Nice. Be prepared for verbal abuse by the Christians.
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Originally Posted by Cashew
Why is it that the birth of a child is not sufficient in itself? Why do Christians feel the need to perform a ritual over the baby, not as a celebration of the event, but as a way of saying, "The birth of this child is fine, but of itself, it is not enough. Without the value-bestowing ritual, baptism, there is something missing." And this was expressed by saying that if the child died without the value-bestowing ritual, it's soul would be banished to a region called 'limbo' that, without necessarily being a punishment, was not the heaven of beatific vision. It matters not a whit that the Church has since retracted this kind of mythological blackmail, the fundamental attitude, the assumption of incompleteness-without-our-ritual remains to this day in full force with those who still cling to this kind of thinking.
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I really liked this part for one reason: my mother's family is Catholic. We went to a Catholic church for a few years, mainly just so that my younger sister could understand what it was about, but also because we just got fed up with the things that my grandparents would say. Things like "You are bad parents because you did not force your children to go to church. You allowed them to choose, so you are all going to hell." My family was happy when we started going. They thought that we had seen the light, when in actuallity we were just fed up. Despite all this I was not bothered by this until May 2001. That was when I graduated from high school. I was the first grandchild to graduate. I have two older cousins (both male), the oldest dropped out. The next is actually just my uncle stepson. So you would think that my grandparents would make a huge deal, right? Wrong. They didn't even come. They sent me a card filled with Biblical quotes and a ten dollar Wal-Mart card. Inside was written "We are so proud of you> ALMOST as proud as when you were baptised." They were prouder that some strange man dumped some water on my head as an infant. Forget the work that I had put in. That my oldest cousin had dropped out, the next oldest only graduated because he played football, and therefore got a by on much of his work, while I was getting into honors classes, and scoring off the charts on standardized tests, without even having to study. Getting baptised was more impressive. Right.
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Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favor, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity.
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Right on.