Ha.....about never packing my Bible...good advice....I own six and yes, all were packed.. However, I always have my 1962 daily Missal closeby for it has passages from the Bible spoken and prayed at every Mass and very good for meditation.  

kfc posts # 473 pg 19

And St.Paul taught the wages of sin is death. And StJohn taught that no one who is defiled with sin will enter heaven.

And God gave us the means of being reconciled again with Him...it's called the Sacrament of Baptism that washes away original sin from our soul and Confession.

I didn't come with original sin.

I am one of the creatures made by my god and my god doesn't make creatures that come with built-in sin.

Does that mean that I won't need baptism?

What if I convert to your imperfect god? Will I then be an automatic sinner like you claim his followers are until baptism?

You take the words "ignorant nobody" as meaning something derogatory.  It does not.  There is great advantage to being an ignorant nobody.  Peter was ignorant and as a fisherman he was a nobody.  You said that he was a fisherman and illiterate, it was in your defense of Paul who was educated by the best of his time.  You compared the two and Paul it seems, won in your mind, because he was educated by the most learned men of his time.  You seem to be impressed with those things of man and less impressed with those things of God.

Once more I assert that the apostles are of absolutely no importance what so ever.  Their explanations and directions are of no importance either.  The only thing that is of any importance is their relating to men of the direct quotes and teachings of Jesus.   In other words the only person of importance, and the only words of importance in the NT is Jesus, his words and teachings.  Those teachings and words were meant not the few, not just those that he was addressing them to, but ALL, including all that were to come after his death and resurrection.  Those instructions that Jesus gave in order that one might enter into the next life are absolute.  They can not be changed nor altered.  In order to follow him one must follow his instructions to the letter.  Jesus said that one can not come to the father unless one comes through him.  This is not a statement of "belief" contary to what most think, although belief is a good place to start.  It is a statement of how one must live this life in order to enter the next.  If one can not trust in God to care for them in this life (the parable of the lilies of the field for one example) and instead relies on themselves to do this, then one can not rely on God in the next life either.

"And God gave us the means of being reconciled again with Him...it's called the Sacrament of Baptism that washes away original sin from our soul and Confession."

Until one overcomes self and gives way to God, one will never wash away one's sins, baptism is not an automatic washing away of it, but a chance to reflect and change one's ways.  Original sin was one of self as is evidenced in the following temptation of the serpent in the garden:

"For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil".  

Wouldn't you be baptized right away?

In other words, stop thinking for yourself.

I think you mean BY the serpent.

"In other words, stop thinking for yourself."

Yes, exactly.  Don't misunderstand that, it's not that we should let some other person think for us.  It means that we should allow the holy spirit do it.  When we do the thinking it tends to be all about ourselves, when the holy spirit does it it is what's right and just, and of benefit to all concerned.

Of or by it makes no difference.  What I wrote was grammatically correct since I was speaking of the serpents tempting speach given to the woman.

I know.

When we let the "holy spirit" do it, we want the world to end.

Not the world, just our participation in it.  There is another world, one without all the pain, sorrow, grief and death, but we can't exist in it as long as we cling to this one.

Probably.

Yet with my god I don't even need that ceremony. I am already without built-in sin.

Oh yes you did.   God has placed within the human heart a deisre for union with Him becasuse "God wills all men to be saved and come to know the truth."

First, according to Genesis, all humankind, the pinnacle of Creation, is  both physical and spiritual. Spiritual, that is, your eternal soul is made in the image and likeness of Almighty God.  Also according to Genesis, you,  like everyone as a descendant of Adam, were born with the effects of original sin upon your physical body and eternal soul.

If not, you would not toil and labor for your daily bread, or ever become old or ill, experience suffering  or pain, etc.

 The salvation of the Hebrews (who were formed into God's first Chosen People)  became possible by circumcision ( a type or forerunner of Baptism). Following circumcision they had to live by the Old Covenant established between them and God. The salvation of the entire world took place by Christ's Death on the Cross, which was God's action (in Christ) but it requjires a human response.

IN the same way, the death of Christ brought about a new Covenant in His Blood, also calling for a personal response. You , like all the rest of humankind,  have been offered the gift of salvation. when confronted with the offer of salvatrion, the person is is given the impulse to respond with faith which is always a gift freely given by a gracious and merciful, loving God. To be a fully human response, an act of faith includes the intellect and the free will.  

Then your god isn't the one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Those who have been presented the gift of faith is then incorportaed into Christ through Baptism, the Sacrament which frees us from the original sin of our first parents and inserts us into Christ's Paschal mystery. If one believes Sacred Scripture, then the effects of the Sacrament are beyond dispute: the removal of original sin is found in Romans 5:12-19.

Agree. Original Sin was a sin of pride in the first degree....The devil had them thinking they too could be like or "as God".

Follow His instructions...absolutely yes. However, as you must know, Christ taught using parables and one of His teachings says something about plucking out your eye. He didn't mean for us to litterally pluck out our eye. (I haven't unpacked my Bible or concordance so I can't cite the passage off hand.)

What does this mean Leauki?  You are without sin?  You weren't born in sin? 

now Whisper I can agree with you for the most part except for the fact that you totally dismiss others Christ uses in his plan.  It's all about Christ.  Absolutely. Always has been.   But even Christ made himself a nobody being born into this world to two nobodies to do the will of His father.  He made himself of ill repute it says in scripture.  He wasn't even good looking and nothing about his physical appearance would endear us to him. But even so, it's still all about Christ. 

But after saying that... Christ did involve others in His work and it's just as important work because it's His work.  We are to be His hands and feet.   You can see that throughout the gospels.  Take the first miracle for instance in John 2.  He didn't need the servant's help to fill those barrels with water.  He chose to use them.  He had them fill the barrels and then had them pour them out as wine.  God always uses his people to accomplish his will.   Our importance is in Him tho.  We have to make ourselves nobodies in order to be used. 

That's why Paul wrote we are made strong in our weakness.  God doesn't use the prideful. They're already full of themselves...there's no room for God to work in them.   He uses the humble, because they are empty vessels God can use for His glory.  It's not about us...it's all about Him.  But you shouldn't negate the fact that to Him we are very important in His eyes and in His work. 

circumcision has nothing to do with baptism.  In the OT the Jews had a purification ritual that involved water and cleansing.  If anything that would be a forerunner to baptism.  Not circumcision.   

no, that's legalism.  It's not about the letter but about the spirit of the law.  We are not under the law but under Grace. 

I _was_ without sin. Since then I hyve pretty much collected them.

And yes, I wasn't born in sin. All tasks related to my birth were allowed under Jewish law.

And even if they hadn't been, it wouldn't have me but my parents who had committed the sins.

That's true and I don't know where those ideas come from.

Circumcision was and is solely a symbol of the compact between G-d and the people of Israel. It does not change the sinner status of anyone.

Nice to see that you've returned and all has gone well with you, Lulapilgrim.

You say the sin of pride, yet pride is nothing more than a by product of self importance, along with greed, envy, malice, etc.  Self importance is the original sin, and it can not be simply washed away in baptism, it's removal requires deliberate and concious effort on the part of each individual.  We are all born with a modicum of it, and then it's cultivated by parents and society.  It becomes so much a part of us and our thinking that we don't even notice it.  Baptism is a ritual, and like all rituals it's true purpose is to focus one's complete and undivided attention on the matter at hand, whether it be prayer or baptism.   We can only change ourselves if we are totally focused and aware of the problem, ritual brings us that necessary and required focus.

"His teachings says something about plucking out your eye. He didn't mean for us to litterally pluck out our eye. (I haven't unpacked my Bible or concordance so I can't cite the passage off hand.)"

Yes I know the passage, it goes:  "So if thy right eye is an occasion of sin to thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish than that thy whole body should be thrown into hell."

I don't see this as a parable.  A parable is designed to make one think and ponder it's meaning, this is pretty straightforward.  It is more like instruction.  Jesus also said "The lamp of the body is the eye.  If thy eye be sound, thy whole body will be full of light.  But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body will be full of darkness.  Therefore if the light that is in thee is darkness, how great is the darkness itself!"   The eye is most important according to Jesus, it is the one organ that he speaks of so very much because it is the one organ that influences our thinking the most. 
We believe what we see, we are horrified, or offended by what we say, or we are glad and elated by what we see, and it is the first organ that does aid us in sin.

"now Whisper I can agree with you for the most part except for the fact that you totally dismiss others Christ uses in his plan.  It's all about Christ.  Absolutely. Always has been.   But even Christ made himself a nobody being born into this world to two nobodies to do the will of His father.  He made himself of ill repute it says in scripture.  He wasn't even good looking and nothing about his physical appearance would endear us to him. But even so, it's still all about Christ."

I do not dismiss them, but I give them no more importance than that which they are entitled to.  Other than the direct quotes from Jesus, they are men, and as men they put their own understanding to the words that Jesus said, and they voiced their understanding as the one truth in the texts.  This causes many to simply take these explanations as total truth, and that caused them not to think about his words, they already were given the answers.  We must remember however that these men were also in posession of self importance, albeit less perhaps than most of us, but still in posession of it.  Peter proved it in his denial of Jesus, and the others in the fact that they were no where to be seen during the crucifixtion, but instead went into hiding, for they feared for their own lives. Paul proved it when he demanded that he be tried in Rome undder the roman law of citizenship because he also feared for the loss of his own life.

Jesus's words were designed to make every being think and ponder and wonder as to their meaning.  That pondering, wondering, and thinking is designed  to cause one to explore and prove or even to disprove the validity of those words.  This is the "action" of which Jesus speaks that must follow faith. 

Yes God uses nobody's and you are quite correct when you say that we must be empty and humble in order to be used.  That emptiness and humility is a direct result of a lack of self importance.  Paul had a great deal of it, he was after all an important man, a member of the ruling class, the sanhedrin, and continued to have a great deal of it through out his life.  He was not empty, unlike the servant who had no status or position, which meant that he had little self importance.  He was not humble, he hunted the apostles and followers of Jesus, took it upon himself to purge the land of the truth that Jesus spoke to them.  Not a humble empty man at all.  So based on your criteria, tell me, why do you think this man was chosen?