most catholic kids get baptized as soon after they're born as possible, so they're not able to consent to that either.
Your comparison of having water sprinkled on the head of an infant
to a practice which is a physical amputation is ridiculous.
To begin with, you shouldn't discuss your take on religion on a thread
that had nothing to do with it, but since you have;
you should realize that when two people decide to raise a family, it is up to them TO GUIDE THAT CHILD THROUGHOUT HIS/HER EARLY LIFE
and, yes, that includes a "faith" of some sort and most people will
pass on a spiritual belief system to which they themselves were indoctrinated.
There is NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS PRACTICE especially when dealing with the ritual of infant baptism in and of itself, it is a
fleeting moment in ones history that is not recalled because NO TRAUMA ensued when being held and prayed over AND THIS AND THE SPRINKLING OF HOLY WATER
FORMS THE ENTIRE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF INFANT
BAPTISM.
Note the abscence of a knife.
Not "having a say", as you put it, to whether or not a priest will sprinke Holy water on the head of an infant and recite ancient ritual prayers over him makes little, if any, sense, since the practice of baptism in itself has no physical or emotional ramifications for the individual and common sense should dictate this. Millions
of people have been baptised into various Christian denomintions as infants and have quietly and gently lived their lives outside the spiritual framework of Christian doctrine with no hostility towards their parents or
the faith of their parents let alone harbor regret over
having been "baptised".
The ramifications of baptism should be, and are, soely spiritual IF... the individual takes up the path of the faith according to its doctrinal laws as the individual matures.
The number of posters who are willing to jump on the bandwagon to slam Catholics for their spirituality is appalling and was insulting to me. To call us "brainwashed" is a foolish and mean spirited
assumption that is part of the (very) acceptable zenophophobic attitude so prevalent today among those who openly hate the Catholic church and excercise their idiotic bigotry unnaposed by most BUT NOT BY ME. I'm proud of being Catholic and this forum should not have been a venue for open discussion on some imaginary
and idiotic comparison between a surgical procedure forced upon an infant and a delicate ceremony that is, ultimately, an act of love bestowed upon a baby by individuals who care about what that babys spiritual path should be as it grows and matures in a world in
which PARENTAL GUIDANCE IN ALL MATTERS IS absolutely necessary.
Baptism is water, not a blade.
You are entitled to your bigotry, but please don't assume that
Catholics, like me, are going to read your nonsense and find it
acceptable.
This is a forum about dicks and circumcision.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT MY FAITH OUT OF IT.
YOUR APPROXIMATION OF BAPTISM AND CIRCUMCISION WAS VULGAR AND UNNECESSARY.