scare tactics

Andrea and I have been reading Richard Dawkins's latest book, "The God Delusion" and it has been fueling some very interesting discussions between us. Not debates, mind you, just discussion. Not to shock anyone (unless you've been asleep for oh, I dunno, several years) but we're both atheist. As the resident religious escapee in our equation (she didn't have a religious upbringing, I was raised Catholic...sort of) I am often asked for background or insider knowledge about what she is learning from Dawkins's book. And before you all go frantically running off to Amazon, let me warn you, if you are deeply religious this book will make you uncomfortable, and likely angry, due to Dawkins's unapologetic, openly hostile view towards religion, all religions. And also know that there are several reviews posted that make it sound like a bad book. Well, take those reviews with a grain of salt. If you Google phrases from the reviews, you may eventually find the ACTUAL authors of the reviews and not the stupid plagiarists who are clearly on a campaign to badmouth Dawkins. OK, that caveat aside, its a very good read if you are atheist or agnostic (may put the final nail in your religious coffin if you are agnostic) or an open minded, free-thinking, religious person. (snicker)

Anyway, the final chapters of the book deal with Dawkins's own proposal that religion in general does more harm than good, especially to children. You might be wondering what sort of wacko childhood this guy must have had to be so vehement opposed to religion and his likening religious education to child abuse. Well, it turns out that he doesn't have a religious upbringing. Which actually makes a lot of sense.

Ok, so what I'm getting at is that Andrea is discovering all of these things she never even knew about Catholicism (it is a frequent example in his later chapters, though throughout the book all religions are made fair game), some of which she finds quite scary. Last night she found out about the good old Catholic "emergency bathtub baptism" clause. She read the anecdote from the book about a young Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, in Italy in the 17th Century who was forcibly taken from his family by the papal police so he could be given a Catholic upbringing. Turns out his baby-sitter was a Catholic teenager who secretly baptised him when he was sick because she was afraid he might die and go to hell. Andrea asked me if I had heard of this practice (the ability of anyone to baptise anyone else if they thought the need was there, not 17th century Papal policies). My reply was, "Oh yeah. Everyone has heard about a friend of a friend being baptised by their aunt because they were sick and no priests were available, you know, just in case. I don't think the Catholic church preaches about babies going to hell anymore though...i think now they just hangout in limbo or something." She was mortified.