[A.J.Armitage]

The Mikva is for ritual purification of women after menstruation. Men do not go to the Mikva.

You don't know what you're talking about. The mikva is for ritual purification. Of anyone unclean. Including converts who are considered unclean because of their background. Here, here, here.

I don't have the time or interest to cover the rest for you.

Don't go making claims like that unless you're willing to back them up.

Totally different concept than baptism, other than both involving water.

Actually, there are only a few differences. We only use it for conversions (and everyone, even those with Christian parents, are considered to require conversion), not the other uses they have. And we don't require total immersion in the sense they do (not even Baptists), and some don't require it at all. The washing symbolism is superceded by death and resurrection symbolism.

Unquestioning devotion to your faith rather than rational inquiry coupled with limited knowlege blind you from being able to think rationally.

My knowledge is evidently a little less limited than yours.

Funny that you ignored the picture of the dionysus/bacchus crucifiction image...

Without context, it's meaningless.

Google and a skeptical mind are your friend. At least, they are mine.

You should have tried Googling "mikva".

[adam_az]

I should have tried googling Mikva, you are right.

If you had read the entire page you quoted, http://www.interfaithfamily.com/article/issue21/mgeller.html you would have found this sentence: "Conservative Judaism has largely ignored this practice in the past, but recently has begun to reevaluate its silence in this area and to consider the spiritual implications of mikvah immersion for human sexuality and for women."

IE, the mikvah ritual has not been followed by mainstream Judaism for a while. I grew up in a Conservative Jewish house. I went to Hebrew school, practiced ritual kosher dietary law, studied for and performed my Bar Mitzvah ceremony including reading a passage for a Soviet Refusenik who could not have one in the USSR, helped my sister prepare for her Bat Mitzvah, and guess what?

Not one of my female relatives, who are all religious and ritually observant, went to the mikvah.

Curious though that *i* didn't mention mikvah, you did.

I didn't claim to be an expert on mikvah, you did.

Apparently I prefer my herring pickled with onions, and you prefer yours red. :)