> After reading this post yesterday, I decided to ask my boyfriend (a Catholic) about baptisms. He informed me that Catholics baptize infants to wash away original sin, so if they die they won't go to Hell. If this is their belief, how did it change so much to being a choice thing to do for Protestants when they're older? It seems that for Catholics, baptism is used to prevent babies from going to Hell, but it's more of a getting closer to God and religion for Protestants. Am I wrong on my assumptions?
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> Sil"Jews like me don't have baptisms at all"vercup

Protestants changed it back. I think, though I am not sure, that Catholics were the first to baptize infants. Prior to that, baptism by immersion always followed a profession of faith.

You can't really lump Protestants into a group on the issue, though. Some Protestant denominations also do sprinkle-baptisms on babies, although this is not done to wash away sin, as with Catholics, but as a means of committing the child's life to God. Other Protestants (including me) believe in immersion baptism as a means of publically declaring a commitment to Christ that the individual has already made. It is done in that case as a ceremony to symbolize what God already did at the moment of salvation. And there are other variations as well.

To complicate the issue, there are about four or so separate types of baptism discussed in the Bible. Baptism by water is just one.