by Think About It 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Prior to 1945 the JW's took blood transfussions. Did Fred Franz go off on a psuedo- bible scholar/intellectual tangent and convince the steam room gang that Jehovah wanted them to not take blood transfussions?
Blood factions are evidently a personal matter now. (wink wink) Love the illustration that it's like being under religious restrictions to eat a ham & cheese sandwich, but being able to each ham, cheese & bread individually.
This is a really strange religion.
Think About It
not to the j dubs... they think every other religion is strange for not accepting medical treatments or not believe in resuscitation. just like they think people are crazy for trying to convert them to another religion on the street.
I believe that it has been posted here before the speculation that it was largely promoted by Franz. Certainly he was the defacto religious doctrine leader under literature businessman Knorr.
It was supposed that Knorr went along with it because it was a control issue, (and that Knorr did not care much about it as doctrine).
They had at about the same time given up the restrictions on vaccination, and maybe they needed another weird medical rule.
I think the doctrine can trace its ancestry back to Clayton "Cow Pus" Woodworth, the village idiot of Columbia Heights, who was the originator of the WATCHTOWER's "bible-based™" anti-vaccination doctrine. Rutherford knew a cultic control technique when he saw one, but he died in 1942 and left it to the two-headed Knorr/Franz beast to refine that idiocy into its present form.
Today's WATCHTOWER leaders are a group of mind-numbed robots, running on the old programs and engrams that they received when they were new in "the truth™". The New organizational structure introduced after Knorr died assures that any original thinkers or charismatic leaders will be identified and weeded out. Mediocrity and dumbed-down old-time religion is the name of the game now.
Excellent point Nathan, on "village idiot" Woodworth.
He probably invented the roots of it, leaving it to Franz to expand into a DF/DA doctrine.
From reading Woodworth's Letter From the Raymond Street Jail, I get the feeling that he harbored an antipathy for people of color.
He took care to mention that "Negroes" shared their prison block.
His no-blood madness came out just around the time Dr. Charles Drew - a Negro!!! - developed a technique for storing and transfusing blood.
I believe the no-blood doctrine was born out of fear that a White person may just have ended up receiving a Negro's blood.
Oh, the horror! From www.essortment.com:
Because of racial segregation, the Army Navy and Red Cross had separate blood banks for blacks and whites. Because the blood had to be collected and stored separately, it was costly and time consuming. Commenting on this situation, Drew said,
"I feel that the recent ruling of the United States Army and Navy regarding the refusal of colored blood donors is an indefensible one from any point of view. As you know, there is no scientific basis for the separation of the bloods of different races except on the basis of the individual blood types or groups."
Syl
Well, Sylvia - maybe...
but this Woodworth was a raving loon on all things medical, and I don't think it was primarily racial in origin.
Do you have any reference that proves this, or that Woodworth even knew about Dr. Charles Drew?
No references, JWoods, just a hunch.
An excerpt from the letter.
At 7:00 to 7:45 A.M. we walk in the covered court , a motly array, seventeen of us are Negroes. There are three cells between Bro. Rutherford and me,with Negroes in two of them.
Interesting.
Syl
Very interesting Sylvia, never thought of the origin of the blood transfusion doctrine in this way.
I believe the no-blood doctrine was born out of fear that a White person may just have ended up receiving a Negro's blood. Oh, the horror!
I remember once hearing as story in the Kingdom Hall about how a white man received a heart transplant and the donated heart was from a black man. They said after he recovered and was released from the hospital, that he had strong desires for black women and that he suddenly became a great sould dancer. That story still brings a smile to my face.
Donny
