The church has turned baptism into modern day circumcision.
Baptism is NOT required to be saved.
Even Peter disqualified water baptism as being able to confer salvation.
1 Peter 3:21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Otherwise, you are saying that if a person puts their faith in Christ for salvation and dies before they can be baptized, they are going to hell.
If baptism saves you, Christ died for nothing.
I'm finally working on some of the backlog...
The church has turned baptism into modern day circumcision.
In the sense of it ordinarily being necessary for salvation, Jesus Christ did that (cf. John 3:5, Matthew 28:18-20, etc.), St. Paul (among other places) did that (Colossians 2:11-12), and St. Peter did that (1 Peter 3:21, etc.)... so I suppose you could say that "the Church" did it, if you mean it in the right way. I suspect that wasn't your meaning, though. :)
Baptism is NOT required to be saved.
See above.
Even Peter disqualified water baptism as being able to confer salvation. 1 Peter 3:21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Er... are you under the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church views valid Baptism to be contingent on "removing dirt from the body"? Sort of like, "Father, you need to try again... there's still dirt on this Catechumen, so he must not be baptized, yet!" That really isn't what the Church teaches.
Otherwise, you are saying that if a person puts their faith in Christ for salvation and dies before they can be baptized, they are going to hell.
You must have missed my
previous posts about "baptism of desire", etc. (#620)...
If baptism saves you, Christ died for nothing.
Oh, don't be silly! Christ is the One Who saves... THROUGH the Baptism which HE instituted! I might as well say to you, using the same reasoning, "You don't believe it was Jesus Who restored the blind man's sight! You think it was the MUD which He smeared on the man's eyes! You're denying the divine power of Jesus!"