I believe I was, but my memory of the event is a little hazy.
I wasn’t baptised, but most kids in my family are. I tend to assume most people have been baptised.
My Dad was raised Catholic, and my Mum Protestant. However my Dad is pretty anti-religion, which is probably why I wasn’t baptised.
I’m an atheist, so don’t intend to have my children baptised either.
Nope. I was raised Quaker, which emphasizes adult “baptism” (commitment – no actual ceremony, with or without water, as far as I know, in joining a meeting). I continue to think that a religion should be chosen by someone old enough to understand the choice, not imposed on a baby – and since I don’t have any conception of heaven or hell in which having water splashed on one by a trained professional will make a difference, I don’t see a reason for it.
These are all great answers, some very interesting input. I believe I’m noticing a Catholicism link to assuming those around you are baptised. I know that in that church, it’s the crucial sacrament you wouldn’t do anything else in the church without, so maybe that’s why?
I know it’s not exactly the same as baptism, but RealityChuck, is the mikvah immersion not an ‘acceptance into the faith’ kind of ritual? Or has it been altered over the years to fit societal pressures to become one, like the creation of **bat ** mitzvahs to include girls when previously only boys were required to have one? I saw one instance where the infant girl’s naming ceremony was conducted at a mikvah and she was then immersed to be ‘brought into the faith’ in the eyes of those present.
If you were at a family gathering/packed bookstore/office party and were asked to guess how many of the people around you were somehow consecrated into their faith, what would your guess be?
baptised.
None of my kids are.
No, he’s a ridiculously ethnocentric Catholic. Catholics baptize their infants, but most Protestants christen their children and let them choose to baptize themselves at an age when they’re able to (usually when still a child, but just not an infant), making the baptism more meaningful. Most people here aren’t Catholic, so there’s no reason for him to assume that people he meets were baptized.
And I never chose to be baptized, to my mother’s disappointment.
My son had a Shinto purification/protection ceremony at the local shrine. Does that count?
There are? :o
My parents were missionaries and the old man has baptized all the grandkids and great grandkids except for mine. Maybe he did when I wasn’t looking during one of the summer trips…
As most Swedes I was baptised at infancy, confirmed at adolescence, and still a member of the largest Lutheran church in the world - the mighty Church of Sweden. My guess is that among my countrymen over 30 years of age 90 per cent is baptised, while under 30 only 50 per cent is baptised.
That probably happened to me. I know that my aunt caught my grandmother baptizing her daughter (my cousin) in the kitchen sink when she was a baby, anyway, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she probably did that with all of her heathen grandkids. (My mom and her four sisters were all raised very Catholic, but only one is still a member of the church.)
So, I wouldn’t count that. No, I was not baptized. I do think this is somewhat unusual in the US. I grew up in the SF Bay Area, which I’ve read is the least religious part of the US, and although only a couple of my friends growing up came from actively religious families, almost all of them had been baptized into some church or another, which they never attended and knew nothing about.
I was Anglican. I was baptised when I was six months old. My husband was raised non-religiously, and got baptised just before our wedding. Anglicans baptise babies. So do (I believe) Lutherans, and maybe Prebyterians and Congregationalists. And Eastern Orthodox of different stripes.
For baptisim, read “dip in the Mikvah” - similar practice for a similar purpose (at its root).
Me - baptised as an infant
My daughter was baptised as a baby as well, but not after some soul-searching as to whether we should let her make the decision for herself at some later date. In the end we chose to concentrate of the “welcome to the family” aspect of the ceremony rather than the “my sins have been washed away” aspect.
Grim
I’m with you, Noone Special. But I’m not posting here to be a pedantic jerk (or, at least, that’s not the main reason I’m posting.)
Scroll about a third of the way down on this page to see what proportion of the world’s population is Christian.
For those of you who don’t want to click and scroll through lots of text, here’s the relevant quote:
[quote]
Christians 33.03% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.8%, Orthodox 3.42%, Anglicans 1.23%), Muslims 20.12%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.89%, Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.61%, non-religious 12.03%, atheists 2.36% (2004 est.)
[hijack] I wonder how the CIA defines each of these religious (or non-religious) groups.[/hijack]
That depends on how you define baptism; other religons have practices that could be defined as such. From the Wikipedia article on baptism :
Consecrated to their faith (adult baptism) or consecrated to a faith (infant baptism)?
Either way – way too low, undoubtedly.
I come from a pretty religious Southern Baptist family, but their belief is that a person should choose baptism willingly. So it was left up to me, and I never chose it.
Although I’m no longer a Christian, I was baptized (by my grandfather, a minister) and confirmed in the United Church.
I’m a Baptist; I was baptised when I was 17. I don’t usually think about whether or not other people were, and it wouldn’t affect my opinion of them either way.
I was not baptised. My husband was at 2 days old because he was not expected to survive the night. We have not baptised our children, instead leaving it up to them.