Oudave,
You are in error since you overlook such cases as the Philippian jailer who was baptised along with his whole household in the middle of the night after washing Paul’s wounds.
This implies that they were baptised with water that was present, since it nowhere states that they “went down to the river” in the middle of the night. And just exactly what did they do, there in that hot dusty middle eastern climate since pools and rivers weren’t everywhere and the Baptists hadn’t yet come along to invent their immersion tanks yet?
Also the very fact that they baptised the entire household says that there were likely infants included as well.
Further, “Ye do err” (to quote the scripture", in that St. Paul plainly compares baptism to circumcision. Now consider when Jews were circumcised. Eight days after birth, so there is the obvious precedent. Bear in mind also that God commanded them to do this, so it wasn’t something man-made now, was it?
You should also realize that the Jewish boy was circumcised on the profession of faith of his parents, since he wasn’t capable of such at that time, hence Catholic infant baptism is more scriptural than you think. The Jewish parents made a verbal promise to see that the child was raised in their faith and that is the very same commitment that Catholic parents do today.
Finally I would point out the weight of Christian historic evidence to you that you seem unfamiliar with since (from the context of your post and the lack of any info on your profile) you seem to be some kind of non-Catholic who has little knowlege of the 1500 years of history that predates the arrival of all the novel new doctrines that surfaced during the reformation that you need to look into the history of the early church (see
newadvent.com/)
St Polycarp was a bishop in the very early church who was offered the option of denying his faith in order to spare his life. He was first threatened with being fed to wild animals and when that didn’t seem to impress him they threatened to burn him alive. His answer was “I have been a Christian for 85 years. Why would I deny my faith and exchange this temporary fire for an eternal one?” (emphasis mine). Polycarp was 85 years old when he was burned to death as he sang hymns of praise. He gave his life for the faith, and was very clearly baptised as an infant which tells you that it was the common practice even in the first 2 centuries of the Church.
I hope that this helps you see that you are wrong concerning the Catholic sacrament of Baptism (and very probably a great many other aspects of the Catholic faith).
For more info I would direct you to
The Catechism of the Catholc Church which can be accessed here online (though I suggest that it will be the best $8.00 you ever spent to buy it and read it yourself) and to the very fine tracts on this topic here on the CA site.
catholic.com/library/sacraments.asp This link will take you to that part of the site. Please have the courage to read them carefully before attacking our faith with another “I hate to say this” post, which I consider a very thinly veiled attempt to evangelize us. We are every bit as Christian as you or anyone else and (in fact) Catholicism predates EVERY other non-Catholic denomination out there, none of which are older than 487 years old and MOST substantially less. ALL of them were founded by MEN
whostartedyourchurch.com/
You’ll find that some are less than 100 years old and more are spawned almost on a daily basis. There is much talk of them believing the Bible as the sole source of their beliefs, but every single one of them has a differing opinion of what the Bible teaches (take baptism just for an instance…Whew!). Yet they ALL claim to be led by the Holy Spirit…how can that be since they all get different interpretations of what God’s word really says ? With all that confusion, who is right? And who has the authority to say? What does the NT say is the source of confusion? It’s certainly NOT the Spirit of God, now is it?
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