Regarding transplant logic -It is interesting that WT religion allows transplants when there are 12 times the number of white blood cells in organ tissue than in the blood stream.
Refuting Watchtarded Reasoning - 1. "If a doctor tells you to abstain from alcohol, you wouldn't inject it..."
by Island Man 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
TD
Cofty
They are convinced that blood is sacred and can only be used - under the Law - for its sacrificial value.
Ignorant JW's are, which unfortunately are many (Most?) The idea of of a prohibition on the "use" of blood is yet another piece of semantic legerdemain that can be easily deconstructed using only JW literature inasmuch as it clearly distinguishes between some uses of blood and others. --And none of them are sacrificial.
I think different approaches will work with different people. I studied with JW's as a young man and the sticking point for me (And the reason why I quit) was their complete and utter ignorance about what blood actually did in the body.
-
cofty
Ignorant JW's are
It's the official doctrine.
-
Simon
The WTS treats blood like a peanut allergy but the reality is it was all symbolic and ritual, nothing more. No one was going to die or burst into flames and there was nothing to even say how well something had to be bled - there's simply no way to extract every single drop of blood from an animal AFAIK.
-
Finkelstein
Based on the fact that F Franz stated at the time this doctrine was presented, that people who received the Blood Transfusions would also receive the giver's ill sinful personality and character traits. ........ true
Maybe he wasn't so solidly sure of this thoughts and understandings.
So from out of some guy who was more or less a pseudo bible scholar, a doctrine was created and enforced with due punishment to those who would not support it.
As of to date thousands of people who've been lured into the JWS cult have died, children, mothers, fathers and new borns.
-
bennyk
( From Bulldozer ):
***hb p.8 Blood Transfusions - How Safe?***
a transfusion is a tissue transplant.
***g90 10/22 p.9 Gift of Life or Kiss of Death?***
As cardiovascular surgeon Denton Cooley notes: "A blood transfusion is an organ transplant. . . . I think that there are certain incompatibilities in almost all blood transfusions."
***g99 8/22 p.31 Are Blood Transfusions Really Necessary?***
Blood is an organ of the body, and blood transfusion is nothing less than an organ transplant.
*********************************************************************************
Perhaps this was intended to introduce a change in the Blood policy?
***g00 1/8 Pioneers in Medicine***
[Footnote]
Jehovah's Witnesses view organ transplant operations as a matter of individual conscience.
-
TD
Cofty,
It's the official doctrine.
If by this you mean that we can find statements to that effect in JW literature, I would agree wholeheartedly.
Here's a good example:
"The blood of these sacrifices was brought to the altar.....Any other use of blood by humans has always been forbidden by God." (The Watchtower, June 1, 1996 p.10)
The problem here is that a prohibition against "..any other use of blood" is unconditionally inclusive, whereas the actual policy in place conditionally excludes some uses of blood from the prohibition.
The two ideas really aren't compatible and I don't have an explanation for the contradiction other than to speculate that articles are written at different levels as it suits the purposes of the writers. (e.g. HLC members generally have a very different understanding of the doctrine than most of the publishers.)
When JW literature gets into specifics, the doctrine is more often described as a prohibition against the, "misuse of blood." The JW parent organization has, over the years offered four separate and distinct rationales for determining what does and what does not constitute a, "misuse of blood" and these distinctions have been many times finer than the difference between eating blood and transfusing blood.
-
cofty
The JW parent organization has, over the years offered four separate and distinct rationales for determining what does and what does not constitute a, "misuse of blood"
I would be interested in knowing more about those if you have time.
-
Finkelstein
The WTS has many times used loaded language or exploitative appeal to emotions toward supporting its controversially weak doctrines.
Its has also strategically used self supporting propaganda by using selective biased information to support itself.
Propaganda is "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view".[1] Propaganda is often associated with the psychological mechanisms of influencing and altering the attitude of a population toward a specific cause, position or political agenda in an effort to form a consensus to a standard set of belief patterns.[2]
Propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (perhaps lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded messages or "loaded language" to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented -
TD
Cofty,
The original argument was that transfusion nourished the body as food and therefore directly violated biblical prohibitions against eating blood.
In 1958, the issue was stated thus:
"Each time the prohibition of blood is mentioned in the Scriptures it is in connection with taking it as food, and so it is as a nutrient that we are concerned with in its being forbidden." (The Watchtower, September 15, 1958, p. 575)
Blood based serums and antitoxins were therefore excluded from the prohibition on the basis that they did not nourish the body like food.
In 1990, the JW parent organization came up with a new litmus test. Blood components were now divided on the basis of transference across the placental barrier during pregnancy. The same divisions remained
In 1959, autologous transfusion was prohibited, but this facet of the prohibition has required clarification more than once. The March 1, 1989 issue of The Watchtower, for example, described three forms of autologous blood use:
"A final example of autologous blood use involves recovering and reusing blood during surgery. Equipment is used to aspirate blood from the wound, pump it out through a filter (to remove clots or debris) or a centrifuge (to eliminate fluids), and then direct it back into the patient. " (Emphasis mine)
The previous two examples of "autologous blood use" in the captioned article were isovolemic hemodilution and predonation. So here we had three autologous uses of blood, two of which were matters of conscience and one of which was not.
The August 8, 1993 issue of Awake! explicitly acknowledges that allogenic blood is used in the production of the hepatitis B vaccine:
"These active immunizations include all the baby shots and the injections that are commonly considered as vaccinations. With one exception (discussed later), these do not involve the use of blood in any step of production. One other active immunization deserves attention because it is the only active immunization made from blood. It is a hepatitis-B vaccine called Heptavax-B." (Emphasis mine)
The October 1, 1994 issue of The Watchtower amplifies on the subject of "baby shots" by acknowledging that blood products are indeed used in their production:
"Many find this noteworthy, since some vaccines that are not prepared from blood may contain a relatively small amount of plasma albumin that was used or added to stabilize the ingredients in the preparation."
Examples would include MMR II, MUMPSVAX, ATTENUVAX and MURAVAX II by Merck & Co. The growth mediums for these vaccines (e.g. Medium 199, MEM, etc) typically contain both human albumin and fetal bovine serum. Additionally the vaccines themselves contain human albumin as an adjuvant or excipient. Other examples of this include VARIVAX and VAQTA, also by Merck & Co., EOLARIX, INFANRIX, and GLAXO by SmithKline Beecham, PENTACEL by Aventis Pasteur, and Connaught Laboratories IPV just to name a few. Most people in developed countries (Including JW's) accept the battery of childhood immunizations.
Another problem with a prohibition against "..any other use of blood" is that it extends into other areas. If one of Jehovah’s Witnesses were a biology teacher for example, may he or she use blood for teaching purposes? In other words, if a “hands on” approach as opposed to complete reliance upon textbook descriptions and illustrations was deemed more desirable, could the students be taught simple procedures involving the use of blood? Could they be taught how to withdraw and type blood, be it their own or that of a lab partner? Could the identification of the various cellular components of blood be taught by having the students stain and prepare slides from blood to view under a simple optical microscope? Conversely if a Witness student was enrolled in such a course, could they participate in these procedures in good conscience?
If a Witness worked for a pharmaceutical company could they use blood for testing purposes? What if the company needed to know if a particular drug is safe to administer to pregnant women? Could the Witness devise a simple simulation of the maternal/fetal relationship by setting up two circulating loops of a plasma-based perfusate separated by an isolated cotyledon of human placenta and then measuring the amount and/or rate of transference when the preparation in question is introduced into the “maternal” side?
For individual Witnesses who may be struggling to reconcile their occupational duties with their faith, the JW parent organization has offered specific guidance in response to written inquiries as well as general guidance through the The Watchtower. Examples would include the November 15, 1964 and the April 1, 1975 issues. For years now, the position has been basically the same: As long as the blood is not being used for purposes of consumption or transfusion, then such uses are considered to be “matters of conscience.”
Regardless of whether the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses officially endorses or otherwise approves of any of these uses of blood or not, if they do recognize that some uses of blood can in fact be distinguished from others, then it is clear that their prohibition against blood is conditional.