Wow...oldie but a goodie, eh?
We ended up baptizing both of our kids UCC...mainly because it was important to our parents.
I think that's a stupid reason to baptize kids...but whatever. I didn't want to rock the boat. Her parents are great folks and they do a lot for us. I still feel like it was wrong for us to do because it goes against what we feel, but whatever...I gave in on this matter. We'll let our kids make their own educated choices about religion. The fact that they were baptized, really means nothing to us... so it's not like they are now bound to the UCC church or anything. It's just symbolic senseless fluff as far as I am concerned...and it made the family happy...so whatever. If you were to tell me that it was wrong of me to do that, I'm not going to argue with you.
Before the baptism, we attended the local UCC church a handful of times with our daughter...who was less than a year old. I guess it was just something we felt like we had to do before asking about getting our daughter baptized.
We had to meet with the pastor before he would agree to baptize our daughter. During the meeting (and I knew this was coming), he asked if I believed in God. And I said no...it just isn't believable to me. Could a God exist? I suppose anything is possible, but I'm not going to live my life and give a lot of money to some organization based on that kind of "what if?" thinking. I could have lied just to get through the meeting, but it would have bothered me. I'm glad I said what I said to him...if actually felt good.
He agreed to do the baptism...even though I was a heathen.
(money talks I guess...which is part of the problem with religion)
He probably agreed because during our meeting my wife said she believed in God...which she does. She is a christian and believes that a God created the universe and Jesus was the son of God, but she isn't on board with most organized religions. (But she enjoys the Cosmos series...which is odd)
During my daughter's baptism, they did the baptism right away, which took 15 minutes or so...then, they spent the next 45 minutes talking about money and how the church needs more money for this and that. There was no sermon, there was no lesson...just a long powerpoint presentation.
Both sides of our family were there...which made up over half of the congregation. And they had to sit through this stupid presentation.
We were pissed...oh boy were we pissed. The baptism was scheduled more than a month in advance...and they decided to do that crap the same Sunday? It's like they didn't give a damn whatsoever about our families in attendance...they don't go to that church...they are guests there and don't care about that stuff. Now, something that I didn't care about whatsoever, was all of a sudden very important to me. I felt like my daughter, my wife and I, and our family, didn't get the respect we deserved on the day of my daughter's baptism. Our family that came had to sit through something that should have been saved for an "after service" thing that folks could stay for if they wanted.
We wrote a nasty letter to the pastor, and we never went back.
I can't stand organized religion. I didn't like it before we had my daughter baptized, and what happened on that Sunday just confirmed my stance. Sure, it's nice for get together's and community things, and you can make friends, and there are lots of good people involved with churches, which is great...but the religious teachings part of it just seems like such an obvious scam.
We had my son baptized a couple years later, but we did it in a neutral setting that is open to all religions and my sister in law's father did the ceremony...he happens to be a pastor, and he also married my wife and I. That went much better...but I was still against doing it in the first place...but we baptized my daughter, so why not do it again...I guess.
