Basic Blood Questions For Witnesses (page 4)

luckynedpepper

No Bible authorized use for blood

Now we are looking for a statement of positive affirmation? Is there such for lawful sex, alcohol? (I will concede there is indeed for incense). Or are these things simply acknowledge as human things?

Fisherman

TD,

It hard for some JW to realize that transfused blood does not act like food but behaves like a person’s own blood behaves. That is the point. You have helped to clarify this. I enjoy dialogues that bring out the truth like the one’s I have with you. I think it would be helpful if you explained what happens to transfused blood in the body. You mentioned that it is broken up in time and excreted from the body. But if the body absorbs any of it or is metabolized or becomes part of the cellular structure of the body instead of simply being removed —even though a person’s own blood does this anyway- it also nourishes the body and is not only performing an organic function.

TD

Hemoglobin is constructed as a ring molecule called a porphyrin, which is difficult to break down. Hemoglobin is instead converted in a series of steps into a toxic waste product known as bile, which gives feces their characteristic brown color. Bile does serve a useful purpose on its way out, but is not nutrition in and of itself

The one single blood component capable of providing anything resembling a nutritional benefit when transfused is albumin, which is an allowed component under JW policy.

(Under extreme conditions, the body will consume its own albumin, resulting in the distended stomach and swollen joints you've probably seen in pictures.)

Albumin transfusions were given to starving people in post-war Japan, but we have better preparations today and this is no longer done.

Rattigan350

The prohibition against eating blood was first given to Noah and his descendants. Then to Israel in the Law.

So what of Noah's other descendants not of Israel, what of them? Not a word from them about not eating blood from a command. Did they forget? Did it not get transmitted through them? Since many of them consumed it and then transfused, because they didn't know, what will become of them?

Fisherman

Thank you, TD for your kind and valuable information on this topic.

A person faced with the choice of death or a BT without God in the equation might logically choose a BT because the benefits outweigh the risks. There is really no other choice. You will die without it —trusting the doctor’s medical opinion. Whereas A JW would factor in God seems to me, based on personal experience and trusting that what “God’s Organization” teaches about BT comes from God. Logically, he would figure that even with God not a variable, he would always be in fear and waiting that something would blow up inside his body should he survive with the BT and could never have peace of mind, and would always wonder if he would have survived anyway without the BT. It seems that JW figures that, true violating the Decree ( assuming the teaching is correct) offends God for symbolic reasons but there must also be other health or medical reasons why God gave the command to abstain from blood in the Decree.

All this assumes the premise that the BT teaching is from God and not just human interpretation of scripture subject to error.

TD

Everyone certainly has to make their own decision.

Whole blood transfusions still occur on the battlefield, but that is not a situation a JW is likely to encounter.

In a hospital setting, patients are usually administered only the component they actually need because, (A) It is safer for the patient and (B) It is much more cost effective.

I can easily envision the next major adjustment to the teaching (Assuming there is one) as a reduction in the scope of prohibited components to whole blood alone. Partial components of all types would be allowed. The JW's could very honestly and truthfully point out that biblical prohibitions against blood are all references to whole blood. The JW's leadership could save face and the human cost of the teaching would be greatly reduced.

But then what do I know?

Fisherman

The JW's could very honestly and truthfully point out that biblical prohibitions against blood are all references to whole blood.

Off the top off my head, take for example isolated anethole or eugenol juxtaposition major blood components that characterize blood. Could it honestly be said that eugenol is not cloves and one could use it without tasting cloves or experiencing its effects? A legal or chemical argument could be made that it isn’t —same as with blood.

But then what do I know?

Your reasoning is persuasive. Your information is valued. Your argument also implies that since JW have been wrong about fractions then why shouldn’t they be wrong about the teaching altogether since they claim to be guided by God in which case they logically wouldn’t be wrong about the fractions. And if God is not part of the equation, it is wholly a medical decision. —But we still have the Decree and what it means for Christians. And what God meant in the Decree. Christians in good conscience can’t just pretend they are not bound by it and put anise or anethole or ethanol into their bodies and believe they are only required not to eat it or that they are allowed to by God because it is lifesaving. The Decree says to abstain from blood not JW leadership.

TD

An analogy is a useful rhetorical device for visualizing a principle after it has been established, but does not an argument make

Or as Plato said:

“Arguments that make their point by means of similarities are impostors, and, unless you are on your guard against them, will quite readily deceive you.”

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I've explained the flaws in the "abstain from blood" argument at length.

When it comes to the first abstention, (things sacrificed to idols) the JW's readily acknowledge:

a. That "abstain" negates actions, not objects

b. That a finite act is required to complete the thought

c. That in this case, that act is idolatry.

d. That what the Decree actually forbade was therefore the eating of an idol sacrifice as part of a pagan ritual. (I am quoting from JW literature here.)

The honesty of JW writers on this matter is required to resolve what would otherwise be a serious contradiction in their teaching.

The second abstention (blood) is governed by the exact same rubric. The rules of definition and grammar don't change from one sentence to the next and they certainly don't change in mid-sentence.

Fisherman

First impression: I love your style.

Fisherman

TD,

?According to your application, a person can bathe in gallons of blood and put gallons of it inside a persons body just as long as it is not being eaten by means of digestion, or a person can even outright eat and digest blood to save human life without violating the Decree?

But what do you want to do with the Decree? or What do you say the Decree says about how the prohibition should apply?

Also, how are JW leaders being dishonest with the BT teaching?

Basic Blood Questions For Witnesses

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