Why does the catholic church teach that baptism is by sprinkling water on oneself?

[God is good]

Jesus came out of the Jordan
mark 1:10
Jesus came out of the water
furthermore
Phillip acts 8:38-39 baptized ethiopian in the water it was immersion not a sprinkle where did this teaching come from?
.God said theres only one baptism

[atheist]

Why do you care? If you think it is wrong, DON'T BE CATHOLIC, but let people choose how they want to believe.

There is no god anyway, so it is ALL a waste of time.

[Buttercup]

Baptism means to immerse as it refers
to washing away our sins as we go down
into the water, and then arising to live a
life in a different direction than we've been
living, as we come up out of the water. If
you're not sure........why take the chance?
Get immersed. I did.

[P.A.T.]

For a sacrament to be valid, three things have to be present: the correct form, the correct matter, and the correct intention. With baptism, the correct intention is to do what the Church does, the correct matter is water, and the correct form is the baptizing "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).

Unfortunately, not all religious organizations use this form. In fact, Jehovah’s Witnesses sometimes use no formula at all in their baptisms, and an even larger group, the "Jesus Only" Pentecostals, baptize "in the name of Jesus." As a result, the baptisms of these groups are invalid; thus, they are not Christian, but pseudo-Christian.

Both groups also reject the Trinity. Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that Jesus is not God, a heresy known as Arianism

+Immersion Only?+

Although the New Testament contains no explicit instructions on how physically to administer the water of baptism, Fundamentalists argue that the Greek word baptizo found in the New Testament means "to immerse." They also maintain that only immersion reflects the symbolic significance of being "buried" and "raised" with Christ (see Romans 6:3-4).

As for immersion... " But immersion is not the only meaning of baptizo. Sometimes it just means washing up. Thus Luke 11:38 reports that, when Jesus ate at a Pharisee’s house, "[t]he Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash [baptizo] before dinner." They did not practice immersion before dinner, but, according to Mark, the Pharisees "do not eat unless they wash [nipto] their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they wash themselves [baptizo]" (Mark 7:3–4a, emphasis added). So baptizo can mean cleansing or ritual washing as well as immersion. "

+Physical Disabilities+
the Fundamentalist, who acknowledges that baptism is commanded but thinks it isn’t essential for salvation, may make it impossible for many people to be baptized at all in obedience to God’s command. The Catholic, who believes baptism confers grace and is normatively necessary for salvation, maintains that God wouldn’t require a form of baptism that, for some people, is impossible(consider those in prison—not in America, where religious freedom gives prisoners the right to be immersed if they desire; or the physically disabled, those who just received open-heart sugrery)

+Early Church+
That the early Church permitted pouring instead of immersion is demonstrated by the Didache, a Syrian liturgical manual that was widely circulated among the churches in the first few centuries of Christianity, perhaps the earliest Christian writing outside the New Testament.

The Didache was written around A.D. 70 and, though not inspired, is a strong witness to the sacramental practice of Christians in the apostolic age.

[True Catholicism †]

It's not the amount of water, it's the words

[joshsybs]

It's a historical change that happened over a few centuries.

In addition to having discussions and lessons prior to baptism, the candidate was always an adult, always capable of understanding, wearing white, and baptized by one with authority.

The question of infant baptism (the need thereof) arose and in 253 AD Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, presided over a council looking into the question of infant baptism (they wanted to baptize on the 8th day to coincide with Jewish circumcision practices).

Agostine says that it was the change in age that made for a change in practice.

Sprinkling was done if the life of the baptismal candidate was in jeopardy, and after infant immersion was starting to take place, pneumonia and other sicknesses did place the life of those infant in peril.

The first infant baptism took place in Brixia (modern day Brescia, near Milan).

Although the practice was heretical in the mid to late 200's, it was adopted by Constantine as doctrine in 325 AD.

[Jezebel!]

why can't you respect people who believe in the same messiah that you do?

do you think a messiah really cares about such trivial things?

if you want to take everything so literally, were YOU baptized in the Jordan? doubt it.