Born into Sin?

[Lumanny the Space Jew]

I heard somewhere that Christians baptise because they believe the baby must be saved because it is technically a sinner as soon as it is born?
What the...? Is this true?

In Judaism this isn't true at all. The Circumcision isn't to save after sin, but just to enter the covenant of Abraham, which is very different. The Talmud does say that when a baby enters the world it does at that moment become succeptible to sin. But it will not actually sin until it is at least a few years old. And it is not held reponsible for its sins until it comes of age at 13.

What do other religions believe about this??  

[Lateralus es Helica]

And the religion I admire seeks to attain the state of mind of a newborn, unloaded with prejudices and biases that blind one to the reality in front of them.

I'm not Christian, so I can't add onto the idea of children being born as sinners.  

[Shadows-shine]

I'm a Christian, but I do not believe that babies are born into sin. We don't become sinners until we sin. We are not sinners because Adam disobeyed, we are sinners because we, ourselves, disobeyed.

I also don't agree with infant baptism. I believe for a person to be baptized they have to be old enough to know the difference between right and wrong and be able to choose for themselves if they want to be baptized.  

[Eltanin Sadachbia]

Only a few denominations do the infant baptism thing. In actuality though, many of those denominations do so as a symbol of the parents relinquishing the child to God's will. I only know of a few rare instances where an infant baptism is actually an attempt to "save" an infants soul.  

[Aakosir]

I was raised Methodist and Baptised, but I could not tell you if my life depended on it. But I do know that the Amish believe babies are born evil and they basically need to live their life to prove that they are not evil. That's a pretty raw descriptions and I'm sure someone else knows it better than I do.  

[Inscriven]

Lumanny the Space Jew

I heard somewhere that Christians baptise because they believe the baby must be saved because it is technically a sinner as soon as it is born?
What the...? Is this true?

Only certain flavors of Christianity believe in the Ancestral/Original sin concept, namely Catholicism. The idea is that all human beings, having descended from Adam and Eve who made the first colossal ******** up are born with a sort of sinner's nature as a hereditary trait. The old-school reasoning for infant baptisms is that since babies are born with that sin (thus damned), if they die before they are able to be baptized, they'll be sent to hell (later changed to "in limbo"). So baptizing them cleanses them of said sin and ensures that they'll go to heaven if they die as babies.

I'm not Christian anymore, but when I used to go to the Seventh-Day Adventist church, Baptism was a process, and one that you had to be worthy of. You had to study the bible religiously (heh) and have a strong grip of the teachings before they let you go under the water. You earned your salvation. And I'm figuring that the SDA church takes the position many protestant churches do that an unbaptized child would not go to hell if they died before baptism because they had not committed any sins of their own to deserve it.  

[charliewaffles7]

Lumanny the Space Jew

I heard somewhere that Christians baptise because they believe the baby must be saved because it is technically a sinner as soon as it is born?
What the...? Is this true?

In Judaism this isn't true at all. The Circumcision isn't to save after sin, but just to enter the covenant of Abraham, which is very different. The Talmud does say that when a baby enters the world it does at that moment become succeptible to sin. But it will not actually sin until it is at least a few years old. And it is not held reponsible for its sins until it comes of age at 13.

What do other religions believe about this??

As I'm Agnostic, I don't believe in the concept of sin, and most certainly do not believe that babies and young children are sinful. That's one of the things that actually disgusts me about the Christian religion and its branches: they think they're evil from the moment they're born... Now I do believe in the concept of evil as their are many evil things that occur in the world but is everyone evil when born? No. Sin though is nonsense to me.  

[Reik8]

I don't really know if the Catholic people think that humans are born with sin. Some could think it but some not. But I noticed that Catholic people baptise infants more frequently than the Protestant ones.
And I anyway don't understand this kind of thinking even when I was raised Catholic. So... xD  

[Im A Little Pea]

According to the Christian faith (or maybe just the Catholic one?) all humans are born with the first sin, Adam and Eve's eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden. Originally children were only baptized when they reached an older age in which they could understand what was going on (like confirmation to this day), but since until about a century ago about half the babies born didn't get to reach that age, they had to make this compromise to save them from eternity in limbo. Note, this isn't hell. But not heaven either.
It isn't that they have sinned themselves, but they are still born with the sin committed by those who came before them.
I should remind you that this idea occurs in the tanakh, only not for all eternity but only for a number of generations - it's very normal for the children of someone who has committed a grave sin to be cursed in the tanakh. I can't think of anything specific at the moment but I'm certain it's happened far more than once.
The tanakh pretty much saw the fact they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden as a worthy punishment for all mankind from now on, along with them having to work hard in order to provide for themselves (which they didn't have to do before) and the pain of giving birth. Oh, and death too, by the way. See Genesis 4:14-19.
I guess to Christians this wasn't all.
You could probably ask the same question about the Jewish theology - why should people who have committed no sin suffer and die because of the sin committed by their ancestors? Not very fair, and not very merciful.

Some things you can't explain further. Well, at least, I can't.  

[fierce armadillo]

Aakosir

I was raised Methodist and Baptised, but I could not tell you if my life depended on it. But I do know that the Amish believe babies are born evil and they basically need to live their life to prove that they are not evil. That's a pretty raw descriptions and I'm sure someone else knows it better than I do.

The Amish only baptize adults, and like many other Christians they believe in salvation through the grace of God. However unlike some others, they also believe that they must produce good works, and that salvation is realized through living a Christ-like life.  

[Reik8]

Don't the Catholic people also want to live a Christ-like life? ó.o  

[charliewaffles7]

Reik8

Don't the Catholic people also want to live a Christ-like life? ó.o

I'm pretty sure that that's what all Christians (including those part of branches from Christianity) want to do, but the Amish probably want to do so more? Catholics probably want to do so too. After all, isn't that First Communion thing where they eat that cracker and drink that wine supposed to represent the actual, literal body and blood of Christ? But of course, I've never heard of the Amish causing a holy war, while Catholics have multiple times.  

[chessiejo]

in Dante's Inferno, unbaptized babies are in Limbo, shut out from Purgatory or heaven, because they never got the official blessing.
that to me seems heartless.

John Wesley said that unbaptized babies got a special grace to allow them into heaven because they were under the age of reason and so could not be responsible for sin.
no responsibility, no guilt, no punishment.

of course once they got old enough to become rational decision making people, then they needed to make a choice about their faith, and then there would be consequences.  

[Reik8]

I asked my mom, today (she's Catholic and is very strict in it) and I wondered that she believes in it! O.O
She also explained it with the sin of Adam and Eve and that the human is born full of sin because the two disobeyed.
So the baby has to be baptised to be saved.

...I don't understand it at all! xp  

[Semiremis]

To help you all understand the idea of original sin in Catholicism, here's what the Catechism says on it:

Original sin - an essential truth of the faith

388 With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated. Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story's ultimate meaning, which is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.261 We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin. The Spirit-Paraclete, sent by the risen Christ, came to "convict the world concerning sin",262 by revealing him who is its Redeemer.

389 The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the "reverse side" of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ,263 knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm


Check out Romans 5:12-21, it sort of throws the whole concept together especially once you get to verse 19:

19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.


Catholics in general do not think babies who die before Baptism are going to hell, "limbo" isn't catholic doctrine but it was a theory, something that use to be debated and rather recently it was decided that there really was no proof of it.

I hope that helps.