they refuse to celebrate any birthday, but just because the bible does not order us to celebrate the inception or the birth, what is so wrong with celebrating the birthday, symbolically, of Christ’s arrival, whether at inception or birth? JWs believe Christ was probably born closer to September, why do they not set aside an event to celebrate that? They seem to deprive themselves and their children from celebrating much of anything. I find this less than humble.
Jehovah’s Witnesses often reject birthdays as "pagan" and will therefore refuse to participate in them. In addition to this, Witnesses also reject birthdays because they claim that they are placed in an unfavourable light in the Bible. The Bible only mentions two instances of birthdays (at least explicitly). These are Genesis 40:20-22, and Matthew 14:6-10. Two pagan rulers are in view: Pharaoh and Herod.
Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that as negative things happened on these men’s birthdays, then all birthdays must be evil. This is clearly a case of guilt by association as far as the Watchtower is concerned. But is this really sound reasoning? What is the source of the evil in the Biblical accounts? The birthdays or the men (Pharaoh and Herod) themselves? Obviously, it is the men who did the evil. There is nothing to suggest that these men did evil because of their birthdays. These men did evil all the time not just on their birthdays. Also, in the Genesis account, Pharaoh also did some good by setting a man free!
Witnesses often argue that there is no mention of birthdays being celebrated by any of God’s servants in the Bible. Although there are no explicit references, it would appear that there is a possible implicit reference to birthday celebrations in Job (Job 1:4, 5). If this is talking about birthday celebrations, they seem to be being spoken of favourably. Job talks about Job’s sons each holding a feast on "his day". In Job 3:1-4, the same Hebrew word for "day" (yowm) is used when Job curses the "day" of his birth.
Another point worth considering is that of the vast amount of chronological data in the Bible, regarding the ages of people. Obviously, there can be no doubt that Jews and Christians were certainly keeping track of people’s ages. Just a couple of brief example: Moses was 40 when he was called and died at age 80 in the wilderness. There is even the recording of Jesus’ age, when He was 12 and visited Jerusalem with His parents (Luke 2:42). Are we really to conclude that the arrival of a persons birthday would produce no celebration, or emotional response at all? In the light of the fact that Christians were certainly keeping a record of people’s ages, one could easily imagine that such an occasion could well lead to some sort of celebration. What is an individuals definition of `celebration`?
There is nothing explicit in the Bible that that commands us to celebrate or not to celebrate birthdays. Rather, the Bible has given us a general guide on this issue when it says that we should each be convinced in our own minds (Rom. 14:5) as to the importance or non-importance of a particular day, and that it should be a matter for the conscience of the individual, between them and God, as to whether we celebrate that day or not. However, in contrast to all this, the Watchtower clearly enforces the non-celebration of certain days, to the point that a person’s standing before God Himself is in jeopardy, if a birthday is celebrated in any way. The sad thing about all of this is that it is the Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves who end up suffering, particularly their young people. Jehovah’s Witness children can be made to feel unnecessarily isolated from their class mates when they have to decline invitations to birthday parties, and non-Witness relatives can be unnecessarily offended by the refusal of JW relatives to send them birthday or Christmas cards.
God Bless!
Who celebrates chrismas??? I DO!!!
You spelled Christmas wrong lol FAIL.
Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate all of the influential women in your life — from your mother, to your wife, your mother-in-law, grandmothers, sisters and aunts. What special plans do you have for Mother’s Day?
I always celebrate Mothers Day like this. I cook a special dish of her choice, buy a card & write good lines for her on the card. Add a huge flowers bunch also. She likes very much. It is the best gift for her.
LMAO! They already know Christmas day is not his birthday because harvest was not in December it was in Aug/Sept. yet they still celebrate jesus A.s. birthday in December. Isn’t that goofy, they openly admit he was born when the Quran tells us, in harvest time. LOL!
OKKKKKKKKKK! Is it me? I am the only person in the world that finds that odd?
Do as you want. And as you say, Christ was born in early September…on the 2nd of September in the year 3 BC. The visit from the Persian Astronomers (Wise Men) occurred when Christ was 15 months old, or on December 25, 2 BC. Christ is described as "a toddler" in the Persian Language regarding this event. So the First Christmas had to do with the visit from the Wise Men and therefore, Christmas can still be celebrated on the 25th of December. It really doesn’t matter what time of the year one celebrates the Birth of Christ, as long as one day is set aside annually to do so.
Above-mentioned dates are furnished by an astronomer at Texas A&M.
Website:
http://www.bethlehemstar.net/
Why do atheists celebrate christmas and other religious holidays?
I have seen lots of people who have claimed to be an athiest and say christian and catholic religion is all faulse and not true, but yet they celebrate christmas, infact one person who i know if a big atheist but yet at christmas greeted me merry christmas?
I don’t get atheists, they say they are but yet they celebrate religious holidays, whats your take on all this?
Indeed – they sure do! Why wouldn’t they? =)
And also, if you can tell me or give me a link to a website that shows a recipe for anything special they eat during the occasion that will be a great help too!
Polish food is delicious! Since Poland is a very Catholic country, they celebrate Christmas. On Christmas Eve, they fast until dinner, and then there is an enormous dinner consisting of 12 meals. Here are some great sites on Christmas in Poland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Christmas_traditions
http://acweb.colum.edu/users/agunkel/homepage/polxmas.html
http://www.santas.net/polishchristmas.htm
http://www.polishworld.com/christmas/
http://www.ehow.com/how_8773_observe-polish-christmas.html
Also
Why is easter a festival of celebration?
and,
What unique thing are roman catholics allowed to do on Easter day?
Please tell me. It’s my RE homework and I can’t find it anywhere … >_< Yeah, thankyou! x
Christianity and The Origins of Easter
Easter is the Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of the Christian Messiah, Jesus Christ. The most important festival in the Christian calendar, Easter is celebrated on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25, depending how Lunar calendar corresponds to the Gregorian calendar in that particular year. Since the date of Easter changes each year, so too do the other Lenten festivals that fix their dates according to Easter, such as Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
The story of Easter is one of persecution and rebirth, making it the central experience of the Christian belief system. On the Friday before Easter, Christians believe that Jesus was executed by crucifixion. His body is believed to have been removed from the cross and buried in a guarded cave, with a large boulder blocking the entrance.
Tradition continues that the following Sunday, Jesus’ gravesite was visited by faithful women-Jesus’ mother the Virgin Mary may have been among them-who discovered that the cave was empty. Later that day and for several days after, Jesus’ followers sighted him and came to believe that Jesus had been risen from the dead by God.
22 April will be Earth day: this event is celebrated since 1970.
The purpose of this day is to remember our world is in danger (just recently ago a group of British scientist in the Artic, proved the North Pole ice will be all melted in the 2019, if we don’t do nothing about pollution!
So my question is: How do you gonna celebrate, like start doing something to help the environment?
(i’ll start go to work by bus)
I am going to and have started to recycle more. Also being more careful not to leave the faucet running while brushing my teeth, closing the refrigerator door, shutting off unneeded lights and getting more energy efficient bulbs. Some bulbs are really expensive so we buy one at a time when we can.
Little things do add up.
Happy Earth Day everyone!!!
i’m dyin to get my hands on it and my dad can’t pay for it cause it nearly costs 8,000 here! in America it’s only 300 what the hell! you shouldn’t expect for me to get on chrismas or my birthday cause we don’t celebrate those, which is BS. besides my dad doesn’t even care about my birthday, and know one on his side or my mom’s side knows about my birthday! i want to get the Xbox360 badly man! of course i can’t always have want but tell that to my brother, he has 3 computers, a ps2, a scanner, an i-pod, and he’s getting a car of his own! all i have is my guitar but i don’t have any equipment for it! i need the xbox360 badly!
you know stuart, that sounds like a great idea! what was i thinking? oh yeah I’M A KID A$$HOLE!
You know what? You sound like a whining kid wanting stuff for me! me! me! me!
I have a great idea. Go get a job and pay for the things you want, instead of expecting your parents to pay for them or someone to give them to you for free.
Grow up.
Ok so i am "african-american" but how can i celebrate the history of my people if i dont know where my people are technically from. Yes i can celebrate the accomplishments of Black Americans but anyone can really
wow i got ignorant answers…
reading will allow you information but not a full understanding of where you are from.
You would be surprised at how many Americans do not know their family tree, regardless of race. We cling on to the word culture, but we really possess a similar American culture. It varies depending on region or income, but the American way of life is a culture. I wish that more people would get over trying to prove themselves in the present with ancestors from the past. History is filled with groups of people who enslaved and were slaves at some point in time. I appreciate learning about world history and how we came to be in this wonderful country. If you opened your eyes, you would find that America really is a great place to live. We have our problems, but if we concentrated on building our future instead of destroying each other with our past, we would be even greater.