DiscussMormonism.com

So as not to derail skains thread a thought occurred to me while reading this post from dart:

dartagnan wrote:Eight year olds are in a position to make this kind of life choice? I know grown adults who are tuggling with this kind of decision. David Waltz is an intelligent man who has tuggled with this for years. Everyone is hoping he chooses Mormonism, obviously, but they must conclude he is stupid. His is best chance of doing it would have been when he was introduced to Mormonism when he was eight. I have yet to meet an eight year old who said, "Nah, ya know what, let me think about it." These were considered easy dunks on my mission. The only hurdle was trying to convince the parents, and of course, don't tell the parents anything controversial about Mormonism.

The Church abuses the fact that eight is the age when humans can know right and wrong.

There is a difference between understanding the fundamental difference between right and wrong, and the ability to rationally deduce facts in an informed, logical and mature manner. Eight year olds are no more accountable for their choices than babies. The church exploits them, and this is hardly respectable.

I wonder if 8 years old is EVEN worse than a newborn when it comes to consenting to baptism. It seems that the baby being baptized is completely involuntary on the part of the child, but at age 8 a child has some reasoning skills, so in his/her limited ability to reason they will be presented with a version of reality from their parent that will usually make the kid want to please their parent. In effect, the parents provide a paradigm (baptism is right) and the kids are manipulated into volunteering for it (cause who doesn't want to please Mom and Dad?) So in effect, baptism at age 8 is worse because the kids are being indoctrinated/manipulated/cojuled into the baptism by their parents. Sure it's an honest mistake on the parents fault (they don't know any better and probably went through the same thing will their parents). Not that baptism is bad or anything, whatever. But that's just my thought that came about during dart's post.

I guess we really don't know when the right time is even at eighteen you have Mormon males not able to tell the truth. I will say this. My friend who I use to work with is likely the best Dad I ever have known. He is somewhere between agnositic and athiest and I have seen him bring up three wonderful kids. He told me that a while back his eight year old came to him and asked him why they don't attend church. His neighborhood has a lot of Korean EV's and at school the children were asking his kid why no church attendence. He told her that religion is something that you decide later on in life when you are an adult. She said okay and that was that. He also told me that he took his daughter to speical testing and she tested off the charts for gifted children. He said some of her classmates were there for tests too and were sitting in a chair, frozen looking straight ahead while his daughter was trying to figure out all the things in the testing center. He apologized to the Pschologist for behavior and the psychologist said don't worry - her testing shows she is very gifted.

The whole situation is ridiculous. In all honesty, baptism at the age of eight is a tradition in the LDS church. Nothing more, nothing less. When members pile on labels such as choice and accountability to this child baptism event, it just flies in the face of reason. These kids many times are being submerged while believing in both Santa Claus and God.

Yes, its just tradition that has been gussied up a bit.

Bond...James Bond wrote:So as not to derail skains thread a thought occurred to me while reading this post from dart:

dartagnan wrote:Eight year olds are in a position to make this kind of life choice? I know grown adults who are tuggling with this kind of decision. David Waltz is an intelligent man who has tuggled with this for years. Everyone is hoping he chooses Mormonism, obviously, but they must conclude he is stupid. His is best chance of doing it would have been when he was introduced to Mormonism when he was eight. I have yet to meet an eight year old who said, "Nah, ya know what, let me think about it." These were considered easy dunks on my mission. The only hurdle was trying to convince the parents, and of course, don't tell the parents anything controversial about Mormonism.

The Church abuses the fact that eight is the age when humans can know right and wrong.

There is a difference between understanding the fundamental difference between right and wrong, and the ability to rationally deduce facts in an informed, logical and mature manner. Eight year olds are no more accountable for their choices than babies. The church exploits them, and this is hardly respectable.

I wonder if 8 years old is EVEN worse than a newborn when it comes to consenting to baptism. It seems that the baby being baptized is completely involuntary on the part of the child, but at age 8 a child has some reasoning skills, so in his/her limited ability to reason they will be presented with a version of reality from their parent that will usually make the kid want to please their parent. In effect, the parents provide a paradigm (baptism is right) and the kids are manipulated into volunteering for it (cause who doesn't want to please Mom and Dad?) So in effect, baptism at age 8 is worse because the kids are being indoctrinated/manipulated/cojuled into the baptism by their parents. Sure it's an honest mistake on the parents fault (they don't know any better and probably went through the same thing will their parents). Not that baptism is bad or anything, whatever. But that's just my thought that came about during dart's post.

I guess it depends on the purpose of the baptism.

Mormons wait to baptize at age 8, and condemn infant baptism, but let young unbaptized children take the sacrament.

Some other religions baptize infants, but have children wait to receive communion.

Is the purpose of the baptism:

*to bring the child into a community via a rite of passage?

*to add them to membership rolls?

*to perform some sort of sacrament or ordinance, or give the child the effects of the sacrament?

*to cleanse them from personal sin?

*to cleanse them from original sin?

It seems to me that a lot of other Christian religions use baptism/christening a lot the same way that Mormons regard baby blessings--bringing the child into the faith community, adding them to the rolls, and acknowledging the parents' (and others') role in raising the child in the faith. Mormons seem to think that a child needs to be "blessed" right away (within the first month or two of life) pretty much the same way that other religions believe they should baptize the child. The difference is, other Christian religions that do infant baptism generally have godparents and parents who act in some way as proxies or representatives for the child.

Never mind. Already said.

JMS

I saved this from some message board years ago.

the road to hana wrote:*to bring the child into a community via a rite of passage?

It certainly would appear that it functions in this manner, since the age of baptism is very regimented (unlike some of the other "mainstream" Christian faiths were baptism happens whenever people feel they should do it). In that respect is the Mormon baptism any different from the first Catholic sacrament or the Jewish Bar Mitzvah?

When I was 5, I wanted to be a taxi cab driver for the rest of my life. When I was 20, I wanted to be a hotel manager for the rest of my life. When I was 22, I wanted to be a psychologist. Now I don't know what I want. Rational people change their beliefs based on new justification (and defeaters of earlier justification) as time progresses. The people who don't change their beliefs in the face of maturing of a person are either mentally ill or strictly religious. Believing in Mormonism as a child is valid, but that doesn't mean they will always believe. The church teaches making commitments and covenants of religious belief* as eternally demanding, but in retrospect, if one understands things better as they grow (which we all do our entire lives), and decide a previous decision was not the best one, how could they be held accountable for the first one? This is the emphasis (which is sometimes forgotten) in the LDS church of being judged by God according to the knowledge and accountability one really has--this is an objective, perfect judgement that a human being could never make. It is also the emphasis in Alma 42 (?) of arriving at a perfect knowledge--which is longer than a lifetime en devour. An eight year old makes eight year old decisions, an 18 year old makes 18 year old decisions, and a 70 year old makes 70 year old decisions--but has that person arrived at a perfect knowledge? Of course not!

* this would be different than committing to a spouse or to committing to pick someone up at the airport, etc

things you believe when you are a child,
Love
trust.
friendship
the future is full of possiblities
honesty
there is fun and magic to be found in life.
there are mysteries to solve.
games to be won
splendid things to build.
traps to be escaped
She will be beautiful

huckelberry wrote:things you believe when you are a child,
Love
trust.
friendship
the future is full of possiblities
honesty
there is fun and magic to be found in life.
there are mysteries to solve.
games to be won
splendid things to build.
traps to be escaped
She will be beautiful

I must still be a child. I *heart* that list. :)