Dear Mariella: My four year old son wants to be baptised.

If my 4 year old asked me that, I definitely would let him be Baptized. That is a blessing for such a young child to want to do. I myself am non-denominational Christian, but I have a very large family and some Catholics, Christians, Pentecostal, Evangelical, atheist and so on..

I would take him to their Church or join a Church and allow him to attend services and go on from there.

I would not write to anyone for advice like this, I would pray and/or go to a local church if I were the mother.

am discussing elements of Catholicism, which I see as the rules of good living (although I don't believe in the Creation, the church's teachings on marriage, or the entire notion of sin and confession).

First of all I would suggest the Mom read the book on baptism herself. Baptism has no saving merit but is just an outward and symbolic sign for our faith and love in Jesus Christ as our personal savior.

Now whether this four year old understand that Jesus died for our sins so that we may have eternal life is unclear. I would still let him be Baptized.

Does a four year old really understand what they are doing and what they are committing to at that point?

Or are they just following mommy and daddy?

Since Momma doesn't believe in the creation and various other significant Catholic beliefs, I would tend to steer away from baptism at this point. I believe children are born with an innate spirituality -- as a matter of fact, the subject of much research by Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist who has published "Why God Won't Go Away."

So I think I would have discussions with my four-year-old about why he wants to be baptized and what he thinks it will do for him. Explain to him that God loves him just as he is right now and being baptized won't make God love him any more, nor will it make a child any better or less prone to mischief. See if he will agree to wait awhile on the baptism as long as you keep going to church together. I don't think it's a good idea to turn this into a fight with the boy's father. Try to stay away from "Daddy's an idiot" and simply say that you see things differently.

His dad has forbidden him to be baptised, saying he's not old enough to make this decision himself. As I think the boys' father is a tool, I've chosen to ignore this

*snip*

This isn't about respecting a child's budding spirituality. It's about spitting in the face of her ex-husband. If there ever was a reason not to get baptised, spite would probably be somewhere near the top of that list.

Poor kid. No wonder he seeks comfort in religion with such a bitter person like that as his Mom.

I think Mom needs to have a personal relationship with the Lord

We all have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit -- or whatever your particular culture chooses to call it -- from the day we're born, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we believe it or not. We can ignore it, deny it, squash it, but we can't get rid of it entirely.

Kaviaq: Supernatural force is your phrase, not mine. I would not term this transcendence as being supernatural. And no, I didn't "decide" this; I learned it. And what proof or evidence can you give me that you have "NO spirituality whatsoever"?

Dr. Andrew Newberg has been studying brain function via brain imaging and has written several books on brain function and spirituality. It doesn't "prove" anything, but it does give one much to think about.