Should atheists be godparents ?

Ooooh, I wait to be assailed as a catholic.

but, you know, I have been there and done that.




Would that other humans had some room in their brains to understand that others are exporing ideas. It seems so simple to me, to let others explore, but I gather it is the most dangerous move to make, thinking ....

Wow, Francisco, that is amazing-----and refreshing!

Thanks, diagknowz, my goal is to amaze and refresh.

I'm just glad I got the thought out of my head properly; I was afraid I'd word something wrong and it would be interpreted as 'it's a good thing Jesus was killed' or something else equally horrible and stupid.

If it is mostly just a ceremonial thingy...and if the parents know that the individual is an atheist...go for it.

INTERESTING AND (SORT OF) RELATED ITEM:

Catholic Teaching: In an emergency...anyone can administer the rite of Baptism...so long as their intention is to cleanse the soul of the individual being Baptized of Original Sin. And it would be considered a valid Baptism. Atheists are included in that "anyone."

(If possible, a conditional Baptism would be performed by a priest afterwards.)

Here's a link to a new thread I started. I hope everyone involved in this thread will stop by and offer an opinion.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=56936&highlight=

Was wondering when you'd show up, Frank. I'm checking it out right now.

Good.

Any chance you can join with the New York contingent for one of its Thursday night get-togethers in Manhattan?

I'm truly flattered - but my parents wouldn't be interested in driving me up. Maybe in a few months when I have my license.

Sorry, Francisco.

I did not realize you were young.

A bunch of years ago I was solicited to be a godparent to a coworker's daughter as she was baptized in her early teens.

I mightily protested, as I was then as I am now without a speck of theism left in my bones or braincells. Perhaps slighly less adamant, but not by much.

Anyway, they insisted. They, the parents, were an interesting odd couple and I went ahead and did it for them.
He was someone I picked to be hired to help me in my first lab, under the aegis of a university department, and he was always grateful. He happened to be very heavy. I mean, very heavy, varying from something like 350-450 pounds when I knew him, although I tended not to ask.

However, he had been an army lab tech and turned out to be very efficient, really helpful assistant, and gained in stature on the job. He was nearly bulletproof for the b/sht that happened to him from one other tech down the hall. He had married a french woman, after wwII, who had a then-called retarded son, who had been kept in a closet in some scenario I now forget but wasn't her fault. He adored her, a tiny woman, and she adored him, truthfully, and they both loved the son and subsequent daughter.

So, they knew my view, and that if anything happened I would act to counsel, including fostering her religious choice - which I made clear, I would support her belief, whatever that was, including loss of belief. That was a short conversation, but understood.

Many years have passed and I don't know what happened to those people or they me. But we all meant it that day.




Edit to spell passed correctly, sheeesh.

I suppose I should add that I wouldn't do that now.

ossobuco,

If you don't mind me asking...What was it that turned you away from religion ?

In short, lack of belief.

For my future children I will probably ask my partner's brother to be a godarent, and possibly one of my friends. I'm an adult convert to Anglicanism (raised athiest), my partner is agnostic/anything-but-organised-religion and his brother is athiest. I'd want my kids to have every option.

I grew up in an athiest household, my grandma is a hardline athiest and my great grandmas are both very anti-organised religion. I'd rather my kids grew up knowing they could make any choice and still be respected than to put up with the flinching and condecension I put up with. So part of that is making sure they've got the right tools to make the choices and can see those choices in practice (although I'm lucky/weird enough that most of my family is athiest/agnostic with a few pagans and one of my best friends is a buddhist monk).