Isn't baptizing people at birth kind of cheating? Shouldn't people decide for themselves if they want to be saved?
Isn't baptizing people at birth kind of cheating?
Isn't baptizing people at birth kind of cheating? Shouldn't people decide for themselves if they want to be saved?
I don't think it's cheating, but quite the opposite. It causes confusion or indifference in many cradle baptized when someone mentions dramatic rebirth and Christ's emphasis on being born from above (John 3:3). Their faith didn't come with crisis or discovery and dramatic rebirth, and they risk just going through the motions of plain religiosity. They risk taking Christ for granted.
How can you accept the Holy Spirit when you don't even know what it is?
It's not cheating, but it's like giving 1,000,000 to a newborn in a suitcase. They will just walk the other way and continue eating bugs, they have no conception of the value or significance of what's being offered to them and will be incapable of doing so until they're much older.
Baptizing is a waste of time and money. It’s a form of indoctrination that creates religious fanatics. I’m against all forms of religious indoctrination. You should be free to decide your faith.
>I’m against all forms parents teaching kids their values and traditions.
Anon, I……. Reddit is down the hall and to the left.
>I’m against all forms of religious indoctrination
Except for indoctrination in the secular religion, you're all for that.
Just as in the old covenant the israelites circumcised their children. So too do Christians baptise their children to show their convenant with God.
People are saved through God's grace and being part of the elect. There is no such thing as 'free' will in a totally depraved and fallen world.
>People are saved through God's grace and being part of the elect.
You're not part of the elect by being baptized as a kid. So many become apostates, fornicate, and fall into vice just like everyone else. I know the theology might be neat and mentally comforting, but it's delusional and doesn't line up with reality.
Never said you were. But the same applies to adults who are baptized too, some of them fall away.
In my personal experience I was baptized as an infant. Was an atheist growing up until my 20s and then suddenly like lightening I started to yearn for God, desired to read a Bible and pray. I did not make the choice, it was God's grace.
This is entirely biblical, read Romans 8 and Ephesians 1
God's grace was the call. You answered.
Granted, he's hard to resist. Next to impossible. But I'll never be a Calvinist. It's not complete.
>Never said you were. But the same applies to adults who are baptized too, some of them fall away.
>In my personal experience I was baptized as an infant. Was an atheist growing up until my 20s and then suddenly like lightening I started to yearn for God, desired to read a Bible and pray. I did not make the choice, it was God's grace.
>This is entirely biblical, read Romans 8 and Ephesians 1
you need to be rebaptised, believer's baptism is the only real baptism
Shut up Grebel
No
The physical act of baptism is only part of becoming Christian, the other part is mental acceptance. This is performed at the Confirmation, which can't be done in infancy.
>thinks consent matters.
If that were true wouldnt the severely mentally handicapped be incapable of being saved? Since they are incapable of making a rational choice to be saved?
My point is, the Church is both a family and a way of life. Not an individual "choice" like an ideology
What if they aren't baptised?
They go to hell, anon.
Even mentally handicap can make a choice to trust in what Jesus did. I'm proof of that.
Amen but I don't believe you are. 😀
Yep.
Paul on people who claim their church is the only right church. Also goes into “you must be baptized”
1 Corinthians 1:15-17 kjv 15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.
16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.
17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Paul says you don’t even have to know the words to preach just show the sign of the cross
It has power.
I'm not sure why it even was a question, but even the earliest church seemed to be divided on the issue. One of the very few issues they disagreed amongst themselves over. I don't see how anybody could read the Bible and think that baptizing an infant did anything other than make a wet upset baby.
>And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations."
No.
God did it to Cornelius's entire house which included infants
Consent? In the Church? Hell no.
>Isn't baptizing people at birth kind of cheating? Shouldn't people decide for themselves if they want to be saved?
Yes, Catholics/Orthodox get this wrong completely.
Ok Jan van Leiden
>Ok Jan van Leiden
Okay, papist idolater only interested in hollow ritual as a prescribed social function.
Are you going to occupy a cathedral now, and declare it a New Jerusalem?
>papist idolater only interested in hollow ritual as a prescribed social function.
Pictured here: papist idolaters only interested in hollow ritual as a prescribed social function.