100,000 Atheist Britons Seek 'De-Baptism' from Christianity

By Ethan Cole, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, March 31, 2009

More than 100,000 Britons have downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" on the Internet to cut ties with the Christian faith.

Some of these atheists argue that they were baptized when they were too young to make the decision, and now that they're able to make a choice, they want to renounce their Christian baptism.

"We now produce a certificate on parchment and we have sold 1,500 units at three pounds ($4.35) a pop," said National Secular Society (NSS) president Terry Sanderson to Agence France-Presse.

NSS' de-baptism initiative follows closely behind the British Humanist Association's "There's probably no God," bus ads. Dozens of buses across England carried the atheist ad that encouraged people to stop worrying and enjoy their life since there is probably no God.

The posters were in retaliation to a number of Christian ad campaigns on London buses.

Prominent and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins was among those behind the atheist bus campaign. He publicly endorsed the bus ads as well as partially financed it.

The "no God" bus ad concept had also spread to Spain and Italy, but conservative politicians in Italy helped block the ad from running.

Britain's de-baptism movement, meanwhile, has thus far spread to Spain, where a man has gone to court to have his baptism record erased, according to the International Herald Tribune.