It seems to me, inarock&ahardplace, that your stubborn brain has worked out the problem very well. There's nothing wrong with birthdays. Go forth and celebrate.
Birthdays?? Good explaination...please??
by inarock&ahardplace 26 Replies latest jw friends
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AK - Jeff
Truly I think that the arguments that it has pagan origins is all wet.
If you go back to the point where the Jews were considered the 'good guys', those favored by God, ect. All that left was the 'pagans', the bad guys. So the fact that the 'bad guys' of thousands of years ago celebrated birthdays, but the 'good guys' Jews did not is all they have? Of course the 'early Christians' followed the customs of the Jews and did not celebrate them. How does that make it wrong?
There is clearly no scriptural authority to the witness command to abstain from birthday celebrations. They twist a few scripts to make it sound as if one is going over to the demons by doing so, but that is the typical witness approach to all doctrine.
As for me, my 50th is coming up, and it will be the first birthday I have ever celebrated. I feel no guilt. Open invite to all apostates. No JW's please!
Jeff
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googlemagoogle
Open invite to all apostates. No JW's please!
what about inactive apostate JWs? -
AK - Jeff
what about inactive apostate JWs?
As long as they are apostate! Come on down! No beheadings please.
Jeff
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Mary
So birthdays are forbidden because of their pagan roots eh? I wonder why Witnesses are allowed to partake of the following pagan customs which I found on the Internet:
"...The tradition of wedding cakes is a very old one indeed. In ancient Rome, wedding guests would break little cakes of grain over the bride's head to shower her with blessings of life and abundance. As time went by, people began to pile the cakes and have the couples kiss over them to ensure fertility. Eventually, the piling of the cakes turned into the traditional tiered wedding cake of today.
Cutting the cake together is also a potent symbolic act. As a form of the Great Rite, the cake represents the feminine traits of nurturing and life-giving while the knife symbolizes the male phallus. This boosts the fertility wishes and solidifies the joining together of male and female energies..." Traditionally, brides have been thought to be particularly vulnerable to evil spirits and many of the customs and traditions associated with weddings are to provide protection. The veil was originally worn by Roman brides. It was thought that it would disguise the bride and therefore outwit malevolent spirits Bridesmaids were dressed in a similar way to the bride for the same reason as the origin of veil. The bridesmaids were thought to act as decoys to confuse evil spirits and thus protect the bride. In the agreement of marriage, it was also believed that when two people kissed a part of their soul was left in one another with the exchange of breath, symbolic of the union of those two people. As for the time of year, the saying 'Marry in the month of May, and you'll live to rue the day' dates back to Pagan times. It is believed that June is a lucky month to marry because June was named after Juno, the ancient Roman goddess of marriage and protector of women. The honeymoon - In ancient Babylon, on the other had, the father in law was entitled to pamper the groom for a month with beer made of honey. And in pagan times in Europe, the bride was supposed to drink honey nectar for a month after the wedding to secure fertility.Gee, I wonder what they'd say if they were asked these questions..........
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burnthepig
Dear Inarockandahardplace....
If you want some mind altering, written in stone excuse to why wittnesses aren't suppossed to celebrate birthdays, I am afraid You MY NEVER FIND IT>> along with alot of the other B*sh$t they have ingrained in my head.. (yours too) -not to mention the countless others. I was born a witness, raised, purebred.. dub. The first birthday I celebrated was Euphoric, I was 28.. My 30th was amazing. Once you get there.. You won't beleive how much time has been spent up to this point as "experience" (not lost), just experience.
And Jeff... Happy 50th birthday.. I wish I could be there to celebrate it w/you!
Falling out of a world of lies....
the pig :)
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Rayvin
Another reason for no B-days that i heard was -- "not following in the traditions of man"--