> 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

In a way, "baptism" is older than Christianity. The form has been changed, and what it means, as well. The term usually used in Judaism is "mikveh" or "mivkah". Thus when Yochanan(John) was baptizing in Beit-Anyah(Bethany), east of the Yarden(Jordan), the question was not "What in blue blazes are you doing?" but "If you're not The Messiah, Eliyahu(Elijah), or That Prophet, why are you doing this?"

In Judaism, mikvah is done at milestones in one's life. A return to the faith of the fathers would certainly qualify. Also, it is done as a cleansing. Anywhere where the Torah says to wash oneself in water, that's it. A period of time after the birth of a child, at a certain point in a woman's... cycle, and so on.

Whereas in all the baptisms I've seen, someone holds you and dunks you in the water, then brings you up, mikveh only has the other person supervising, if that.

Mikvah(the act) is named after the collection of water(Strong's Hebrew #4723 & 4724), and baptism comes from baptizo, to make whelmed(i.e. fully wet)(Strong's Greek #907).

Nyperold