It’s not the parents’ decision. The “child” decides when he wants to be baptized following his salvation. Baptism is a profession the church, community, etc., of one’s acceptance of Christ as personal Savior. Since a baby cannot accept Christ, he shouldn’t be baptized. It doesn’t get someone closer to Heaven.
In the Bible, a baby is NEVER baptized. Baptism occurred only after a person’s salvation. When in doubt, people should read the Bible and give it the same respect for accuracy that they give the Constitution. We don’t like it when people “make up stuff” that’s not Constitutional. Why is it OK to make up stuff that’s not Biblical?
I believe that when a baby or mentally retarded person dies he goes to Heaven since he did not have a capacity to make a decision for or against salvation. (Others believe they don’t go to Heaven.)
Where is that in the Bible?
Please read Col. 2:11-12, wherein Paul uses circumcision as a parallel to baptism. Since circumcision was only performed on infants, and rarely on adults, it stands to reason that he would not have used that parallel if he intended to exclude infants from baptism.
Also John 3:5. Jesus states that no one can enter his kingdom unless he is born again of the water and the Holy Spirit.
IIRC there were several Biblical references to whole families being baptized - with no exclusions over age. While this does not guarantee infants were included, there is nothing to indicate infants were excluded. It was the association with the believing parent that warranted family-member baptism, not just individual faith.
Right. And, similarly, it is the child's decision when to eat, sleep, obtain education, and do all the things that would ensure his well-being in the secular realm.
Parents are merely vessels of delivery and have no obligations whatsoever to care for their infants and children, in either their temporal or their spiritual helplessness.
But the witness of the early Church in this matter is much more illuminating on the subject. There are a number of Christian writers of the 2nd and 3rd Centuries who explicitly mention the practice of infant baptism as quite normative. Irenaeus, in his 2nd Century work "Against Heresies," (2.22.4), speaks of infants and small children being "born again to God," a reference to baptism. Hippolytus writes in his early 3rd Century "Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus) (21.4 & 5) ""The children shall be baptised first. All of the children who can answer for themselves, let them answer. If there are any children who cannot answer for themselves, let their parents answer for them, or someone else from their family. After this, the men will be baptised. Finally, the women." Origen wrote about infant baptism in several of his early 3rd Century works: ""Baptism according to the practice of the Church is given even to infants" (Homily on Leviticus 8.3.11), "The Church had a tradition from the Apostles, to give baptism even to infants" (Commentary on Romans, 5.9), and "Infants are baptized for the remission of sins ... That is the reason why infants too are baptised." (Homily on Luke, 14.5).
There are certainly other examples, but this should suffice to give a flavor of very early Church teaching and practice. One would have to suppose that Christianity drifted off into "apostasy" very early on indeed in order to conclude that this early set of witnesses bears no weight on the subject. It is far easier to suppose that the practice of infant baptism, already showing explicit reference and description (as if quite normal) in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries, was in the mind of the Church from the beginning, as is more than implied in one of Origen's quotes above. If this is the case, how could anyone dare to declare it heretical, especially when such declarations themselves are based on objections to the practice that can only trace themselves back to the 16th Century?
This controversy is one of the better demonstrations of the fallacy of "the Bible alone" being the only and sufficient source of all Christian doctrine. Again, the New Testament is not even an inch thick in most bound volumes, it didn't, and doesn't, even claim within itself to be all-sufficient in discussing all possible matters germaine to Christian teaching. To blithely dismiss the validity of the practice of infant baptism in the face of its continuous, documented presence of the right down to the timeframe immediately after the Apostolic Era, solely because it is not explicitly mentioned in the New Testament itself, is the height of arrogance and folly. It also, indirectly, betrays a rather poor faith in Christ Himself, insofar as such an attitude all-but-bellows a disbelief in His ability to safeguard His own Church from error even to the end of time, as He explicitly promises to do in Matthew 28. Indeed, if the Church is routinely committing gross errors in this matter even by the 2nd Century, how could Jesus possibly be taken seriously in His promise to be with His Church "all days, even unto the close of the age"?
....And be a blank slate until the child becomes an adult? Parents have a responsibility to lead their children to God and teach them about His love and mercy.