Is it normal to ask close friends to be god parents if you aren't religious?

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As the title says. We're not religious and neither are our friends. The baby wont be baptised. But I want to ask two of our closest friends to be God Parents, unofficially I suppose. I want them to be part of the child's life and I know they will be very honoured that we asked. If we died tomorrow we would want them to raise our child and they are ok with this. It feels right to ask them. But is it weird that we're not religious? Is there a non religious equivalent to God Parents? Obviously the focus here is on them playing a part in the child's upbringing, not making sure they follow any religious practices. It would just be nice to honour them in some way.

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Based on 25 votes (20 yes)
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Comments ( 59 )
  • candylady
    5 years ago

    If you're looking for a different title, some people who aren't religious have "guide parents" for their kids.

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  • IrishPotato
    5 years ago

    God parents?
    More like, Bore: Ragnarok.

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    • SwickDinging
      5 years ago

      More like... Rick and Microphone

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      • IrishPotato
        5 years ago

        :)

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  • Ummitsstillme
    5 years ago

    You can just talk to close friends about the possibility of catastrophes and decide a plan without involving all the creepy Catholic stuff.

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  • BassDays
    5 years ago

    I've never seen this as a religious thing. Just a safety measure.

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  • LornaMae
    5 years ago

    While it isn't common, that's how it was for me. I've never been baptized and I have an unofficial 'godmother'. I see no need to change the word for it (apart from capitalizing hehe). Actually, now that I think about it, it would probably have been very confusing for me as a child to understand her role if they'd created a new word for it.

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  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk
    5 years ago

    leave the gun

    take the cannoli

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  • SamanthaTheGoat
    5 years ago

    No it doesn't. I'm still claire

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  • SamanthaTheGoat
    5 years ago

    All a God parent is, is an oath to take care of a child should the worst happen. It's not in the Bible as far as I know. If you can pledge yourself to someone else's child, to raise and care for them, then by all means.

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  • Boojum
    5 years ago

    Your spelling suggests you're British. If you live in the UK, you might want to check out the Humanists. Here's a page about Humanist naming ceremonies:

    https://humanism.org.uk/ceremonies/humanist-namings/faqs/

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    • SwickDinging
      5 years ago

      Thanks for the reply Boojum, ever the fountain of good advice!

      I am from the UK but I don't live there anymore.

      I'm skeptical about the humanist side of things... It always seemed to me to essentially be another religion (albeit a more logical, down to earth one...) I'll look into though.

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      • Boojum
        5 years ago

        No reason you can't read up on how the Humanists do their naming ceremonies and design your own.

        If you're not religious, then it would be pretty hypocritical to ask the friends you'd like to take a particular interest in your child's well-being to stand around a puddle of water, renounce the Devil, and promise to make the poor tyke believe in Jeebus.

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      • SamanthaTheGoat
        5 years ago

        Swick. There aren't any logical religions. The definition of a religious belief is faith. Faith is illogical. Just saying.

        I once had faith that humans wouldn't kick a dead person. I was wrong.

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        • SwickDinging
          5 years ago

          This made me smile because I recently had a similar debate on here and said exactly what you have just said! Faith by it's very nature is not supposed to be logical, I completely agree.

          I suppose the reason I've said that here is because I don't think humanism requires faith, I used the term religious more in the sense of organised religion, IE ceremonies etc. Hopefully that makes sense. You definitely caught me out there though haha :)

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          • SamanthaTheGoat
            5 years ago

            To quantify. I have faith my dogs love me, I have zero proof they don't just use me for food and shelter.

            They don't eat my face because they know my face will give em breaky. Hehe

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          • SamanthaTheGoat
            5 years ago

            I didn't try to but hehe. I don't know what humanism is tbh. I never came across it yet. But I do know faith is illogical but it's awesome.

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    • SamanthaTheGoat
      5 years ago

      Why their use of U?

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      • Boojum
        5 years ago

        You mean why is the British spelling "honour" instead of "honor" as it is the USA?

        That's largely due to a guy named Noah Webster who produced the first American dictionary nearly 200 years ago. Before that, he published "spellers" for use in primary schools. In the early 1800s, there were multiple acceptable spellings for many words in both American and British English, but Webster picked the ones he thought were most sensible. It was also a nationalist thing: Webster wanted American spelling to be different to the most common British usage. So humour/humor, fibre/fiber, defence/defense, etc.

        Because of snobbery about "Americanisms" in Britain, British publishers settled on spellings that were opposite to what Webster chose.

        So it's just a trivial example of the petty stupidity that follows from the usual my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours nationalism.

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        • SamanthaTheGoat
          5 years ago

          It's actually the opposite. British spellings came for Germanic, gaelic and Roman roots, with a touch of Scottish. The u comes from the umlaut.

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        • SamanthaTheGoat
          5 years ago

          Nohm Chomsky had much more to do with the American vernacular than one would realize. It's a shame.

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        • SamanthaTheGoat
          5 years ago

          I didn't need all that. I'm an Aussie. Booj. It's nikkiclaire silly.

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          • Boojum
            5 years ago

            Oh. Sorry.

            The TLDR answer just for you:

            Because.

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            • SamanthaTheGoat
              5 years ago

              Btw Samantha was a goat I had who died. My name is a tribute to her.

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            • SamanthaTheGoat
              5 years ago

              I messed up

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            • SamanthaTheGoat
              5 years ago

              Huuh

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          • SwickDinging
            5 years ago

            Huh? What happened to your other account?!

            I am way more shocked by this than is reasonable haha

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  • Grunewald
    5 years ago

    To those who say 'sure why not' : does baptism mean anything to you in itself? It is a religious tradition primarily, and it is precious to those who are of that religion. To treat it as anything else would be to exploit/appropriate their religion for your own ends.

    As someone who came to faith later in life despite being baptized as an infant to parents with no faith, part of me wishes they had just given me a secular naming ceremony. It hurts me to know that the promises they made for me, to the God I love, were false. I feel like they exploited something precious in baptizing me, rather than valuing it.

    But then, who knows? Maybe God saw and heard their promises, and granted me faith because he loved me. When I did finally come to faith, my father was devastated. He resorted to verbal and emotional abuse to try and make me lose my faith. He'd have been less devastated if I'd come home from school and announced I was doing drugs.

    Now when I look at the photograph of my father standing with me by the baptismal font, it just hurts.

    My questions to you are: firstly, would you be saying the promises to bring up your child in the Christian faith with the intention of keeping those promises? If not, would you be prepared to make peace with your maker after having lied to him? And also, if your child did turn to the Christian faith later in life despite your lack of encouragement, would you try to turn them away from it?

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    • charli.m
      5 years ago

      They didn't say they were going to baptise. They specifically said they were not. They just want a non religious relationship with a couple similar to the role of godparents, but without the religious elements. They're not trying to appropriate anything or making any promises to bring their child up in faith.

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      • SamanthaTheGoat
        5 years ago

        Faith, is a VERY dangerous thing to lose.

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        • charli.m
          5 years ago

          Did I say anything about losing faith?

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          • SamanthaTheGoat
            5 years ago

            I made a statement, a comment if you will. Take heed perhaps.

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    • SamanthaTheGoat
      5 years ago

      As you know, God created us in his image, so he knows your parents shortcomings. Why be judgemental? Where in The Bible does it say to judge others. I'm honestly curious. 😊

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    • SwickDinging
      5 years ago

      Thanks for your response. It's good to get the opinion of someone who is actually religious to balance this out, it helps. However I'm a bit confused by some of the questions you've asked here - I have specifically said in my post that my child won't be baptised, we're not religious and that the people in question will not be teaching them about religion so I'm not sure why you've asked me about that here?

      In answer to your other questions though - no, they will not be promising to bring my child up in the Christian faith, because they won't be doing that so it would be silly to promise it.

      If my child turned to the Christian faith later in life then I wouldn't try to turn them away from it. I certainly won't be joining them in it but if they needed a lift to church or some volunteers for some sort of charity event then I would be happy to do things like that. I am friends with our local children's pastor because his wife works with my husband so I already do take part in a few out of church activities. He's aware I'm not religious and he's ok with it. (As an edit to this comment I would like to add that I would certainly debate them on the issue. I will never coddle my children or expect them not to hold their own when asked difficult questions about their beliefs.)

      Where I live is small and the church is a big part of the community so I have accepted the fact that this may influence all of my children somewhat and they may become religious. I see no major issue with that, it's ok for people to believe different things. I would prefer them not to be religious but they will grow into their own people and I wouldn't like to stop that from happening, they don't need to be carbon copies of my husband and I. Perhaps when they are teenagers it would become more of an issue as teenagers tend be very strong willed and less accepting of other people's beliefs, but I will tackle that challenge as an opportunity to "parent" them in tolerance. Wish me luck with that lol.

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    • SamanthaTheGoat
      5 years ago

      You aren't a Christian then. The first covenant of the Christian faith is forgiveness.

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  • charli.m
    5 years ago

    Sure, why not? Idk if there is an official non religious name for it. You could come up with an alternate title between the four of you if you don't like the religious connotations.

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    • SwickDinging
      5 years ago

      Yeah, I think we might do this. Our older children haven't had anything like this (yet) so we're sort of making it up as we go along haha. I've looked online and apparently some people appoint "guardians" to their children. If we do that and then put them in the will I think it would basically cover everything that we need it to.

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      • charli.m
        5 years ago

        Ah I didn't realise it was you :)

        The only sort of things I know that are "non religious" kinda are...thr hippie new age kinda spiritual stuff.

        Guardians, I think, is more a legal thing in your will for who takes the kids if the parents pass away, but I don't see why that wouldn't work for you, as presumably that's partially what you would want? I could have read that wrong.

        Doesn't mean you can't make it what you want it to be for your family.

        How far along are you? Congrats:)

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        • SwickDinging
          5 years ago

          I'm still in my first trimester so I feel dreadful, lots of sleeping and throwing up haha.

          But we're very happy, thank you :)

          Yeah I suppose like you say here, make it what we want it to be for our family. I think in hindsight I was being silly saying "God Parents" as that's not what I meant, but I had God Parents growing up despite no one in my family being religious and it didn't seem weird to us at the time.

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          • charli.m
            5 years ago

            Awww congrats :) ugh. I've never been pregnant, but known many, many pregnant women. Idk how you all do it. Especially with older kids around. I am in awe.

            Nah, I don't think that was silly. It's a pretty well known term for the concept.

            My brother and I had a godmother only, I think. She wasn't even good friends with my parents. I think we only met her a handful of times. She was weird. I think mum did it because "that's what you do". We weren't a religious family. We weren't even christened, I got baptised at 17 of my own choice.

            My aunt (piss drinking ex uncle's former partner) has an arrangement with a childless couple she's friends with as she wouldn't want her kids going to any of her siblings (to be fair, I don't think any of her siblings want her kids anyway haha). It's not religious, it's a social and legal arrangement.

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