This is the **information age**. Doesn't come as a surprise that the internet is destroying some religions.
How the Internet is Destroying Mormonism
by slimboyfat 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Phizzy
I do hope that the Internet, and the spread of true knowledge by any means, will bring an end to all organized religion eventually.
All Organized Religion enslaves people in some way, and bleeds them dry, not only of money, but more importantly, of self-determination, and self-esteem.
Personal faith may remain, and, if it does, will do no harm, I hope.
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OrphanCrow
Gawd...my math skills went to sleep...
I had said "the blood ban was put in place right on the heels of the end of WW2 - in 1945, following tactic approval of blood transfusions - a full 2 1/2 years after Rutherford's death."
That should be 3 and a half years...
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Beth Sarim
**All Organized Religion enslaves people in some way, and bleeds them dry, not only of money, but more importantly, of self-determination, and self-esteem.**
Organized Religion is captive. You can see how cult-like it is. Very evident with high control groups such as JWs. Everyone outside of their group is out of bounds. Only time you are allowed to socialize with them is Field Serve Us. Other than that, out of bounds. Who you are allowed to socialize with and love are examples of high control groups like that of cults.
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jookbeard
OC, I always thought the blood ban came into full force in the early 1950's so what was Knorrs' motivation to think this dreadful doctrine up? did he just pluck it out of thin air? was it borrowed from another belief system?did he think about the repercussions for the R&F ? did he pay any attention to the destruction, death and damage it would do? they have a Jonestown tragedy many times over! did he just make it up because he could?.
Hayden Covington was of the great crowd and the Judge must have known Knorr and Franz could never have considered him for presidency, plus he was playing a very important role as the WT legal counsel , a role they would have wanted him to remain in.
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JW GoneBad
The internet is without a doubt having an adverse and negative effect on the WTBTS in the same way it's affecting the Mormon faith.
A friend in the same congregation I attend was recently relating to me how she simply typed 'Jehovah's Witnesses' on google search and to her surprise she found experience after experience of current and ex-JW's unhappy life stories. She further mentioned it was so habit forming to want read more and more of soo many topics and doctrinal issues people have with the organization. She was amazed to say the least! She had to admit that there has to be some truth to all this unfavorable talk online about WT.
So a simple formula can give us a conservative figure of just how problematic the internet is to WT.
The 2015 Yearbook states there are 115,416 congregations worldwide. It's not a stretch of the imagination to say that there could likely be on average 2 persons per congregation (more than 300,000) being in some way disturbed by this extensive mention and negative publicity of JWs online. The numbers of publishers learning more and more of WT's dark side quickly rises to between 500,000 to 750,000, easily, if one figures that as many as 6, 7 or more per congregation may be doing some independent JW reading on the internet. And those numbers just reflect the reading habits of JWs for one day. Imagine the education people are getting about the real truth about the 'Truth' day after day, week after week and month after month...Yay!
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slimboyfat
Richard Singelenberg argued that blood donation became prevalent during the Second World War and was bound up with patriotism and supporting the troops, and that's why initially JWs took against it.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/027795369090048W?via%3Dihub
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OrphanCrow
I apologize in advance, SlimBoyFat, for de-railing this thread...but, the questions have been asked. And it would be rude not to answer. And besides, it still pertains to the information age explosion. What I am about to say wouldn't be possible without the sources to back it up.
OC, I always thought the blood ban came into full force in the early 1950's so what was Knorrs' motivation to think this dreadful doctrine up? did he just pluck it out of thin air? was it borrowed from another belief system?did he think about the repercussions for the R&F ? did he pay any attention to the destruction, death and damage it would do? they have a Jonestown tragedy many times over! did he just make it up because he could?.
The first mention of a blood transfusion ban came in July 1945, with one little hint of it in I believe, December 1944 - both mentioned in the WT magazine. I think I have those dates right - jwfacts has those dates.
When I first found that out, because most people don't realize when it became a prohibition along with me, I wanted to know why. Why would Knorr take a radically different stance on a procedure that had been implicitly approved in earlier literature and why then? Why would he ban blood transfusions when the rest of the world was making huge advances in that field?
So I took a look at where blood technology was during WW2. Doctrine is flexible (very flexible in the JWs) and can be manipulated in response to outside events. History is less flexible - some of it just gets covered up. So I read this book:
Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce by Douglas Starr - 2000
Starr gives a detailed account of blood history and examines each country's contribution to the advancement of blood technology. WW2 was responsible for many advances in the field of the medical use of blood - the US (Cohn) developed fractionization, the Russians used blood copiously (even employing cadavar blood) and the Japanese even tried horse blood. And the Canadians - it was a Canadian, in the Spanish Civil War, who developed the system that bloomed into blood banking.
There was only one country that lagged behind in their blood research. They went the other way when it came to blood transfusions. They didn't like them - for various reasons including ideologically. During the war, while everyone else was looking for ways to increase the use of life-saving blood transfusions, Germany was researching ways to reduce and eliminate the use of blood.
The Germans conducted their research in pursuit of clotting agents, and ways to reduce blood loss. At the same time, when they did resort to giving blood, they often didn't give enough. They misused the blood typing, based on erroneous interpetation of racial blood typing, which resulted in hemolytic reactions.
Knorr's roots were in Germany - he was related to the German Knorrs - the ones who owned all those food interests. Knorr Foods. Nathan Knorr was German.
The parameters of the German blood research during WW2 can be found in the pillars of today's blood management, a field of medicine that is heavily influenced by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Blood management follows the German ideology of WW2 blood research - small amounts of blood and given rarely, the use of clotting agents and minimal blood sampling.
So, to answer the question - did Knorr make it up because he could? Yes, he did. He could control a whole group of people's choices in blood use, thereby creating a convenient sample group for testing noblood technology. He had the power to do so and he did.
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jookbeard
Choice? the sad thing is that choice is one thing that the R&F didn't have, suicide or a death bed JC, what a choice! -
OrphanCrow
I forgot to mention this...
The ideology of rejecting the use of blood transfusions was also, at the time, reflected in the WT's alliances with the world of chiropractry and oesteopaths. 'Bloodless surgery' at the time of WW2, was a term used by chiros - a form of 'deep massage' that was practiced by - guess who? - Dr. Felix Kersten, Heinrich Himmler's doctor. Kersten was the 'hero' of the JWs during the war. There is much more I could say about how the WT's quasi-medical beliefs were the basis for implementing a full-on blood prohibition and the JWs relationship with Himmler.
When I started to examine the history of the bloodless world, there was very little on the internet to fill in what I wanted to know - where did bloodless surgery originate and how come the JWs couldn't have blood? What was the connection and was there one? So most of my early research was done with the aid of much 'hard research' - I buried my nose in hard copy. Everything from a copy of Dr. Felix Kersten's journal to loads of stuff on Heinrich Himmler, the German who was treated by a 'bloodless surgeon', the friend of the JWs. I even frequented the medical library at the university hospital, looking for where and when bloodless medicine came about. I found lots, but it was hard.
It wasn't until a few years later that the current 'history of bloodless medicine' became available online. And...guess what? One of the authors of a textbook that is used in educating blood management professionals is written by a JW doctor. From Germany. With their version of 'the history of bloodless medicine'. You now can find out where it came from and all that...from a Jehovah's Witness. Watchtower propaganda.
Funny how that went full circle.