I was baptized when I was 12. I had grown up in the SDA church and at that point I had already read 44 of the 66 books of the Bible, including the whole New Testament. Nobody, not even my parents had asked me to get baptized, but it was the expected norm in the church to get baptized at 12, so I did.
After my baptism the pastor grilled me in front of the entire congregation. Well, maybe grilled isn’t the right word, but he had me swear to the very detailed baptismal vows in front of everyone. I don’t even know if I saw the complete vows before hand. I took them very serious, at least serious for a 12 year old and I sure felt guilty when I broke those same vows the very next year. What was my offense? I drank a Mountain Dew given to me by my parents! Yep, abstaining from caffeine was one of the many “moral” dictates included in the vows.
Why 12? Well, supposedly that’s the age of reason. TWELVE? You have got to be kidding me!
We don’t allow 12 year olds to drive cars, sign contracts, consent to medical treatments, join the military, or get married and all for good reason. They are incapable of making rational, informed decisions, at least incapable of doing so at an adult level. The fact that 12 year old (and often younger) children are allowed to take baptismal vows just shows how much of a joke the whole thing is.
Let’s put that another way: Anything that you allow a 12 year old to commit to cannot be taken any more seriously that what summer camp to go to or what kind of pizza to order. Of course that is the level of commitment appropriate for a religion.
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I got baptized about the same age as you did. I don't remember it meaning anything to me and the biggest reason for going through with it was because my best friend was doing it. I vaguely remember vows and I'm sure I just mindlessly agreed to them.
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At least you made the decision. I was baptised when I was a baby, so I had no say. Which is really, really odd since both my parents are non-believers. My father comes from a family of free-thinkers and has never believed in any religion as long as he has lived, and my mother, while believing in super natural stuff, is extremely dismissive of all religions. Yet I have the pictures of my baptism in a church. To this day, when I ask my parents why they baptized me, a funny look crosses over their faces and they shrug their shoulders and say "because it was expected?". I suppose it might have been because I was born in Malaysia, and back then, atheism wasn't really allowed. You were expected to follow in your father's religion, and my father had to say he was a Christian, because he was from England and the Malaysian authorities didn't allow him to say "irreligious". So maybe the Malaysian government forced me to be Baptised. I'll have to look into that.
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