> Well it wasn't really a question of
> intelligence... A child may be really bright
> and able to learn things but still not know
> that not everything everyone teaches them is
> going to be true. That's why I mentioned the
> santa thing. A child can know all the stories
> about santa, and all about his magic reindeer
> and everything, and they'll believe it because
> that's what their parents always tell them,
> despite the fact that what santa is supposed to
> do is physically impossible. It just seems to
> me like 7 is too young for a child to be
> properly cynical, and that any commitment they
> make to believing something then isn't really
> anything more than blind following. I mean, I
> don't really know if blind belief is just as
> good as thoughtful belief in the religious
> sense, but it just rubbed me the wrong way and
> I wanted to know if there was any validity to
> my complaint.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I don't think children of such a young age are really able to understand the severity of such a decision, nor can they grasp the concept of faith in something that you can't know for certain is true. We don't have baptism at birth in the Protestant churches (or at least not in the ones I'm familiar with) because we feel that baptism has to be a conscious, thought-out decision made when you fully understand what you're going into and you are committed to pursue that. For that very same reason I don't think baptism should be given to young children, because they do not have that ability --- partly because their minds haven't fully developed and partly because they generally don't have enough experience with theology or the ideas of non-Christian viewpoints. If the only religion you know about is Christianity and you've never even heard of Atheism or Judaism or Islam or Hinduism then it doesn't mean anything to say "Yes, I'm going to be a Christian". It's like voting when there's only one candidate. You need to have some more experience with things before you can make that choice. I would recommend not making such a decision as baptism until you're an adult.

-Eric Sleator
Fri 17 May A.D. 2002