Of course, I am not referring to the physical act of dipping a baby into water (or dabbing a bit of water on their head). As a person who long ago rejected superstition, I know that, in reality, all that happens is that the baby gets a little wet and is subsequently dried off. Clearly there is no harm from that.
We should, however, take the claims of the faithful and credulous as they are asserted. People who baptize their children do so for a reason: they think that they are cleansing their child by washing away the original sin. They view the practice of baptism as a necessity, guarding their offspring from some variation of hell in the afterlife.
While there certainly exists variation among the beliefs of those who would baptize their children, it is undeniable that adherents must hold certain core belief about children, sin, retribution, and culpability in order to maintain their belief that baptism is both necessary and proper. It is the principles that underlie and animate the practice of baptism that are vile and reprehensible.
First, baptism and its view on newborns is disgusting. It is inconceivable that any parent could look at a their newborn – having literally taken their first breath in this world – and see anything other than purity, innocence, joy, love, and goodness. Yet a person who genuinely holds the belief that baptism is necessary must, by definition, see their baby as a stained sinner. They see their offspring as impure, damaged, and unworthy for having the audacity merely to be born. Only a barbaric, religious mind can twist a parent's thoughts so thoroughly as to see their newborns in this light.
Second, baptism and its view on culpability is amoral. Theists frequently wield ignorant tropes like a cudgel against those who would challenge their fairy tales, and they love none more than the presumption that morality cannot exist without religion. They assert, despite evidence to the contrary, that ethics are dependent on the existence of gods. These troglodytes stand on their supposed high-ground and demonstrate a stunning blindness to immorality within the central tenets of their faith.
The practice of baptism is the ultimate expression of visiting the sins of the father upon the sons. Both the old and new testaments have passages that argue against holding children to account for their parents misdeeds. (It should come as no surprise that there are inconsistencies: some verses suggest that children should be so held.) Somehow, though, millions of christians continue to baptize their children because they believe that babies are culpable for the sins of Adam and Eve. Leaving aside the fact that no such people ever existed (remember, we are taking their claims as asserted), it is stunningly immoral and unethical to hold a person liable for the misdeeds of an ancestor that lived hundreds of generations ago. Baptism stands for nothing short of the proposition that failure to cleanse a person of original sin will result in punishment for acts taken far outside their own time and control.
Lastly, baptism and its view on heredity is illogical. Again, I must point out that I am taking the underlying claims at face value. Of course everything about baptism, religion, and gods is illogical. However, what I mean to say here is that the practice of baptism is internally inconsistent. Baptism postulates that babies are born with the stain of sin which is then subsequently cleansed. But is it really? If baptism removes the sin from a person, they should not be able to pass it to their offspring. The fact that baptisms must be performed on every generation shows that it does not work: the sin remains.
Perhaps the sin is removed, but each newborn has sin implanted anew. This clearly would not be original sin as described by religious doctrine. Also, this would implicate a thuggish, sadist god who is re-condemning each and every newborn to hell. This is within the bounds of religious possibilities, but it does not square with the qualities most christians apply to their god. Maybe, instead, the sin is not fully removed: it is left dormant and heritable by future offspring. Post-baptism, a person is heaven-eligible but is still a sin-carrier. This would make baptism no different than any other mode of forgiveness and repentance. Such a state would be incompatible with the corpus of doctrine surrounding the practice.
Disgusting, immoral, and illogical. The practice of baptism is just one more reason to shun religion, even from the first breaths of life.
Rationally Yours,
Thomas Paine
