Birthday celebration/participation (page 2)

matt2414

Not celebrating birthdays because of what happened thousands of years ago and may or may not happen today is actually a superstition that the Witnesses have invented. According to most dictionaries, superstitions are usually based on fear of the unknown or religious ignorance. Interestingly, Wikipedia points out that "the word superstition is sometimes used to refer to religious practices (e.g., Voodoo) other than the one prevailing in a given society (e.g., Christianity in western culture), although the prevailing religion may contain just as many superstitious beliefs."

Not throwing rice at a wedding or saying a toast at a party are also part of the Witness-sanctioned superstitious beliefs. Similar to superstitiously throwing salt over your left shoulder after knocking over a salt shaker, Witnesses have to repent after celebrating a birthday or saying a toast, etc., or else something bad from God will befall them. The more the Witnesses try to stand out as different from Pagan religions, the more they look just like them.

rebel8

Job celebrated his bday. it's in the bible.

MissFit

I agree with Keyes: you are your wife's secret weapon.

She can claim that the party was your idea and that you gave permission for your child to attend the party.

problemaddict

Hey Zana. I've looked into this so here are a few thoughts.

1) You most definitly can be disfellowshipped for celebrating your birthday or your childs birthday unrepentantly.

2) Look up the history of this in the organization. it started its tenure under Rutherford, as did alot of other fun killing measures.

3) The bible NEVER forbids birthdays or even hints at them.

4) The two accounts (already mentioned), are the only two birthdays in the bible, and the way they put it together is that if the context was mentioned in a negative light, then because "all scripture is inspired of God for teaching, reprooving and setting things straight", then it must be in there for a reason.

At first i agreed of course. I mean these were bad guys (Pharoah, Herod) and they killed John the Baptizer at one of them. So sure that sounds plausible. But here is where the logic breaks down. INDOOR PLUMBING, is only mentioned twice in the bible, and bad guys had it (a king, and a false God). Do we determine that indoor plumbing is somehow wrong? Dogs are almost always mentioned negatively. Are dogs bad and a Christian should not own one?

To ASSUME the intent of the verses was somehow linked to modern day birthday celebrations, is just wrong.

5) Paganism. Of course this is the old stand by. Everything has pagan roots. Birthdays certainly share them. The candles and gift giving.....I don't even need to look it up I'm sure it was all about warding off evil spirits. Everything done in the ancient world was about warding off evil spirits.
Here however is the issue, and just for the record, there are plenty of fundamental Christian groups thatdon't like the idea of birthdays for the same reasons as JW's. The issue is that plenty of things JW's ALLOW, have equal pagan ritual.

Weddings are filled with them. A bouquet used to be heavy herbs to......you guessed it.......ward off evil spirits. White dresses? Wedding rings? I mean.....come on. How about wind chimes. Their origin is clearly pagan and they are allowed. Pinatas? Yep all good of you like them.

So the issue is inconsistancy. This pagan thing doesn't resemble the pagan thing it came from so its all good. This pagan thing seems to pagany to rehab so its forbidden still. It makes NO SENSE.

In the meantime, you ostracize your child, keep them out of key young social gatherings because of nothing......what good does it do? Are they really glorifying the child? Is it really pagan?

6) Early Christians didn't celebrate birthdays. Well......this is thought to be true, although not without doubt. Either way, early Christians did not do ALOT of things we do today. Culture and times have changed, and birthdays are not only for the rich, the kings, the man-Gods, or anything else. Why continue to force living in the dark ages behind Rutherford superstition?

Ok thats all i got.

InquiryMan

Do you have a quotation from the shepherd the flock to validate your claim?

morten

(was an elder once)

Daniel1555

You can not be df'd if you celebrate birthdays.

In the elder "Shepherd" book it is only mentioned that celebrating a RELIGIOUS holiday (like christmas, easter) is a df offence. Rank and file don't know about that. Probably much more would start to celebrate it if they knew.

Daniel1555

Job's children had a big feast at their own day (in some bible translation birthday) in Job 1.

Of course WT says it is not a birthday that rhey celebrated. But the same expression is in Job 3 where Job most definitely means his day of birth.

problemaddict

^^^^I am afraid I do not have a flock book quote. But I believe our own Paul Grundy from JWfacts was in fact disfellowshipped for celebrating his sons birthday and it being "exposed" on the internet. I could be remembering the wrong person.

Celebrating birthdays is not "apostacy" but religious holidays are apparently. However, at the least it is brazen conduct. If you post it on facebook, see if a judicial comitee doesn't form, and then if you tell them you don't see an issue with it, see wether or not they disfellowship you.

In the words of my childhood CO......you can be disfellowshipped for anything if you ar stubornly refusing to repend and showing a stiff necked attitude.

But isn't this about debunking the concept of forbidding birthdays?

The account Daniel mentioned in Job is ambiguous, but alot of Christians do believe that was a birthday. Unfortunately, the unintended consequence of pointing this out could be the JW saying "so yeah......another birthday where people died!" All Jobs children were killed during one of these celebrations, although we know it was basically coincidence since this is when Satan got the green light so to speak.

Birthday celebration/participation

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