The following is a continuation of a letter written to my sister who needed surgery. I hoped this would be an opportune time to raise the error of misinterpreting the handful of verses that they use to justify wanton suicide.
If you can think of any arguments that may be presented in an effort to rebuff the points made then please comment. Part 1 has so far remained unchallenged.
“As you know the Society’s rules as to the medical use of blood have undergone a few changes, some 20 major changes since 1945 to the present. At each change of the rules some individuals will die who would have lived or some will live who would have died.
For example, in 1954 the Society’s ruling on blood serums disallowed their use because using blood serums was displeasing to God. Some individuals will now die under the new ruling that formerly would have lived.
Four years later in 1958 this ruling was reversed thus allowing some individuals who would have died under the previous changed ruling to now live. It was now decided that using blood serums was not displeasing to God after all hence the change from disallowed to allow.
This single change presents two immediate problems. Firstly, who is responsible for the deaths, and the consequences of those deaths on their families, of those who, because they were told that using blood serums was displeasing to God, followed the Society’s rules and lost their lives for no reason other than they were mislead about what God requires?
Secondly, what now happens to those individuals who followed their own conscience and decided to use blood serums to save their life and were subsequently disfellowshiped? Under the new rule saying that God does allow blood serum usage and that it never had been offensive to Him they had been disfellowshiped not for doing what was wrong but rather for doing what was right, for showing respect for life. Disfellowshipping is supposed to keep the congregation clean by expelling wrongdoers not expelling those who are practicing righteousness, those who are showing the utmost respect for life.
So just what does happen to those ones who had been wrongly disfellowshiped under the previous incorrect rule and even those who had been wrongly disfellowshiped in the intervening weeks from when the Watchtower Society first internally decided to change the rule and the actual arrival of the issue of the Watchtower or letter publically announcing the NEW rule in the kingdom hall?
Would the Society make a concerted effort to immediately contact those ones explaining that they had been wrongly disfellowshiped and will be immediately re-instated and will not after all suffer eternal death in Gehenna when they die and needless separation from baptized members of their family now? Even if the Society did do this (which they don’t) could they be sure of finding every single individual who had been wrongly disfellowshiped? Some may have moved away and left forever thinking that they were condemned to Gehenna when they die.
If all this sounds like a messy situation think of what happened five years later (1963) when the ruling allowing blood serums was overturned yet again and completely reversed. Why? Because the Society said once again that using blood serums was displeasing to God. If you were ill and needed blood serum and were able to squeeze it in the day before the ruling changed you may have lived but if you fell ill a day after the ruling changed you may die. Yes, the decision whether to sacrifice one’s life in an attempt to please God entirely depends on whether a person fell ill and needed such treatment on the Saturday before the Sunday Watchtower meeting (when the change was announced) or on the Monday after. Is this treating life as sacred and showing respect to our Creator?
But then it became even more complicated because twenty one months later (1964) the ruling was, unsurprisingly, reversed yet again. Blood serums were again no longer offensive to God so those needing them were now reprieved and may live.
This is just one example, out of many, of the Societies changes that can determine whether a person may live or die. These life or death changes in the rules as to what is pleasing/displeasing to God have occurred at random and frequent intervals throughout the past 65 years and resulted in many thousands of deaths.
If you regard playing Russian Roulette as a gross and immoral disregard for life, the person’s life depending as it does on the click of a trigger, then do you regard the fluctuating rules of the Society equal or more immoral, depending as it does on the transient and erratic opinion of what God requires, where it is not just consenting adults (as in Russian Roulette) who are dying but much worse than that even babies and children are dying? Surely, subjecting one’s own life and that of one’s dependent children to such a lottery is the very pinnacle of disrespect for not just life but also for the Creator of life. It is clearly the exact opposite of what the blood transfusion ban is claimed to be about i.e. respect for life and its Creator.
After a review of just these few reversals made in this life or death issue, the Society’s totally irrational view can be seen from the statement in the Awake 12/8/94, p.27. It states that:
"This journal and its companion, the Watchtower, have commented consistently on the matter."
If all the facts are examined along with the above it is abundantly obvious to any observer that the only consistency is that the Society is consistently irrational in everything it states about blood transfusions and in every reversal inflicted on others while people wait for the latest pronouncement (reversal) on what pleases/displeases God knowing that for some mother, father, son, daughter, husband or wife it will mean either a death sentence or a reprieve.
Are we back in Canaanite territory here? The answer is plain not only by examining the facts but according to their own stated admission.
"In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue."
Awake! - May 22, 1994, p.2
Yes, the sacrifice of human life, human sacrifices, to please God by as is stated “putting God first”.
Why? Because we are told that’s what He requires and is pleased by such sacrifices, just like the Canaanite gods.
Not just for the above two reasons alone but for many, many others it is clear that what James meant when speaking the words recorded in Acts was clearly and absolutely not the meaning that many are coerced into believing by the Society. Coerced, that is, by the threat of disfellowshipping if one doesn’t fall into line with what can only be regarded as an abusive preoccupation with medical proscriptions going all the way back from the prohibition of vital and life saving vaccinations and organ transplants along with the plethora of fluctuating rules on treatments involving blood products these past six decades.
By taking James’s words in Acts out of their context they can be manipulated to appear to mean almost anything. In his book of James he emphasised the constancy of God;
(James 1:17) “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows”.
This whole subject is not just a minor issue. It is a matter of life or death. Ask yourself, is the constancy of God James referred to evident in the record the Society has built up when dealing with this vital life or death issue?
The trust people have put in the ever changing and frequent reversing of what the Society says God requires has killed people, it’s killed many thousands. After causing so many deaths you would think that they would recognize their inability to understand and legislate on such matters and leave it entirely alone. But not so they continue just as they have these past 65 years piling up an ever increasing record of death and grief. Death and grief not just for consenting adults but infants who have not only the God given right to life but also the right to expect their guardians (parents) to do everything in their power to exercise their God given responsibility to protect and nurture that life.
Does all this amount to anything less than the exploitation of families who are already in great distress?
As mentioned before, there is so much more to say on this matter. If you do not agree with anything here or just want to talk this over then please let me know.”