I sent my birthday document (http://thebentinel.com/jw-birthdays.html) to a poster here that is at the very least a jw-sympathizer, if not a full-blown JW. The response I got back indicated that my reasoning on it was seriously flawed and essentially any idiot with a passing knowledge of scripture and history can tell that birthdays are not something Christians should celebrate.
Of course, if you're not a Bible-believer or a God-believer, you couldn't care less about pagan origins and all that. But let's keep this conversation on the 'appropriate for Christians' vein. Please discuss it from that standpoint.
I think it's fair that any reasoning used to knock birthdays should be evenly applied. So for instance if it is thought that celebrating birthday's brings too much attention to a single person ("creature worship"), then all such celebrations should be forbidden -- wedding anniversarys, baby showers, etc. Is that reasonable? If not, why not?
Likewise, if a practice is to be forbidden due to its pagan origins, then other practices also linked to pagan practices should be forbidden -- wind chimes, wedding veils, pinatas, etc. Again, this is reasonable, isn't it?
Another argument is that the Bible only records two birthdays and they are both by bad guys at which bad things happened. So, to be fair, if any other things are not specifically forbidden in the Bible, but are attributed only to bad people, we should condemn them, too. So this should forbid the use of eye makeup and dog ownership, to name only two. I would be surprised if there weren't more examples of these.
The poster argued that birthdays were not celebrated by any servant of god in the bible, and that history shows that Christians specifically avoided celebrating theirs despite others around them doing so. I can't speak to the accuracy of that claim. It seems a foregone conclusion that we will do things today that Jesus didn't do. We speak a different language, live in a different culture, and exist in a two-milenia-removed world from Jesus and the apostles. It seems unreasonable to me to use the fact that it was 'not done by Jesus' as a reason to forbid it. But if Christians of the first-century truly did avoid them for religious and not just cultural reasons, that might give a Christian pause. (Can anybody cite a source to confirm this historical claim? The poster did not.)
A final argument against birthday celebrations is that the Bible says to remain without spot from the world, not to follow the ways of the nations, etc. I am of the opinion that these types of scriptures are wide open to interpretation in the form of "What 'ways' are Christians to not 'follow'?" Is it ok to tell people the customary "good-bye" when they leave, even though this means "god be with you"? Would it be inappropriate to follow the custom of waving to people in greeting? How is a Christian to decide which customs are OK and which ones are forbidden by these verses?
The poster that brought all this to my attention said, "God wants us to use our reasoning powers." The Bible does tell Christians to use their reasoning ability, so let's do that.
Am I just bending and twisting logic and scripture to create loopholes in a clearly implicit law to avoid birthdays?
Or have I reasoned out that the Watchtower 'goes beyond what is written' in forbidding them?
Your thoughts?
Dave