Birthday party

by Luisin 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  Luisin

  Look people,

  I'm not follower of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I have a serious question, and I expect serious answers to the following:

  I have a co-worker who is a Jehovah's Witness.
  In more than one occasion, he was invited to a birthday celebration. Around here were we are (in Guatemala), those birthdays are a rare and welcome opportunity to reunite friends, co-workers, family of co-workers, and customers. We eat and drink and discuss all those things that are important in our lives. It is not that much celebrating a "birthday", but to have an opportunity and a chance to get aquainted with related people, families, and to get to know each other better.

  However: My Jehovah's Witness co-worker is bailing out EVERY TIME when the word "birthday" is mentioned.

  In fact, it went so far that I considered to call it a "business lunch" when in fact we were celebrating a birthday for a friend of mine. In order not to freeze my co-worker out of a social event. But then I decided that I should call an Apple for an Apple and an Orange for an Orange, and not to pull a smoke screen just to please a peculiar religious taste.

  And that describes my conflict...!

  My point of view is: If I whole-heartedly invite someone to participate in a social invent, which happens to be a birthday party, and the invitee responds that he will not participate in a birthday because of his religion - then my question is:

  How Squared-headed can things become? How many hard religious lines (including birthday celebrations) have to be drawn before we wind up in World War between religions because they all claim to have the key to the truth and incomprehensible positions and attitudes?

  Needless to say, I'm not so pleased by that "we-stay-away-from-birthday-celebrations" attitude.

  Please respond to [email protected] , I might not check back with this Forum.
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  garyneal

  How Squared-headed can things become? How many hard religious lines (including birthday celebrations) have to be drawn before we wind up in World War between religions because they all claim to have the key to the truth and incomprehensible positions and attitudes?

  I would like to respond to your questions concerning birthdays and hard religious lines. I too am experiencing resistance from my wife who is a JW because she did not want to partake in the Christmas celebrations with my daughter and I. I go with her to some of the meetings, assemblies, and even went to a KH wedding with her to show my support but she will not come with my daughter and I to my mom's house to show her support for me for one day out of a whole year. Her reasoning borders on insanity and I think the poor girl is too far gone in the cult to be reached so I am basically just leaving her alone right now.

  What you've pointed out is something I've always said in that "religion divides us all." It's ironic too that the second president of the watchtower society (the organization that the jehovah's witnesses follow) went on record proclaiming religion to be "a snare and a racket" only to wind up organizing another dogmatic religion. "Pastor" Russell (the founder and first president of the watch tower society) by the way was opposed to organized religion.

  Needless to say, I'm not so pleased by that "we-stay-away-from-birthday-celebrations" attitude.

  You're not alone as I too don't like their attitudes to things most people see as harmless and lots of fun. We can thank "Judge" Rutherford (the second president of the society) for a lot of these wierd teachings. Concerning birthdays, they say it is because two ungodly men are recorded in the Bible as having celebrated birthdays. They reason that since bad things happened in the recordings of these birthdays within the Bible then "true Christians" should abstain from birthdays. That reasoning is flawed because bad things can happen in all sorts of situations which are by themselves harmless. They also reason that on some obscure time frame long long ago, people (pagans) used to beleive that blowing out a birthday candle would summon some fairy to grant them their wish (well something along those lines anyway). That too falls apart when you examine that in context with their January 8, 2000 Awake publication "A Balanced View of Popular Customs." I'll send you a pdf copy of this to view for yourself.

  The point is no one associates birthday celebrations to fairies, demons, or chopping off people's heads, etc..

  If you read the article while thinking about the point I just made, you will see that the reasoning of a Jehovah's Witness is extremely flawed. Yet, they MUST follow the "Faithful and Discreet Slave" (the teachings of the Watchtower) in order to insure that they can earn their salvation.

  By the way, welcome to the board.
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  Out at Last!

  That's right, no birthdays, no holidays. Good zombies!
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  John Doe

  Trolling for email addresses? I would be cautious sending anything.
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  garyneal

  He responded:

  On 31 Dec 2009 at 0:50, Gary Neal wrote:

  Hi Gary!

  Thanks for taking the time to reply.
  The only person who replied was you, and I'll certainly get some ammunition out of it.
  The Question remains if JW people are open to ANY KIND OF amendments.
  It doesn't look like, convincing arguments seem not to be acceptable in order to change their attitude.

  Heck, whatever....
  I'm collecting a bit of ammunition for discussions, and your contribution definitely helped.
  The regrettable thing is that this elsewise bright and intelligent lad (my co-
  worker) shuts completely down when it comes to discussing JW, he becomes like a maniac citing bible sections without any sensitivity for the real world we live in.

  Greetings, /Ludwig