theophiles.org - Atheists choose 'de-baptism' to renounce childhood faith

Atheists choose 'de-baptism' to renounce childhood faith

Written by holmegm

Sunday, 26 July 2009 07:32

From USA Today:

Up until last summer, Jennifer Gray of Columbus, Ohio, considered herself "a weak Christian" whose baptism at age 11 in a Kentucky church came to mean less and less to her as she gradually lost faith in God.
Then the 32-year-old medical transcriptionist took a decisive step, one that previously hadn't been available. She got "de-baptized."

Comments

metallurge

|2009-07-26 09:37:38

Ironically, de-baptizing in some sense recognizes the validity of the sacrament. If baptism were indeed void of power and authority, why bother with de-baptizing?

emperorbma

|2009-07-26 09:43:09

Well, the entire concept of "de-baptizing" is implicitly absurd from either perspective. As you note, the atheist doesn't actually believe that a baptism means anything so it is sort of like hypocrisy.

Furthermore, from a Christian perspective, it doesn't exactly work like the claims. Just because someone chooses to reject the gifts that they receive in baptism doesn't make the baptism itself invalid. The baptism is still present, but its fruits are being rejected because of the already implicit rejection of God that atheism represents.

emperorbma

|2009-07-26 09:45:37

P.S. This is also evidence that, in the absence of religion, people will still create religious rites. (like the "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" and the "Cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn" and the religion of Discordianism, or the Church of the Subgenius before it...)

New Old Salt

|2009-07-26 14:29:47

Notice how they called it "un-baptism" not "anti-baptism?"

I 100% agree with the final thoughts in the article, that the U.N. has departed from reality by encouraging countries to make and enforce laws that make it illegal to say anything that could be thought of as disparaging to religion(s), being able to deal with insults should be fundamental to society and something we all learn in Elementary School. [Proverbs 12:16]

I've met more than a few members of IHRSMIIARC (I Hate Religion So Much It Is A Religion Coalition).

My learning experience is to take heed of Jesus' warnings not to give pearls to pigs or things to dogs that are holy! They'll act interested and try to pump you for information, but it's not because they are interested, they're merely looking for things to hold against you, reasons to tease, and methods to bring down other believers.

New Old Salt

|2009-07-26 14:34:51

RE: UN

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALe...

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTR...

OrionBlastar - De-Baptism

|2009-07-26 20:17:31

Let them get De-Baptized all they want. Not like it means anything or that one can undo a baptism. I think only the church that gave the baptism can de-baptize people.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Mormonism_Bapti...

The Mormons will just baptize them after they die anyway. Baptism for the dead is a Mormon thing that they do, which they claim is justice because the person either didn't know about salvation or were too ignorant to know what salvation means so the Mormons just baptize dead people just in case.

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Our valuable member holmegm has been with us since Thursday, 03 April 2008.

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