What he said.jim stone wrote:Religious views can become a kind of idolatry.
God is love.
What I hear is that you're using a religious (or quasi-religious) belief to tell the world how special you are and to try to get the people around you to do things they don't understand to accomodate your specialness. I see nothing in your performance here that indicates compassion for the other people involved, humility, patience, self sacrifice, etc. It seems to be all about you.
If the idea of not celebrating birthdays is to avoid creating a culture of vanity, you've got it completely backwards.
If they want to give you birthday presents, that's very nice. If you don't want to celebrate your birthday, then thank them nicely, keep the presents or pass them along to someone else if they're not something you can use, and stop making a fuss. In making the fuss, you're violating the spirit of the rule. You're telling the world that you don't want to make a big deal of birthdays, but you're making a big deal of birthdays.
The rule is not for them, it's for you. It's to help you live without vanity, not to give you something to use to make other people do (or not do) what you want them to do.
As to religious beliefs, I question whether this is really a belief that's necessary to your religion. If your religion calls for humility, you can honor that call by not making a fuss about yourself. However, by announcing to the world that this is a RELIGIOUS belief, and one that you want them to change their behavior to accomodate, it looks like you're using the pretext of religion as a lever to try to control the people around you. Do you suppose this pleases God?
Best wishes,
Jerry
