by 1009 165 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
>>> You said they did not give medical advice.
I provided you with direct evidence that they did indeed give medical advice--many times in fact, and continue to do so today. <<<
if they are "Ordained Ministers" They should be held to the same standards as Medical professionals.....HIPAA privacy prohibit medical professionals from disclosing medical information.
Jeho's "ordained ministers" should be held to the same standard.
Punk, I see you as haviing an opportunity to fill your sons ( you have two with you now correct?) with the wonderment and joy of life as it is now. Life without the everbearing, heavy yoke of the JW. You are the example of how to live life to the fullest every single day. Those daughters of yours will, WILL notice. They will have to decicde if they can handle you and hopefully your sons for who you are. Eventually, I believe, they can't help but have the congnitive dissonence so strong that they will have to THINK, really think.
Punk you have the opportunity now to fill your boys lives with joyous, giving, important, goal setting, LIFE. This is not someting you could have done while in the stranglehold of the JW.
One day at a time, you will be the reminder that life today is the life we have with each other. We are gifted each day with a new day to fill. We are gifted with the ablity to make goals and plans ( sometimes sidetracked, but still the ability to be flexible)
Knowsnothing asked-
And if you are a religious leader, is it ethically wrong to teach what you believe?
Is it wrong to teach jihad? That if you blow yourself and others up for the cause of your religious movement, you will gain eternal life in heaven?
I would say it IS ethically wrong to teach others to blow themselves AND others up, for WHATEVER ideology, especially after being motivated to do so by offering rewards that are supposedly going to be offered by an imaginary being after they're dead (70 virgins, existence in Heaven). It's not excused in any court by saying, "But Bob Smith told me to do it!" but suddenly it IS OK in some people's eyes when the being is THEIR "God"? That's just so absolutely nuts, and you have to wonder how long it will continue.
Under ANY other situation, the leaders who advise people to kill themselves AND others would be criminally liable as co-conspirators to commit murder for offering pressure to commit the crime, but under the gray area of the banner to exercise religious freedom, some literally get away with murder. JWs are allowed to kill themselves, but society draws the line at not allowing them to murder their own children by denying them life-saving blood by temporarily removing custody.
Side question: Is it wrong if a country sends its youngster into war for the cause of oil to defend the population?Why is that commonly considered honorable?
"Honorable" is a value judgment, and is moveable: it's something we bestow to some and not others to control behavior.
I would have had greater respect for Bush et al if they had simply come out and said, "Look, Saddam is sitting on large oil reserves, and is using it as a weapon against the West. Our economy depends on access to cheap fossil fuels, and we want to take him out. We're not going to resort to claiming evidence that doesn't exist, like WMD, but just being straight up with the American public."
Of course, that would NEVER fly with the American public, since gov't taking military actions often doesn't require the truth, but in fact quite the opposite! People don't WANT to know how their food gets into the sanitary plastic wrap container on the store shelves, they just want it when they're hungry. We cover such brute force tactics by claiming that we're "spreading democracy", so entire countries rely on denial tactics (as evidenced by the Nazis killing of Jews in WWII).
ALL countries should be working to find ways to REDUCE our dependence of fossil fuels in order to avoid the crisis of limited supplies, developing alternative technologies; NOT invading other countries to steal THEIR reserves.
The value of discussing ethics like this is to encourage people to consider the impact of their actions; even though people cannot change the behavior of others, they can change their own actions, which MAY influence others. What doesn't work is the approach of sitting on one's hands, and waiting for God to provide all the answers to humanity.
Adam
1009,
I can respect the gist of what you are saying. my experience was largely posative. I had good elders around (for the most part), had and HAVE good friends who are non-judgemental. Of course by JW standards they may not be the best JW's there are. Shared a cigar with a friend while golfing recently for example.
Then again, I am not the only person out here, and I am not willign to look at the world through my eyes alone. One thing I think you are giving them a pass on is not fair. Blood for example. Yes it is a religious doctrine. Yes people may not know the names of the GB. But NO it isn't that it doesn't matter. In fact that lack of information betrays the fact that these people essentially speak for God to them.
They are responsible for the blood doctrine because they refuse to listen to reason, and quite simply it appears they are more concerned with potential law suits and keeping status quo, than changing completely. If they changed it tomorrow......everyone follows suit. In addition, they enforce beliefe through communal shunning. All of these things pile responsability great and greater on their heads.
problemaddict said-
They are responsible for the blood doctrine because they refuse to listen to reason, and quite simply it appears they are more concerned with potential law suits and keeping status quo, than changing completely. If they changed it tomorrow......everyone follows suit. In addition, they enforce beliefe through communal shunning. All of these things pile responsability great and greater on their heads.
And that's the problem: 'they' is a dysmorphic term, since 'they' aren't identifiable to the individual. It would be a different matter if the structure was like the Mormons or Scientology, where an individual could bear the responsibility and/or blame to a greater extent. That's the particularly insidious nature of the GB: it allows a diffusion of responsibility and is organizationally ultra-conservative, being naturally resistant to any change. Hence it's inherently biased and designed to MAINTAIN the status quo, and not to change.
Not to worry: while the responsibility may be diffused amongst all members, it doesn't become so diluted as to disappear. There's plenty of blood guilt for ALL members (from the GB, to the baptized publisher) to share when facing their accountability for the deaths resulting from complying with the blood policy without question (or even if they DO question it, but DECIDE to comply anyway. People questioned going along with Migram's study, but then after challenging the authority figure, then often COMPLIED, kow-towing to pressure. Actions speak louder than words).
Adamah
But abstaining from blood, is not a medical advice. They believe (I believed) it was a divine law. So they consider it (religiously) wrong to use blood, whereas you have no religious objections.
First, I've explained at length how that is semantic legerdemain and was not in fact the original objection to transfusion. In English, 'Abstain' is an intansitive negation of action. In Greek, απεχεσθαι is an infinitive. Neither is capable of being invoked as an independent construction as you have done above. Perhaps you don't (didn't) know any better, but the level of knowledge it took to produce the New World Translation precludes the possiblity that they actually believed this argment themselves. I'm sorry if that's hard to accept and sorry if it sounds bitter, but credit must be given where credit is due. They are not the idiots that many xJW's like to portray them as.
Second, I said, " They haven't taught it purely as a matter of faith; they've taught it as a matter of good medicine and superior healthcare." And that is certainly true. They have not taught the blood doctrine purely as a matter of faith. They have promoted the idea that it is also good medicine through the idea that there are always quality alternatives to transfusion. What do you think the point of the video No Blood - Medicine Meets The Challenge was? Why do you think the average JW sincerely believes that transfusion is never truly medically necessary?
