U.S. Atheists Reportedly Using Hair Dryers to 'De-Baptize'
Published July 17, 2010 | NewsCore
According to Nightline, the leader wore a monk's robe and said a few mock-Latin phrases before inviting participants to "come forward now and receive the spirit of hot air that taketh away the stigma and taketh away the remnants of the stain of baptismal water."
Then he “blasted his fellow non-believers with the hair dryer to symbolically dry up the holy water sprinkled on their heads in days past. The styling tool was emblazoned with a label reading "Reason and Truth."
The leader told the Nightline that he believes parents are wrong to baptize their children before they are able to make their own choices, and slammed some religious education as "child abuse." He said the blast of hot air was a way for adults to undo what their parents had done.
A 24-year-old said, "I was baptized Catholic. I don't remember any of it at all," said "According to my mother, I screamed like a banshee ... so you can see that even as a young child I didn't want to be baptized. It's not fair. I was born atheist, and they were forcing me to become Catholic."
Ironically, the leaders own son became a fundamentalist Christian minister after having "a personal revelation in Jesus Christ."
"One wonders where they went wrong," he chuckled to Nightline.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/17/atheists-reportedly-using-hair-dryers-baptize/?test=latestnews
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Wow. That brings up some interesting questions!
- Does baptizing a child in the Catholic church force them to be Catholic as adults?
- I gave birth to some kids in Montana: Did I abusivley force them to be Montanans?
- I gave most of the kids dance lessons; Did I force the girls to be Ballerinas? What about the boys?
- Should there be a limit to what a parent can introduce to a child or educate a child in, in case they won't like it when they grow up?
- Or is it okay for a parent to offer academic and creative opportunities, just so long as nothing spiritual is involved?
- What about the child that might say later...'Mom, now that I am an adult, you are telling me that you knew about 'Jesus Christ'...and that you experienced all kinds of answers to prayer from the Holy Spirit during the time I was growing up...but you never told me about it? You watched me struggle through my teen years, yet never once showed Me how to pray? Why?'
Hopefully the participants didn't pay their snake-oil leader anything for the "De-baptism." After all, going through a ritual ”de-baptizing” and making the kinds of statements these people made… are they even truly atheists?
1) "He said the blast of hot air was a way for adults to undo what their parents had done."
- Excuse me, but what did the parents do? If there is no God, how was their Baptism any different from washing their child’s hair? What is he "undoing?" Wouldn’t one have to believe in something Spiritual in order to "undo" what was done?
2) "I was born atheist, and they were forcing me to become Catholic."
- Are some people born atheist, and others not? Why? How does one know if they were born atheist?
Or....is everyone born with an innate understanding that God exists? ...Or....
- If he really WAS born atheist…AND from the time of conception never had any kind of spiritual connection, how did he have a ‘sense’ that he didn’t want to have the baptism done?
3) The 24-yr-old, still wet behind the ears, said, "According to my mother, I screamed like a banshee ... so you can see that even as a young child I didn't want to be baptized."
a) - As a very young child, did he know he was getting 'baptized’ and that it carried a religious connotation? If he was too young to ‘know’, how did he 'sense' that this was something spiritual that he didn't want done?
b) - Ok, if it wasn't a spiritual sense…maybe he just didn’t like getting wet. My 4-yr-old grandson still screams like a banshee when his hair is washed. Does the fact he doesn't want it washed mean he has a right to not have it done? Is his mother abusing him by forcing him to have clean hair?
c) OR – did he have a spiritual sense, but didn’t want to accept the Spirit of God as his authority. Instead, what he is saying is that even as a baby, he wanted to choose another spiritual leadership. In which case, he’s still not an atheist, because even satan believes in God.
Methinks they protest too much. Obviously, the very fact that they are doing this “ritual” and making the statements they made testifies to the fact that they do believe in the supernatural.
Follow up Questions…
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a) When is someone old enough to honestly believe in God? Is there a set age, or does it depend on the person?
b) What do we believe, then, about children that die in infancy?
