Non-religious parents and religious membership for babies.

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A comment in another thread made me think of this question:

Should parents who are not practicing a religion and do not intended to do so have a baby baptised or what ever form of ceremony makes that child a member of a specific religion?

I can only speak for Catholicism (Roman, Anglo, Greek, etc). The parents and the god-parents make promises to raise the child in the specific religion. My problem is that I see this as hypocritical, sorry but I can't think of another politer word. There is no intention to keep the promises. If it is important to other close family members that the child be at least exposed to the family religion I suggest that these family members with the permission of the parents take the responsibility to seeing that the child is taught about the religion. Then when the child is older (s)he may choose what to do.

PS: This topic has nothing to do with whether or not religion is good, bad, indifferent, logical or illogical. There are other threads for that.

 

Of course the baby must be baptised! Otherwise you would take from the parents and godparents the chance of dressing up nicely, and showing off their baby in front of their families, while getting eye-watering pictures of the baby in church.

Not following the rites is a social faux pas.

/end sarcasm

 

If the parents really are non-believers then I would have to agree it isn't right but if they are your typical occassional (i.e. almost never) church goers I think it is o.k.

Even if they don't strictly follow all of the rules of their religion and don't go to church very often they should as parents be teaching their children the basic moral structure that their religion requires.

Also, I have found that in a lot of cases having their child baptized actually encourages a lot of people to make a greater effort to attend church. The parents actually do seem to feel that their oaths give them some obligation to take the child to church.

 

If a religion has no particular meaning for parents, why would they impose it upon their child? That makes no sense to me. I don't think the word "hypocrite" is too harsh in this application, Nakia, not at all. Both God and those who truly follow the religion deserve more respect than that.

Also, there's the practical application. Generally, when a child learns about something they should be doing (be it recycling or going to confession every week), they WANT to do it. Why set yourselves up to have to explain away the lack of practice? If you don't believe and don't intend to follow the religion, asking a child to do so by sending them to religious school is asking for conflict.

 

I'm in the middle on this one, logistically and personally. I am now - and for the forseeable future shall remain - an agnostic. My girlfriend / fiancee / future baby-maker, is Catholic. Not Chev-Catholic, but fairly devout and involved in her church. Recently I made it clear to her that I felt very uncomfortable with the idea of converting to a religion I don't believe in just to meet a marriage requirement.

Up until this point, I was planning on converting for her. But after 5 years of going to her church, studying her bible and listening to her priest's sermons, I still can't find a good reason why I should become a catholic. I feel strongly that the only reason anyone should convert to a particular religion is because they feel that that religion has been the missing piece in their life, and is indeed the best means for them to attain a strong relationship with God. I don't feel that way about catholicism (or any other church at the moment), and I strongly feel that my joining the church under these circumstances would be an insult to me, to her and to her church. I also want to sidestep the inevitable resentment down the road that's sure to result.

She agreed with my arguement, and I won't be converting after all. I also told her that people from different faiths get married in the world all the time and somehow do just fine. Her parents - very traditional Asian mainlanders and VERY devout - will be slightly harder to convince. Particularly since her mother converted from Buddhism to her father's Catholicism when they got married in Viet Nam 3 decades ago.

One condition she did have for this arrangement was that we at least raise our kids catholic, which I'm fine with. I think kids should at least have a foundation of faith, and simplistic moral guidelines that come with it certainly make things easier. My foundation in Mormonism was in many ways good for me, despite the way I feel about the church today. I'm grateful for the sense of community and family values I gained from the mormon community - which IMO is far more important than the factually-questionable history, in any faith.

So that was her condition, but I had mine as well: that we take a similar approach to religion as my parents did; as soon as they're old enough to know the substantive differences between different religions, they're welcome to explore their spiritual side and we will by no means "force" them to be catholics forever. Unless they love catholicism and can't imagine anything else, which I'd be fine with, too.

 

Hi everyone! I believe I'm the hypocrite everyone's been talking about!

I guess a full disclosure is in order. I am agnostic. I've attended church about 5 times in the last 5 years, and it was always because of something other than going to church that I was present. (My reason for being there was either a wedding, baptism, or - unfortunately - a funeral.)

So the last time I went to church for the express purpose of attending a mass was probably close to a decade ago.

My wife and I were both raised Catholic. My parents were fairly devout, and my wife's parents were extremely devout, to the point of being kind of nuts. (My mother-in-law is so devout that she refused to attend the wedding of one of her children because she married a non-Catholic.)

Anyway, over the last few years, both my wife and I became increasingly disillusioned by the Catholic Church and both of us have stopped attending mass on any regular basis. We were both going down that path prior to meeting each other, and since neither of us felt inclined to go before we met, nothing changed when we started living together and eventually got married. While I would categorize myself as an agnostic, I do not believe that my wife would categorize herself as one. For completely unrelated reasons, my parents also drifted away from the Catholic Church during these past few years as well, and their attendance is as spotty as mine has been in recent years.

What does this have to do with the topic? Well, we're having a baby, and it is more than likely that we will have the baby baptised in a Catholic Church despite the fact that we have no intentions of re-joining the flock at that point, or any point in the foreseeable future.

In that sense, yeah, it's hypocritical. On the other hand, dropping a couple of hundred bucks to join a church and get the kid baptised is a far easier road to go on than having my mother-in-law throw a hissy fit about not getting the child baptised. The woman can hold a grudge, and I can tell you that my wife's relationship with her mother will never be the same if we decide not to get the baptism. It will also ensure that my child will have no relationship with one of his sets of grandparents. My parents couldn't care less, as they are not involved in the Church anymore either.

While I will certainly acknowledge that it is hypocritical to take this course of action, I will also insist that this is the most pragmatic approach to the situation. If my mother-in-law decides to never speak to me again for not getting the kid baptised, I do not look at it as any great loss, because I already feel she's as nutty as a fruitcake. However, I do not think it is fair to either my wife or my unborn child to terminate those ties with her, when the only thing it's going to cost me is a relatively small monetary fee and one day of my life.

As my child gets older, there of course will be calls from the mother-in-law to get the kid confirmed, but she'll be way old by then (if not already dead) and will hopefully mellow out by that point. She may even start suffering from dementia by that piont - she's already 67, so she'll be 80ish by the time the kid hits confirmation age, and she may not even know what the heck confirmation is by then. Of course, if my child actually wants to get confirmed, I won't stand in the way of it. Regardless, I'm taking the road of least resistance in all of this.

 

Around here we just toss the baby into the church, dress it up in an adorable white dress (boys and girls) sprinkle some water on its head and then go eat cake. I personally think it is a bit hypocritical but not really more so than celebrating christmas or easter. There are so many levels where religion is so thouroughly mixed with traditions and culture that it is hard to say where one starts and the other end. Where I come from the traditional and cultural bits of the Christian religion are as firmly engrained as ever even if very few actually have any faith.

I find it more offensive to see families give their loved ones a religious funeral even when the dead guy was a raving fanatical atheist. That I find disrespectful even though arguments about a church funeral giving some solace to more spiritually interested family members are somewhat valid.

 

Same here, Joacqin. Also, my family and relatives somehow think church wedding is really important, even though nobody really believes in god.

 

I definitely agree with that. And the reverse should work as well. For example, the only particularly religious person in my family was my grandmother. She died last year, and we did have a funeral at her church (in which the whole family attended) because that's what she wanted.

 

Some faiths even go beyond imposing funerals. The mormons do something similar to that called "baptisms for the dead," so that people who've been long dead can finally get into heaven. Never mind whether the person would've wanted it or not, or even shared that belief, when alive. They get points for having their hearts in the right place, but "paved with good intentions" and all that.

Reason #561 why I no longer consider myself a mormon.

 

As for baptisms of the dead, if I understood the PBS show on Mormonism correctly, that's one of the reasons Mormons are such virulent genealogists - they are looking for names of dead people to baptize. Huh.

Whether to baptize the baby if parents are not believers? In Reformed Christianity not only parents and godparents but the whole congregation promise to raise the child in the faith - baptisms in our tradition are part of a regular Sunday worship service, not a separate private ceremony. It creates certain dilemmas if there is truly no intention to raise the child as a Christian, and the rule, I think, is that only Christian parents or guardians can present a child for baptism - don't make me look it up, I can't remember.

On the other hand, in the part of Tennessee where I live, very few babies are baptized because nearly everyone in the community is Baptist, which means you only get baptized when you're old enough to ask for it yourself. Of course there is intense social pressure on you to ask when you turn 12 or 13 or so, so intense I kind of wonder if most teens getting baptized want it or are just getting their family off their case - the same problem many of you parents report facing, in fact.

I'm kind of easygoing about baptism. Can't hurt, is what I mostly think, even if it's "hypocritical". After all, when you think about it, most of our solemn promises are, because we mostly can't keep them as well as we intend.

 

I think it's kinda pointless for parents to tell their kids about some mystic old guy, if they don't believe in him themself, just to keep their kids in check. I mean, isn't that what Santa is for?

I wasn't raised religious, which kinda outraged my grandparents at the time. My parents (also not religious) were not willing to raise their children with any religion, just to keep the grandparents satisfied. I'm glad they didn't; I may have a skeptical view towards religion, but I think I have a better view of it than someone who was told every day of their lives that God created them and God is great and hallelujah etc. So, would a child, really be able to choose what he/she wants? He/she either leaves the religion, because he/she doesn't believe in the deity of his/her parents (or grandparents) choice, and probably never did, or else you wouldn't just leave a religion (which kinda makes the whole religious upbringing pointless). Or the child sticks with the religion, because he/she was so indoctrinated that he/she can't leave the religion and go the hell.

 

If niether parent is religious, I don;t thiink they should be forced to bring the child up religiously. Mind you if another family member feels that strongly about it, and the parents consent, they could take that responsibility themselves, but I don't think that non-believers could effectively do that...

 

OK, similar opinions have been expressed by at least three different people, so I'll address it. I'm picking Gnarff's statement because it was at the bottom of the page, and easiest to copy, but my answer applies to others who have basically said the same thing. Not picking on you in particular Gnarff.

You see, to me, getting the child baptised is not the equivalent of bringing a child up religiously. A baptism is a one-time event. While bringing up a child religiously would require a much greater amount of devotion. I can still see a very real level of hypocracy in my thinking, as I'm starting the process with no intent on finishing it. I feel like you have to pick your battles, and this one simply isn't worth fighting.

Well, my mother-in-law does feel strongly about it, but she is the last person I'd want teaching my child about Catholicism, as she's pretty nutty. I mean, this woman makes chev look like he's lacking in faith. At the same time, I find her devotion a little sad, because I honestly do not think she has ever really examined her faith, never really questioned the "why" of her faith. She follows all the rules, and even goes beyond what is required - she goes to church every day (even if she is traveling or on vacation, she makes a point to find a nearby Catholic church) and says the rosary every day.

But the process stops there. Everything is immediately accepted as true, and nothing is allowed to be questioned. She's right because it says so in the Bible. The Bible is right because it is the word of God. She knows the Bible is right and the word of God, because the Bible tells her this. It boggles the mind that someone can accept that without a closer examination.

So that's the most outward reason I wouldn't have my in-law's teach my kids religion, but I think there's another, more subtle reason. To me, faith is a very personal thing. You can learn about it, but it's something that you either develop on your own, or not at all. I don't think it can be given to you, or forced upon you. About the only thing a parent can do is introduce a child to a religion, but the rest is out of anyone's control. I would view having my mother-in-law teach my child about religion would be forcing the matter - that he would have to learn about it whether he wanted to or not, and whether he understood it or not. And that definitely isn't the way it should be.

 

I'm opposed to the idea of infant baptism in general. Why make a choice like that for the child when a) they're not going to understand it anyway, and b) it won't make one bit of difference when they actually come to choose their religion. There's no choice involved, and no harm done by waiting until they are able to choose what they want to do for themselves.

And hell - that's just in general. Specifically for non-religious parents, it seems extra silly. Well, I understand for pragmatic reasons, but it still bothers me that people want to make choices for people who just flat out aren't in a position to understand them. Even if they're meaningless choices.

 

Aik,

You do realize that...

...can be used just as strongly in support of making that choice for the child as not making that choice. If they don't understand and it doesn't matter anyway, then what's the big deal what the eventual decision is? Or perhaps a better question would be why do you have such a problem with parental authority? I mean, all of us have gone through a stage like that as teens and young adults, but your reaction seems particularly venemous.

And that is exactly my point, even though Tal wasn't necessarily speaking for me. Just to prove a point, you think I should stand up to my mother-in-law, and get her pissed off to the point that it will permanently damage the relationship between her and my wife and child. Why would I want to make a choice like that?

It's like you're looking at this as a single entity. It's not a choice of whether or not I want a baptised child or not. It's a choice of whether I'd like a baptised child and a happy mother-in-law, or an unbaptised child and an pissed off mother-in-law. It's really a simple decision when you put it in those terms.