Questioning Baptism

Being born in a Catholic family, I was baptized when I was still an infant. I could not do anything about it and being the innocent child I was, at that time, I had no intention to. As I was growing up, baptism really didn’t pop out in any of the conversations I have had with anyone. The only time that it was the main topic of discussion was when it was the lesson in my religion class. I really didn’t think about baptism too much because it was nothing more than a sacrament and a lecture for me back then.

That was how I looked at baptism before I met my religion teacher when I was a sophomore in high school. My teacher practically became my older brother because of the many things he had taught me in and out of the classroom. We used to watch UAAP games together and he will force my friends and me to approach a random girl and to try to ask her out on a date. I never knew how fun it was to have an older brother but when we were in the classroom, the brotherly façade disappears and becomes more like a friendly dictator. For me, the thing that really got to me was when he was discussing infant baptism. He pointed out the two sides of the debate on infant baptism. The general Christian population believe that everybody was born with sin which means that everyone must be baptized as soon as possible. This is probably their opinion because that was what they learned at school or their parents told them to think that way. On the other hand, a few believe that one should only get baptized when that person is ready to accept Jesus Christ wholeheartedly.

Knowing this, I started to doubt my faith completely because all along I thought that baptism was a requirement as an infant. I felt like I really had no free will at all to choose how I would want to live my life. I then questioned some parts of my life because they were forced upon me and I didn’t have a clue that I was compelled to follow in the first place. My faith had disappeared because I...