Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 6 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 22 years, 8 months ago by
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My neighbor in the last couple of years has become a serious Jehovah’s Witness. I respect her religious beliefs, but I just don’t understand some of them. She doesn’t celebrate any special occasions anymore – they’re pagan. I know some people find Halloween pagan, but Christmas and birthdays? Don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses take the Bible very literally? So when Jesus was born and the Kings brought him gifts, isn’t THAT a celebration?
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Name : Jake, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 15, City : Toronto, Ontario, State : NY, Country : Canada,Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate Christmas because it isn’t in the Bible. The ‘wisemen’ saw Jesus not as a baby but as a child in a house (Matthew 2:11). They didn’t give him gifts because it was for his birth. Secondly, Christmas began as a celebration for the worship of the sun god saturnalia, in pagan Rome, on Dec. 25 , when they knew the days were getting longer (more sun). So they paid their gratitude to this false god.
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Name : Peter Briant, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jehovahs Witness, Age : 38, City : Melbourne, State : NA, Country : Australia, Occupation : storeman, Education level : Less than High School Diploma, Social class : Middle class,With regard to birthdays, I know some Jehovah’s Witnesses who view birthdays as evil because any reference to birthday in the Bible brought evil. John the Baptist lost his head because it was Herod’s birthday. Mark 6:21. Also, when it was Pharaoh’s birthday, the chief baker had a bad experience. Genesis 40:20.
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Name : A-Urbonas23968, City : Edmonton, Alberta, State : NA, Country : Canada,Jehovah’s Witness don’t celebrate birthdays partly because the only 2 mentions (as eluded to earlier) involve murder. and it is not a command found in the bible. We don’t celebrate Christmas for many reasons that can be found just by reading the bible. Besides the fact that it started as a part of pagan worship, but Jesus never told us to remember his birth. But he did command us to remember his death. What did his birth mean, it was his death after a life of perfect service to his father that gave us a ransom that we should celebrate.
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Name : Tracy24860, City : Detroit, State : MI, Country : United States,I just wanted to clarify that we don’t see birthdays as ‘evil’. Obviously, they are a part of life and we are very glad to be alive. However, there is no reference to either Jews or Christians celebrating their birthdays in the Bible. As mentioned above, there is specific reference to pagans celebrating birthdays. So, it was a custom for some people to celebrate, but not for God’s people. To contract this, there is mention of marriage feasts – Jesus’ first miracle was performed at a marriage celebration. Obviously, those celebrations had a place in the lives of First Century Christians. We live our lives as those early Christians did. By the same token, there is no mention in the Bible of Christ celebrating his own birthday. There is no mention of any of his followers celebrating Jesus’ birth. 1 Corinthians 11 mentions the celebration of the Lord’s Last Supper (Communion to many religions). This commemoration of Jesus’ death (and all the benefits applied to mankind) was practiced by Christians. So they did celebrate certain things. Of course, there is so much more to say about the rituals and traditions associated with Christmas. Every single tradition began as a tradition used in a pagan celebration to honor a pagan god. In each case, the church adopted these traditions to ‘win over’ pagans to the Christian way of life. The pagans were very fond of their celebrations and would not have ‘converted’ to Christianity without their festivals. God strictly warned that we aren’t to serve him using the same methods people use to worship false gods. There are a couple of older questions about this subject. Feel free to look up the answers found there.
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Name : M22291, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jehovahs Witness, Age : 29, City : Atlanta, State : GA, Country : United States, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Everything that is in the Bible is there for a reason. Jehovah’s Witnesses take note that God’s Word reports unfavorably about birthday celebrations and so shun these. The various customs surrounding birthday celebrations today have origins in the realm of magic and pagan religion. The customs of offering congratulations, presenting gifts and celebrating-complete with lighted candles-in ancient times were meant to protect the birthday celebrant from the demons and to ensure his security for the coming year. Down to the fourth century Christianity rejected the birthday celebration as a pagan custom. But just because we don’t celebrate traditional ‘special occassions’, wholesome gatherings of family and friends at other times to eat, drink, and rejoice are not objectionable, as Eccl. 3:12,13 says: ‘There is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good during one’s life; and also that every man should eat and indeed drink and see good for all his hard work. It is the gift of God.’
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Name : Sharon, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jehovahs Witness, Age : 38, City : Ligonier, State : PA, Country : United States, Occupation : Self employed, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Lower middle class,It’s not that we view birthdays as ‘evil’ because the only two times they are mentioned in the Bible someone died during the celebration. We’re not superstitious. It is that we do our best to live life like the early Christians (and to a large part pre-Christian Israelites) did. We believe that the REASON only two birthday celebrations are mentioned in the Bible is because neither pre-Christian Israelites nor early Christians celebrated birthdays. There are plenty of references to other festivities that these two groups DID participate in. The complete exclusion of birthday celebrations for these two groupd leads us to the conclusion that they didn’t celebrate birthdays, even though those around them did, so neither should we.
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Name : M22289, City : Atlanta, State : GA, Country : United States,
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