I wasn't BIC but so many of you were baptized at age eight because your parents just went along with it.

Has anyone here ever confronted the church, their bishop, stake president, or any LDS church representative about church status bestowed on an eight year old child for life? It seems crazy that an organization that is so legalistic and business oriented would act as if a child is actually in a position to make a lifetime commitment for themselves. It should be enough for an adult who is at least 18, who wants out of Mormonism, to just say that they do not recognize their parent's decision to have them baptized. Why the need for such legalistic letters/emails to resign? And if they really accept that an eight year old is accountable for making such decisions then he should be equally responsible enough to say, "I want out" at any age above age eight. Isn't that what agency (FREE agency when I joined) is all about?

Frankly, if TSCC wants to be seen as legitimate it would make more sense to have members reaffirm their "decision" to be baptized when they reach adulthood rather than treating them like prisoners to the sect because of their parent's decision.

The profit said so.

But I totally agree that if at 8 you can accept at 8 you can also reject.

There are actually 2 parts. Be at least 8 years old AND capable of repentance.

The capable of repentance part has long since been dropped.

I have a nephew that has challenged this practice and won't baptize one of his children because as he puts it "she still believes in Santa Claus."

Does that sound like a little girl that is accountable for her actions?

https://books.google.com/books?id=u5kk7Z9t7qIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=sword+of+laban+book&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7tuHpw87MAhVDGx4KHU4KDjsQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=sword of laban book&f=false

Valid for what? It's only valid on the records of the LDS Church.

Valid as MEMBERS !!

For gosh sakes, they are EIGHT YEARS OLD! I cannot think of a single organization of any kind that gives membership status to children that brings with it the responsibilities that Mormonism attaches. Most Christian religions baptize infants but then confirm (ie. invite them into the membership) when they are at least twelve. Don't get me wrong. I think 12 is too young also but most other churches don't claim a child as a member for sales purposes of hounding them into attendance and tithing paying. If a church member wants to walk away, and does, other churches leave them alone and mostly/usually drop them from their membership eventually. They also don't do postal, internet, and family phone searches to locate them wherever they are in the WoRLD!

Mormonism treats anyone, including children, as not just lifelong but eternal members. The privileges are few and the requirements are many. Non-active, and sometimes even resigned, Mormons are still expected to entertain home teachers, visiting teachers, missionary visits, love bombings, telephone calls from ward leaders, invitations to attend firesides and conferences and other general activities. They are called by bishops to have interviews. Need I go on?

You use the words "only valid on the records of the LDS church" as if the LDS church records are used for totally benign or innocuous purposes. I beg to differ.

If you signed-up your toddler for a birthday club so he could get free cake and ice cream on his birthday for the rest of his life would you expect salesmen from the company to keep calling you by phone with special offers every month, mail literature, knock on your door regularly, ask why your child hadn't come in to collect the offered cake and ice cream on his last birthday? Wouldn't it be a bit creepy if this company tracked you down to the next town you moved to and even procured your phone number to continue harassing you to sign-up more of your children and possibly the children of your friends? Would you think they had gone way too far if they found your child walking home from school and invited him to come to their ice cream shop when you weren't home and without your approval? Wouldn't you want to take legal action? And this company would simply say, "Hey, you signed-up your kid for our service and we are doing our best to meet your expectations. Didn't you read the fine print on the back of the application that said we would do all these things? You say you resigned his membership? Oh, well you didn't do that correctly through our local distributor. You just called our company headquarters.

Only through the guise of religion does our society put-up with such horrific behavior.

Topper

I mormonism, they have all the decision making capability they need. It works like this.....

parent: do you want a cookie?

child: yes!

parent: do you want a spanking?

child: no!

parent: if you get baptized, you can have a cookie. If you don't, you can have a spanking.

parent: do you want to be baptized?

child: yes!

And there it is, a sound/ valid decision by an 8 year old based on all the current mormon information and knowledge needed to decide.

They're a church and they can choose what's valid within their authority.

I wish the legal system would invalidate all of our baptisms, but I tend to like stretching my imagination.

I find it annoying that the morg considers eight year old kiddies mature enough to commit to a lifetime of servitude and they think it's reasonable to expect us as adults to write letters and go through their resignation process just to keep them from pounding on our doors.

When I was baptized after simply getting the missionary discussions, I had no idea who the modern day prophet was or that there even was one. When I was interviewed for baptism I was asked if I believed in the modern prophet. I guessed that I was supposed to say "Yes" so I did. I had no idea who he was, what he did, nor where he resided. If shown a picture of him I would not have known him. I was twelve. Nothing like turning over your whole life and future to a man you don't even know a thing about.

The laws about religion were made when more people practiced. Like lots of other laws, they haven't been changed, even though they're not considered fair anymore by most people.

It is my understanding that a person of that age cannot make a legally binding contract. If I am wrong somebody correct me.

Baptism at 8 or any other "binding" commitment at 8 isn't a legality thing, it's brain washing.

If a child isn't brain washed by the time they are 8, the child can be turned to other religions or ways of thinking.

Think of it when you raised you own kids, you needed to get them to think and act like you wanted by that age or you've lost them to their peers.

The law doesn't govern what churches do unless they break laws like assault or property damage. They can do rituals and call them valid. They can expect baptized people to comply with their procedures. Police and courts don't force anyone to pay tithes or go to church just because they went through a church rite. They don't enforce church rules or expectations but they allow churches to do it.

My daughter attended the Morg. At 8 years all her friends and
neighbors were getting baptized. She BEGGED me to let her be
baptized. I mean, hey, all the cool kids were doing it. I said,
"no, when you are 18 you can make that decision, but not until
then." When she reached 18 she didn't want anything to do with
Mormonism.

Notice how an 8-year-old has the maturity and accountability to
decide to join the Church, but a 50-year-old who wants to leave
the Church need to be stonewalled and talked out of it, because,
hey, he can't make a decision like that for himself.

Exactly!

My Baptist* Church will baptize kids at that age, and a bit younger, but only with complete parental consent and a bit of interviewing of the child to be sure he understands, even if not very theologically. Kids do ask because other kids have, or because they see other kids taking communion, and they can't.


*We practice "Believer's Baptism" only--no infant baptism + confirmation.

My daughter was in grade school (probably eight or nine) when she came home, angry because someone had called Mormons "morons." She said, "I want to be a Mormon someday." My heart just sunk (sank?.) I had left the church, but the peer pressure in Utah is intense. I ran her to church a couple of times when she was invited to participate in a program, but I told her I wouldn't go in. By age 12 or 13, she no longer believed in God.

In one of my talks with the stake president during my "Coming out" about my "apostasy" I confronted him.about it. I said:

"We would never call a child of GOP voting parents 'republicans' or progressive parents 'liberals' or 'democrats' or any political label because we recognize that an 8 year old doesn't have the capacity to answer a question about the economy or social politics or geopolitical landscapes, yet we burden these same 8 year olds into deciding what they think about the origin of the fucking universe when their only source of knowledge on the subject or really ANY subject at all has been people who would answer the question in favor of getting baptized for the creator." (yes I said it like that)

He just responded "if the prophet declared a soul at 8 can be accountable for that decision then it stands that they can be accountable for that decision. "

I then followed with "on that note I don't even exactly remember it being a decision. It was always just something that was going to happen. No one ever actually asked me, we just got to the day when it happened and everyone congratulated me on making the "right choice""

fbtj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> He just responded "if the prophet declared a soul
> at 8 can be accountable for that decision then it
> stands that they can be accountable for that
> decision. "

Noooo, we aren't a "blind obedience" cult. LOL

I do not believe that the baptism of an 8-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 18-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 28-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 38-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 48-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 58-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 68-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 78-year-old is valid.
I do not believe that the baptism of an 88-year-old is valid.

All are predicated upon fallacies.

I have no problem with them baptizing at 8 (though I personally believe that it should be sooner) - I was baptized when I was an infant (the only baptism I still recognize - LDS baptism was just a really lame pool party) and then confirmed into the Lutheran Church toward the end of my 8th Grade year. The fact that LDS confirm 8 year olds is what baffles me.

We tend to underestimate the intelligence of an eight year old child. As my daughter was three months away from her 8th birthday, the TBM grandparents (my parents) were assuming that DD would be baptized. I had been totally inactive for fifteen years.

One afternoon I had a leisurely chat with DD as we went for a walk in our SLC UT neighborhood.

I explained to her what the Morg expects from women -- get married after high school with little or no college, and then have a half-dozen kids which the mother must raise as a stay-at-home mom.

An alternative approach is to not join the Morg, go to college, go to graduate school, and then work in the career of her choice.

DD chose the second approach to her life. Now at age 42 she is quite happy with that choice. She stayed away from the Morg and knows nothing about it. And she made her own choice.