Blood Doctrine - JW please answer

by golden age 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  skeeter1

  "Abstain from blood" = Sanctity for life = 45 MPH

  Think of it the scripture this way...

  If you were driving your wife, who was in labor, to the hospital...and the speed limit was 45mph, would you "break" the law? Yes, and the police officer would give you an escort.

  If you were an ambulance driver on the way to an emergency, can you break the 45 mph limit? Of course.

  Without an emergency-type situation, can you break the speed limit? No.

  Same thing with the blood laws (both in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition).

  Skeeter
• 

  TD

  learntoswim,

  At the risk of sounding confrontational, (I honestly don't intend it that way.) I've never been able to make heads or tales of this JW reasoning:

  The difference in eating and transfusing blood is in my view nullified by taking a look at the reason why God said not to eat it. I believe this is very important to the issue. When you look at the commands God gave to the Jews, he on many occassions explained that the blood means the life, it is something he views sacred.

  Unlike the JW's, the Jews understand that direct commands from God may be contravened only by other direct commands from God. In other words, human speculation on the unstated reasons behind command 'A' would, in and of itself, never justify setting aside command 'B'.

  God has told us directly in plain and simple, black and white, clear and unambiguous terms that we are not to cause or be the cause of the loss of innocent human life. Yet when it comes to the life of a child, an aged parent, an adult of diminished responsibility or any other situation where you would be responsible for the life of another, adherence to the JW transfusion medicine taboo can easily result in the responsibility for the loss of life falling directly on your shoulders. (Witness children have died from things as mundane as falling off of a skateboard.)

  This seems to me to be a clear case where command 'B' would be set aside based upon human speculation on the unstated reasons behind command 'A.'

  e.g. God didn't want us to eat blood because he views all blood as sacred. Therefore we can assume that He wouldn't want blood to be transfused either.

  It should be poured out on the ground, and not ingested. It is apparent to me from this that God was not just saying, don't eat it because I don't want it to go into your stomachs, rather the actual principle is he would hate for anyone to take in blood into their bodies.

  I think you're equivocating here. Disparate acts are not rendered either physical or moral equivalents simply by referring to them with a term sufficiently generic to apply to both. There's a huge difference for example, between taking water into your digestive system (Your stomcach) versus taking water into your respiratory system (Your lungs) Although you could truthfully say that a drowning victim died from "Taking in" water, drinking and drowning are not physically equivalent acts in anything other than that which can be described with an extremely generic term such as this.

  The same is true of moral equivalency. For example, the Law proscribed murder, but at the same time it provided for capital punishment for certain crimes. Why was this not contradictory? Because murder and capital punishment are not moral equivalents. And referring to them both by using the generic term, "Killing" doesn't change that fact.

  If the consumption of blood and the transfusion of blood are equivalent acts either physically or morally (Or both) it would be because this equivalency can be clearly demonstrated in concrete terms, not because they can both be described with a generic term like, "Taking in." The latter is simply the fallacy of equivocation.

  Transfusion medice must be positively shown to fall under the umbrella created by the specific commands against eating blood. Anything less than this and the clamaint has for all intents and purposes professed to know the mind of God by claiming to know what God was consciously thinking at the time He caused the command to be written even though that intent is nowhere expressed in the words He inspired to be written.

  (I know that wasn't your intent.)
• 

  golden age

  Just a few follow up comments:

  You believe Jesus would not consider his healing as work because he was not a mortal and did it through miracles. But that was not what jesus was trying to teach remember what he said was if an ox falls into a hole on the sabbath would you not get it out. I believe he was giving the example that even a mortal helping someone (ie working) on the sabath was ok even though it violated a law because it helpped protect life which god holds as the most important

  Additionally, I read your article about vaccination, I must say being that I have extensive personal study in the area of medical history, quite simply I do NOT agree, first off small pox was transmitted via the respiratory route and therefore improved sanitary conditions would have not had any impact with this disease (yes other diseases such as polio, cholera, ect would be helped by sanitation), any respectable expert in the history of medicine would agree that the small pox vaccine, originally developed by edward jenner, is what caused this horrible disease to be eliminated from that vaccination did not reduce suffering of millions of people is quite frankly a serous error.

  As far as the scriptural evidence charles russell may have had when he made the statement in the watchtower that the restrictions in acts were not ment to be binding on the gentiles but rather to help christians and jews get along, we must consider 1 corentians below

  1 2 Now in regard to meat sacrificed to idols: we realize that "all of us have knowledge"; knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.

  2 If anyone supposes he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

  3 But if one loves God, one is known by him.

  4 So about the eating of meat sacrificed to idols: we know that "there is no idol in the world," and that "there is no God but one."

  5 Indeed, even though there are so-called gods in heaven and on earth (there are, to be sure, many "gods" and many "lords"),

  6 3 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things are and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and through whom we exist.

  7 But not all have this knowledge. There are some who have been so used to idolatry up until now that, when they eat meat sacrificed to idols, their conscience, which is weak, is defiled.

  8 4 Now food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better off if we do.

  9 But make sure that this liberty of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.

  10 If someone sees you, with your knowledge, reclining at table in the temple of an idol, may not his conscience too, weak as it is, be "built up" to eat the meat sacrificed to idols?

  11 Thus through your knowledge, the weak person is brought to destruction, the brother for whom Christ died.

  12 When you sin in this way against your brothers and wound their consciences, weak as they are, you are sinning against Christ.

  13 5 Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to sin.

  Here we see that although in acts there is a prohibition against eating meat sacrificed to idols, paul states we are no worse off if we do not eat (if this was a law we would be much better off if we did not eat), this is basically saying if you read it carefully that we perhaps should choose not to eat the meat sacrificed to idols not because it is bad for us but in order to help keep are brothers strong (ie in acts to keep peace with the jews)

  Again these are just some things to consider