Here’s a fine idea to benefit the public: an exchange progrram called Fiction for Fiction in which people can trade in their tired old religious texts for novels. It seems a little unfair, though: they’re offering great novels in exchange. Wouldn’t it be better to trade them some tatty old cheap pulp for the Bible? I think exchanging Gor novels for the Bible would be thematically appropriate. (Trading porn for bibles is also a good idea). The one big problem with these schemes, though, is that the organizers are going to end up with a big stack of even more crappy books than they started with.
An idea that doesn’t involve accumulating bad books is this one: debaptism. A fellow actually got a church to accept a debaptism certificate — he argued that because the original baptism was done against his will and without his consent, it was invalid and the church records needed to be amended. Of course, this was an Anglican church, and we all know how easy they are…I’d like to see this done with the Catholics or Mormons.
Anyway, all you have to do is a) buy the certificate of debaptism (£3), and b) live in the UK. Isn’t it just peachy that those of us who need it most live in places where we can’t get it? Some American group ought to run with this idea.
I have never verified whether I’m still on the church roster in my home parish, although I haven’t been a practicing Catholic in at least thirty years. The head count publicized by the Vatican of membership in the Roman Catholic Church is highly suspect and I think includes a great many lapsed or nominal Catholics who are not actually involved in the faith.
Perhaps they miss me, but at least I’m no longer in the pews whispering little fibs to my young family members while the pastor is telling bigger ones from the pulpit.
I was never baptized, which is probably for the best. I imagine the holy water would burn my liberal-feminist-atheist skin.
If we agree Baptism is meaningless, then isn’t debaptism useless? I mean, who cares if as a child you had some “blessed” water droplets plopped onto your barely formed cranium?
Do we as adults really need a certificate to invalidate the already invalid?
As a joke, though, it’s pretty funny. I’d love to show up to my childhood church demanding that they recognize my debaptism. It would make a good youtube video, anyway…
Too bad we can’t decircumcise…
It’s a lot easier with the Catholics. All you do is desecrate the Eucharist, and they kick you out automatically. :)
I’m surprised some teenager hasn’t thought of that already. Tired of going to church every week? Want to rebel against your fuddy-duddy Catholic parents? Desecrate the Eucharist! It’s an automatic expulsion – you’re not even meant to be able to step into a church again – and best of all only the Pope can undo it. Then you can be like an Australian atheist and sleep in Sunday.
There’s a little bit of a movement in Spain for people to remove themselves from church records as being Catholic. I’ve got some relatives in Spain who’ve done it. It’s apparently very difficult as they try to throw all sorts of obstacles in your way and church official appear not to be above lying when it comes to providing information on how to do this.
Apostasy is doable in the Catholic church, at least in Spain. It took years of battle, including lawsuit, and some bishops still try to boicot every attempt, but others are cooperative. I got my certificate of apostasy (officially written by the Church itself) and my entry in the baptismal book has been corrected. I had a big party to celebrate it.
Notice that, before getting my apostasy, I first tried to get excommunicated, but that is extremely hard. Making out with my (same-sex) boyfriend in front of St Peter’s grave in Vatican was not enough.
Zeno, unless you go through the process of apostasy, you still appear in the baptism book, and you are still included in the membership headcount that you refer. They are cheaters that way.
Well, without the supernatural meaning, it still has the meaning of ‘you are part of this group’. Even if you have never paid attention to it and your parents mostly did it to make their parents happy.
From a religious viewpoint, yes. On the other hand, it gets you off their books as an official member, which helps reduce their clout because they recognise less people.
More-or-less reliable studies indicate that the majority of people identified as Christians aren’t regular church goers. If a “debaptism movement” became popular, it might get a number of these people to think about joining. Peeling even a few percent off the church numbers would be nice.
Remember: one reason the Mormon church claims so many followers is that they baptise dead people, then claim their (still living) descendents… and it gets them listened to, even though it is bullshit.
Tucker Carlson is a shithead. Just thought I’d mention that.
This Australian atheist gets up and goes to the gym most Sundays…
Debaptism and relieving people of their Bibles are both a waste of time. The effort should be redirected toward educating people about the non-divine origins of the Bible. They will then realize that it’s not God’s word, that their beliefs are based on nothing and that Baptism is meaningless.
Well, admittedly, not all of the novels were “great.” I think we had some pre-teen novel from the 80s called “My Posse Don’t Do Homework.” Er, yeah. Well, most of the novels were great, I swear!
Very true…reducing their clout is important. Their membership numbers are certainly inflated.
Instead of the debaptism movement, we begin a eucharist desecration movement. We could all go to Catholic Masses and keep our eucharist, bring them home, and videotape our dipping them in tasty sauces. Wash it down with some sacred wine.
YUMMM…Jesus Wafers in Honey (-_-)
It’s a scam. The church is just getting money for printing off a certificate. Not worth it and just as valid the the original “baptism”. Re-baptize yourself with soda water. It’s far more powerful.
Another way to get out of the Catholic Church is to declare yourself Pope. They hate that shit.
Kissing isn’t prohibited; you should at least have gone to second base… :)
Anyway, excommunication isn’t hard. It turns out that there are no less than 10 ways to get an automatic excommunication, though a number of them aren’t particularly relevant:
All of these are instant excommunication, not paperwork or messy rituals to go through. They can be reversed by a bishop or higher, though – except for the Eucharist one; because that’s a direct assault on God, only the Pope can reverse it.
Victor, the church isn’t printing the de-baptism certificates, a secular society is.
Personally, I think it’s a great idea. But I’m in the US and was baptized Catholic, so it won’t help me any. I’d love to get myself off the registry though.
I had just this exact same experience less than a week ago.
I’ll spare you all the details suffice as to say it has to do with me proposing to my catholic girlfriend (thankfully, she’s basically a deist and not much of a catholic) and issues of having a “catholic” marriage with someone who’s an atheist. My dad actually made the argument, 2 years after I told them I was an atheist, that I was still a catholic because I was baptized (as an infant) and Confirmed, against my will under threat of being grounded.
That kind of labeling is ridiculous.
Victor:
Everyone can be a pope!
http://discordian-dilemma.net/Blog/wp-content/2008/05/pope-card.jpg
I hear that in Islam they have a simple, effective, and permanent ‘certificate of apostasy’. How progressive of them.
Discuss.
Everyone can be a pope? That seems to be the case. David Bawden was elected pope Michael I with the help of his parents (and the likely assistance of severe delusions). And there’s the goofy Lucian Pulvermacher, an old priest who has decided he’s Pius XIII. [Link]
It helps if you like to dress up, of course.
Mark, you need to read the fine print. It’s not that everyone can be a Pope – everyone is a Pope, genuine and authorised, of the Church of Eris. Wether they want to be or not.
As a Pope, you can excommunicate anyone, including yourself. Of course, they’re still a Pope, so they can de-ex-communicate. You can then re-ex-communicate, but then they’ll just de-re-ex-communicate and as there are no backsies, that’s where it must end.
Hail Eris!
Wow… I never knew that so many of my favorite commenters were Australian!
I kind of think the de-baptism thing is silly unless you are actually getting taken off of the church’s roster. My mother made sure I didn’t get baptized, she wanted it to be by choice. Lucky me.
That is true – conventional reading of Islam states that apostasy should be punishable by death. Note that this only applies if you were Muslim to start with. These days, compassionate Sharia courts seem to be commuting the death sentence to a mere 20 years hard labour.
More progressive Islamic scholars, however, are interpreting this as being for political betrayal only, and that human rights require the freedom to convert to and from Islam. Strangely enough, though, most of these progressive scholars leave in non-Muslim Western countries where you aren’t allowed to kill people just for changing their mind.
I’d mention bacon, but Muslims can’t eat it.
Are there any seminary students who came to their senses in the audience? Can someone who speaks “Catholic-ese” explain what the hell this means? (warning: PDF link) I’d really like to know how to rid myself of the taint of Catholicism once and for all.
Here’s an excerpt from ex-mormon.org with advise on how to get out. It can be difficult, or rather, they can make it difficult, so ex-mormons have organized in order to help those who want to officially leave and get their names off church records:
In the United States and in many other countries a person has a basic right to simply resign from any church or religious organization, no matter what the church says about what you need to do to ‘remove your name from the records’. Here at Exmormon.org we recommend http://www.MormonNoMore.com for up-to-date information on how to resign from the Mormon church: Mormon No More has a sample letter that you can use as your resignation, or you can write your own letter.
You become a NON member the minute a church representative receives your formal resignation. They have no right to treat you as a member after you resign and they certainly have no right to initiate ‘disciplinary action’ against you, no matter what ‘sins’ they believe you have committed. Even if they ALREADY initiated disciplinary actions against you, you have a right to resign from the church and halt the proceedings. As we said above, we recommend MormonNoMore.com. That site is specifically designed and kept current with policies regarding name removal.
Wouldn’t it be even better to exchange bibles for something of value? Like maybe a Gould or Sagan book? Why not take the opportunity to increasing the rational thinking of the person who’s already taking the step by giving up their religious texts?
Give them a bit of a helpful [healthy] shove in the right direction.
Sure it’s like trading gravel for gold but think of of it as intellectual and rational charity.
The Jewish community did manage to get Holocaust victims removed from the Mormon baptismal rolls after it came to light they had been going out of their way posthumously baptizing them which, surprise surprise, was quite offensive to the Jewish community. Unfortunately the FLDS hasn’t been sticking to the agreement very well and continues to add Jewish genocide victims and other dead.
You can pretty much bet that if you check the International Genealogical Index (IGI), the LDS’ index of proxy baptisms, you’ll find nearly all of your ancestors have been proxy baptized as Mormons. It’s very disturbing. I know thousands of my Irish ancestors and cousins going back over 2000 years have been, quite a few of which were also persecuted and/or killed for their beliefs by Cromwell and others. I find the practice rather repulsive but it’s a central tenant of the LDS faith to posthumously “save” those who died without hearing the LDS message.
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
That was actually one of our initial ideas…but then we realized giving away those books would be really, really expensive. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to find used fiction novels to give away. Usually at most we spend $10 on this event.
As much as I’d love to hand out free copies of The God Delusion, I’m limited by our tiny budget =P
Various posters claim that debaptizing is a waste of time, and I want to argue that no, it isn’t.
Take the context of the Spanish Catholic Church (which was my case). It is pretty much the only Church in the country (the others are small and insignificant), and a very powerful one. Most people are baptized as children by their parents, including parents who are not really believers, who do not care what the Church say, who disagree with the pope on everything, and who never go to religious services (except for things like baptisms and weddings). However, the Catholic church uses the number of people baptized as their number of followers. They do have quite a lot of political power, and they get all kinds of privileges (including public money) based on this number.
First, committing apostasy is, at least, a form of protest. It is a form of being an open, vocal atheist, to yell a loud “not in my name”. If more people did it, the Church could not longer claim that large (and radically false) membership that they claim.
Second, it is also a form to show others that they are not alone. I have the hope that, in the same way that by being an openly, happy gay man I can serve as a role model for a scared teenager who is thinking of coming out of the closet, by being an openly, happy atheist I can give some courage to those who are battling with leaving the Church. If you do not consider blogging about atheism a waste of time, why would committing apostasy be a waste of time?
Third, I am trying to create change. I hope to give pause to those non-religious parents who are about to baptize their children because it is tradition. Or to those non-religious couples who are thinking of having a religious wedding just to please their parents.
Fourth, it gave me the pleasure of having an apostasy party, and of inviting my religious relatives. “If I attended the religious wedding of your children, you have to come to my apostasy party.”
Finally, notice that the church did not make any money on it. On the contrary: they have one less official member, so they get less public money now.
Surprise! You can – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration
Who’d of thunk.
Yes, but I appreciate that this emphasizes the fictional nature of the bible by this “like for like” exchange; fiction for fiction. Exchanging for science books could be interpreted as “truth for truth”.
Yeah my comment was more wishful thinking, but cool idea you guys have none the less.
Seems like you need a lawyer more than a theologian to interpret that document. But it seems to me that it is saying that just an act of heresy doesn’t break the bond, nor does having your name removed from the “registry”. You have to do both and publicly. But then that last clause is still weird; it almost reads like “whatever you do, you can’t break the bond created at baptism”.
Thank you splendid monkey, from one monkey to another! Although, the article says that results are pretty disappointing.
In fact, contrary to what has been said here, the RC Church was quicker to acquiesce to notating the ‘de-baptism’ in their registers than the Anglicans were.
The certificates are being sold by the National Secular Society — for some years we could download them gratis, but now they are sold, printed on quality paper and suitable for framing and hanging in the lavatory — or whatever else you want to do with them.
It’s a lot of double speak in there, but an act of heresy, schism, or apostacy is what’s required.
Apostacy is nothing more than renouncing the faith, so that’s easy.
You need to have it in writing, give it to a member of clergy who can decide whether the act is truthful or not (so you’ll probably need to show proof that you’re doing this of your own free will, etc), who can then carry out the proper “canonical penalties,” whatever those are, and it should be marked in the baptismal records of your actions.
#7 Implies, however, that once baptized, the bond can’t be broken, which is kinda like saying “neener, neener you were baptized as an infant so you’re ours now!” whatever. It was really just some guy sprinkling water and saying nonsense. The other actions still gets you taken off of as a member of the church.
I’ve been shopping around recently for an e-reader. I was surprised how many of them come with the bible pre-loaded, and that they use this as a selling point?! Mmm, guess what’s the first thing I’ll be deleting when I finally get one.
If only such certificates had been available for the Mortara family…
Zipi @ # 6: Making out with my (same-sex) boyfriend in front of St Peter’s grave in Vatican was not enough.
Of course not. Thanks to the latest research breakthrough, we now know that the most potent form of protest against involuntary membership in a social contract is teabagging!
All of these are instant excommunication, not paperwork or messy rituals to go through…
Awww, crap! There goes my plan to kill millions of jews. I thought that’d get me excommunicated for sure, but I guess I’ll have to go back to Plan B: re-binding my koran with a cover made of bacon decorated with eucharists. :( I guess it’s easier.
I’ve been shopping around recently for an e-reader. I was surprised how many of them come with the bible pre-loaded, and that they use this as a selling point?!
Ask for a koran. And a book on pirates.
Nice idea, but I daresay a little flat as it stands. Can we find a way to higlight some of the church’s myriad crimes at the same time? I mean seriously, that’s like shooting icthus* in a barrel.
I want to remind them WHY I am debaptising. Spiting the pope is fun n’ all, but I need more bang for my buck on this one.
*I couldn’t resist. I am very sorry. BTW, does anyone know the plural of this? I’m sure it’s not correct as it stands.
When I was attending Community College in Wenatchee, WA we had a plague of New Testament distributors. So one day, after running the gauntlet, I stomp into the lounge and announce that the Bible Guys are there and won’t take no for an answer, again.
My buddy Jan leaps to his feet and says, “I’ll be right back!” and races out of the building. Fifteen minutes later he’s back with a box of Playboys and Playgirls (his room-mates gleefuly contributed to the cause). So four or five of us went out and set up camp across from the Bible Guys and started handing out Porn to the student body.
The Bible Guys moved to another part of campus, we followed. They finally gave up and left.
The funny thing was, WAY more women took the Playgirls than guys took the Playboys.
That’s tipping a nod to Catholic doctrine, which holds that the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and holy orders leave an indelible mark on the soul; without that last clause, the document could be interpreted as contradicting this doctrine, if only by omission.
A point made by the de-baptised chap in a radio interview is that the church used the baptismal record as evidence of the number of christians. They have used this as an argument for having representation in the House of Lords. So, fewer folk, less power to them. Well worth doing.
And don’t forget you may always stock up on your “Get Out Of Hell Free” cards…
http://www.goohf.com/
re: The guy getting a debaptism certificate on the basis that he was too young to consent. In theory, one of the reasons Mormons aren’t baptised until eight is that they have to be somewhat accountable and able to understand what they’re getting into. (Why eight though? I have no idea. It’s not like I had really all that solid an idea of what I was consenting to–my parents obviously wanted me to get baptised and it was seen as a Big Deal by us little eight year olds.)
I used the process Lynna talks about in her post, the one discussed by MormonNoMore. I sent a letter to SLC, saying I resigned due to to non-belief. They sent it back (which I expected, because I’d read the accounts of other folks) and said I’d have to deal with the local bishop. (This despite the fact that the man didn’t know me at ALL, me never having attended.) So I sent a polite but firm letter to the local bishop and pointed out that according to various rulings in the United States that I was already a non-member from the moment the folks in SLC received my resignation, but that I would appreciate it if he would get the paperwork all caught up so I wouldn’t get any more well-meaning ward members on my doorstep. Two or three weeks later, I got a letter saying my request had been processed (although with a smug little pamphlet inviting me to come back to the fold.) I also told them in my letter that my membership status was private information and if they disseminated it without my permission, I would cheerfully sue their asses. (This is because it used to be that excommunications and disfellowshipping were announced in home wards and stakes as a sort of social punishment.)
It was easy for me because the LDS church had already had some run-ins where they had to settle with ex-members they tried to initiate punitive proceedings against. So with the law on my side, and having handy prior cases to cite, my official departure went quite smoothly. No missionaries and ward members showing up to “love bomb” me with casseroles and invitations. No weird shunning practises among family or friends. (My siblings and many of my friends already know. My parents are in Denial Land, or the Politely Pretending We Don’t Know Even Though We Read Your LiveJournal Land.)
Incidentally I don’t regard the exit process as a waste of time. Because of the extremely bureaucratic nature of the Mormon/LDS church, and their habit of keeping geneaological records, when you move, your records are forwarded on to the new bishop. (And believe me, a lot of well-meaning friends and family will tell the church where you moved to.) Also, because while the patriarchy runs the church, the children are sealed generally to their mother….and as a woman who doesn’t want her future kids raised in a sexist, racist institution, I decided to get my name removed before I had children and they were automatically on the rolls because I was still technically a member. (I’ve had ex-Mormon friends who kept having people approach them through their children, inviting them to Primary and church activities.)
And as noted by ColonelFazackerly at 46, the church records are often used as evidence for number of members. I may be one drop, but it’s a drop I can take away.
That is TOTALLY my university, and if I owned a Bible and had fewer than 70 books already I’d totally be there. However, as it is…
I think this would be a good use of all those bibles.
That USCCB document certainly does seem to claim that ALL UR S0LZ R BL0NG 2 US no matter what you do, but they think they own everybody’s souls, even people who’ve never had and never wanted anything to do with their damnable institution in the first place. And there’s still a lot of satisfaction to be gained from sending a clear message that you don’t believe their bullshit anymore and so no longer want to have anything to do with them, so I think it’s worth doing the formal defection thing anyway.
I was raised Catholic, and I’ve been more or less an atheist for about fifteen years now, but I still felt some vague sense of attachment to the vile thing up until the election of Ratzinger. That seemed to me to be a pretty clear statement that they’re not ashamed of all the medieval nonsense they’re tangled up with, and in fact they’re proud of it and want more of it. So I decided to get myself excommunicated and sent off a (fairly hostile and overdramatic) letter to the local archdiocese and a couple parishes (the one I was baptized in, the one I grew up in, and the one I currently live in). And I got back a form from the archdiocese which I could send back — it was a request to leave the Catholic Church by a formal act (as discussed in that USCCB document). I filled it out, got it notarized, and sent it back. Never heard from them again, which was just fine by me. At some point I’ll have to head up to Chicago and check out my baptismal record to see what it looks like now. It was immensely satisfying. I just wish I could do it again. And again and again and again. No remaining hostility here at all, no sir.
We just had a debaptism ceremony at the American Atheists Convention this weekend. Part of the ceremony is recognizing that this ceremony is every bit as meaningless as the original baptism. Along with a bunch of gibberish LAtin (hairdryeribus electronium), unholy guacamole. I even got a certificate to hang on my wall.
Off-topic but interesting: Speaking of mythological, the BBC has an article, Sewing machine hoax hits S Arabia, that is a two-fer of woo. “Red mercury” may not exist, or may be a code for something else, but is popular in scams where nothing at all is sold. Somehow, a rumor got around that red mercury could be found in old sewing machines, so people were buying and stealing them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax
A very good reason to be debaptised where I live. You can be thrown out of the church in some Swiss cantons for not paying up.
I can understand wanting to belong to a big happy family, the ritual, a warm feeling of being right; but wanting to pay an extra 5% tax, that’s just wierd.
Why would I pay $5 to nullify something that is completely fictitious?
#54 continued…
But before you consider a move to the land of holey cheese to get a “not paying your church taxes” excommunication, you should know that the bacon is rubbish.
I sort of get it, but to be honest I’d rather not have a debaptism certificate (as far as I know I was never baptised anyway, but hey ho) because that would admit some sort of acceptance that the church has authority or any proper place in modern society.
I have been emailing various New Zealand Anglican office holders, including bishops, on how to be un-confirmed. It seems that you can have your name removed from their register if you were confirmed but you did not actually believe at the time.
In my case I was aged 15, and was resistant to this stupid ritual, but was coerced by parental pressure.
I just have to identify the correct date, which I have forgotten (I obviously know the place), and I can request to have my name removed.
The point for me is to do with creating consequences for the church – to make the bastards do some actual work to have the name removed, and make the bishops aware that people may object years later to their stupid rituals. Basically, something to inconvenience them and push-back against the church in an obvious way, no matter how small.
I encourage more people to do the same. Stand up and be heard, people.
It’s been around ten years now that UAAR, the Italian union of rationalist atheists and agnostics, sustains a “debaptism campaign”.
On their site you can find the whole (legal) history, motivations, what to do if you live in Switzerland, Germany or Austria instead of Italy, etc. Thanks to them, it is now possible to officially leave the Catholic Church, at least in the above countries: all you have to do is fill in a form they provide online and send it to the parish where you’ve been baptized.
Note that, in a country like Italy, such a campaign is far from useless. For instance, the Church routinely claims that 90+ percent of the populations are catholic and use this figure for political and social clout (sure is, politicians believe it), but what they are actually counting are the baptized citizens.
I see now that they have also picked up the atheist bus meme…
@53- “red mercury” would be mercury sulfide (red like cinnabar, one of its ores). And poisonous. But a more likely red substance in an old sewing machine would be good old non-poisonous iron oxide- rust. More fools they for stealing an old sewing machine. Gotta love and smirk at the woo, here. Holding a cell phone up to it as a detector? Do these people understand ANY technology?
I wish I were a swiss citizen (# 54) where you are excluded of some confession for not paying your church taxe.
In Belgium as in most european countries the church subsidies are imbedded in general taxation whether you believe or not. Here, priests are “state paid” and churchs upkeep is a municipal charge. Through a convoluted assessment the biggest part goes to the catholics. Unfortunately, it must also be said that the “Laïc” movement also eats a part of the cake …
We can “disbaptize” by asking our christening church but nobody is controling …
I have yet to find a single religion which is not about social parasitism in all its facets.
Personally I think it is a stupid idea to give the impression that we do not want people to read the bible. It can make us seem afraid or bigoted. I would instead encourage people to read the Bible.
Some of it is vile of course, parts of it are boring but there are also parts that are great litterature. From the Hebrew Bible I like the Song of Songs and Ester. The Gospels, especially the Passion narratives are also good.
And like it or not, the book has had a great influence on culture which is a great reason to read it in of itself. Finally, mote than one has lost their faith when they have actually read what they are supposed to believe.