It troubles me that there have been so many posts recently trying to support the doctrine of Original Sin.  This is primarily a Catholic doctrine, with no other purpose than to defend the idea of infant baptism.  Even among, its supporters, however, people will stop short of saying that unbaptised infants will go to hell.  It's very easy for just about anyone to come up with a partial list of scripture to support any sort of wrong doctrine.  However, if we have the heart to persevere in our beliefs to make sure that they are biblically based, then we can come to an understanding of the truth.  Let's now take a more complete look at scripture.  Colossians 2:11-12 "In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead."  In baptism, we are raised to a new life in Christ (Romans 6:4) through a personal faith in the power of God.  Our parent's faith cannot do this.  Do infants have faith?  Let's look at what the Bible has to say about it.  Romans 10:16-17 "But not all the Israelites accepted the good news.  For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed our message?'  Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."  So then we receive God's gift of faith to us as we hear the message of the gospel.  Faith is a possible response to hearing God's word preached.  Kids are not yet spiritually, intellectually, or emotionally mature enough to respond to God's word.  Hence they cannot have faith and therefore cannot be raised in baptism to a new life.  Ezekiel 18:20 "The soul who sins will die.  The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.  The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."  If you read all of Ezekiel 18, you will see that God doesn't hold us guilty for anyone else's sins.  So we can have no original guilt from Adam.  Ezekiel 18:31-32 "Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committted, and get a new heart and a new spirit.  Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!"  The way to please God is to repent and get a new heart and spirit.  Kids cannot do this.  Acts 2:38-39 says that when we repent and are baptized, we will then receive a new spirit, the Holy Spirit.  Then we shall live.  Now then that we have a little more background as to why original sin is not Biblical, let's look at some of the scriptures used to support it.  Romans 5:12 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--"  Sin and death entered the world when the first man sinned.  Death came to each man because each man sinned.  Note that it's good to read through all of Romans 5:12-21.  Some of the verses are easier to misunderstand than others, but if we read them in context we will see that they are all saying basically the same thing.  Let's look at one such.  Romans 5:19 "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."  Through the disobedience of each individual, each was made a sinner.  In the same way, through the obedience of Jesus, each will be made righteous. We must remember when reading through this passage that death came to each man only because each man sinned, not because of guilt from Adam. Otherwise the Bible would contradict itself.  I encourage you to read through this whole passage on your own, looking at it from this point of view to see if it doesn't all fit together.  Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."  This whole Psalm is a wonderful example of how we should humble ourselves before God in repentance for sinning.  David himself was a man after God's own heart and wrote the Psalm after committing adultry with Bathsheba and murdering her husband.  All that David is saying here is that he can't remember a time when he wasn't sinful.  He is humbling himself before God by confessing his sinfulness.  His saying that he was sinful at birth is a hyperbole.  The Bible, being inspired by God, isn't limited to a literal interpetation, but also uses figures of speech as did Jesus (John 16:25). For another example of hyperbole, see Luke 14:26.  Now then, even though people see that baptism requires faith and that original sin is not Biblical, they will still argue that infant baptism is necessary because children sin by being selfish - not sharing toys with other children, by being mean - hitting others and fighting, etc.  Certainly we have observed children doing wrong things, but my gut feeling is always that they don't know any better.  Let's look to see if the Bible agrees with my gut feelings.  Isaiah 7:14-15 "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:  The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right."  Now just about any church leader will tell you that this is a prophecy about Jesus.  If they don't, then point them to Matthew 1:23 and find a new leader.  Jesus certainly couldn't have had less knowledge than normal human babies.  Yet this passage says that he had to mature to a certain extent before he would know the difference between right and wrong.  We see that he did grow and become wiser in Luke 2:40 and 2:52.  The implication is that Jesus did wrong things as a child before he knew to choose right over wrong.  Since we know that Jesus was perfect -- without sin, we have rather conclusive proof that babies cannot sin because they don't know to choose the right instead of the wrong.  Jesus himself was baptized, albeit with John's baptism, not as an infant, but as a thirty-year-old man (Luke 3:21-23) and started his ministry as soon as he was baptized (Luke 3:23).  Immediately afterwards, he was tempted by the devil (Luke 4:1-13; Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13).  Thank you for your attention.  Moderator - this should finish up the subject for a while.  Perhaps you would like to make a FAQ out of this response so that you can repost it from time to time when the topic comes up.  Feel free to rearrange the contents if you would like to, but please send me a copy of the final FAQ.  Sincerely,  Aaron Cardenas aaronc@athena.mit.edu