by Dissonant15 78 Replies latest watchtower medical
Please, who can provide an intelligent rebuttal to the following illustration? I always thought it was bullet-proof:
"If your doctor directs you to 'abstain from alcohol' would you be OK to have it injected into your veins rather than drink it? ...Neither should we inject blood into our veins when God directs us to abstain."
But your doctor actually told you the following: 'abstain from alcohol before you drive'
In the same manner God directed the Israelite's to abstain from blood when they had killed an animal for sacrifice. The abstinence from blood was always in connection with the taking of a life. If an Israelite farmer found an animal "already dead" he was free to eat it with impunity. Lev. 11:38,39. Blood is not intrinsically sacred; it is only sacred insofar as it represents a life that has been taken.
The main purpose of a blood transfusion is to preserve life and has nothing to do with the taking of a life. Hence according to JW reasoning and usage of the 'blood is sacred' mantra, transfusions are perfectly ok according to the Hebrew god.
See: http://www.jehovahswitness.com/topic/204070001/watchtowerrightaboutblood
Dissonant15 , I think that you mean if your doctor told you to abstain from alcohol altogether for the sake of your life , not just at a particular time .
However apart from that I think that what Saintbertholdt says is spot on .I was going to mention Cofty's thread but " Bert " has already done that .
Jan
Context is key with scripture. What did the original audience understand this instruction to mean?
When a doctor tells you to abstain from alcohol he is referring specifically to drinking alcohol, not alcohol in hand cleansers, perfumes or mouthwash. In the context of the scripture it is referring to the specific situation described above and was not a cover all. If it was intended as a prescriptive instruction where would you stop? How would you dress a wound, deal with menstruation, clean teeth with bleeding gums? What would you do if you accidentally swallowed blood from a cut lip?
This is the issue when you take a line of scripture and do not fully understand the purpose or background you are in danger of going beyond the things written which is a popular witness quote.
If you inject alcohol into your veins your body will still recognize it and process it as a food. If you inject blood into your veins your body will recognize it and utilize it as blood - a tissue that transports, among other things, the nutrients from food.
Their analogy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I think the above posts have said it all - if your doc told you to abstain from alcohol he would mean abstain from drinking it. He would not object to a surgeon rubbing it over an operative site, of your dentist giving you a mouthwash with alcohol in. It is the manner of which you utilize it he warns you against.
Similarly eating blood is not the same as an injection/transfusion of blood. Unlike alcohol blood is not a food. A starving man would not benefit from a blood transfusion. But anything taken orally, including alcohol , would likely save him.
How about:
So if that is how you feel, why do you think it is ok to accept blood fractions? If you can accept parts of blood, you are hardly abstaining.
