# Apparently I was never baptised! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 3, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059 "2017-06-03T23:46:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/21 "2017-06-04T17:07:42Z")
My Catholic grandmother baptized me at home, in the sink, for fear of my soul lest something happen to me, but did not register it with Church. Family lore has it that she used some holy water her sister had sent her through the mail. (Why they were mailing holy water back and forth, and where they got it, has not been explained.) Random Catholics are only supposed to baptize in extremis, not just as illicit babysitting activity (my parents were against it). So… does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/22 "2017-06-04T17:12:31Z")
My Mum was a wishy-washy sort of C of E by habit type when I was born (now a somewhat strident atheist) , Dad was, and still is, a quiet atheist. No Christening for me. I was listed as C of E on school records until I was allowed to update it to no religion myself. I did feel a little cheated about not having godparents for a while (or at least the potential for extra presents), but they would have picked a close relative anyway, so I don’t think I even missed out on that. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/23 "2017-06-05T03:35:43Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > I was raised in the Friends Church. The Quaker position is that baptism comes from the Holy Spirit, not from man. > > Water baptism was a prophecy. John the Baptist said “I’m baptizing you with water, but one is coming who is more powerful than I, and I’m not worthy to untie his sandal straps. It is he who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” > > Friends also don’t do communion like other denominations do, based on the fact that the last supper was an actual meal, and that Jesus said to think of him whenever we eat or drink, not just as part of a ritual. Thanks for this. Didn’t know about it. Learn all sorts of stuff here. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![4d3fect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/4d3fect/32/9728_2.png) [@4d3fect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/4d3fect)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/24 "2017-06-05T05:41:45Z")
We had our son baptized, actually it was kind of fun, the ceremony brought together a small select group of friends and family we hadn’t seen since our wedding. I think it was kind of a comforting thing for us, even tough we’re not particularly religious. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/25 "2017-06-05T14:31:08Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Sounds about the same for me, but I know I ‘lost my faith’ before 14. In fact, I know it was before confirmation. I recall at the first confirmation meeting, whoever was running it saying ‘if you don’t want to be here and you’re only here because your parents are forcing you, just leave now’, and one of my (rather bullheaded) classmates getting up and walking out. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person that did a faceplam and thought to myself ‘OMG, you weren’t actually supposed to do that, just suck it up for an hour, once a week for a few weeks and you’re done’. I mentioned it to my mom and who basically said the same but also brought up that if she doesn’t do it at some point she won’t be able to have a catholic (ie church) wedding someday (not looking to get nitpicky on that, just repeating what I heard). > > And that’s the thing, I knew I was atheist at that point, but I also knew I just had to go through the motions for a little longer and I’d be done. Fun fact, all us Eagle Scouts also had to suck it up and say “yes” to the question “Do you believe in God”, it’s actually a requirement. I probably became an atheist before 14, but I mark that year because it was when one of my school teachers (a lay teacher at a Catholic high school, no less) was conversing with me and said: I guess that makes you an atheist. And I thought… yeah, I guess so. I hadn’t really thought about it before. You incorporate certain practices as a child, and sometimes disassociate them from any belief you might have-- like you were thinking in Confirmation class. I still went to church every Sunday with my family until I went away to college, because that was just something you did. It, literally, could have nothing to do with your beliefs. In the same way, we could say prayers that we had memorized as children and that were nothing more than a serious of sounds we’d make, divorced from the meaning the words had. Like saying grace before meals. 100% ritual, 0% meaning. I don’t know if that was exacerbated by the peculiarities of my family. We were outwardly rather religious, but only in the ritual sense. We went to Church, had crucifixes in our bedrooms, but never ever discussed religion at home. Never. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/26 "2017-06-05T15:01:24Z")
Did they use to do confirmations much earlier? Around here in the 80s, it was 7th and 8th graders, so ages 12-14. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/27 "2017-06-05T15:18:51Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > My parents adopted me when I was three, and had me baptized then (no idea if I’d been baptized earlier, or if anyone had kept track - I’d spent time in and out of foster care, with my birth father, and in a Catholic orphanage, so no answer would suprise me). > > Anyway, I was already insufferably talkative at that age. According to my parents, I proudly ran around afterward telling anyone who would listen, “I got advertised today!” My parents waited until a specific minister was available, so I was around 2 when mine was done. I notoriously admonished him, “Don’t get my pretty dress wet!” ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/28 "2017-06-05T16:34:38Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > My mother happened to mention that Methodists don’t do infant baptisms so I was only “dedicated” as a baby and was supposed to follow that with an actual baptism when I was 12. Obviously I never did that. So I’m happily a heathen instead of a heretic. 🆒 > > Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk Methodist **do** infant baptisms. Now maybe your parents didn’t have you baptized, but it wasn’t because the denomination prevented it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059/29 "2017-06-06T00:41:51Z")
I’ve been baptized twice. Once as an infant in the Methodist church and once when I was about ten years old in the Baptist church. Twice, and it still didn’t take. Yeesh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-i-was-never-baptised/788059.md?page=1)