Forced baptism and torts

[sojourner]

They're all forcing. Diapers are necessary and reasonable forcing; baptism is optional

I disagree. Human beings have a basic hunger for belonging and for self-knowledge. A vehicle for fostering spiritual formation feeds that hunger.

That's right. Baptism is merely the first step, and it's much less an issue (though still somewhat an issue) if it's done as lip-service to, say, make family happy and won't be followed up on than it is if it's just the first example of religious oppression that a child will have to endure

Bullspit. It’s not “oppression” if it’s carried out ethically.

So bigotry for the non-religious it is.

Not bigotry. But your assessment of a patient’s duty to rear their child in a holistic way is.

The fact that children often overcome crappy parenting doesn't excuse the parents.

It’s not crappy parenting to see to a child’s spiritual well-being.

Which is it: do they or don't they?

They don’t if they’re going about it in an ethical way.

Which is nonsense, obviously.

I don’t think it is. Human beings have a spiritual dimension. How can upbringing provide pathways for exploring that dimension, if that dimension is not addressed in a positive way?

Just because you find your "spiritual foundation" to be personally fulfilling doesn't mean you need to force your religion on a child... especially not when you'd be pushing one religion to the exclusion of the many other competing religions and non-religious belief systems that might provide just as good - if not better - opportunities for "exploration."

Every parent has an obligation to include their child in the culture. That culture includes the religious expression in which the parents participate. Each is valid in its context.

I find it very fulfilling and rewarding to be a civil engineer, but there's no way on Earth I'd raise a child as if they must become a civil engineer. That would be crappy parenting... even if I "allowed" them to choose some other career when they became an adult.

Dictating a career choice is a different animal from including a child in the cultural context.