Insight on the News

War Toys Harm Children

● An international convention of child experts meeting at Salonica, Greece, stressed the fact that child play is not just an innocent activity without a purpose; it is also a manifestation of human existence. It allows the child to learn behavior patterns and to communicate his feelings to the surrounding world.

Particular emphasis was placed on the negative aspects of having imitation war weapons as playthings for children. It was agreed that such war toys cultivate a tendency to aggression in children. For this reason it was proposed that governments impose controls on the industries that manufacture such toys.

Parents who have respect for life, and for God’s laws, observe that his Word tells them to “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. . . . Neither will they learn war anymore.” (Isa. 2:4) God’s Word also counsels: “Let us pursue the things making for peace and the things that are upbuilding to one another.” (Rom. 14:19) Hence, conscientious parents will not let their children use toys that build hostility and disrespect for God’s gift of life.

Fidelity Superior

● Throughout the world today, moral standards are declining. More and more married people have sex relations with someone other than their mate. Yet studies show that most of those who commit adultery do not find happiness.

Professor of Sociology C. B. Broderick of the University of Southern California states that the age-long moral prohibitions in the “thousands of societies which have condemned infidelity” are well founded. He says: “These traditional moral prohibitions are founded upon certain fundamental [truths] concerning human relationships. Among these is the principle that no society can function without the expectation that social contracts will be honored, and no social contract is of any value unless the fidelity of the partners to the contract is required.”

This sociologist observes that committing oneself to a “master principle such as the Golden Rule would seem to me to preclude any act [such as adultery] which had the potential of devastating another person. Although I have seen the anguish that infidelity can bring, I have never observed anyone being destroyed by fidelity.”

After listing many other supporting points, he concludes: “For all these reasons, I judge marital fidelity to be a great value to individuals, to couples, to families, and to the entire social fabric.” This view harmonizes with that of the originator of marriage, Jehovah God, who declares: “Let marriage be honorable among all, and the marriage bed be without defilement, for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.”​—Heb. 13:4; Prov. 5:15-23.

Christmas of Pagan Origin

● The pagan origin of Christmas is becoming more widely acknowledged. In New Zealand, the Auckland “Star” says of the December 25 holiday: “The Romans’ feast to the god Saturn​—Saturnalia, and the Persian festival for the birthday of the god, Mithra, were also held on this day.”

How did Christmas come to fall on the same day? One reason, the “Star” notes, is that several centuries after the death of Christ, apostate Christians “wishing to transform pagan festivals rather than abolish them, set December 25 aside to celebrate the birth of Christ.”

In the Mount Pleasant, Michigan, “Daily Times” an editorial opinion says regarding Christmas: “Its celebration on the 25th of December is in no way whatsoever an accurate dating of the Birth of Jesus.” It notes that the date was “for the Romans, the Festival of ‘Sol Invictus’​—the Unconquerable Sun—​a concept inherited from Greek Culture, who had borrowed it from the Near East. . . . Even today many of the old Pagan Customs, not only from ancient Rome itself but from all over Western Europe, have crept into our celebration of the Festival of Christmas, including holly, mistletoe, Christmas trees, presents, drinking and feasting, and indeed the secular observance of Christmas, at least in America, is not unlike the old Roman Observance of the Festival of Sol Invictus by the Romans.”

So Christians who do not celebrate Christmas find solid support in history.