It's official: the Catholic Church is nuts!

But only if you’re sprinkled with totally kosher water.

I grew up in a non-denominational church and they called it a ‘dedication to Christ’, not a baptism when performed on an infant. Real baptism happened around age 12.

I was baptized at 12 just to keep the peace at home, it didn’t mean diddly-doo to me. Can I be un-baptized?

You can find instructions on-line for vaccinated people to get themselves unvaccinated. You can probably adapt those procedures for the purpose.

So maybe drinking bleach or something? :slight_smile:

…while saying the ritual words backwards and walking seven times in a counterclockwise circle. With your eyes closed.

This probably isn’t the thread for it, but there isn’t really any reason to believe that St. John the Baptist was actually a Baptist, is there?

If, like me, you were baptised into a “once saved, always saved” sect, sorry. You’ll just have to go to heaven with the rest of us saved heatherns.

^ Word.

Cue everything coming to a complete halt while the rules are debated, there are at least three opinions for every two people present, and reference tomes are located and consulted.

As always - depends on which Jews you ask. The more conservative types definitely require a mikveh dip for converts.

Yep, at best they may be limbo. Or purgatory. But maybe they’re burning in hell for eternity because some dude used the wrong pronoun. And this is a “merciful” God?!?

My (admittedly limited) understanding is that so long as all those incorrectly baptized people were unaware of the error then the bogus baptisms would be overlooked by their God but once they know about it they need to make the effort to correct the error or they’ll be subjected to Almighty Wrath. Those who have died in the meanwhile can’t fix the error they were unaware of, so presumably they get a pass. The living who can fix it don’t.

The LDS is very much NOT Roman Catholicism.

I once remarked – about the last US President – that we could confidently redefine the upper limits of ‘execrable’ as ‘so bad that even the collective efforts of Dopers couldn’t truly capture it.’

I find myself feeling similarly about this story/thread: it feels like an ecclesiastical impossibility to truly capture how insane this whole thing sounds.

Allow me to cite Michael Jackson, who was oddly prescient on the issue:

Cute.

That’s why I said “isn’t obligatory across the board.” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

The MJ thing is the actual theological point, AIUI. It isn’t “we” the Church baptizing someone, it is God himself (with the priest as proxy).

So we can blame God for the screw-up.

Yeah, but He’s a trinity in Catholic doctrine. We, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, baptize…

No, wait, He’s actually a wave. No, a particle. Ugh, I think it depends on the experiment.

Don’t you hate it when your theological probability wave collapses and you find yourself in hell?

I know there are signed baptism agreements between different denominations. This seems to be at the country level for some reason? It was relevant in my family when we had to look up if a Catholic baptism was recognized in the Lutheran church. (It was)

When my daughter was born, at some point my sister contacted me asking when/where the baptism would be held. I laughed and explained that atheists do not baptize (we don’t, right?). It turned into a heated argument with my sister repeatedly asking me what if I was wrong, and my daughter died, and then she’d burn in hell or something.

My daughter is now 31 and although she attended various church services with friends growing up, she has adopted my faith. She recently told me about her aunt (my sister) approaching her when she was 15, wanting to sneak her to be baptized. My daughter just laughed and told her she thought it was silly (it is, right?).

Is the idea that some earthly water will protect you from the flames of hell?

Full immersion in ivermectin.

Why do you ask?

I was asking rhetorically. If you were as well, whoops on me. :interrobang:

No, I wasn’t being rhetorical. It seemed an odd question in the context of your post. I guess you were being ironic/funny.

To answer your question: God (or whatever you call the force that keeps everything cooking-- I prefer the term The Vastness) doesn’t care even one little bit about baptism. All that stuff was invented by human beings in an attempt to (1) make sense of this place/time where we find ourselves-- Good luck! It can’t be done!, and (2) give themselves the illusion that they can exert some kind of control over The Vastness-- another hopeless task. And yet hope springs eternal, ya know? The more deeply you delve, the more paradox and mystery you discover.