P365 Jul15: A christening

Today I attended the christening of my cousin's young son. There's only three things that will get me into a church these days: christenings, weddings and funerals. And only for someone else's :P

I have to say, I was very unimpressed with the "sermon" delivered by the priest (or whatever arbitrary title this fellow uses). Usually I find church sermons to be merely boring verbal diarrhea, but this time the priest decided to tackle one of the issues I have with religion, and while he was at it, take a cheap swipe at a man whom I greatly admire, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins.

The theme of the sermon focussed on helping others regardless of "creed, race or name", as joyously sung in a hymn during the sermon. This is, at its core, an issue of morality, and the language was heavily slanted towards a supposed religious origin of morality. "Jesus said" was a commonly repeated phrase. This irked me mildly, due to the insinuation that those without religion know no morality.

I was, as such, already in a somewhat bitter state of mind when as the christening approached, the congregation was told a story of a 'born again atheist' ("Whatever that means" sic) the priest had met recently. This fellow was revealed to be Professor Dawkins, and it was his description of the indoctrination of children into their parents' religion as "child abuse" with which the priest objected. It was implied that Dawkins was an odd man ("…who believes the world would be better off without religion, if you can believe it"), who was perhaps overly emotionally involved in his odd opinions ("..he was, by now, in quite a fluster and working up a sweat"), and obviously was not aware of what it really meant to be christened.

A christening, you see, was not a command of the church, but a request ("The parents are asked to raise the child in the church"), and it's not indoctrination anyway, but religious education, so that by the time the child is ready for baptism, they can decide for themselves if it is what they want. Of course, the vow taken by the parents was to raise the child in the christian faith specifically, and to follow the christian god. This is not education, this is indoctrination. An infant, or indeed any child, is unable to make decisions of such kind, and will believe as their parents, or any authority figure tells them.

To criticise Dawkins with an ad hominem attack, and then completely sidestep his argument on the issue raised by the priest is intellectually dishonest at best, manipulative and deceitful at worst.

If it were not for the fact that I was an invited guest of my family, who were welcoming me into what was obviously a special and meaningful moment in their lives, I would have probably been compelled to voice my opinion to the priest, if not during the sermon, then certainly afterwards in person.

I was left with a sour taste in my mouth, and completely lost my apetite at the blatant and willfully arrogant dishonesty of the whole sham.

I think I shall have to politely decline my next invitation to a christening.

Incidentally, the claim that the priest had spoken with Dawkins in person (so that he could observe his "sweaty" reaction) causes me some confusion. Dawkins is a resident of the UK, and although he has traveled the world in the last year promoting his book, I do not believe that he has visited Australia. Had this priest actually travelled overseas, and been able to find Dawkins on his busy schedule in order to chat with him? I hope so, otherwise this man of the cloth was playing games with the truth.

Please note, I have paraphrased the words of the priest quoted above, to the best of my memory.

[Edit: A post I made linking to this blog entry on Dawkins' web site has had some interesting replies. If you wish to read them, you can do so here: http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1929]