[HiTech RedNeck]

When Ananias tells Saul to "Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins", this makes no sense to you, and so you turn it into a metaphor, since the notion of God working through matter is so repulsive to you.

Isn't this just another one of your "argumentum ad"'s? Whatever an "ad-it-must-be-repulsive-to-you-ism" happens to be called in Latin.

There's a baptism into the H.S. which occurs upon believing that would apply perfectly well here. There are more references in the bible supporting a symbolic water baptism than there are that would question such a view.

[adiaireton8]

You don't understand the nature of the incarnation, and thus you don't understand the nature of the sacraments. Tell me, were circumcised babies who died as infants during Old Testament times saved or unsaved?

-A8