I don't believe the bible mentions the practice of celebrating birthdays being unlawful. I believe the traditional of celebrating birthdays really didn't catch on with common people until the latter half of the 19th century or even later. Not because of religious beliefs but because most families could not afford the luxury of celebrating birthdays...and children were seen back in those days as more as a part of a labour force to help supplement family income.



I consider myself a christian and I celebrate my birthday, though it's pretty low-key not because of my lds beliefs... which in fact LDS members do observe birthdays..in fact lds members are encouraged to observe birthdays but for me it is matter of personal preference. It is certainly different for someone else. of course.



Hold the phone angy! Most christian denomations are hardly what you paint them to be..most celebrate birthdays, send thier kids to public schools and allow blood tranfusions and other medical treatment... and most of them have rules of conduct that are quite reasonable even by worldly standards and yet does not contradict the commandments. While I may disagree with some of the practices of Jehovah Witnesses as our friend Wes is a member of they in no way offend me personally.



Yes the early mormon church was indeed was severely persucuted not from the heathen but most of the persecution came from other christian denomination particularly the baptists...but you know full well that mormons were not the only ones who were persecuted. The jewish people for centuries were probably the most persecuted group in the history of the world especially in Russia, eastern Europe and later 20th century Nazi Germany and even today it is still one of the most hated group of people...particular in the middle east but you certainly get a great deal of anti-semitic sentiments in Europe and North America.

Lastly nearly every group paints itself as victims, including the atheists themselves.

Funny that the #1 country on that list - Norway has this in their wiki:

"only 20% of Norwegians say that religion occupies an important place in their life (according to a recent Gallup poll), the fourth-lowest such percentage in the world (only Estonia, Sweden and Denmark are lower). In the early 1990s, it was estimated that between 4.7% – 5.3% of Norwegians attended church on a weekly basis.This figure has dropped to about 2% – the lowest such percentage in Europe – according to 2009 and 2010 data"

He's back! Oh God...

You guys are just figuring that out now?

I've had my suspicions for a while, I just didn't want to rush to judgement. He still hasn't come out with any of his outright ugly beliefs.

Won't be too long.

You must be psychic Moony.

Well like Foob said. we'll see how this plays out. I don't want to pre-judge anyone.

There is some truth to that, sadly, due to poverty. However, birthdays were probably marked and celebrated since earliest days, especially certain important birthdays. Followers of Judaism celebrate the 13th birthday of males (bar mitzvah), and something like bar mitzvahs were probably celebrated by ancient Hebrews as the 13th birthday is mentioned in Hebrew texts. Hindus celebrate the 13th birthday too. Much like modern Europeans, Romans and other Italic peoples celebrated birthdays regularly, a practice that was condemned by some early Christians.

In 'On Levites', Origen viciously condemns celebrating birthdays. Origen was not all bad and not like a lot of fundamentalist Christians of the day as he seemed to believe in a universalist apokatastasis, a positive hangup from paganism.






Indeed. Birthdays are a valid observance in many human cultures.



I'll grant you that, but most fundamentalists seem to be. Very sad indeed.



Most might, thankfully, but there seems to be a shift in Christianity and I believe that Christianity of the future will turn more toward fundamentalist sects who disallow such things. OK blood transfusions are only really disallowed in JW as far as I know, but home-schooling is certainly very common with fundamentalists and so, apparently, is not celebrating birthdays (not even that of Jesus Christ sometimes!).



No offence meant to Wes, but I have known children of JWs who have died because their parents did not allow them to have blood transfusions. They could have list if not for such strange practices. This strikes me as a major black mark against JW. It is the social and moral duty of a parent to save the life of their children if possible, in my opinion.



Indeed, they were not. ''Heathens/pagans'' suffered far worse. Especially those in Europe and the Americas.



It is hard to say that they are the most persecuted group as you have Romani, Sindis etc. too. But they did, indeed, suffer great persecution. The Tsarists pogroms (which saw the publication of 'The Protocols of The Learned Elder's of Zion') still affect Judaism to this day, as do the actions of NAZI Germany. Jews are not a race, they are as ethnically diverse as Christians and Muslims, however, they were grouped as a race by regimes such as the NAZIs which also lead to the creation of negative and racialist Zionism which caused suffering to both Jews and Muslims.



But not as much as you would expect. Most Muslims are anti-Israeli not anti-Jewish (though there are anti-Jews too). Many ''Arabic'' Jews (often actually descended from the Hebrews themselves but mixed with Arabs) in, say, Palestine support the Palestinian cause because they are part of the Palestinian, rather than Israeli community. So the issue is not a black and white Jews vs. Muslims thing for the most part.



You do. You either get fanatic pro-Jews or fanatic anti-Jews. Both, in my opinion, are dangerous and absurd.



Some do, I'll give you that. However, atheists, like heathens and Christian ''heretics'', have more of a reason to. They were discriminated against by the Christian majority of post-heathen Europe for almost a millennium. Christians never suffered the amount of persecution that most groups received from Christians themselves. Even the anti-Christian riots in Gujarat (ironically, and sadly, the former home of Gandhi) do not compare to that of the Christian regimes in Europe in the centuries following the conversion of the majority of Europeans. Christians playing the victim card, especially in regards to heathens, always seems quite ironic and a little poor taste.

Christian heritage implies that the nations' cultures were always Christian when they were infact heathen before than and secular culture owes more to that fact. Christianity has never been able to completely replace the traditions of pre-Christian cultures, and the older customs are echoed in folklore and legal systems.

Case in point; the English legal system primarily derives from Old English tribal laws, despite the fact that Christianity became the main religion of England and it was conquered by Normans. The laws of pre-Norman England did have some influence from Latin and Mosaic law (Judaeo-Christian) but not to that great extent. Latin Law was also primarily from the legal codes of Ancient Rome.

And many strongholds of fundamentalist Christianity (like the southern US) and some African countries do not exactly have low crime rates.

Please show me your source for your claim of high crime rates in the southern U.S.