I have heard arguments for it being a requirement, as well as not, so what's the deal?
Is it something a christian -must- do? As a requirement for salvation?
Or is it more for show-and-tell? ...
It is sometimes more fruitful to examine what a person means by "Do I
have to be baptized?" Are you afraid God will punish you if you aren't baptized? Or perhaps you want to do what God knows it best for you. Or perhaps you want to know if your church is authorized by God to require baptism. There's a lot of possibilities here. Some questions to ponder:
God commanded us to be baptized.
You don't need to be baptized to be saved. Jesus did the saving, not you by any particular action.
God commands us to be faithful to Him. Does this mean to you that you are willing to publicly carry out an action that shows this?
Do you have to obey God's commands to be saved? Can Jesus be your Lord for the purpose of salvation if you intentionally do not do what he commanded? Do you have to be 100% successful in your obedience to be saved? Can you be 1% successful and still be saved?
Being christened is not the same as being baptized, because the former is not an act of the individual's will. (I'm intentionally not offering an explanation of what christening is. I'm just saying they are different.)
Are you satisfying, or do you want to satisfy, God's first and greatest command to us?
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38, 1984 NIV) Do you want to do what pleases God the most, regarding baptism, or do you want to know if you can get away with skipping it? If it is the latter, you have deeper spiritual issues than whether to be baptized or not.
Choosing to publicly be baptized is definitely not just show and tell. It is a significant spiritual act with consequences. It's significance is found in that it is a
willful action with accountability to identify oneself with Jesus (accountability because you do it in front of witnesses). It's like the difference between thinking about helping an old lady across the street and actually doing it. Thinking it's something "I would have done" doesn't count for anything compared to the significance of actually doing it. (I'm talking about what happens inside you, between you and God, not the benefit to the old lady.)
Baptism has a very specific meaning, so doing it is different than being obedient to God in other ways. The same is true of taking communion.