Stupidity of Infant Baptism

I've been thinking about the religious custom of Baptism lately, but yet the more I research the topic the more apparent it becomes that the practice is stupid, especially for infants.

According to Christian Doctrine, the purpose of Baptism is to (a) cleanse the body from sin and (b) to be unified with Christ. For infants, item (a) refers to the cleansing of original sin.

OK, so let's dissect baptism a little deeper. In particular I have three objections to the practice.

(1) When parents choose to baptize an infant, they are basically forcing a religion down the throat of their child. How do you know the kid wants to be a Christian? Shouldn't religion be an individual choice a person makes when they are old enough to understand the issues and decide for themselves? After all, you wouldn't raise your kid to be a lawyer just because you are a lawyer. You wouldn't hold a celebration party that indoctrinates your newborn to be a member of a political party either. You also wouldn't arrange a marriage for your child. Those are all personal choices you let a child make when they become an adult, and religion should be that way as well. Although parents may try to be well-meaning by raising their child into a religion thinking it's in their best interest, such is not a necessity in order for the child to turn out intelligent, well-mannered and successful. That can easily be accomplished outside of religion without wasting time and money attending church, confession, Sunday school, etc.

(2) The thought that an infant is born with original sin is probably the most patently absurd and idiotic concepts of all time! If a pregnant mother commits a crime and is sentenced to 20 years in prison, under that logic the baby should also have to spend 20 years in prison if it is to be believed that sin is passed on automatically from one person to the next. Of course we don't punish the child in such a real life situation because our legal system has an ounce of common sense. However, let's look more closely at the so-called "original sin", which occurred when Adam & Eve ate fruit from the forbidden tree after being coaxed into it by a talking snake of all things. Just think of the logic of that for one moment. Is eating a piece of fruit really a sin worthy of causing the fall of all human-kind? Frankly it's nonsense. However, let's dig a little deeper.

Where did concept of "original sin" come from? Well, it certainly didn't come from God. According to Deuteronomy [24:16] God states that "Children should not be punished for the sins of their parents" and that "those deserving to die must be put to death of their own crimes". Moreover, God never stated in Genesis that the offspring of Adam & Eve would be punished for eating the apple. In fact, Noah (who was a descendant of Adam) was described by God as "a righteous man and the only blameless person living on earth." So clearly God didn't believe in original sin. How about Jesus? Well, he never mentioned a word about it in the New Testament. So where did the concept of original sin come from? It was invented by the Apostle Paul [Romans 5:12] who, I should point out, was not an original disciple of Jesus and had never even met Jesus! So the whole thing was basically made up after the fact when inventing the Christian religion. Therefore, the concept that a beautiful newborn baby is littered with "original sin" and needs to be cleansed is total nonsense.

(3) The thought that any parent would want to submit their child's life to Jesus just goes to show that not many people actually read the Bible. Do you know what Jesus teaches? Yeah, I know Jesus tells us to love one another, blah blah. But in particular I'd like every Christian to actually read the New Testament especially the Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5-7] to see ALL of what Jesus teaches. In reality, Jesus was an idiot and I submit nobody with half a brain would follow his teachings. Here's a sample of his stupidity:

• You shall not get angry with someone or call them an idiot or you will be judged. You shall not curse at anyone or you are in danger of going to hell. Really? So if some drunk driver kills the members of my family and I get angry & curse at the drunk I'm the one that goes to hell?
• If a man looks at a woman with lust he shall gouge out his eyeball and throw it away, otherwise he will be thrown in hell. Really? In that case you would think most of the male population would be walking around blind!
• A man is guilty of adultery if he marries a divorced woman. A woman is guilty of adultery if a man divorces his wife. The punishment? According to the Bible the punishment is death [Leviticus 20:10]. Gee, 50% of marriages end in divorce, and 80% of those divorced remarry. Wow, according to Jesus we should kill off a good chunk of our population.
• Do not resist an evil person. Really? If someone breaks into my house with the intention of doing harm I'm supposed to just let them? If a woman is about to be raped she should let them? If an evil dictator wants to start a war and invade the USA, we should just let them? Sorry but Jesus is an idiot, most rational people would fight back.
• If you are sued in court and lose, give them more than the judgment. Really? Bet the ambulance chasers are Christians, LOL.
• If someone asks for something then give it to them without question. Cool. Mr. Buffett, kindly send me a check for 10 million dollars!
• Love your enemies. Really? Never felt much love for Osama Bin Laden. 
• Keep your gifts to charity private. Hmm, guess that also means goodbye to the Bill Gates Foundation, the Tiger Woods Foundation, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
• Do not pray where others can see you. Really? Then exactly why were churches built?
• Do not accumulate wealth on earth. Really? So what shall millions of Americans do with their IRAs?
• Do not worry about every day life - whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear. God will take care of that. Really? And how many millions of children starve to death each year on the planet hoping for God to take care of them?
• Do not plan for the future. Really? Sorry, but Jesus you're really an idiot.
• Do not judge others. Really? If a gang of obvious thugs is heading your way exactly how am I supposed to survive without judging others?
• Pray for something and you will receive what you ask for. This is very dangerous. Just ask the parents of sick children who ended up dead because their parents thought that praying was better than taking them to a hospital.
• If a town doesn't accept the words of Jesus, the town shall be destroyed in a manner worse than Sodom and Gomorrah [Matthew 10]. Oooh, now we're rolling. Guess we should kill off over half the world's population that doesn't follow Christianity.
• Children who speak disrespectfully of their parents must be put to death [Mark 7:10]. Wow, who would think Jesus would condone killing children.
• To get into heaven you  must sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor [Mark 10:21]. Really? Maybe the Vatican can set an example and give all its net worth to the poor.
• Jesus says that slaves must obey orders from the master or face severe punishment [Luke 12:47]. Another example of outdated morality in the Bible.
• You can not be a disciple of Jesus unless you hate your father, mother, wife and children [Luke 14:26]. Wow, what a monster.
• People who don't believe in Jesus shall be thrown away like useless branches to be gathered into a pile and burned [John 15:6]. This passage served as impetus for the killings during the Inquisition.

So why anyone would want to unite their child with this lunatic named Jesus is beyond my comprehension. Read the Bible and decide for yourself rather than listen to priests who cherry pick only the passages they want you to hear. The reason you don't hear about the passages listed above is because priests would probably lose a chunk of their congregation!

Ray Comfort's Evolution vs. God

Just finished watching Ray Comfort's Evolution vs. God video and just about blew a gasket. If you'd like to torture yourself for about 35 minutes here's the link:  http://www.evolutionvsgod.com/

In the video Comfort interviews a number of scientists and college students and asks them (i) if they believe in evolution and (ii) to provide him a case example that proves evolution (for example where one kind of animal turns into another). When provided with such examples from past fossil records Mr. Comfort responds with "well you didn't actually see it since it happened millions of years ago", and prompts them further to provide evidence he can see today in front of his eyes. When they can't (since that's not how evolution works ... duh!!!) then Comfort suggests a "better" alternative explanation for the diversity of the species ... God.

Now I'm not going to get into a long diatribe on how evolution works and why Ray Comfort is clueless on this topic because it's totally irrelevant. Even if evolution is one day proven to be false, that doesn't mean God exists! Moreover, even without discussing the topic of evolution, there is an overwhelming amount of irrefutable scientific evidence to show that the Bible's explanation of our origins is totally wrong, contrary to Comfort's claim that "all scripture is true."

In the Book of Genesis, it's claimed that God made earth on the first day, before all the stars. Well that's clearly not the case. The oldest stars are 13 billion years old and the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Moreover, the heavy elements that make up a planet can only come from a star that explodes, so there is no way the earth could have preceded the formation of all the stars.

The Bible also claims God created vegetation before the sun was created. This is impossible since plants need sunlight for food and would never form first. The Bible also claims that birds formed before land animals (not true) and that the first land animals were created at the same time as human beings (also not true).

The Bible also claims that the full creation took place in only six days. Unfortunately the evidence shows that our universe & life took billions of years to take shape. This is indisputable. Of course theists will make the lame argument that those weren't literal days in the Bible, but rather one of God's days is much longer. Well that argument flops for the simple reason that it then wouldn't make sense of Adam's age. Being created on day 6 Adam lived beyond day 7, but if one of God's "days" is a much longer time like a billion years, then Adam couldn't have lived that long (he only lived to 960 years according to the Bible).

The Bible also claims there was a global flood high enough to cover the tallest mountains. Unfortunately, there's not enough water to accomplish that. If there was enough water to make it rain that much then the atmospheric pressure would be so great from all the precipitable water in the sky that the temperature on earth would be hundreds of degrees so even Noah would have croaked.

So the point is we know for fact that the Bible is wrong regarding our origins, and regardless of whether evolution is ever falsified. Given that the Bible is wrong, then that certainly lowers the probability of the existence of the Biblical god. To see why, just look at the opposite case. Suppose the Bible said God started the universe started 13.7 billion years ago, and then God created the earth 4.5 billion years ago, and that 1 billion years ago God created the first multi-cellular life form, and from then on life evolved and diversified to the point where 200 thousand years ago humans appeared. Well that would certainly increase the probability of God's existence, wouldn't it? Of course. So given that Genesis in the Bible is totally wrong and obviously written by humans who didn't have a clue, then that certainly increases the probability that the God thing was just something early humans made up because they simply didn't know how anything worked.

Anyway, Comfort makes a couple other statements that give me heartburn. One of which is that people who want to be atheists only do so because they choose to sin. Sorry Ray, but you're way off base. Atheists choose not to believe in God because that's where the evidence leads.

Comfort also says that being an atheist is like living in a closed cell without a window. Again, not true. Being an atheist is actually liberating, knowing that you're not enslaved to outdated, absurd and unnecessary religious beliefs & customs.

Lastly, Ray Comfort states that atheists must believe that something can come from nothing. Again, not true. Atheism is merely the lack of a belief in a God. It makes no claims regarding how the universe formed. But since we're on the subject, I'd like to ask Ray Comfort a question. Which is more probable, scenario A below or scenario B?

Scenario A
- The universe formed naturally out of nothing

Scenario B
- God formed out of nothing
- God obtained unlimited powers out of nothing
- God then made the universe out of nothing

Seems to me like scenario A has fewer absurd things to believe in than the supernatural solution in scenario B.