Word: baptisms
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More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" in a bid to publicly renounce the faith, according to the London-based National Secular Society...
...Terry Sanderson, the society's president, says the group started the online de-baptism initiative five years ago to mock the practice of baptizing infants too young to consent to religious rites. Their web site invites visitors to "Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had" and allows them to print out a paper certificate that uses quasi-formal language to "reject baptism's creeds and other such superstitions." But in recent months, as tens of thousands began to download the certificate, organizers realized that they had struck a chord with...
...year the People's Republic was founded. But if President Hu Jintao feels the heat, he isn't letting anyone see him sweat. Despite the massive challenges Beijing faces, the Chinese leadership seems to regard 2009 much as Michael Corleone viewed the day of his godson's baptism in The Godfather - this year, China settles all business...
...stands in front of the local bishop, who touches her forehead with holy oil as she is confirmed into a 2,000-year-old faith tradition. But missing in each of those cases - and in countless others of equal religious importance - is any role for government. There is no baptism certificate issued by the local courthouse and no federal tax benefit attached to the confessional booth, the into-the-water-and-out born-again ceremony or any of the other sacraments that believers hold sacred...
...years since Benedict's charged lecture, the Vatican has established a permanent, ongoing Catholic-Muslim dialogue group, which held its first meetings in November. But last Easter, the Pope performed a high-profile baptism in St. Peter's Basilica of Egyptian-born Italian journalist Magdi Allam, who converted from Islam. Many Muslims and Catholics took this as a provocation. Samir instead praised it as a "necessary gesture." He says, "Freedom to choose your religion is more important than all the initiatives put together. Without it, dialogue is not possible...