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It was not meant to be a means of CONFERRAL of Salvation by church leaders

Nobody has ever said such a blasphemous thing. God confers salvation, not "church leaders". How he does it is up to him, not to us, and rather than inventing theologies about "accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior" (a phrase not found in Scripture), we ought to stick closely to what he said about the process in Scripture. As in, for example, the passage where Ananias tells Paul to wash away his sins in baptism.

it is to be an example of an individual's Obediance to Christ, to show publically that he has internally accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour

Nothing in Scripture says anything like that. If that were all baptism is -- a public show -- why would a private baptism be useful, valid, or helpful? Yet the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized by the side of the road, with nobody watching. If I recall correctly, Paul baptized his jailer and the jailer's whole household in the middle of the night!The Church fathers recount how baptisms in ancient times were conducted at night, and with the baptizands naked -- hardly an occasion publicly showing anything! (We would hope.)

God doesn't command rituals for public show. In fact, he stridently condemned some of the Jews for turning their piety into a public exhibition.

Paul says flatly that "as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." "Putting on Christ" sounds pretty momentous to me. I'd say that's a better starting point for a theology of baptism than any supposition that baptism is merely a public announcement that someone now considers himself a Christian.

You called it a "conferral of justification", not me! God grants justification by the faith of a man in his son Jesus.Baptism was to be our fisrt step of obedience to Christ

And we are commanded to be baptized, and it is a public example...even with only one or two witnesses. We are to to proclaim our faith publicically,"so that Christ will acknowledge us before the father". To use your logic ...all Catholic Baptisms must occur secretly and at night in order for them to be valid.

As for Baptism...there were different traditons for it. even in Paul's time. I remember seeing a mosaic from the Early orthodox Church where early converts washed themselves publically as a sign of them "repenting and having their sins washed away"(Your quote by Ananias).

Then the example from Acts 8 where Philip "baptizes" the Ethiopian(Baptizmo=immersion literally burial). But this does not negate the fact thatthere must be faith that proceeds the act ...the act itself doesn't seal the fate of the soul, in the end, faith in Jesus does!

"Paul says flatly that "as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ." "Putting on Christ" sounds pretty momentous to me. I'd say that's a better starting point for a theology of baptism than any supposition that baptism is merely a public announcement that someone now considers himself a Christian."

What do you think Baptism is, but the symbolic putting off of the old man and the raising up of the new. What is this new man..but "the Putting on of Christ". And what is this Christ,but the very Resurrected son of God! We put off death and we put on the resurrection. I didn't say the baptism was for mere public show, it was the first obedient steps of faith that new Christians were to take, it is a "momentous solid thing", meant to be done publically, or at least in front of witnesses. Christ himself was Baptized openly! It is not a showy bragging sort of thing to be done, but rather it is an open break from the former things in order to take up a new resurrected life