Baptism
From RationalWiki
Baptism is based on the mystical belief that there is a deep spiritual significance to the act of dipping, dunking, pouring, or sprinkling a person with water. Usually this belief involves baptism as a religious rite of passage implying entry into church membership, or claiming the act is effective in "washing away" defects in the "soul", such as sins.
Baptism is an example of an assumption of like effects based on symbolic similarity. Because water is an effective solvent for cleansing dirt from the outside of the body, the assumption goes that water also therefore holds some mystical effectiveness in cleansing the spirit, soul, or mind from internal "dirt" of the sinful kind. This belief is a prime example of an area best explained by the hermeneutic method, rather than by the scientific method.
Baptism is practiced in Christianity and some other religions.
[edit] Sacramentality
In most Protestant sects, baptism is performed as an ordinance, done merely because Jesus told his followers to do it. The Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Eastern Orthodox churches hold to the principle of sacramentality, which maintains that an infinite God interfaces with finite human beings through things like water, oil, and the laying on of hands, things which exist in fact rather than purely in the mindscape. Those Christians believe the water of baptism functions as a real channel of God's grace during the ritual, which is the sacrament of belonging, replacing the circumcision rite practiced by the Hebrews.
