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Just going to drop this here and back slowly away:
1 Corinthians(that's first not one haha a little joke) 5Therefore judge nothing before the proper time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God. 6Brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what is written.” Then you will not take pride in one man over another. 7For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?…
In Luke 2:42 Jesus celebrated His twelfth birthday and He went up the Jerusalem after the custom of the feast ....So according the Jehovah Jesus son of God was wrong ? ................The in Luke 3:23 says ..`` And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age ``........... See Jesus had a thirtieth birthday as got water baptized at about thirty years old ..... So is Jesus disobeying Jehovah and having birthday and even remembering how old He is ................ I believe that these doctrines of JW are non biblical
Mix 'em up and hope no one notices.: Jesus was born a Jew, and on when he reached the age of 8 he was circumcised. Nothing to do with a birthday celebration. Jesus said "It is better the day you die than the day you are born" so why would he support birthdays?
When Jesus was about 30 years of age, he began his ministry. Not on his 30th Birthday he commenced...
In three years he had completed his ministry because as a human, as he was wrongly murdered on the stake, thus fulfilling many prophecies of the Messiah's coming.
He was baptized near the end of 29BCE.
I suggest that you read an accurate account of the scriptures you use to support your wrongly placed argument.
I am a none domination Christian. I believe in Christ as God, the Father and Holy Spirit. He is the central point of my faith and the reason for our salvation. But the question that lingers in my mind is what Jehovas Witness (JW) followers believe and why they believe what they do.
I've always been open minded. Like many, when I was younger I would try to discredit the things of God with history or science. I could go on with my personal philosophies as to why Christendom grew through out the world and influenced world powers like Rome, Spain and England. Never the less, I found a peace in the simple belief in Jesus Christ and I continue to grow to become a better man while on this earth.
Recently, a close family member joined JW and has ritually started to follow their teachings. I've know J.W. all my life and they are good decent people. The very reason for the start of their group was based on teaching errors made by "The Church" which were becoming more and more prevalent as the world became more enlightened and more educated in the area of just knowing how to read. This wasn't a new concept as Martin Luther and others had seen the errors in the teaching of the Cathoilc Church centuries before. You could even argue the start of Islam itself was a revolt against what they considered wrong teachings of the god of Abraham.
The little I know about J.W. is they don't believe in the Trinity concept, they don't celebrate holidays (especially Chistmas and New Years), Their belief of heaven is a bit different than most other Christian denominations and they don't celebrate birthdays. This last one, the birthdays really ticked me off recently as I've seen this family member get more and more involved in their beliefs. At a recent birthday celebration, this person and his wife quickly rushed into a bathroom while we were all singing happy birthday to another family member. This was a happy event and they acted as if an evil spirit had just entered the realm and they had to hide from it's presence while we sang happy birthday. The explanation I get is that this is based on the be-heading of John the Baptist on King Herods birthday.
So, I get it to a certain extent. They don't celebrate Christmas, new years or Easter because those dates are based on pagan holidays. The determination of what heaven and eternal life is and will be is up for debate. But to me, J.W witness have simply started to selectively take stories of the Bible and create their own doctrine, just as every other religion has always done and perhaps always will. Thought?
Comments: what do you mean by "ritually" started to follow?
Jw's cannot accept the degrading of Jehovah by making him only a third of his Almighty self. They do not accept the trinity which was no introduced into the Roman Church until 300 years after Jesus' time on earth, and by Constantine, the very Pagan Emperor of Rome.
Not celebrating birthdays has nothing to do with the two birthdays mention in the Bible.
The accuracies of the New World Translation might surprise most folk. The interpretations or wording is extensively studies before the Governing Body decides to accept them as accurate. I can list the sources of the Bible's content from the Jws. if you wish.
Jesus said to his disciples "My kingdom is no part of this world, just as you are no part of this world" “You are no part of the world.”—JOHN 15:19.
Revelation mentions Christendom, and Babylon the Great, which was the pagan center of the world of its time. The Definition is thus: Definition: The world empire of false religion, embracing all religions whose teachings and practices do not conform to the true worship of Jehovah, the only true God. Following the Flood of Noah’s day, false religion had its beginning at Babel (later known as Babylon). (Gen. 10:8-10; 11:4-9) In time, Babylonish religious beliefs and practices spread to many lands. So Babylon the Great became a fitting name for false religion as a whole.
Ancient Babylonian religious concepts and practices are found in religions worldwide
“Egypt, Persia, and Greece felt the influence of the Babylonian religion . . . The strong admixture of Semitic elements both in early Greek mythology and in Grecian cults is now so generally admitted by scholars as to require no further comment. These Semitic elements are to a large extent more specifically Babylonian.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898), M. Jastrow, Jr., pp. 699, 700. Their gods: There were triads of gods, and among their divinities were those representing various forces of nature and ones that exercised special influence in certain activities of mankind. (Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, Norman, Okla.; 1963, S. H. Hooke, pp. 14-40) “The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches. . . . This Greek philosopher’s [Plato’s] conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all the ancient [pagan] religions.”—Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel (Paris, 1865-1870), edited by M. Lachâtre, Vol. 2, p. 1467. Use of images: “[In Mesopotamian religion] the role of the image was central in the cult as well as in private worship, as the wide distribution of cheap replicas of such images shows. Fundamentally, the deity was considered present in its image if it showed certain specific features and paraphernalia and was cared for in the appropriate manner.”—Ancient Mesopotamia—Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago, 1964), A. L. Oppenheim, p. 184. Belief regarding death: “Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought [in Babylon] ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a passage to another kind of life.”—The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 556.
Do not say anything bad about the the Watchtower Society to your family memeber. They are told that they are getting so close to the truth that Satan will try and pull them away. They will actually believe that Satan is using you. True story I was 5 or 6 when I was told Satan was using my dad(not a JW) If you are serious about helping them read Steve Hassan first. You can also check out Robert Lifton and Margaret Singer but that stuff is tougher to wade through (I think). You can also get a feel for it looking through the threads I posted.
To answer your question. They are told that Holidays are from Pagan sources and degrades pure worship. Winter solstice, trees, lights, Easter (fertility), even the Cross is considered a phallic symbol. Birthdays are a little different because is all they have to go on is the beheading of John the Baptist and the cake being of Pagan origin. Technically, if you don't have a cake they can't action against you except for following the rules.
I am an EXJW so I want to mention that I am not presenting myself as someone who agrees with them. Take it for what it is worth. I personally believe all the rules are to isolate the person from the rest of society. They create an Us vs Them mentality and until you hear about the good news you are a maybe(see circular reasoning). If you don't know they will try and share with you. rejecting what they say automatically makes you a them. I know that having to stand outside the classroom while the other kids ate cake or whatever happened in 70/80s made me feel different than my peers. Having to stay seated while other kids stood for the Pledge was humiliating too. I did it but i wasn't happy about it. The fact that I wasn't happy about it was shame producing. It's a win/win for them to break the child and build them into a loyal servant or when they grow up and leave many self destruct.
If you have any other questions you can check out the ExJw sub on Reddit. There are people that understand all this a lot better than me. I am a baby apostate.
All Birthday celebrations mentioned in the Bible are by pagans and a person or persons were killed. It is possible that even the death of Job's children was during a birthday celebration and he never attended and prayed for them due to the potential for badness. The Bible paints a very negative view of such and even says the day of a man's death is better than his birth. Even Jesus' birthday is not given. Seems God is trying to get us to think ... and avoid what He shows us is ... not something He favors or wants done by His people.
Mix 'em up and hope no one notices.: Jesus was born a Jew, and on when he reached the age of 8 he was circumcised. Nothing to do with a birthday celebration. Jesus said "It is better the day you die than the day you are born" so why would he support birthdays?
When Jesus was about 30 years of age, he began his ministry. Not on his 30th Birthday he commenced...
In three years he had completed his ministry because as a human, as he was wrongly murdered on the stake, thus fulfilling many prophecies of the Messiah's coming.
He was baptized near the end of 29BCE.
I suggest that you read an accurate account of the scriptures you use to support your wrongly placed argument.
That would be was circumcised 8 DAYS after his birth, not 8 years...
I'm not. My status was inactive for 27 years. Someone at the Watchtower had the bright idea to shun inactives. The offenses I was given for being shunned was smoking and celebrating holidays. They have nothing to buy my silence with now.
Jehovah has a lot of issues. On top of being a psychopathic mass-murderer, he's a total buzzkill.
He wants his Witnesses to be as miserable and un-fun-loving as he is.
Stick with Jesus. Somehow, he didn't turn out to be as nasty as his old man. I think Joseph and Mary did a pretty decent job, considering the gene pool Jesus (supposedly) sprang from.
I'd never join any religion that denied people the simple pleasure of eating a piece of celebratory cake.
I'm mostly not a cake person, although I have a sweet tooth for other culinary delicacies.
Not a problem. More cake for me.
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