Lots have asked for me to post why I did the research on Blood here is why (page 2)

choosing life

Skyking,

Thanks for sharing your story. the blood issue was what caused me to research and leave too.

To show you how screwed up the thinking is in the Socxiety, I asked a brother on the Hospital Liason Committee why the Socxiety would not be held blood guilty before God if someone refused a blood fraction or organ transplant and died as a result and later the Society had a change of position on what was acceptable (such as organ transplants or blood fractions). The answer was, that this is the decision the person himself personally made. He is thus accountable for his own decisions. The only factor the brother on the HLC failed to take into consideration is that a gun is held to their head in the form of disfellowshipping. How could a person be held accountable to make such a personal, life and death, conscience decision, while knowing he will be ostracised (at the very least) by his friends, or disfellowshipped by family and most of all by the persons he felt were the FDS, caretakers of the Lord's belongings? We so easily forget a basic bible truth: Psalm 146:3,4.

Happy Harvester

Good for you, sk! I hope your wife continues to grow in her friendships outside the bOrg, too. I hope your daughter is doing okay, too! Thanks for sharing that story.

Philippus79

They are idiots, not understanding that the purpose of blood is to sustain/save life. God did not always punish the "abuse" (intake) of blood. Not wheni t was done in a life-threatening situation:

When someone attacks you, trying to kill you, they lose their right to their life, their blood. You gain the right to use their life, their blood, only to save your own. You can choose to kill them and spill their blood in self defence with impunity. If your life is in danger then you can make any use of their blood, their life, that in your judgment protects or saves your life, your blood. So you can make any life protecting use of an attacker's blood without his consent, since his attack on your life, your blood, is an implied consent. The legal effect of the attack is merely to grant a consent to the victim to use the attacker's blood in a life protecting way. Therefore you can make any life protecting use of a non attacker's blood with his consent. Therefore you can take a blood transfusion from a consenting person in order to protect your life.

Putting this in a more simple way. God's law on blood exists to protect the sanctity of physical life which is represented by the blood and is owned by God. Therefore a use of blood which saves a life, does not break the law which forbid's abuse of blood. It is actually the purpose of blood to protect life!!!

This is not true of God's law on idolatry. If a false worshipper tells you he will shoot you unless you do an act of false worship, the thing to do is to refuse, and if necessary, kill him, run or get shot.

Here is the relevant part of 1Samuel14:

23 And Jehovah proceeded on that day to save Israel, and the battle itself passed over to Beth-aven.
24 And the men of Israel themselves were hard pressed on that day, and yet Saul put the people under the pledge of an oath, saying: Cursed is the man that eats bread before the evening and until I have taken vengeance upon my enemies! And none of the people tasted bread.
25 And all those of the land came into the woods, when honey happened to be over all the surface of the field.
26 When the people came into the woods, why, look! there was a dripping of honey, but there was no one putting his hand to his mouth, because the people were afraid of the oath.
27 As for Jonathan, he had not been listening when his father put the people under an oath, so he stretched out the tip of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it into the honeycomb and drew his hand back to his mouth, and his eyes began to beam.
28 At this one of the people answered and said: Your father solemnly put the people under oath, saying, 'Cursed is the man that eats bread today!' And the people began to get tired.
29 However, Jonathan said: My father has brought ostracism upon the land. See, please, how my eyes have beamed because I tasted this little bit of honey.
30 How much more so if the people had but eaten today from the spoil of their enemies that they found! For now the slaughter upon the Philistines has not been great.
31 And on that day they kept striking down the Philistines from Michmash to Aijalon, and the people got to be very tired.
32 And the people began darting greedily at the spoil and taking sheep and cattle and calves and slaughtering them on the earth, and the people fell to eating along with the blood [they did not bleed them before they cooked them].
33 So they told Saul, saying: Look! The people are sinning against Jehovah by eating along with the blood. At this he said: You have dealt treacherously. First of all, roll a great stone to me.
34 After that Saul said: Scatter among the people, and you must say to them, 'Bring near to me, each one of you, his bull and, each one, his sheep, and you must do the slaughtering in this place and the eating, and you must not sin against Jehovah by eating along with the blood.' Accordingly all the people brought near each one his bull that was in his hand that night and did the slaughtering there.
35 And Saul proceeded to build an altar to Jehovah. With it he started altar building to Jehovah.
36 Later Saul said: Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning lightens up, and let us not leave a single one among them. To this they said: Anything that is good in your eyes do. Then the priest said: Let us approach here to the [true] God.
37 And Saul began to inquire of God: Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel? And he did not answer him on that day.
38 So Saul said: Come near here, all you keymen of the people, and ascertain and see in what way this sin has come to be today.
39 For as Jehovah, who is the Deliverer of Israel, is alive, even if it is in Jonathan my son, yet he will positively die. But there was no one answering him out of all the people.
40 And he went on to say to all Israel: You yourselves will come to be on the one side, and I and Jonathan my son -- we will come to be on the other side. At this the people said to Saul: What is good in your eyes do.
41 And Saul proceeded to say to Jehovah: Oh God of Israel, do give Thummim! Then Jonathan and Saul were taken, and the people themselves went out.
42 Saul now said: Cast lots to decide between me and Jonathan my son. And Jonathan got to be taken.
43 Then Saul said to Jonathan: Do tell me, What have you done? So Jonathan told him and said: I did for a fact taste a little honey on the tip of the rod that is in my hand. Here I am! Let me die!
45 At this Saul said: Thus may God do and thus may he add to it, if you do not positively die, Jonathan.
45 But the people said to Saul: Is Jonathan to die, who has performed this great salvation in Israel? It is unthinkable! As Jehovah is alive, not as much as a single hair of his head will fall to the earth; for it was with God that he worked this day. With that the people redeemed Jonathan, and he did not die
46 So Saul withdrew from following the Philistines, and the Philistines themselves went to their place (1 Samuel 14).

This is a very interesting and technical account. Jonathon instigates an attack on the Philistines. Saul makes the people swear an unnecessary oath that limits their ability to do God's work. Jonathon inadvertently breaks this oath being unaware that it existed and God blesses him and the attack nonetheless. Saul then attempts to instigate a further attack on the Philistines on the next Hebrew day, but God does not indicate that he will bless Saul's attack.

in truth it was Saul who was to blame by putting his men in an impossible position with an oath that was tantamount to killing them. He took Israel into the oath in order to appear to be as courageous as his son Jonathon, with whom he was competing. He was actually jealous of his own son, and he risked the lives of the whole army in order to enhance his popularity (he could have run for office today on that ticket and won). Now God did not kill those of the sons of Israel who had eaten blood along with their meat. He could have instructed Saul to attack the Philistines and arranged for everyone who had eaten blood to be killed for example. He could have instructed Samuel to speak to Saul and tell him to kill everyone who had eaten blood. He could have sent an angel and struck them all down as he did in the case of 70,000 of those who agreed to be registered by Joab. But God did not punish any of his people, he merely embarrassed Saul by failing to bless him as he had blessed his son.

Now clearly God did not make a mistake or forget about the men who had eaten the blood! So there must have been extenuating circumstances for the sons of Israel who abused blood. Well if you are prosecuting a war which requires you to chase after people and hack them to pieces with swords, then being tired and hungry and therefore weak, is a life threatening problem. So the extenuating circumstances were that the soldiers were in mortal danger. If the Philistines had launched a counter attack on tired hungry and weak Jews, the result could have been fatal. So obviously there are circumstances wherein abusing blood carries no penalty. We deduce from this account that such circumstances are when the abuse of blood is for the purpose of saving or protecting life.

Phil

compound complex

Ships passing in the night ...

Hi Skyking:

I only now got wind of your story. Incredible! I, too, was very angered about the so-called deal the Society made to get their foot in the door in Bulgaria. I thought you might enjoy this old thread:

"Children in Bulgaria - CANNOT BECOME MEMBERS."

www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/126041/1.ashx

Sorry about your grief,

CoCo

zack

Good for you! Glad your free. Religion is a poison.

skyking

Several things of huge importance happened when they Society made this compromise.

1: When they first made the compromise no witness could take Alternative Service to avoid going to the Military. By 1997 when they agreed on the compromise you could.

a) They offered the deal with Bulgaria before it had came out in the pages of Watchtower. If a Witness had compromised before it was in print he or she would have been DF'd.

2: No babptizing under age children

3: No santions for having a transfusion

This deal totally blow my mind and what amazed me was I told everybody when I found out know one cared. Cognitive Dissonance

Witness 007

Thanks for sharing...research on Blood in my WATCHTOWER LIBRARY. COMPUTER CD killed "the truth" for me....TOO MANY CHANGES!!!

lesterd

Its like the bothers in Malawi had to die instead of buying political card, by mandate of the borg, and the ones in Mexico could bribe government officials to obtain a military service card to avoid bieng drafted into the army. Great white father speaks with forked tongue.

Dagney

skyking,

Bravo! to you for your stand and congrats on the happy ending.

The blood issue was the first thing I ever looked up on the internet after hearing a very confusing special service meeting on blood fractions. One can only hope more and more will check this vitally important issue out for themselves.

Lots have asked for me to post why I did the research on Blood here is why