What's Jesus and the Pharisees arses got to do with it?
Blood Transfusions - Eating blood???
by Aphrodite 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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R.Crusoe
After sacrifices were made on the altars, animals blood would drain away via a channel in the stonework. This blood, having given life to the creature, was regarded as possessing its life force and must return to the Earth. Whether God thinks this is hard to say because I wonder whether He actually liked the idea of the smell of burning carcases going up into the sky as is claimed? Maybe it was the people of those days loving the smell of roasted meat and thinking God must love it if they give Him extra large portions?
We know nomads in the desert have drank camels blood, stirred it into a red chewy goo and even mixed it with their milk prior to eating it. The camels veins heal within minutes and everyone carries on their desert journeys. It is the way of survival within their environments.
Maybe some ancients died after drinking blood and it was noted as a health risk so avoided through religious dogma. Malaria and other diseases could be passed in the same way they are via mosquittos. I wonder why God created mosquittos if blood were so sacred?
Again we are following the guidance of ancient texts as supreme authority if we take Bible writtings as of divine origin. And we know The Bible shows a God who changes His nature anyhow which seems a complete contradiction. We accept God does not hand out divine scripture any longer. We think He was in direct contact with ancient people but is no longer - maybe He never was. It's highly likely been the same arrangement as today forever. Even Jesus questioned the notion that God operates through appointed leaders. The unkown-ness of ancient times is what fools many into thinking that God is less pleased with us than He was with them - that He was more willing to directly communicate divine words to them than to us - as if we are more sinful in some way for wanting pleasures and sex or whatever, when in fact all life enjoys this to keep producing more life and for its own pleasure.
Humans love to brainwash each other that pleasure is evil and so it makes many wonder what is good about life if pleasure is removed from it. It is humans who have made this up to beat themselves with! It is as if religion teaches abstention from life as a major ethos.
What humans need is a teaching that enables them to engage in life as a major ethos absent all the guilt and evil bashing at their brains.
It is a complex problem because the massive variety of beliefs already in place complicate any real solutions to the point where they are often unworkable. And new systems will have problems that need addressing in ways to keep the ethos preserved. As it is I see that humans will continue to sell Santa stories of God Delusions to their children to maintain some control over their behaviour which they have decided they think is best - not God. Many children will be adults before they realise, if indeed they ever do. It is what I see. And those who live the pleasant ideal are usually ones fortunately placed by looks or pot luck to have a fabulous life - nothing to do with righteousness - and I don't think God will be displeased with such ones in the slightest so long as they haven't determined to plan and force suffering on others.
If God does or does not exist it is no matter. Be true to yourself and others. If God wanted it any other way He would have sat us all down already and had a fatherly chat with us. Can you imagine leaving your children with a gang full of different ideas and pressures and all manner of things to deal with then coming back when they are grown old and scolding them? Religions God Delusion is indeed a cruel ethos to inflict on humans. I wonder at times whether the Pope wished he could rewrite the Bible for everyones benefit. I'm not surprised The Bible message changed so much from start to finish in this regard, as people saw the neeed for a more forgiving society reflecting the best of what it is to be a human being and enjoy being one. I have hated it!
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Leolaia
Just look at v. 11. Blood is to reserved to make atonement for bloodshed, for taking another creature's life (as it contains the "life" of the creature). That is why it is not eaten.
Now, are people slaughtered in order to get their blood for transfusions? Are you benefiting from another person's death by taking a transfusion? No?
If there is no need to make atonement, then blood does not need to be poured out in order to make atonement.
It amazes me how the Society could miss this simple point, in the very "proof text" they cite.
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M.J.
"What's Jesus and the Pharisees arses got to do with it?"
Read Mark 2:23-28, for one example.
Jesus explained to the Pharisees the principle that the laws put in place by God take a back seat to the livelihood of man: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."
Thus illustrating it would be absurd for one to ignore one's livelihood in order to keep the letter of the law, as the Pharisees advocated, for the love of God's gift of life itself is to be held in far higher regard than any written law code.