by punkofnice 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Fallacy of sweeping generalisation. JW 'illustrations' very often incorporate logical fallacies.
In this case, a generalisation is made about 'taking in blood' in the context of some primitive dietary laws and expanded to mean that taking in blood at all, ever, is necessarily always bad.
It's a bit like saying:
best deconstruction I have heard is along the lines of if you were starving to death, transfusing blood wouldnt stop you starving, so it is not the same as eating...
but you can argue round and round. -
i always think you can find anything you want by putting two scriptures together. - what about blood being life, and no greater gift than giving your life for your brother? for me thats an argument FOR blood transfusions..
might start my own religion :P
Someone made a comment on AGuest's thread (the one that was closed),about Jesus saying (at the Last Supper) Take,drink, this is my blood that I give on your behalf,(paraphrasing). I had not ever thought about it, but if Jesus could say this, even though the wine was symbolic of his blood, it seems to me that Jesus had no problem with drinking blood. Makes sense to me.
I'm not sure, but I would think puting alcohol directly into the veins could prove fatal.
PHG
Strictly speaking, I'm not aware of any situation where transfusing alcohol into your veins could save your life, but for arguments sake, let's say it could.
If a doctor told someone to "abstain from alcohol" (for whatever reason) and that person suddenly found themselves in a situation where transfusing the alcohol into their vein would save their life, wouldn't it be absurd if the guy refused to do this because his doctor told that he shouldn't drink any alcohol, and subsequently died?
Yet that is exactly what Witnesses are taught to do. It's kinda like obeying the speed limit. If the speed limit is 50 km/hour (about 30 mph), in everyday life, you're supposed to generally obey it. However, let's say one night that you're driving out in the country and you come across someone who's severely injured on the side of the road. There's no hospitals close by and you know time is of the essence if this persons life is going to be saved. You bundle them into your car and you take off. You're going above the speed limit because someone's life is at stake and it's imperative that you get them to the hospital asap.
On the way, a cop sees you speeding and pulls you over. You quickly tell them what's happening and why you're speeding. The cop is not really sympathetic and while he can see that the passenger in your car is dying, he feels that it's a far greater sin to go above the posted speed limit than to try and save this person's life. The posted speed limit takes presedence over everything, even a person's life and if he dies because the cop is writing you out a ticket, oh well---too bad.
This of course, would be outrageous to anyone with 1/2 a brain, yet this is basically what JW's are taught. An obscure dietary law written thousands of years ago is viewed as being far more important than someone's life and if they die because of it---oh well too bad.
I really, truly wish that the assholes responsible for keeping this damn doctrine in place could spend a week with my sister and see the living hell that her life has become since my brother in law died in part due to the ban on blood transfusions. There are just no words for it and absolutely no justification.
This is being over-thought!
The illustration used by the WT is very simple: "if a doctor told you to abstain from alcohol, would it be ok to inject it instead?"
The answer of course is "no", so when the WT asks "if the Bible tells you to abstain from blood, is it ok to inject it instead?", the answer is still "no".
A good response would be "if a doctor told you not to eat meat anymore, could you have a kidney transplant?".
The answer, of course, is "yes!"
Splash.
If a doctor told someone to "abstain from alcohol", could they still use it to sterilise a wound? Most sane people would say, "Yes".
-
If a doctor told a patient to abstain from alcohol he would most assuredly not be suggesting his patient refuse IV administration of ethyl alcohol to counteract ethyl glycol poisoning (anti-freeze)! Until Fomepizole came along, without administration of alcohol a person was libel to die from this poisoning.
In third-world countries IV alcohol remains the main therapy for treating these patients.
Marvin Shilmer
Interesting, marvin.
S
Satanus,
Even more interesting is that the ethyl alcohol can be administered either intravenously or orally! If they have something smooth enough on the shelf, a patient could just tickle their taste buds while they're at it.
Marvin Shilmer
Great replies guys. This gives me a better perspective.
smithmandy1 - Sorry, I don't understand your reply. Could you be more specific? The reference to the libel wording of the WBT$. Are you saying the watchtower are mentally diseased???? If so I wholeheartedly agree with you.
