Blood Transfusion and Eating

by dugout 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • cofty
    cofty
    In reality, it is women who are at the greatest risk of dying from the refusal of blood. - OC

    You are right. Childbirth is one of the major causes of death from refusing blood among JWs.

    Ironically JWs fail to keep the law on blood. The law demanded that when an animal was slaughtered the blood was either to be offered on the altar or poured out on the ground - symbolically returning the life to god.

    In a modern abattoir the blood is collected and used for all manner of commercial uses. Therefore is would be unlawful to eat the meat you buy in a butcher's shop or supermarket.

  • steve2
    steve2

    The most potent arguments against JW organization's blood-refusal doctrine are provided by JW supporters themselves. Thank you Doubtfully Yours. Take a bow!

    Doubtfully Yours provides a very helpful glimpse into the cult mentality in which obedience to misapplied scripture is praised over life itself.

    Not for the faint of heart indeed! As religious extremists of every color and shade have demonstrated across human history, having one's life extinguished in the name of submission to the Divine can be the highest honor!

    What a sick tragedy that jw-sacrifices are based on faulty reasoning, bad science and organizational softly-softly surveillance.

    If jw.org allowed healthy debate on the issue, this would go some way towards assuring interested parties that jws individually do make their own choice and do not have it imposed by organizational mandate.

    As many of us here have learnt to our personal cost, questioning manmade teachings and interpretations is definitely not for the faint of heart.

  • OrphanCrow
    OrphanCrow
    steve2: Doubtfully Yours provides a very helpful glimpse into the cult mentality in which obedience to misapplied scripture is praised over life itself.
    Not for the faint of heart indeed! As religious extremists of every color and shade have demonstrated across human history, having one's life extinguished in the name of submission to the Divine can be the highest honor!

    The WT blood policy exploits the martyr complex.

    "In psychology a person who has a martyr complex, sometimes associated with the term victim complex, desires the feeling of being a martyr for his/her own sake, seeking out suffering or persecution because it either feeds a psychological need, or a desire to avoid responsibility."

    Embracing martyrdom is self serving/selfish. People who have no purpose are the ones who will embrace somebody else's purpose and call it admirable. False courage and irresponsibility dressed up as virtue.

  • OrphanCrow
    OrphanCrow
    cofty: In a modern abattoir the blood is collected and used for all manner of commercial uses. Therefore is would be unlawful to eat the meat you buy in a butcher's shop or supermarket.

    When I was a kid, we were not allowed to eat processed meat. Bologna and hot dogs were seen as the devil's food. The only processed meat product that anybody in the congregation would buy came from a Jewish kosher meat processing company.

    I have always had a suspicion that those earlier dietary rules were rooted in the financial alliances that the Bible Students had with the Jewish community - "tell your adherents not to eat blood and buy our food instead".

    Where the WT really lost the plot, though, was when they banned the use of certain pet foods and garden fertilizers that were made with blood products. That was insanity at its finest.

  • talesin
    talesin
    When I was a kid, we were not allowed to eat processed meat. Bologna and hot dogs were seen as the devil's food.

    OC, remember "It's a Shopsy!"? I was always happy to see that hot dog sign at the movie theatre, because they were JW-style Kosher. And yes, if they truly followed the OT blood laws, they would either buy Kosher or Halal.

  • OrphanCrow
    OrphanCrow
    talesin: OC, remember "It's a Shopsy!"?

    No, I am not familiar with "It's a Shopsy!". Our approved company name to buy wieners from was "Fuhrman's". They were way more expensive than regular hot dog wieners and we didn't buy them often. You could tell if a JW family had money because they would have a case of Fuhrman wieners in their deep freeze!

  • FayeDunaway
    FayeDunaway
    Funny that anyone would accuse us here of being "faint of heart." Most of us here have lost most of our families and friends because of our own principles and personal integrity in following what we believe despite huge pressure to conform and/or fake it.
  • talesin
    talesin

    OC, I thought that was a 'Canadian" brand. I think Schneider's as well, but that could just be Down East. You know, the 'right' coast. ;)

    And yes, they were more expensive (being kosher, of course)

  • Cold Steel
    Cold Steel

    The Watchtower of 1955 almost came out against eating, but changed the article...let's see...just before lunch. Originally it read:

    “It is of no consequence that food is taken into the body through the mouth instead of the ass. Nor does the claim by some that eating is not the same as shoving it up where the sun don't shine. The fact that it nourishes or sustains the life of the body matters not. In harmony with this is a statement in the book Hemorrhage and Transfusion of Food, by Heber DeSerre, M.D., who quotes a letter from Dr. Paul Dingleberry, noted proctologist, paleontologist, protectionist and psychologist and early researcher in the field of anal analogies. It says: ‘Eating is nothing else than nourishing by a longer, more complicated road than ordinary – that is to say, placing in the ass in place of taking food by mouth only results in nouishment after several changes, which I don't want to discuss at this time, or ever.’”

    Actually, the WTS view of Armageddon, in fact, all of its eschatology, is childish and painfully...PAINFULLY...absurd, as with other adventists. The Seventh Day branch believes the U.N. is going to force a Sunday law on the world at the behest of Rome, which will use the military and civil might of the U.S. to enforce it worldwide. The faithful will resist and Rome will put them to death. You can find it on YouTube. WTS biblical exegesis is forced in the NWT, but it's mostly harmless.

    This blood thing is dangerous, though. The best way to change it is to first make it a matter of conscience for each member to decide and then to quietly drop it. If they just stopped it, I imagine there would be lawsuits.

    Where the WT really lost the plot, though, was when they banned the use of certain pet foods and garden fertilizers that were made with blood products. That was insanity at its finest.

    Oh, you're kidding. Just because we don't eat blood, the dog's not supposed to eat it, either?? What about your pet vampire bats? Can They eat it? And gardens? Those are some tough rules!

  • talesin
    talesin
    Where the WT really lost the plot, though, was when they banned the use of certain pet foods and garden fertilizers that were made with blood products. That was insanity at its finest.

    I did not know that. : P

    Image result for hobbs rofl

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