Am I nuts? or is this just wrong.

Recently a couple that I'm acquainted with had their baby baptized. This in and of itself is fine, its there reasoning I have an issue with. It took them forever to find a church that would perform the ceremony for them, as they didn't actually belong to any church or religion for that matter. They both claim to be spiritual atheists (I have no Idea what that means), and wanted the baptism because they where both baptized and thought it was a “neat ceremony”. Eventually they found a Universal Unitarian church that charged them a substantial donation and preformed the baptism. Am I nuts, or are both the couple and the minister missing the point on this?

Seems a bit strange an athiest would want a baptism! Sounds a little cooky to me. :p

And what the hell is a spiritual athiest, someone please enlighten me.

From what I can tell a "spiritual athiest"=kook

Basicly they believe in sperits and angles and demons and just about anyhting else you can come up with bt they do not beleive in a god/"spirtual higher power"

I went looking and found the following in a cached version of www.soulfodder.com/god.htm By Ivan Sokolov.

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.. spiritual atheist -- someone who could believe in the existence of much more than the physical without having to believe in God

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Another definition I found said:

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The Spiritual Atheist offers a comprehensive view of the main line positions of Atheism and Agnosticism. It also offers a perspective on spirituality and shows a path for its development that need not include any form of organized religion or formal religious belief system.

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(again, another defunct site: http://www.geocities.com/rcdef/aas/index.html )

Last site has an interesting article on "Stages of Faith" .. Hope it helps.

An atheist is someone who reject of believe in god. I think most of people make a confusion between atheist and not have a religion. For example I have no religion but I'm not atheist because for me there is no proof that god exist but there is no proof that god doesn't exist. So we can be without religion and what to be baptize.

I believe that would make you agnostic ghost dog. As for the baptism, part of the ceremony (of at least every baptism I have attended) is to promise to raise the child in the church. So they are lying in the middle of the ceremony I guess that’s not a big deal if you don't believe in that religion but the minister should have a big problem with it, and going through a ceremony whos point is to dedicate a child to a religion while not believeing in that religion only because you think its neat is dumb IMHO.

An agnostic is an atheist who is afraid of commitment... hehehehe

Yeah that sounds pretty lame, but you know what I always say.....

"It takes all kinds."

I don't know if I'm an agnostic because some things can't be explain. For example how can you explain a feeling? My feeling will not be your feeling. Everybody has is own perception.

they should have checked the internet , i am a minister in the universal life church and you can be one too. We accept all faiths and are able to perform pretty much any ceremony ,including custom ones and excluding circumcision go to http://www.universalministries.com/doctrine.cfm if you would like to become a fellow minister ,they could have done their baptism for a lot cheaper . go in peace brothers and sisters . Reverend Tim ( aka btc)

I agree that your friends are firstly confused induviduals that are probably actually agnostic. If they are getting batised in the Christain sense, though there reasoning is hidiously poor, is probably still a good thing over all because the idea is he/she gets an extra kick of holyspirt but since they're still baby it's not really a comittment. That's what confirmation is for (a sacrament that they have been moveing to way too low of an age in catholic schools, but that's for anyother time perhaps). The minsiter isn't in the bad so much in my belief, he's supposed to be welcoming. Parents are kooks. And bugsthecat scares me. I'm reading a book about a guy with multiple religions, so we'll see if it can change my mind. But at the moment being a multi-Rev sounds pretty damn wrong to me. In case anyone was wondering, i'm Roman Chatholic Tweaked (Meaning i changed and reworded some minor stuff to my likeing.)

bugsthecat, for profit religions bother me for some reason.

Ghostdog, I think you defined agnostic with your post :)

Here is one definition for agnostic from worldreference.com:
a person who claims, with respect to any particular question, that the answer cannot be known with certainty

I believe in the feelings but those cannot be measured but that does not want to say that I want to measure them, it is just a remark that I was done one day by hearing a report on astrology. The moon has an influence on the sea why not also on us (we are composed of water). I think an agnostic want proof all the time. In France there is "le cercle zetetique" an association who want the proof for all (religion, astrology, paranormal, etc) but I not for that.

I think I'm 90% agnostic and 10% dreamer (I'm looking for my charming princess, I think palestine and Israel can leave in peace). Imagine there's no countries, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace...

You know whats even more funny is that athiest are always fighting against a God in which they dont believe exist..lol :p

I agree on the no country thing ghostdog. I think it can be solved by a single ruler. I plan to take over the world and make it a utopia, or closer to one. For more details adress me dirrectly about it.

The different Christian sects have different values for baptism. Having been a Roman Catholic and United Methodist during my life.
The United Methodists treat the occasion as the parents bringing the child to the congregation and the congregation accepting the child and to assist bringing the child up in a Chritian manner.
Unless it has changed, the Catholics treat baptism as the cleansing of original sin. Without baptism a soul could not enter heaven.
I could see a congregation telling parents that if they themselves were unnaccepting of the congregation why should the congregation accept them or their child. They should perform their own baptism.
Kid gets his/her hair wet and starts crying, performs bodily functions in formal clothing....

lol- i thought i was the only one who was a minister in the universal life church... rock on, brother :)

So is the Universal Life Church any thing like the Church ofthe Subgenious? Of which I am an official pope?

an offical pope? There's more than one? Geeze, I'm all for having your own, but please take it seriously if you do. Religion for profite is wrong and baptisum for no reason is just silly because it has no meaning to you. I wish you'd take the universe less lightly.

Are there any representatives from "heaven's gate" on the board?

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Originally posted here by fourdc
Are there any representatives from "heaven's gate" on the board?

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Nope. None of the devout ones, anyway!! LOL I crack myself up, sometimes. hehehe

Let me put it this way.. There shouldn't be... hehe I did it again.....

Somebody, stop me!!!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

P.S. Sorry for thatr , a little too much Ouzo, if you know what I mean.....

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Originally posted here 's by bballad
thought it was a “neat ceremony”

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Whatever rings your bell... If they like the ceremony, let them have it. Can't see anything wrong with that, if it's ok with the minister. People do different stuff for different reasons. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, it's fine with me.

When I was in the army I used to go to church only to eat cake and watch football (cuz they had this social gathering). Those who whanted to discuss religion was free to do that, although many didn't. And the minister was happy people came, no matter their business there.

The point is, I think it's ok to use the religous facilities for reasons that arent exactly uhm.. religious. (Sorry the broken english :)) BTW, concerts in churches are way cool - the acoustics is good.

KorpDeath,

Actually the new owners of the house they lived in found another one of them under the sink...

That disciple actually found the Comet.

TeeHee TeeHee

I think as long as you believe in the big picture everything should be fine.