Hope I have this in the right place !

Carra23

Hi

Myself and my fiance are due our 2nd child in November. We had our 1st child in 2007 and had him christened , something that I was against but went along with for the sake of keeping the peace. I am really against organised religion, I just don't see the need. I beleive in a god or creator whichever term suits but just don't buy into religions.

Since we had our 1st child my girlfriend's opinion on religion has changed alot, I think due to the amount of negative coverage the catholic church has received lately due to all the paedophilia.

We are now looking for advice or opinions on what are the alternative options for our child when he or she is born. We were thinking of a spiritual blessing or something to that effect but have no clue where to start looking for info on such matters.

If I have placed this in the wrong forum I apologise as I know how touchy a subject religion is for some people and I do not mean to cause offence but if it's in the right place and any one has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Carra23

Berthram

I'm not particularly religious myself but I went with the flow in terms of getting my children christined. I suppose it was a matter of convinence. The catholic school was just down the road and I suppose they would have been the odd ones out in terms of not getting their communion money when they were seven.
It saved me a lot of money on petrol!

hiorta

We must all reap as was sown. There is no get-out, ritual, ceremony, creed, dogma or doctrine that can alter this Natural Law.
There is no individual with the ability to interfere between Cause & Effect, no matter how they might think they can.
Your child will benefit from a balanced upbringing, with respect for all views and will be attracted to those which appeal the most.

The 'Golden Rule' : do as you would be done by, is a sound philosophy for Life.
Good Luck in the future, may the wee one thrive and prosper.

Oryx

You dont need to do anything. A christening is expected, but thats just down to the culture here. If it doesnt happen, many wont even realise your kids arent baptised.

Thought it may cause issues when you send your kids to school, if its a catholic school. Youll need to think about how to handle it then.

If you are looking about for ideas on what to do as you have no firm belief system yourself, then wont it be the case that youre just grasping at something in order to have some kind of ceremony? I mean, I could suggest spiritualism or humanism or whatever, but they wont have any more meaning in your lives than catholicism does, so why bother? The idea of christening is to invite your child into a religious family, so if you dont feel part of that family yourself, simply dont do it.

Just one other point. I am lapsed catholic, if Im anything Im spiritualist by faith. Any religion can be corrupt, but they all have a valid spirituality at their core. I know the catholic religion has had its fair share of scandal and corruption. So many within the institution are bad people. But Ive been to catholic religious ceremonies and the spirituality of it is still there, regardless. Any ceremony you take part in is done for you, so you look past the priest with rosacea and bad breath to the actual connection to god that you are there for.

Carra23

Oryx wrote: »

You dont need to do anything. A christening is expected, but thats just down to the culture here. If it doesnt happen, many wont even realise your kids arent baptised.

Thought it may cause issues when you send your kids to school, if its a catholic school. Youll need to think about how to handle it then.

If you are looking about for ideas on what to do as you have no firm belief system yourself, then wont it be the case that youre just grasping at something in order to have some kind of ceremony? I mean, I could suggest spiritualism or humanism or whatever, but they wont have any more meaning in your lives than catholicism does, so why bother? The idea of christening is to invite your child into a religious family, so if you dont feel part of that family yourself, simply dont do it.

Just one other point. I am lapsed catholic, if Im anything Im spiritualist by faith. Any religion can be corrupt, but they all have a valid spirituality at their core. I know the catholic religion has had its fair share of scandal and corruption. So many within the institution are bad people. But Ive been to catholic religious ceremonies and the spirituality of it is still there, regardless. Any ceremony you take part in is done for you, so you look past the priest with rosacea and bad breath to the actual connection to god that you are there for.

Yes absolutely you made some good points there. I think some of the teachings in the Catholic Church are great but some others are absolute nonsense. My dislike for the religion goes way beyond the recent bad press. I remember being told in school that baptism was so important because God won't allow children who are not baptised into heaven , how can any one spout such utter tripe to young kids.

The wealth and lavish luxury the pope lives in is pure gangsterism and really annoys me but that's another topic altogether.

I suppose I do believe that ultimately there is a divine creator something person entity whatever you want to call it that created all things. I feel like there is way more to our existence than this life. I beleive the way to live your life can be simple if you follow 1 rule and only do on to others as you would like done to yourself, easier said than done though.

Maybe your right and I don't need to do anything for the birth of the child and the feeling of need just comes from society and the fact that most people do but at the same time it's an important time in our life and the beginning of a new life in this world so in that sense I probably feel like I should mark the occasion some how.

I'm confused

krankykitty

I get what you mean about "marking" the arrival of your child and officially welcome them to your family, even if you're not going to initiate them into a religion. Why should such celebrations be limited to religion.

An idea could be holding some kind of naming ceremony? You could gather together with family and friends, maybe do something symbolic that means something to you (lighting candle, planting tree/rosebush etc). The guests could as part of the ceremony say a couple of words about their wishes for the future for your child or the like. Then have some food/drinks/party in honour of the new arrival afterwards.

I haven't actually done this myself nor have I attended any similar, but this was what came to my mind, I'm sure you'd have loads of ideas yourself. If it's important to you to mark the arrival of your child, do something

Carra23

krankykitty wrote: »

I get what you mean about "marking" the arrival of your child and officially welcome them to your family, even if you're not going to initiate them into a religion. Why should such celebrations be limited to religion.

An idea could be holding some kind of naming ceremony? You could gather together with family and friends, maybe do something symbolic that means something to you (lighting candle, planting tree/rosebush etc). The guests could as part of the ceremony say a couple of words about their wishes for the future for your child or the like. Then have some food/drinks/party in honour of the new arrival afterwards.

I haven't actually done this myself nor have I attended any similar, but this was what came to my mind, I'm sure you'd have loads of ideas yourself. If it's important to you to mark the arrival of your child, do something

Your not so kranky kitty ! the tree planting is a good idea. We have no no ideas ourselves as we only recently started to discuss it. I will mention that idea to my fiance n see what she thinks. Thanks for the replies is always good to here from a variety of people on matters like this one

MysticalSoul

Before deciding on whether to have your child christened, do consider what school(s) you would potentially consider sending him/her to. If considering sending to a Catholic school, the child does need to be baptised in order to attend such a school. Sad, but true. Hopefully by the time your child is starting school this will have changed. I have heard of people having a forced baptism on the first day of school due to this.

Aslo, in paganism they often carry out a naming ceremony as opposed to a baptism.

Nevyn

This topic comes up a fair bit in the parenting forums.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055166626
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055510317

Carra23

MysticalSoul wrote: »

Before deciding on whether to have your child christened, do consider what school(s) you would potentially consider sending him/her to. If considering sending to a Catholic school, the child does need to be baptised in order to attend such a school. Sad, but true. Hopefully by the time your child is starting school this will have changed. I have heard of people having a forced baptism on the first day of school due to this.

Aslo, in paganism they often carry out a naming ceremony as opposed to a baptism.

We had our 1st child baptised and he will hopefully be attending an educate together school if we can get a place 4 him so I reckon when the time comes we will do the same with ur 2nd child

strobe

MysticalSoul wrote: »

Before deciding on whether to have your child christened, do consider what school(s) you would potentially consider sending him/her to. If considering sending to a Catholic school, the child does need to be baptised in order to attend such a school. Sad, but true. Hopefully by the time your child is starting school this will have changed. I have heard of people having a forced baptism on the first day of school due to this.

Just to clarify that point, the child doesn't specifically have to be baptised to attend a catholic school, there are plenty of unbaptised non-catholic children in catholic primary schools. But it would mean that if the school is full to capacity children that are baptised will be given preference.