Can Jehovah's Witnesses eat someone else's birthday cake?

Answer 1

First, let me clarify something. We do not have this huge list of "do's and dont's." There are really only a few things that are specifically stated that are "dont's," and they are the ones you would expect such as don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultry, and stuff like that. The overwhelming vast majority of what guides JW's is what we call "conscience matters." These are areas where our Bible trained conscience is what we use to guide each of us individually and make a choices in what we will do and not do. Sharing a piece of birthday cake is one of those conscience matters. As a religion, we do not celebrate birthdays because birthday celebrations originated in pagan religion as a way to honor the god of a particular astroligical sign that the person was born under. The candles and cake were supposed to bring a blessing of good luck apon the celebrant from that particular pagan god. As a group, we feel that this violates The Bible's command to not give any worship to any god other than the God of heaven. So, because of the pagan roots, JW's generally feel that they should not celebrate birthdays. Ususally this includes sharing birthday cake, since the cake also had a pagan religious significance in these celebrations. Some JW's, however, feel that after the celebration is over, whatever cake is left has lost it's religious significance and is no longer part of the celebration. This was true of sacrificial animals that pagans offered to their pagan gods apon pagan altars in the first century and then later sold in the meat market. Christians were told that since the meat had lost it's ceremonial significance, they could eat that meat. In view of this, some JW's today might choose to eat some leftover birthday cake. But, when that individual JW feels that his doing so may stumble or confuse one of his fellow JW's, or even his non-JW workmates or family, then he might choose to not do so out of concern for the conscience of the others around him.