I emailed this in the hope of helping the presenter or getting published. What do you think?
Dear editor,
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WTBTS), a multi-million dollar publishing company, has a history of bizarre medical teachings and quack science - the blood teaching being only one. It is enlightening to consider some of the beliefs that were once taught by the WTBTS as truths from God, and below are a few quotations of “old truths” or “old light”, which is Witness doublespeak for things once considered God’s Truths, but which are no longer believed. (The Golden Age was the former name of the Awake! magazine.)
"Vaccination summed up is the most unnatural, unhygienic, barbaric, filthy, abhorrent, and most dangerous system of infection known. Its vile poison taints, corrupts, and pollutes the blood of the healthy, resulting in ulcers, syphilis, scrofula, erysipelas, tuberculosis, cancer, tetanus, insanity, and death."
- The Golden Age, January 3, 1923, p. 214
"It has never been proven that a single disease is due to germs."
- The Golden Age, Jan 16, 1924, p250
"Thinking people would rather have smallpox than vaccination, because the latter sows the seed of syphilis, cancers, eczema, erysipelas, scrofula, consumption, even leprosy and many other loathsome affections. Hence the practice of vaccination is a crime, an outrage and a delusion."
- The Golden Age May 1, 1929 page 502
"Avoid serum inoculations and vaccinations as they pollute the blood stream with their filthy pus. "
- The Golden Age Nov 13, 1929 pp. 106, 107
"VACCINATION HAS NEVER SAVED A HUMAN LIFE-IT DOES NOT PREVENT SMALL POX"
- The Golden Age Feb 04, 1931 p. 294/297
"What the people need more than food is faith in God, and a set of active bowels which means a healthy brain....Up until now he has been poisoned, stupefied, clogged and hampered by the Devil. He has been a slave to politicians, wholesale food magnates, preachers, railroads, bad cooks, worse doctors, an abnormal appetite, greedy undertakers and aluminum cooking utensils."
- The Golden Age Nov 28, 1928 pp. 136, 137
"SO-CALLED medical science has made another "discovery". That is not extraordinary, for it has made many in ages past and will make many more in ages to come, for "discoveries" are easy to make by an institution founded on ignorance, error, and superstition. Some day so-called medical science will discover that all its "discoveries" have discovered nothing but its own ignorance."
- The Golden Age Jan 09, 1929 p. 245
Thankfully they no longer believe this nonsense.
For several years Witnesses were not allowed organ transplants, and unknown numbers died during this period for following the WTBTS:
"...removing the organ and replacing it directly with an organ from another human, this is simply a shortcut. Those who submit to such operations are thus living off the flesh of another human. That is cannibalistic. However, in allowing man to eat animal flesh Jehovah God did not grant permission for humans to try to perpetuate their lives by cannibalistically taking into their bodies human flesh, whether chewed or in the form of whole organs or body parts taken from others. "
- The Watchtower Nov 15, 1967 p. 702
The WTBTS have also reversed this teaching so that Witnesses today accept organ transplants.
The WTBTS’s instructions to followers on blood has changed considerably over the decades, resulting in the current hypocritical situation where a Witnesses can have all the blood fractions, but not whole blood, that is, all blood fractions mixed with water. One wonders if it is the mixing together or the water that is biblically objected to.
Can you imagine the trauma of someone who allows a family member to die because of this teaching and then finds out the truth about the organisation and leaves it? Imagine their grief after discovering that they allowed a loved one to die for literally nothing more than obedience the crazed, ever changing teachings of a US cult, the same cult who not so long ago were teaching that it was better to have smallpox than a vaccination, using exactly the same arguments that they use now for the restriction on blood transfusions, namely that it is the same as feeding on blood. Nonsense. A blood transfusion is not digested, it is in effect a liquid organ transplant, and organ transplants are now allowed by the WTBTS.
What most non-Witnesses do not realise is that had this young woman accepted a transfusion she would have been disfellowshipped, which means no other Witness would ever speak to her again or even acknowledge her existence – including her children once they became baptised Witnesses themselves and left home, though the rules on this constantly change also. For most Witnesses this is the most family-wrecking teaching of the WTBTS affecting millions of people worldwide. (See The Watchtower, Apr 15th, 1988, p28) Also, Emma Gough had been indoctrinated to believe that accepting a transfusion would result in her everlasting death. It is easy for WTBTS spokesmen to say it was her individual free choice, but is it really a free choice when you are taught that Jesus will hate and kill you for accepting it and all your friends and family will never speak to you again. This is not choice but mental and emotional coercion, and it ought to be illegal. The WTBTS should be held legally and financially liable for all deaths resulting from this teaching. If they were penalised financially they would soon change this teaching, just as they did with organ transplants.
The WTBTS view of blood has led to a myriad number of rules for Witnesses, including, checking with the butcher to ensure meat and fish has been bled properly, no use of leeches, no use of fertilizer containing blood, not even storing and using your own blood before an operation. And yet, Witnesses can make use of all blood “fractions” (including, for example, “fractions” from red cells, which actually make up 97% of the red blood cell – some fraction!) but cannot contribute to the blood supply via donation. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not refuse a blood transfusion because of the bible but because the WTBTS tells them to and backs it up by the threats of disfellowshipping in this world and everlasting destruction in the next. This is easily shown because Witnesses refused organ transplants on the basis of their “bible trained conscience” only when the WTBTS banned it, and Witnesses accepted organ transplants again using their “bible trained conscience” but only when the WTBTS unbanned organ transplants. This us not following a “bible trained conscience” but following a mind controlling cult.
"In view of the seriousness of taking blood into the human system by a transfusion, would violation of the Holy Scriptures in this regard subject the dedicated, baptized receiver of blood transfusion to being disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation?
The inspired Holy Scriptures answer yes." (The Watchtower, Jan. 15, 1961, p. 63)
[a Witness]…should not speak at all with an expelled person, not even saying “Hello”…
And we all know from our experience over the years that a simple “Hello” to someone can be the first step that develops into a conversation and maybe even a friendship. Would we want to take that first step with a disfellowshiped person? (The Watchtower, Sep 15th, 1981, p24).
A thought on Jehovah’s Witnesses doublespeak. When Witnesses say a transfusion would not have saved Emma’s life, it may be so, but a Witness may mean a transfusion would have saved her present life but at the cost of her eternal, or real, life. Thus they would say a transfusion would not have saved her life, because their definition of “life” is different from what you think. Therefore it is impossible to take a statement like this from a Jehovah’s Witness at face value.
"...resorting to blood transfusions even under the most extreme circumstances is not truly lifesaving. It may result in the immediate and very temporary prolongation of life, but that at the cost of eternal life for a dedicated Christian."
- Blood, Medicine and the Law of God, 1961, p. 55
Witnesses are taught to be paranoid about blood and about doctors who administer blood as working for Satan:
"The poisons that produce the impulse to commit suicide, murder, or steal are in the blood."..."Moral insanity, sexual perversions, repression, inferiority complexes, petty crimes - these often follow in the wake of blood transfusions."
- The Watchtower 09/15/1961 p. 564
"The faith of Jehovah's Witnesses is under attack from all sides - by the clergy of Christendom who hate the Kingdom message we take from house to house, by apostates who collaborate with Christendom's clergy, by medical authorities who want to impose blood transfusions on us and our children, by atheistic scientists who reject belief in God and the creation, and by those who try to force us to compromise our neutrality. All this opposition is orchestrated by Satan, the ruler of darkness and ignorance, the enemy of accurate knowledge."
- The Watchtower, Dec. 1, 1989, p. 12)
However, you are unlikely to find such overtly deranged writings in a modern Watchtower magazine as they have modified their language substantially over recent years. In fact, they recently introduced two versions of the Watchtower magazine. The one that is for the general public is no doubt careful to avoid revealing the more bizarre aspects of the WTBTS’s ever changing teachings.
Let us hope that the blood doctrine goes the same way as their other crazy teachings sooner rather than later as more Witnesses probably die worldwide over this issue each year than the mass cult murders of Jim Jones and David Koresh put together. The WTBTS society gets largely ignored because the deaths are sporadic and spread over time and over many countries.
In my opinion, all of us in society share some responsibility for deaths like Emma’s by giving credibility to cults like this. We allow The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society the status and authority of both recognised religion and registered charity so they do not have to pay taxes on the huge profits they make peddling their extraordinary beliefs. Isn’t it about time we changed this? Isn’t it about time our schools and our newspapers taught of the dangers of cults? Isn’t it about time the WTBTS were held legally and financially responsible for these deaths? After all, in the US the WTBTS are making financial reparations for their policies regarding the reporting of sexual abuse of children in their congregations: http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007May10/0,4670,JehovahapossWitnessesSexAbuse,00.html
If you have any questions or wish to know more please go to www.ajwrb.org
Reference note: the large page numbers in some quotations are from the annual yearbooks.
Regards,
Name witheld