Yes and yes.
This just begs the question of what you as the OP’er mean by “baptized”. In most mainstream Christian failths, baptism is a sacrament. Catholics, Episcopalians, and Anglicans practice/believe/hold seven sacraments (baptism, eucharist, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, annointing the sick). Most Protestant churches – other than Episcopal/Anglican (including Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, UCC, Baptists) have only two (baptism and communion). A “sacrament” is a specifically Christian rite. Therefore, no rite or practice from any other religion is a “baptism” if by “baptism” you mean the Christian sacrament of baptism.
If by “baptism” you mean “getting wet by water in the name or religion,” then you’ve got a whole new ball game. But that’s not what “baptism” means to most Christians, and even non-Christians who understand it to be a Christian sacrament will not thank you for calling their rite a baptism.
In, in general, mainline American Protestant churches practice infant baptism (Methodists, Lutherans, UCC, Presbyterians). You don’t have to have your baby baptized as an infant, but most families do. Baptists believe that baptism should be done only on people who are old enough to understand the significance of accepting the sacrifice – they do NOT practice infant baptism. Jehovahs Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists also do not practice infant baptism, because there is no precedence for it in the Bible.
There used to be a difference between “baptism” (the sacrament) and “christening” (a naming ceremony) but practically speaking there isn’t any more. The terms are used interchangeably in mainline Protestant churches.
I was baptized as an infant into the United Methodist Church. I was also confirmed as a church member at the age of 13.
I don’t really assume one way or another regarding whether people are baptized, except that if I know or assume they are not Christian, I assume they aren’t baptized.
Yes, I am. Chose to do so myself, at age 15, in a church that doesn’t baptise infants.
I was baptised when I was 18 years old, full-immersion-style, in a swimming pool where my youth group met (what can I say, it was California!). My brother and I were both dedicated as babies, but our church (non-denominational) leaned more toward letting people choose to be baptised as adults or older kids.
My husband was baptised into the Covenant Church (a Swedish offshoot of Lutheranism) when he was a baby.
We both attend this church, now, and they will do either infant or adult/kid baptism. We’re expecting our first child this fall, and we are on the fence about whether to have him baptised as an infant, or dedicated as an infant and baptised when he chooses; we’ll have to talk to our pastor about it.
I’ve never thought about the baptismal status of the people around me – I move in mostly Christian circles, so I imagine that most of the people I know have been baptised, but it’s not something that’s ever come up in conversation, as far as I can remember. Now that we’re all getting to the child-bearing years, I bet it’ll come up more often.
I’ve heard the initiatory rite in Sikhism referred to as baptism.
I just want to chime in and say that it’s interesting to me that the responses so far have shown about half the people say they would assume others around them are somehow baptised if they themselves are. I don’t think that’s ethnocentricism per se, since they aren’t saying they *prefer * to assume that; it does make me think that we fall back to thinking others are like us until we know otherwise, like heterocentric assumptions from heterosexuals, etc. We don’t automatically think others around us are different from us.
I could be off the mark though, as I’m quite tired. And I extrapolate like a mofo when I’m tired.
I got myself baptised when I was in the 5th grade. The water heater was broken and I damn near froze to death. Well, it seemed that way anyway.
I am an atheist.
My mother in law wanted me to get my daughter christened/baptized whatever, said something to my husband, blah blah blah. I told him asking ME to get her baptized was a bit out of the realm, but if he felt strongly enough about it, he could join a church and get her baptized, otherwise, shush! Heck, I even offered to join him in his churchly activities if he felt it was that important.
Needless to say, my daughter is not baptized, we haven’t joined a church and my mother in law (do NOT get me started) has clammed up.
Ok, honest atheist question here. When I was a child, I was quite pious and sincerely asked Jesus Into My Heart As My Personal Savior and became baptized.
Is that like a get out of hell free card? Can I argue at the pearly gates that technically, I was saved and baptized. Am I a loophole?
My catholic friend tells me I’m headed straight to Hades. I say I get to stop at a rest area while they work out the precedents.
I was raised Jewish, and I believe I had a “naming ceremony”, which I think is the (Reform) Jewish equivalent to baptism for girls.
It’s not something that often crosses my mind, but thinking about it, I do suppose I assume the majority of people I know to be A) Christian and therefore, Baptized. Most Americans seem to like traditions like that, so even if someone’s from an only-moderately religious background I’d still assume that.
Some Christians believe in a concept called “Once Saved, Always Saved,” so by their reckoning, you’re golden. Unless you experience as a child wasn’t fully convincing, because of your age or whatever, in which case you weren’t REALLY saved to begin with.
I think perhaps Baptism stemmed from this custom, but they are not really similar. I grew up Conservative, and no one in my shul ever went near a mikvah to the best of my knowledge, nor did it have one. Certainly neither nor any of my friends got immersed in anything before our bar mitzvahs. I certainly know of them, but, as the link says, they are used for purifying someone, and used all the time, not just once.
So, no for me and no for my kids.
Baptised twice. I was born into a Catholic family and was baptised as an infant.
When I was about 15, my 18-year-old sister was a born-again Christian and newly wed to a fundamentalist minister. She was absolutely intent upon converting me, so I had a real “shall we gather at the river” dunking with her husband officiating.
It didn’t take. It was definitely not a conversion experience. And my beloved sister finally figured out that she was married to drug-addicted sociopath, ditched him, and is now an atheist.
When my son was born, we belonged to a denomination that did not baptise infants. So he was “dedicated,” in the baptismal gown that all my sibs and umpty-ump relatives, even unto the third and fourth generation, had been baptised in.
Now we’re Presbyterians. Presbyterians baptise infants. So my son kind of fell through the gaps. We’ve told him if he wants to be baptised, our minister will be happy to do it.
That is how I was baptized - full immersion - when I was about 9 or 10. It wasn’t a “choice” for me, it was my grandparents decision and at that age I did what they told me to do. My mother had never forced religion on me - she was not a church-goer during my life with her - and my grandmother is a very, very feverent Southern Baptist Christian.
One benefit of spending summers with my Christian grandparents - I know the Bible pretty well. I’m not a scholar, but when someone quotes it at me in response to my being a Pagan, I can call them on the contridictions.
I thought no for are most people baptised. I found that 34% of the world population is christian. 66% percent is not christian, thus not baptised. The difference is large enough that variance and error isn’t going to significant for the question. Yes to part two.
The pie chart is for world wide population, not just Canada.
I remember being told that you had to really mean it, and I was terrified that Jesus wouldn’t believe me, so I did it about every night for years. Heck, I even convinced a friend to Ask Jesus To Be Her Personal Lord And Savior.
I was such a religious dork, I wouldn’t sing certain songs because I had not been baptized and I thought it was blasphemous for me to sing them.
I would call churches when we moved to find one that would send a bus to come get me, I went to religious schools by choice, went to a christian summer camp (Camp Good News) and made the choice to be baptized.
Now, I’ve been touched by his Noodley Appendage and am much more at peace than I ever was as a christian.
My brother and I were baptised as very small children, just after he was born (so I would have been about four), for reasons which have never been very clear to me.
Mum was never very religious when I was a kid, and after leaving my father “came out” as a Wiccan. Dad was raised Anglican, so I can only presume it was at his insistence that it was done (though mum has mentioned something about “covering all the bases”, I think that was a joke). So I was baptised as a child. I’m not religious in the slightest, and I don’t even think about whether people are or weren’t baptised. It just doesn’t blip on my radar.
I can’t find any statistics right now, but this sounds way off. I mean, everyone (that is to say, everyone who is mildly-and-mainly-culturally Protestant) baptises their kids here. If someone were to have a kid and not have a baptism, there’d be at least a raised eyebrow or two. I assume that people are baptised unless I find out differently or they’re of, say, Muslim background.
And if it isn’t obvious, I’m baptised.
No and yes
I think:
A. A majority of, but not all, people whose parents belonged to a faith that requires or encourages infant baptism are baptized.
B. A lesser majority (say, more than half) of those whose faith requires that baptism be a conscious choice are baptized. I’d say for an equal number of those, there was some kind of christening or blessing ceremony given as an infant.
C. I am not considering ceremonies of faiths other than Christians, as baptisms, even if they seem similar. Their ceremonies are theirs, with whatever meaning they assign to them, and to compare them, IMO, is to imply that Christian ceremonies are a benchmark against which other faiths are measured.
Though I am an atheist now, I once belonged to group B, and was christened as a baby, and chose to be baptized as an older child.
When you say ‘here’, where is that? Your location field, it is no help.
No, and also no.
For the former, I had two naming ceremonies: Reform Jewish and Zen. For the latter, I don’t think about it at all–it wouldn’t occur to me to think about it one way or another unless we were specifically discussing religious backgrounds.