When it comes to theology it’s not a matter of right or wrong, it’s just a matter of which is a little more wrong. For example, when it comes to free will vs predestination, free will is more wrong because predestination is just phrasing naturalistic determinism in absurd theological terms, whereas free will theology (like I was trained with) is based on nothing more than an attempt to make their god look a little less capricious. Adult, adolescent, child, and infant baptism along with the baptism of the dead is quite similar.

Mormons like to baptize children at the age of 8, but they’re also happy to baptize you again when you’re an adult on behalf of your dead friends and relatives*, like Mit Romney did on behalf of his dead atheist father-in-law, of course they’ll also do it for holocaust victims like Anne Frank. When you’re 8 and everybody else your age is getting baptized and everybody in your family and community expects it of you, there is no choice involved. It’s just a case of a young child doing what young children do: trying to please adults.

The only reason that baptizing the dead is any worse than baptizing children, especially in cases like what Mit Romney did, is that it completely dishonors the memory of a life that was lived and shows no respect for the decisions and values of the diseased during his or her life. The only redeeming factor in an act like this is the dead guy can’t be harmed by it.

Baptizing infants also isn’t really any better that baptizing the dead, it’s just considered mainstream. Neither has any choice in the matter and neither is even aware of it. The only real difference is that one is disrespectful of a life already lived while the other is disrespectful of a life to be lived.

Even with the groups that believe in “adult” baptism, denominations like Adventists and Baptists, they often consider 12 year olds to have reached the “age of reason” and able to make the choice to be baptized. This isn’t adult baptism, it’s adolescent baptism, carefully timed to try to hook the young just before their teenage rebellion begins. Of course this is a process that is complete with publicly taking solemn vows to be faithful to God and the church for your whole life.

I was baptized at 12, not because I had attained reason (that really took another decade), but because, at least at that point, the indoctrination had taken hold and in the Adventist church getting baptized at 12 is the thing you’re supposed to do. One ironic thing is that I first broke my baptismal vows less than a year later when I had my first Mountain Dew. I could go deeper into the various telling issues with adolescent baptism, but I covered that just a few months ago.

Baptism is fine for adults who are actually capable of entering into contracts and making commitments, the age of majority would be a good starting place for this.  For anybody else it’s just plain wrong. It’s not wrong in the sense of being horribly dangerous or damaging, since no adult takes the decisions they made as a child or the decisions made for them as an infant seriously. It’s just wrong in the sense that it’s laughably absurd, with increasing levels of absurdity as you move towards less and eventually no living tissue.

*On a side note, since Mormons believe that baptism should be the product of a free choice, but they are just fine with making that choice for the dead, and they believe that homosexuality is a free choice, you can now make the choice to be gay for a dead Mormon at All Dead Mormons Are Now Gay! If you don’t happen to know any, then one can be chosen for you at random from their extensive genealogical records. They’re giving the gift of eternal paradise to thousands, now you can give them the gift of a fabulous eternal paradise.