Blood = Organ Transplant Awake! '99

by waiting 45 Replies latest jw friends

  • Maximus
    Maximus

    Here's something to consider. The Gorman quotation about pouring out blood being a symbol of reverence for life sounds great--until you read the next sentence and find out the author says it was merely a "hunting ritual enjoined on the Israelites." His entire book is an argument AGAINST the kind of view the Society takes.

    What the GB does is come to a policy position--consensus. THEN they look for any quotation that MIGHT LOOK LIKE it supports their case. They have misquoted Tertullian, Pliny, Eusebius and conflated passages regularly when it comes to blood.

    A urologist may indeed have been quoted as saying blood is an organ transplant. Was he speaking about whole blood transfusion? That is rarely needed today. What was the context?

    Bet your bottom dollar that he was not speaking about withholding packed red cells from a bleeding child because of risks of bad blood! Nor was he speaking of withholding platelets from a kid dying of cancer! Neither of these could be called an organ transplant.

    Were the next comments about the dangers of transplants about blood, or were they conflated to make it appear that blood was being spoken of?

    If one person expresses his OPINION in print somewhere, does that make it accurate? This is how the Society fools you. I watch it on this board. Someone quotes a minor functionary IN PRINT who disagrees with a whole host of world-class experts and somehow what HE says is now authority to be argued with or agreed with. What I delight to see here is persons using their own thinking capacity and breaking free of the Watchtower-think shackles.

    Blood as a liquid organ? Use your own powers of reasoning. Blood is a vehicle for hundreds of extremely complex entities including nutrients and even hormones. When you have a blood test, did you lose part of your blood organ? Waiting picks up on something. The publications REGULARLY slip in things they want to reinforce, whether out of context or not. "Liquid organ." What a nice ring to it!

    Do the best surgeons use techniques that prevent loss of blood? Of course! Many of them resent some physicians advertising themselves as "bloodless surgeons." But please note, these are for MEDICAL reasons in managing their patients, not for any SCRIPTURAL reasons.

    You don't think Denton Cooley would use blood when he had too? Awake! asks "Gift of Life or Kiss of Death?" Then quotes Cooley. Picture this surgeon with a ruptured ruptured aorta while doing a bypass. "Ooops! Sorry, big fella, can't give you blood; that would be the KISS OF DEATH." Aannkkhh!

    You can find similar quotations about the risks of anesthesia! Does the Watchtower write about this? Being put to sleep is a "dangerous procedure," for heaven's sake! Do you avoid it because it is? You avoid it until you HAVE to have it, perhaps to save your life.

    Would aspirin be approved by the FDA today, because of its very real risk of internal bleeding? Come on Watchtower, think about WHAT is being written, not the words!

    The Governing Body now is reduced to relying on MEDICAL concerns and distorted quotations from scholars such as Gorman.

    I don't want to spend time at it but just ask yourself this question.

    If "abstain ... from blood" is an absolute command, why is it acceptable to take ANY fractionated part? If you can take hemoglobin fractionated from cow's blood, is that in any way, shape or form recognizing an absolute ban in a command to "abstain ... from blood"? If gallons of donated blood can be "misused" but a portion taken by Witness hemophiliacs to save their life, how is that an absolute ban?

    Today you can DONATE blood if it is used to provide acceptable fractions! Yes, you read me correctly. They just don't tell you about it!

    Mark my words: They KNOW there is no absolute ban on blood. The policy has been changing under your nose and will continue to change.

    What kills me is that they are doing it glacial speed so as not "to harm the spirituality of the brothers with further disillusionment" like the "generation" teaching. In the meantime, kids die. Their picture on Awake! magazine is not much of a reward.

    I've stated it elsewhere and I will state it again here: It is extremely important for the Legal Department to have conflicting stuff in the publications. Organ transplant, not a transplant. Take this, not that. Individual vs. weak conscience vs. whatever. The fuzzier the better, because if a church parishioner is confused about church policy, that means the policy is individualistic and not communal. That mitigates, protects against liability! And what it's all about today, is preservation of the organization.

    I wonder if Witnesses 50 years from now will argue that it is a myth that JWs did not take blood transfusions?

    Hawk, I am profoundly grateful for some immense contributions you have made that will only later come fully to light.

    For those interested in transfusion medicine, I suggest an entity of high caliber such as the laboratory consortium of Stanford, University of California and University of Southern California. Be sure to visit all pages at
    http://upcmd.com/transfusion_medicine/transfusion_practice/

    Maximus

  • hawkaw
    hawkaw

    I hope everyone read that

    For those who were just breezing by asleep at the switch

    Maximus just gave you the new blood light (cough,cough) and he is not kidding

    Today you can DONATE blood if it is used to provide acceptable fractions! Yes, you heard me correctly. They just don't tell you about it.

    So much for that pouring it on the ground crap.

    hawk

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer
    Today [Jehovah’s Witnesses] can DONATE blood if it is used to provide acceptable fractions! Yes, you heard me correctly. They just don't tell you about it.

    Like Hawk, I want to underscore what Maximus has said about Jehovah’s Witnesses being able to DONATE blood. If you don’t believe it, call Bethel and ask them. They might even pretend this has always been the case. Guess we only have coincidence to blame for why no JW has EVER HEARD of this until this year!

    Damn, this makes me mad! When I first heard of it some weeks ago, this new twist sent my blood pressure through the roof! This bit of policy is real. I have confirmed it personally.

    I wonder how Rolf Furuli will try and defend this little bit of policy, if he tries?

  • Anchor
    Anchor

    GASP!

    Anchor

  • hawkaw
    hawkaw

    Marvin

    ....... Rolf Furuli......

    He was such a "hero" on the bmj.com board wasn't he?

    Never did answer the "natural movement" of red blood cells question.

    And every time he wrote something Sam Muramoto and people like you made him look like an idiot.

    And to think he is some professor somewhere in Northern Europe. I wonder when he will take the "glasses" off?

    AGAIN, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF WHAT MAXIMUS HAS POSTED.

    Max, should you start a separate thread to wake people up and get the message out? (p.s. - were you talking alpine glacier speed or continential glacier speed? Did you know glaciers always move forward even when their toe is melting.)

    Marvin, don't let your "mad" feelings get the best of you and jeopardize your life. Stay cool ..... your posts in combination with the actions of other people are the reason for the change.

    hawk

  • Marvin Shilmer
    Marvin Shilmer

    Everyone with personal knowledge of this latest development in WTS policy needs to be very careful about language they use to talk about it.

    Maximus, you know what I mean. There are certain phrases we must avoid to protect the innocent. I know you will BE CAREFUL. When you said, “They just don't tell you about it,” that was fine. But other, more distinctive phrases describing the same thing could be dangerous.

  • hawkaw
    hawkaw

    BTTT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • waiting
    waiting

    Well, don't I feel like the fool........was ready to allow myself, my kids, my husband - to die....for a hunting ritual - and then to find out the Legal Buggers have been changing it all along very sloooowly. We didn't even notice - and the buggers protected themselves from being sued because they gave us both sides of the argument, we just weren't alert enough to realize it. "Blinded by the Light."

    "Today you can DONATE blood if it is used to provide acceptable fractions! Yes, you read me correctly. They just don't tell you about it!

    Mark my words: They KNOW there is no absolute ban on blood. The policy has been changing under your nose and will continue to change."

    - Maximus

    And to top it off, a close family member of mine is going to be undergoing severe neck surgery (7.5 hrs minimum), an elder, been in touch with the Hospital Liason Committee, and confident because he found a surgeon who will comply with the "No Blood Doctrine of JW's."

    The WTBTS must think we're really idiots, and our lives pretty much worthless to treat us like the Pharisees treated the common people in Jesus time - "dirt people."

    Thanks y'all - it's so hard to get a wake up call.

    waiting

  • ballistic
    ballistic

    To Maximus

    You are absolutely correct about the society mis-quoting and taking certain statements from scientific papers out of context.

    In the book "Life How Did it Get Here - By Evolution or by Creation", it quotes Hoyle's work a fair bit. Now he lives in my town here in Dorset, England, and I happened to call on him in field service.
    He says that his arguments for one form of evolution over another are taken to be statements advocating creation when taken out of context.

    Also quoted is the book "The Blind Watch Maker", which I have read, and although this book dwells a lot on the marvels of nature, it is basically showing what a marvelous process evolution is. Again - quoted out of context in that book.

    I was too far out... and not waving but drowning - Stevie Smith

  • AlanF
    AlanF

    Ballistic, if you want to see more than 100 examples of misquotes, misrepresentations, misunderstandings and general scholarly malfeasance by WTS writers, check out the long essay "The WTS View of Creation and Evolution" here: http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/index2.htm . It mostly covers the 1985 Creation or Life book.

    AlanF

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