Comment 53 by Layla

I think if we were talking about a ceremony where adults frightened a child old enough to know what was going on by telling them they were full of sin and needed to be cleansed or something like that then, yes, this would be a cause of concern (...)

To be clear, that is what I was talking about, the children who are present at the ceremony, who are old enough to understand what is going on.

And that is what’s being said, at least at the christenings I’ve been to. It isn’t exactly spelled out in so many details, but it’s still in there; babies inherit sin, people bear responsibility for the misdeeds of their ancestors. That is the moral system of very sick minds. You say the words are innocuous, but they’re clearly not! I think maybe you’re too used to the idea. If you learned of this mindset, that people really used to think like this, for the first time today, you would probably be properly aghast. It’s not unreasonable to think there’s quite a few bright children who will be frightened and confused hearing this poisonous shit.

At the very least grown ups should prepare the children, telling them “listen, you will hear the priest say some very vile things, you see, there used to be some very bad men who used to think this is how the world works, but don’t worry, no-one thinks like this anymore, we’re just going to listen to the words because, well, it’s traditional and all.” But they’re not likely to do that, are they, that would break the spell.

Either way, christenings are places where a lot of children learn about how evil grown ups can be. There’s nothing nice about that. Yes, there’s worse things going on in the world, but between the choice of having a christening and not having one, you can’t really justify the former morally. Have a nice secular welcome-to-the-world ceremony, nothing wrong with that.