This is one of those very touchy subjects that seem to be quite hard to discuss without offending someone. I think it's hard for some people to discuss something reasonably that sits very close to their heart/their core belief structure.
I grew up Catholic, went to church every Sunday, and I was even an altar boy along with my brother for a couple years. Not sure if I chose to do the altar boy gig because I was really religious or because I found it slightly more tolerable/engaging than just sitting there idly for more than an hour every week.
Anyhow, as I went into High School and started critically thinking about some of the stuff that was taught, I really started to question my belief structure and what was important in life. By the time I hit college, I had completely walked away from Catholicism. There was too much dissonance in there, too much that didn't mesh up logically. How can God be all-loving but condemn certain groups of people that he supposedly created in his image? Something about that just didn't make too much sense to me.
My then girlfriend, now wife, Chessa, also felt very similarly. Needless to say, we haven't baptized either of our children and believe me when I say that caused quite the commotion in both of our families. We've calmly explained our viewpoints and why we perceive it to be damaging to the development of our children. We both have a strong moral compass and would rather use that to direct our children than the vague (mis)interpretation of the Bible used by many priests and other holy folk that govern the church.
Of course, after our systemic rejection of every possible point they could come up with to convince us to raise our children in the church, they laid down the original sin line. As horrible as I think religion can be at times, I don't think there's much worse than the concept of original sin. If such a thing as heaven or hell exists, I can't imagine that one of my boys would be condemned to it for simply not being baptized. The fearmongering that backs that thought is horrendous. Babies are helpless and harmless. To argue that the ones that are taken prematurely are sent to hell for not being baptized is beyond awful.
In any event, we eventually got over the hurdle with our families, but it's still a sore spot when it does come up. While I'm pretty firmly in the atheist category, Chessa is more of an agnostic. I think if we dissipate all of the noise around the bible and take a look at the core teachings of Jesus, whether he be man or god, we're left with something valuable.
He preached love for your fellow man and taking care of those around you. That's some righteous stuff and something I can definitely get behind. Sometimes I find it sad that so much hatred and negativity accompanies Christianity. I think there's something valuable buried within it, but it's been polluted by a lot of garbage and sensationalism over the years.
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