While much attention is given to doctrine in sites such as this, very little is noted about the Watchtower Society’s intellectual dishonesty in its publications, especially when it comes to quotations.

Oftentimes the Society’s writers will cite a scholar or author of some repute: "Professor Blank observes that blah, blah, blah." The reader assumes from the quotation that Professor Blank is in agreement with the organization’s position, of course, and that the quotation chosen accurately depicts the author’s thoughts.

Here’s the catch: The words between the quotation marks may be accurate, but the snippet may not at all faithfully represent someone’s actual thesis or position. Much like a newspaper ad for a movie that quotes a reviewer as saying "Monumental!" when in actuality he has fumed about its stupidity and saying it is "a monumental piece of poo." Just one solitary example for now:

In the Watchtower 10/15/00 Questions from Readers about its policy on blood and blood fractions, there appears a quotation from "Professor Frank Gorman," which reads: "The pouring out of the blood is best understood as an act of reverence that demonstrates respect for the life of the animal and, thus, respect for God, who created and continues to care for that life."

Great quote, huh? It's accurate, every word cited correctly. Sounds like he agrees with the Society’s views on respect for the "sanctity of life," right? You’re impressed, yes? A "professor" buttresses the policy and position, Christians should pour out blood rather than accept it. Lofty language that sanctions the death of a child from "declining" a life-saving infusion of packed red cells as an act of reverence. You’re impressed, right?

Guess what, folks. The Watchtower writer omitted Gorman's very next sentence! And he ignored the preceding material as well. Like to know what the author's true argument is? Here’s the true quotation about pouring out blood, directly from his book, specifics further down.

"IT IS A HUNTING RITUAL THAT IS ENJOINED ON [who?] THE ISRAELITES and is distinct from, but not related to, THE RULINGS ON ISRAEL’S +RITUAL+ ACTIVITY IN RELATION TO THE ALTAR. IN POURING OUT THE BLOOD, THE HUNTER ‘PRESENTS’ THE LIFE OF THE ANIMAL TO YAHWEH." (P. 104)

Hunting ritual? Hel-lo! Did the Watchtower writer just not read that next sentence after the one he quoted? Did he just stop reading one sentence too soon?

Let’s start reading at the subheading that precedes the material from which the W writer took his single sentence. Here’s the accurate quotation: "Verses 13-14 ADDRESS THE QUESTION OF ANIMAL BLOOD IN RELATION TO [now get this, dear reader] HUNTING." (P. 103)

Ooops. The W writer must have missed that sentence too. Let’s go on:

"There is a basic ruling (v. 13) and an explanation for it (v. 14). In the explanatory statement, the association of the life of an animal and its blood connects this unit to the previous one. [see below] The blood of an animal or bird killed for food must be poured out on the ground and covered with earth (v. 13). The explanation follows: ‘because the life of all flesh, its blood is bound up with its life.’ (v. 14). This is a restatement of the notion that the life of an animal is in its blood (vv. 10-12). Yahweh has prohibited the consumption of blood precisely because the life of an animal is in its blood. Any person who eats it will be ‘cut off.’"

Then comes the sentence the Watchtower quoted about pouring out blood as an act of reverence! Now you get the context. And then comes the sentence that IT IS A HUNTING RITUAL enjoined on the ISRAELITES. The author is very clear on this. One would have to be braindead to misunderstand his reasoning.

Do you think the Watchtower writer just didn't read the surrounding material? He read just once sentence without looking at the context? At best the quotation is careless and merely misleading. In reality it badly twists and distorts the truth and gives the thought that an authority, a PROFESSOR (they could have chosen to call him Dr. Gorman) is in agreement with the Society on this sacred blood issue. They want you to believe that true scholars, like "true Christians" (in Watchtowerese), subscribe to this view of blood. Dissenters are just out of step.

Where was the governing body when this deceitful gem was put in the "food at the proper time"? Does this strengthen your faith in a 'faithful slave' that is viewed de facto as infallible?

This kind of dishonesty is a regular practice, of which enlightened readers are well aware, and of which more than a few even in Writing are ashamed. ‘Ah, but we make no pretense at infallibility; we’re imperfect. Just wait on Jehovah to correct matters.’ That's getting very old.

The Society’s current policy on the use of blood and blood fractions is horribly inconsistent and dead wrong--and many in high places know it. The QFR was a transparent attempt to portray the policy in a more favorable light. In so doing they really distorted both the facts and the essence of Professor Gorman’s lucid argument, wanting readers to infer what he does not even imply.

More information for those interested, worth the time it will take to read further: The book is "Leviticus, Divine Presence and Community," Eerdmans, Grand Rapids MI, 1997, a 160-page paperback. It presents the holiness code of Leviticus 17-26 very lucidly; it’s very informative and instructive, "practical for our day." (You will find nothing about blood transfusion prohibition, of course.) Its author is Frank H. Gorman, Jr., Chair of Religious Studies at Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, a school which is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ.

Gorman sees holiness not as an abstract quality but as "a relational category that comes into being in, by, and through enacted relationships based on justice, integrity, honest, and faithfulness." A comment, then more of his material.

I wonder how Gorman would feel if he knew how his well crafted sentence was lifted out of context? Ethics? Bet he has no idea that what he has written about "justice, integrity, honesty and faithfulness" in the Christian community has been distorted in millions of magazines all over the globe, in scads of languages—in furtherance of a flawed, inconsistent policy that lets children literally die to show respect for life symbolically. Someone ought to write him and ask him what he thinks about the Society’s honesty and faithfulness!

"Unit Three" of Leviticus Chapter 17 is vv. 10-12 and stands at the center of the chapter, according to Gorman. You really ought to read the whole book; I’ll snip for space. "Although the text does not explicitly state that life is sacred or that it belongs to God, it is probable that the priests would have attached sacred significance to the life in the blood…. The blood is not to be consumed because it has a RITUAL [caps mine] use. The reason for this statement, however, forms the crux of the interpretive problem: ‘because the blood, by the life, will expiate. (v. 11c)’" (P. 102)

Gorman notes that "the life of an animal is in its blood, and the blood has been ‘set apart’ to address a wide range of problems having to do with sin, trespass, and impurity. Thus, it is in the expiatory power of the ritual process that is emphasized in this text. The manipulation of the blood [by placing it on the altar, et cetera] effects expiation. THAT IS THE PRIMARY REASON FOR THE BLOOD PROHIBITION. The reason it is effective in ritual is because it is ‘charged’ with the life of the animal. In addition, it is probable that the text prohibits the consumption of blood because the life of the animal is considered sacred." [Caps mine.]

And again: "The blood expiates because of the life that is in it. Emphasis is placed on the ritual use of the life in the blood. The manipulation of the (life in the) blood, **in the context of ritual,** [Gorman’s own parentheses and italics] expiates on behalf of the Israelites.

"Thus it is the expiatory power of the ritual process that is emphasized in this text. The manipulation of the blood effects expiation. That is the primary reason for the blood prohibition." —(P. 102)

I posted this on the old H20 and thought I would redo it in a second airing even though it seemed to be received with a casual ho-hum. How do you feel about such egregious dishonesty?

Maximus
"Veritas Vos Liberabit"

Maximus,

: Veritas Vos Liberabit"

Truth and liberty?

Truth through liberty?

Truth through root-canals?

Truth or consequences?

Verdad: perhaps that means not truth or "true", but something else.

You simply must speak in a language that we schmucks understand, Maximus. I have a hard enough time trying to communicate in a live language, let alone a dead one.

Farkel, the big dummy

Y'know, the GB is really more advanced than I ever thought. The ban on blood is because the soul is in the blood.

Well.

Now, since we can accept blood fractions, the GB is saying that not only is the soul in the blood, but the GB knows in WHICH FRACTION of the blood the soul is in. Well damn. If they know that, then all we need to do is separate that fraction that's got the soul in it and then we can transfuse the rest.

Hot Damn!

Come on Boys. Don't keep us in suspenders. Tell us in which fraction the soul is found so we can accept the rest. If you'da tole us where it was years ago, we coulda saved lots of our friends and relatives from death because of your "policies."

One more thing. That blood fraction that has the soul in it? Does it glow in the dark?

Francois

I will thank you Maximus, for this article you researched. I sure appreciate the opportunity to hear the inside view of things from ones in higher positions such as former district overseers and elders. It is otherwise very difficult for a lowly R&F peon like me to learn what's really going on. I have been a witness 27 years and I have learned more about what is going on behind the scenes in the org reading on this board and other WT exposing sites in 3 months than in all that 27 years.

This example of WT insincerity is very disturbing, and certainly gives one pause to think of the consequences one might have personally suffered in emergency situations by relying on reasoning supported by this type of duplicity in quoting the work of outside authors. And of the definite tragedy which others have suffered by it.

LMR

I agree Farkel, the subject Maximus addresses is an important one for thinking people—they want to know if serious material is scholarly.

Here is another example of Maximus’ point:

From the Reasoning book:

Does the Bible’s prohibition include human blood?
Yes, and early Christians understood it that way. Acts 15:29 says to "keep abstaining from . . . blood." It does not say merely to abstain from animal blood. (Compare Leviticus 17:10, which prohibited eating "any sort of blood.") Tertullian (who wrote in defense of the beliefs of early Christians) stated: "The interdict upon ‘blood’ we shall understand to be (an interdict) much more upon human blood."—The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, p. 86.

Tertullian’s full sentence from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, p. 86:

Sufficient it is, that in this place withal there has been preserved to adultery and fornication the post of their own honour between idolatry and murder: for the interdict upon "blood" we shall understand to be (an interdict) much more upon human blood. [The part quoted by the Society is bolded]

[End quotes]

It is evident the Society wants readers to conclude that the quoted material (Tertullian’s) supports the idea of abstaining from eating human blood. It is also evident that Tertullian’s remarks were not at all about eating human blood. Rather, Tertullian’s remark was that the interdict to abstain from blood found in the Apostolic Decree of Acts chapter 15 applies "much more upon human blood" in respect to murder. In this portion of Tertullian we find nothing at all to support the Society’s contention that the Apostolic Decree applied to eating human blood.

It is true that some early Christian writers abhorred and denounced the practice of eating human blood, but this practice had to do with eating blood from executed convicts or slaughtered gladiators. In each case persons were partaking of blood taken by force. This is fundamentally different from accepting donor blood for transfusion. With donor blood there is no killing involved. There is no religious or ritualistic aspect involved in modern blood transfusion. The practice of eating blood of slaughtered humans is wholly dissimilar from accepting donor blood. We have no idea how early Christian’s would have felt about the practice of transfusion of donor blood. The idea was completely unknown to them.

Spokesmen for the Society have often depended upon the prophetic significance of blood sacrifices to instill an even higher regard for the command to abstain from blood. Since Jewish blood sacrifices are said to foreshadow Jesus’ own atoning blood then they argue the Apostolic Decree to abstain from blood is of the utmost importance. The problem with this argument is it ignores that Jesus invited people to eat his blood. Though this is recorded as a figurative statement, the Society’s argument about Jesus’ blood invokes figurative significance as though it has material application to literal blood. They want to invoke one aspect of that figurative significance but they want to ignore plain language to figuratively "eat" of the same blood! On one hand they want us to apply the figurative import of Jesus’ blood toward eating blood. On the other hand, they want us to ignore the figurative import of eating Jesus’ blood toward eating blood. In this argument the Society also completely avoids the fact that this blood of Jesus, that he encouraged eating of, was donated blood. Modern blood transfusions use donated blood.

Oddly enough, as of the June 15, 2000 Watchtower, the Society has deemed it a "conscience matter" for a JW to accept blood substitutes made from animal or human blood that uses hemoglobin as its main ingredient. This blood may or may not be donated. Cows are killed to obtain this hemoglobin, hemoglobin the JWs are already accepting.

Readers of this forum might enjoy the article found at http://www.jwbloodreview.org . It analyzes the biblical Apostolic Decree versus what the Society teaches on the subject. I recommend the site.

Hi Maximus,
Thanks for this great info. and presentation.
I would also love to find out what this author would do if
he knew his research was being used to endorse the bloodguilty
policy on blood tranfusions of the Watch Tower Society. I'm
sure he knows that this policy has resulted in many deaths.

Hi Marvin Shilmer,

Thanks, I didn't know that the WTS fooled us in this reference.
What a bunch of shameless underhanded liars!

Salutatio Maximus

Thank you for the excellent info!
The dishonest wts scholarship(and I use that word loosely) almost makes me ill. Remembering how I swallowed that swill is even worse.
Marvin,excellent addendum,regards,Tina
((((((fark)))))))))ty for bringing this back up to our attention!

Hello Maximus,

excellent piece of research...it' a
good proof or for some a remeinder, of the scholastic
" h o n e s t y " of the WTS writers.

Agape, J.C. MacHislopp

Thanks for your kind words, Farkel.
Philo:
:: Do you feel they employ these dishonest means across the board, or only carefully and in respect of a small range of difficult issues?

The latter is really the case. How do they get by with it? Few in the Society’s audience are equipped with the facts, or the ability to grasp basic fallacies in reason, much less challenge them. Please note that the Society quotes but does not cite or give the reference, and not many would take the time to check the facts.

You must also understand there is a certain culture in the Writing Department that allows this kind of dishonesty. And AlanF is right on target. A certain infallibility complex is there among some, a kind of license under the aegis of the "spirit-anointed governing body."

Thinking of Marvin’s post above, let me say that they will tell you that they are the ones who can understand and interpret what Tertullian meant, never mind what he actually said, because they start with a premise rather than reaching a conclusion after looking at all the facts. They make quotations to make a point, period. They’ve got the backing of the faithful slave, you know, even if individually they do not profess to be of the anointed.

Too, there is a certain circular reasoning that obtains: ‘since the Watchtower is food at the proper time, and since these statements appear in the magazine, they must be true—because they are a product of the holy spirit.’ That is the mindset even with governing body members, who get their magazines, i.e. get fed, at the same time as do other Bethel family members.

Thoughtful persons who know better just keep their mouths shut or pay a price for honesty by being labeled a doubter or troublemaker or worse. Reminds me, Nathan Knorr was actually boastful when he stated to intimates that he had no time to read the publications.

Let me give you some insight: it was painfully obvious to many that the Society’s vacillations on numerous items of policy were glaring to the point of embarrassment. So the late Karl Klein, a senior writer and one of the GB himself, wrote the very strained Watchtower article on "tacking," in an effort to explain away and justify how they could veer left, then right.

Karl himself never embraced the 1975 date; neither did others—Lyman Swingle never embraced the 1914 stuff period. But Karl was an apologist for the Society’s position and loyally tried to explain away the difficulties.

In 1966 I asked Karl how Fred Franz could be trotting out that hoary reasoning on dates again; weren’t we going to be in for a disaster in 1976? Karl told me that it was much like the Judge, who after admitting he had "made an ass of himself" over the 1925 prophetic failure went right back to date-setting. Karl said: "The Judge just really wanted to see the end so bad in his lifetime that he got to believing his own writings." He observed the same thing had happened with Fred Franz, and that FWF felt the stimulus would be good for the organization even if it were not true.

What you have is followers following followers following followers, in a system that has momentum of his own and not easily changed.

Let me offer another example of the use of selective quotations. For many, many years the Society has quoted famed British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle out of context. They have portrayed him as against evolution and as a creationist. I’ll be charitable and say that writer after writer trotted out the same stuff for years, without checking. You can find the citations for yourself, so I’ll just supply Hoyle’s.

Take a look at the dust jacket of his book "The Intelligent Universe" which speaks for itself: "The **Darwinian** theory of evolution is shown to be plainly wrong. Life has evolved [!!!] because biological components of cosmic origin have been progressively assembled here on Earth. These components have arrived from outside, borne in from the cosmos on comets" ... "The key to understanding evolution is the virus. The viruses responsible for evolution and the viruses responsible for diseases are very similar." (Published first in 1983 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.)

Note that it is Darwinism and not evolution that Sir Fred takes issue with. He believes that our planet is an "assembly station" that was "seeded" from outer space and that life did indeed evolve, just not from inanimate matter. Please also note that his thesis is not buried somewhere in his books; they are the heart and soul of his clearly written argument.

It is difficult to believe that the Society’s writers have never read an entire publication by Sir Fred or more than a line or two. If they have not, their misrepresentations are indefensible. If they have read his books, they are obviously suppressing or misrepresenting what the distinguished astronomer really espouses, because it is quite impossible to read his books without understanding what he clearly articulates.

In using this and similar books in the past, perhaps the Society’s writer looked only at the FRONT of the book’s dust jacket, whose subtitle is "A New View of Creation and Evolution," and did not look at the BACK, on which there are a picture of the astronomer and in large print the words, "We have DESCENDED FROM LIFE SEEDED FROM THE DEPTHS OF SPACE." (Caps mine.)

On page 41 of the Creator book under the heading "A Deliberate Intellectual Act" in another, longer quotation we read (finally after all these years) the all-but-buried clause referring to Hoyle, "even espousing that life on earth arrived from outer space," while the paragraph ends by quoting him that "it seemed better to suppose that the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act." (You are encouraged to read the entire page for yourself.)

Sounds great, he believes in God and creation, right? Once again the sentences are taken out of context, so that the reader will infer what the author does not imply. The reader readily concludes that a toweringly important scientist believes what JWs believe.

Read for yourself Hoyle’s discussions about cosmic intelligences superior to ours. And what does he actually believe about creation?

In his own words: "It makes little difference whether the Universe was created in 4004 BC as Archbishop Ussher asserted, or 10,000,000 years ago, if indeed there ever was a creation, which as we have seen there are plenty of reasons to doubt." [!]

Hoyle winds up his argument by noting: "Because the correct logical procedure is to build upwards from precisely formed subroutines, we on the Earth had to evolve [!] from a seemingly elementary starting point. Yet so powerful was the onward surge, so urgent the climb up the great mountain, that on Earth a creature at last arose with an inkling in its mind of what it really was, a whisper of its identity: We are the intelligence that preceded us in its new material representation—or rather, we are the re-emergence of that intelligence, the latest embodiment of its struggle for survival." (Pp. 238, 239.)

You be the judge: Does Sir Fred Hoyle believe what the Society would have you think? Is the basic belief of Sir Fred Hoyle supportive of the Society’s position? Absolutely not. That hasn’t stopped them from misquoting him for years.

A final thought: When teaching at Gilead School, Bert Schroeder (now an aged and frail member of the GB) used to cite the rule "falsus in uno, falsus in toto" as a standard to determine trustworthiness—"untrue in one, untrue in all."

Time to apply this yardstick.

Maximus

Philo,

:P.S. People often refer to "circular reasoning" when talking about WT Society arguments. Exactly what do we mean?

Circular reasoning is when the conclusion is used to prove the assertion, which is then used to prove the conclusion.....

Here are several easily-understood examples.

"The Bible is God's Word. How do we know the Bible is God's Word?"
Because the Bible SAYS it is God's word, that's why."

"The Governing Body acts as spokesmen for the Faithful and Discrete Slave class, which was appointed by Jehovah Himself."

"Yeah, well how do you know that?"

"Since the Governing Body is now acting as spokesman for Jehovah and the FDS, it MUST be true." (In otherwords, the GB is God's spokesman because it says its God's spokesman!)

This is a form of a fallacy of Presumption called "Begging the Question," and actually is a form of deception, because the arguer is trying to give validity that is not established. Here's another example:

Here's another one that many people will swear "makes sense":

"Capital punishment is justified for the crimes of murder and kidnapping because it is quite legitimate that someone be put to death for such hateful crimes."

This is the kind of thing one sees all the time in newspaper editorials, but when you cut through the crap, the argument boils down to: capital punish is justified because it is justified, which is not an argument at all, but an opinion. Nothing is proven. The deceptive phrase "quite legitimate" means it is "justified."

Farkel