Right. Taken in context with the rest of the verses, I think it's pretty clear that the verse regarding abstaining from blood has nothing to do with medical procedures. It was about eating animal blood, as the other scriptures mention strangled animals and idolatry. (i.e. food offered to idols I believe).
JW Science Quote (2-5)
by TD 29 Replies latest jw friends
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agonus
"Is refusing blood in a life or death situation showing such respect?"
Bingo. Throwing away a human life in deference to the "sancticty of blood" is making the symbol of life (blood) more important than the gift of life itself. What's more important, compassion or law? Would you pull an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath?
Personally, I believe the REAL reason the WT is paranoid about transfusions is the frightening possibility of contaminating a believer's bloodstream with the blood of an unbeliever. Knowing the WT's doctrinal history, would such a notion be that surprising?
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paul from cleveland
Throwing away a human life in deference to the "sancticty of blood" is making the symbol of life (blood) more important than the gift of life itself.
That makes total sense.
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TD
Hello Paul,
If transfusions are okay then why isn't it okay to take the blood in through your mouth?
You are (Perhaps unintentionally) equivocating. Equivalency cannot be established by regression to generic terms.
For example, taking water into your respiratory system (Your lungs) and taking water into your digestive system (Your stomach) could both be described using the same generic phrase you have used with blood: "...to take the water in."
But there is a world of difference between drinking a glass of water and drowning in a lake These are two acts which are neither physically nor morally equivalent.
Similarly, when blood is "Taken in" via the mouth, it is broken down and destroyed by the digestive system as food. When blood is "Taken in" via transfusion, it retains its form and resumes its function in the body of the recipient.
"Taking in" blood by eating is an act of cannibalism. "Taking in" blood by transfusion is a form of organ transplant.
Do you believe that organ transplantation is cannibalism? Do you see a difference between taking in the kidney of another human being via surgery to continue to act as a kidney in your own body versus cooking the kidney of another human being into a pie and eating that pie for Sunday dinner?
What difference does it make which orafice you use? Are transfusions okay because you skip the digestive system?
Paul, you originally state that you do not see my point. I think you do. The idea that transfusion "skips" the digestive system is the exact same idea which this "JW Science Quote" was aimed against. Transfusion is not a bypass of the digestive system.
What is it specifically about your mouth that makes it wrong to take in blood this way?
More equivocation
Also, doesn't the bible say that the blood is supposed to poured out onto the ground?
Under the Law, Israelite hunters were required to bleed the carcass of an animal they killed. Wild animals do not let you walk up to them and slit their throats in the Kosher manner and methods for putting a wild animal to death from a distance (e.g. An arrow, spear, snare, etc.) do not sufficiently bleed the carcass. An extra step was required before the carcass was fit for the kitchen (Lev 17:13; Deut 12:15-16; 20-24; 15:22-23)
One of the many methods of semantic legerdemain used by JW writers is to change the recipient of a verb's action:
a. Blood must be removed from the body by being poured out
b. Blood removed from the body must be poured out
Sentence 'a.' is what the Law required. The animal carcass was the recipient of action inasmuch as it was the receptacle from which the blood was poured out. The removal and the pouring out were one and the same act.
Sentence 'b' is the JW distortion of what the Law required. Here the pouring out is a separate act subsequent to the removal and blood is the recipient of action.
The only purpose this serves is to take the situationally specific requirements in the captioned scriptures and turn them into general requirements applicable to all situations involving blood.
To me, the burden of proof would lie on the person claiming there is somehow a difference.
But Paul, you have to take an equivalency between the transfusion of blood and the consumption of blood as an a priori assumption that must be disproven before it becomes anybody's responsibility to show that there is a difference.
The whole point here is that you can't simply make that assumption because it is based on a misunderstanding of what blood is and what blood does in the body.
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Pistoff
Look, the israelites were affected by ritual and superstition, like all of the tribes of Canaan. Why the ban on blood? Who knows, we hear that it is because of respect for life but what does that mean? If you respected the life in an animal, then you would not be killing it to please a bloodthirsty god, would you? If you really respected life, you would let the damn thing live, not pour it's blood out in a self righteous ceremony.
It is a superstition, nothing more. As witnesses or ex witnesses, we all have or have had to work to get rid of the same superstitious fear of blood transfusions.
They are trying to make modern sense out of a tribal superstition from millleniums ago, it is stupid, but then superstitions are powerful and stupid.
A powerful superstition; that is why witnesses will not even flinch when they tell you they will die from lack of blood, because of their respect for life/blood!
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paul from cleveland
TD, I appreciate your trying to reason with me. I'm being sincere when I say that I really can't see the point the way you're explaining it to me. To me it just seems like a technicality that ignores the principle of the law. In my mind it's like saying that the scripture that condemns 'men who lie with men' wouldn't apply if they had sex standing up.
I have changed my mind on this issue, however, because of the point Agonus made:
Throwing away a human life in deference to the "sancticty of blood" is making the symbol of life (blood) more important than the gift of life itself.
It's like a lightbulb went off in my head. Maybe that's the same point you were making but I just couldn't get it from the way you explained it.
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leavingwt
Paul:
Were you aware that no Jewish group today forbids blood transfusions? This is because Jewish kosher probations are waived in regards to life-saving medical use. They believe that sustaining life overrules the Mosaic Law; a principle referred to as “pikuach nefesh”. Jesus showed that Christians are to follow this principle when he healed and harvested on the Sabbath. He used David as an example to show that acts of mercy, such as saving a life, are more important than strict adherence to regulation. Consider Jesus’ words:
“Who will be the man among YOU that has one sheep and, if this falls into a pit
on the sabbath, will not get hold of it and lift it out? All considered, of how much
more worth is a man than a sheep!" (Matthew 12:11, 12a)The Bible is silent on the topic of blood transfusions.
The following illustration has been helpful to me: If you were robbed and a thief demanded your wedding ring, would you refuse to give it to him
if he threatened to kill your spouse? Would you reason: "This ring represents my marriage to my spouse and that's more important than my spouse’s life"? Such reasoning is seriously flawed yet this is the exact reasoning used by Watchtower to support its ban on certain types of blood transfusions. Yes, blood is a symbol of life, but life itself is certainly more valuable than the symbol!So, if one chooses to die, by rejecting lifesaving medical treatment involving blood, he is, in effect, saying that a "symbol of life" is more important than life. Bizarre.
-LWT
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paul from cleveland
thanks leavingwt, I understand the point. I agree with that.
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ziddina
Oh, thank you, TD. I'm marking this thread for a more thorough read in the future and for future reference...
Very interesting that the WTBTS 'blood' issue is based on an ancient misperception. I'd never thought about the possibility that the WTBTS was just picking up older prejudices and basing religious policy on them [slaps forehead...]
Too typical of the WTBTS... Them and their 'miracle wheat'... Their scientific idiocy is staggering...
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TD
Paul,
I understand. The teaching on blood is flawed on so many different fronts that there are many ways to deconstruct it. Different arguments are compelling to different people.
These "JW Science Quotes" are not primarily intended to debate JW doctrine, but to show two things:
1. JW writers have often been ignorant on matters of basic science.
2. The unabashed confidence in which JW writers in their ignorance have challenged doctors, archaeologists, evolutionary biologists, Bible translators, etc.
To me it just seems like a technicality that ignores the principle of the law.
I would like to reiterate that similarity is not sameness
Do you think the moral difference between having sex with your wife and having sex with the wife another man is a minor technicality?
Do you think the moral difference between murder and capital punishment is a minor technicality?
Do you think the moral difference between an early Christian burning a pinch of incense in recognition of the Emperor's divinity and burning a pinch of incense to give their home a pleasant odor was a minor technicality?
Do you think the moral difference between an early Christian eating meat sacrificed to an idol as part of the sacrificial ceremony and eating the same meat sold at a public meat market was a minor technicality?
Do you think the moral difference between eating human flesh and receiving a skin graft is a minor technicality?
Do you think the moral difference between removing an organ from an organ donor after they die and removing an organ from someone who did not wish to be an organ donor after they die is a minor technicality?
I'm probably driving this into the ground (Sorry) but the point is that acts which are very simlar in nature can be entirely right or entirely wrong depending upon the context in which they occur.
JW's talk about the "Principle behind the Law" but they never seem to be able to put this into words. Respect for life was the principle behind the Law. --Not just the dietary law but the entire Law.
I'd also like to add that pikuach nephesh did not involving violating the Law. Pikuach nephesh was a determination of which parts of the Law took precedence over others. If an occupied building collapsed on the Sabbath, which of God's requirements took precedence? His requirement to preserve life or His requirement to keep the Sabbath? This term itself is a direct allusion to this question as it literally means "Uncovering life."
For Jews, pikuach nephesh does not even enter into the question of transfusion. The idea that Kashrut has anything to do with medicine is absurd.