Cool, thanks for the preview, jwfacts! When can we expect this to be submitted for publication in the Awake! magazine? :)
nugget said:
On someones birthday the idea is to make them feel appreciated, special and loved. None of those are bad things. You only get one birthday a year on which you are the centre of attention and you receive gifts and cards, however you will celebrate many other people's birthdays throughout the year in which you give without expectation of receiving yourself and in which you have the opportunity to make someone else feel appreciated.
Yeah, and that's exactly why they're against it.
It's a classic group-think tactic to do everything possible to squelch the uniqueness and power of the individual, to elevate the group. JWs are worried that individuals will get a big ego and swollen heads from a birthday (as if), and feel emboldened to dare think differently. Any special merit doled out is only for things like pioneering, etc.
mP said:
Weddings should also be banned. THere are lots of murders and killings at weddings in the Bible. We have the infamous story where King David bourhgt 200 foreskins after killing the previous owners as a dowry to Saul to marry his daughter. Perhaps the message in that story is that all xians should bring foreskins or a dowry to the father.
Ewwww.... That was considered a dowry, let alone an acceptabale one? It's passages like that which demonstrate how alien the cultural practices depicted in the Bible truly are....