not always easy
We've been going back to HOM, and they do a baptism on Easter each year. So, we are open to considering baptizing our child into 'that' church community.
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