Posts by djeggnog

posted

317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@jgnat:
I suggest rather that a religious organization’s foray in to medicine – suggesting that blood transfusions are too risky and suggesting that bloodless alternatives are superior - is persecution against the medical community.
I don't have more respect for the medical community than I do for the law enforcement community or the educational community or the political community or the Hispanic, Black, Asian, Gay communities. I have no problem with you being an apologist for the medical community, @jgnat. None.
BTW, this post is a response to the barbs you're throwing, since the discussion that drew me to this thread -- your invitation to it -- turned out really to be about this campaign of yours in which you rail against the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses with regard to blood transfusions, especially where the children of Jehovah's Witnesses face death over the refusal of their parents to submit to the wisdom of "the medical community" to intercede in their behalf in order to save their lives using blood that they -- not the medical community, but Jehovah's Witnesses -- believe to be sacred, rather that being a discussion about blood fractions.
If the Governing Body had contained their religious education to the bible directive alone, I would have more respect for their position.
You have no respect for God, let alone the position of Jehovah's Witnesses, and you are so thick as to believe that the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses is the reason why Jehovah's Witnesses around the world view blood as sacred, that were we not to have a governing body, that we would readily treat blood with the same concept as you do, knowing as we do that it was Jehovah's will that blood would serve as a reminder to His worshippers that their sins were forgiven by virtue of Jesus' own blood, which is the basis of the ransom that saves our lives eternally. This Bible directive to "abstain ... from blood" is absolutely essential on Christians to obey since Jehovah's Witnesses view obedience to God's will to be of vital importance.
Put another way, @jgnat, Jehovah's Witnesses do not have more respect for the medical community that cannot save anyone's life, but for (maybe!) 20, 30 or 40 additional years, than we do for God, who can save us forever. If we have to choose between 20, 30 or 40 years and eternal life, eternal life wins hands down, for we would gladly exchange the loss of 20, 30 or 40 years of life in our present dying state -- and, yes, we are all dying right now in Adamic sin -- for eternal life in sinlessness! Jehovah's Witnesses have faith that you do not have, which is why you cannot comprehend the choice we make in faith to live as being a better one than you would make to die lacking faith, and that's ok.
Jehovah’s Witnesses should be fully informed that their religious decision carries a real risk of temporal death.
Jehovah's Witnesses know well that our religious decision against accepting blood transfusions carry "a real risk of temporal death." We are not ignorant of what we are saying to doctors when we tell them that we do not wish to receive any blood transfusions. We are fully aware that there is the very real possibility that the doctors to whom we say this may not be as competent as are some other doctors to be able to provide quality medical treatment to us without blood, and that before we can find a doctor that can competently provide quality medical treatment to us without blood that we might die. But, please, make no mistake about it, @jgnat: There are doctors that are uniquely qualified to provide medical treatment to patients like Jehovah's Witnesses, who for whatever reason wish good quality medical treatment without the use of blood or blood products.
Isn’t the problem for the society rather, that in certain medical emergencies, doctors continue to recommend blood transfusions; regardless of a certain religious magazine’s claims of risk?
For the Society? No. For Jehovah's Witnesses? Sometimes yes, because not all Jehovah's Witnesses happen to live where there are competent physicians available to them that are able to treat its patients without the use of blood in connection with such treatment. Consequently, Jehovah's Witnesses are faced with trying to find a hospital nearest where they live to where their loved ones can be transferred where quality medical care without the use of blood and blood products might be rendered.
It makes the Watchtower Society look bad.
There may be many things that make the Society look bad to some folks, but for the most part, people fault Jehovah's Witnesses for the decisions they make for themselves and their own children in their refusal to accept blood transfusions. Very few people fault the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society for the decisions that Jehovah's Witnesses make in this regard. You may one of the few people that faults the Society, but I can assure you, hardly anyone thinks the fault for the position that Jehovah's Witnesses take regarding blood transfusions lies with the Society.
Are you suggesting that there are no God-fearing doctors?
Yes, that is exactly what I'm suggesting, especially since hardly any of them even know that Jehovah is the true God, many of them believing instead that Jesus, who is God's son, is God, which is proof that there are hardly any God-fearing doctors. If these doctors were truly God-fearing, then one would think that they would want to please Him, to do His will, and "abstain ... from blood," but clearly they have no desire to please God, no desire to His will, because they are not "abstaining ... from blood," but using blood, which they should not be using in the way that they are using it by transfusing it. Anyone that disobeys God is someone that can honestly say that they know God.
@djeggnog wrote:
I mentioned alcohol, but why do you here refer to penicillin as 'a simple compound'?
@TD wrote:
The transfusion of blood and the consumption of blood are not equivalent acts because they both fall into the generic [category] of "Taking in blood"
@djeggnog wrote:
Did you come up with this particular "equivalency" on your own or did someone help you with it? Would you call taking penicillin orally consuming it, @TD? Would you consider penicillin being administered intravenously to be yet another way of consuming the drug? If taking penicillin orally and intravenously are equivalent acts, then how can you say that transfusing blood is somehow different than consuming it, @TD?
@TD wrote:
If transfusion is wrong for the same reason(s) that eating blood was wrong, that equivalency would be based on a concrete set of conditions that could be tested and proven.
@djeggnog wrote:
And with my illustration (above) about penicillin, I have proved the equivalency of transfusing blood and eating blood, since either orally or intravenously, the nutrients found in blood make their way into the bloodstream, even as does penicillin, whether administered orally or intravenously.
@TD wrote:
These exact same differences exist with blood transfusion, which is why analogies with simple compounds like alcohol or penicillin fail.
@djeggnog wrote:
What do you mean? It is red blood cells that take oxygen to the tissues of the human body. I don't see what an organ transplant has to do with blood transfusions, since, like any foreign tissue, blood transfusion is a tissue transplant and can suppress the immune system leading to immunologic reactions. I mentioned alcohol, but why do you here refer to penicillin as 'a simple compound'? What are these "physical and moral differences" that you say exists between someone that eats human tissue and the transplantation of human tissue as is done when one receives a blood transfusion? You're making no sense to me, @TD.
@TD wrote:
Penicillin is a simple compound....
You are really just repeating yourself, @TD. You wrote that "analogies with simple compounds like ... penicillin fail," but because I didn't understand your point, I said, "What do you mean?" I wasn't asking you whether Penicillin is a simple compound. What I was asking you with this question is to tell me how my analogy failed.
@TD wrote:
It could be inferred that all other uses of the human reproductive system were forbidden.... The resultant restriction would forbid all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason then that they unknown to the ancient world and therefore not listed as exceptions in the Bible. In-vitro fertilization would be lumped together with things like adultery, which is very, very different.
It's not so "very, very different" if God indicates in His word, the Bible, that He doesn't approve of in-vitro fertilizations.
It should be obvious that this line of reasoning is fallacious on many levels. In-vitro fertilization for a married couple is a preternatural use of the human reproductive system, but it is still a use in accordance with what Jehovah's Witnesses would consider the purpose of the human reproductive system to be. (i.e For married couples to produce children)
Nope.
Notice that I emphasized "married couple" --Sperm donor and egg donor would be husband and wife. (Sorry if I didn't make that clear enough)
I noticed.
Do you disagree that in-vitro fertilization for a married couple unable to conceive by normal means is a use of the human reproductive system in accordance with its purpose?
No, I do not disagree, but I disagreed with what you actually said:
(1) The resultant restriction would forbid all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason then that they unknown to the ancient world....
Whether artificial insemination was unknown to the ancient world is irrelevant.
(2) In-vitro fertilization would be lumped together with things like adultery, which is very, very different.
I don't agree that in-vitro fertilization and adultery are "very, very different" than eating blood and transfusing it.
(3) It should be obvious that this line of reasoning is fallacious on many levels.
You haven't proved that anything about my reasoning here about penicillin being consumed whether taken orally or intravenously to be deceiving or misleading, @TD. You can't, so you want to conflate your arguments and introduce a new one about polyheme having "the potential to do a lot of good for Jehovah's Witnesses" and being "physically and morally distinguishable from consuming human hemoglobin as a food." You came to learn all of this from "the information desk at Patterson"? Give me a break!
You were arguing that the imposition of restrictions on all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason is wrong. I don't agree. If a married couple should decide to use in-vitro fertilization, that would be a personal decision for them alone to decide. You went on to say, "It should be obvious that this line of reasoning is fallacious on many levels, but then decided to limit your argument to married couple, by writing, that [i]n-vitro fertilization for a married couple is a preternatural use of the human reproductive system.... but I cannot and do not agree with your initial premise that imposing restrictions on all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason is wrong.
It's like if someone were to be claiming to be giving me a list of prime numbers and they should give me the numbers "2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23 and 29," I'd be ok with this, for all of these numbers are prime, but were they to instead give me a list containing the numbers "2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 28 and 29, I'd have a problem since the number "28" is not a prime number. This is what you did when you introduced the topic of the human reproductive system, for you were not limiting yourself to prime numbers at all, but you threw into the list a "28" (marital intercourse being equivalent to "in-vitro fertilization for a married couple") in the context of your discussing prime numbers ("all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason" being equivalent to "in-vitro fertilization for a married couple").
Put another way: If you wish to claim that when you were made reference to in-vitro fertilization in your previous post that you only had in mind married couples, fine, but what we were discussing was the different between eating blood and transfusing it, which you claimed to be "very, very different" from "in-vitro fertilization and adultery." They are not different for if donor sperm should be given to someone artificially inseminated that is not married to the married sperm donor, then this would be adultery, and if anyone should take penicillin orally instead of intravenously, that penicillin has still been consumed, just as when donor blood is being consumed by the recipient of it, whether it should be ingested orally by drinking it or taken intravenously.
You want to conflate these arguments and that's fine, @TD, but I think it would be best if you go conflate them with someone else, because I won't allow you to think that you can get away with conflating them to make a very different point about prime numbers when the number "28" isn't one of them. You are free to think "the information desk at Patterson" to be masters of my faith or masters of the faith that Jehovah's Witnesses have in common, but Jehovah's Witnesses have only one Master, Jesus and we are of us are standing based on our faith in God and God alone.
I have never once needed to contact the Watchtower Educational Center in Patterson, NY, or the Hospital Information Services, which is still located at 25 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, NY, because, like me, these folks are Jehovah's Witnesses, but I'll leave it to you to guess the number of times I've been contacted by either. It seems with your last post you now want to move the ball away from discussing in-vitro fertilization to talk about polyheme, which is not a blood fraction, but a blood product, and as such is unacceptable for use by Jehovah's Witnesses, despite what some Jehovah's Witnesses may have been willing to conscientiously accept as a blood substitute, but I would rather you stay on topic. I feel we have explored all of the arguments regarding blood fractions, so I think I'm going to be withdrawing from this thread now (unless someone should say something in it to compel me to post a response).
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@TD:
I thought I should separate this portion of my post out from the other portion since this portion isn't about blood fractions (which is why I'm going to be withdrawing soon from this thread), nor is it about the efficacy of blood transfusions or why it was ok to sell unbled meat to foreigners, or any of the other things that found their way into this thread somehow.
The only divinely sanctioned use of the human reproductive system in the Bible was through marital intercourse.
This is true.
Do Jehovah's Witnesses decide all matters of medicine using the same methodology they use with blood?
Yes, which "methodology" is, simply put, if God said don't do it, then we don't do it.
It could be inferred that all other uses of the human reproductive system were forbidden.... The resultant restriction would forbid all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason then that they unknown to the ancient world and therefore not listed as exceptions in the Bible. In-vitro fertilization would be lumped together with things like adultery, which is very, very different.
It's not so "very, very different" if God indicates in His word, the Bible, that He doesn't approve of in-vitro fertilizations.
It should be obvious that this line of reasoning is fallacious on many levels. In-vitro fertilization for a married couple is a preternatural use of the human reproductive system, but it is still a use in accordance with what Jehovah's Witnesses would consider the purpose of the human reproductive system to be. (i.e For married couples to produce children)
Nope.
This is what I was driving at when I asked if Jehovah's Witnesses judge transfusion under the same rubric as the mundane uses of blood known to the ancient world. Medical procedures unknown to the ancient world can't be judged that way and I would be surprised if Jehovah's Witnesses use that methodology in other areas.
This would be a different question, for the rubric as to which you speak here is different from the in-vitro fertilization-adultery paradigm or the idolatry-blood-fornication paradigm. Let me explain.
In-vitro fertilization constitutes adultery, whether the husband's sperm is used to fertilize an egg of another woman, not his wife, or this wife agrees to an insemination by intercourse with this other woman, not his wife. The Bible says: "You must not give your emission as semen to the wife of your associate to become unclean by it." (Leviticus 18:20)
Even if we were talking about gestational surrogacy, where implanted into this surrogate's uterus is the fertilized egg of the husband and his wife, which makes this other woman, not his wife, pregnant. So what happened that is so wrong here, you ask? The pregnancy is the result of a misuse of her reproductive organs, so that her womb is being used by someone that is not her husband. Both of these things that I mention here are immoral on many levels. I recently saw a preview of a television show recently about "assisted reproductive technology," where since the newborn infant was going to die, and this baby, the result of a gestational surrogacy between a married couple and the wife's sister-in-law, had been produced from the last of the wife's stored eggs after a hysterectomy, the husband and wife wanted the doctors to remove her newborn daughter's ovaries and then, after harvesting then newborn's eggs, to fertilize them with donor sperm (her husband's sperm) for a gestational surrogacy, again involving the wife's sister, which is not only incest, but just sick!
Now if these harvested eggs of their newborn daughter were fertilized using the sperm of her husband and implanted into the wife's uterus (where the wife did not have a hysterectomy, of course), even this would be incest, would it not? If the surrogate should receive the sperm of an unmarried man, this would then constitute fornication on her part (and on the donor's part as well). (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8) Life is sacred and sexual intercourse if how life ought to begin between a man and woman that become "one flesh," married. (Matthew 19:4-6) The marriage bed is not to be defiled in any manner. (Hebrews 13:4)
It isn't proper for a man other than the surrogate’s own husband to make use of the surrogate's reproductive organs, period, whether it be by means of the sperm you know, or donor sperm. (Leviticus 18:20; Deuteronomy 23:2)
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@Mary:
Oh good lord.........are you really this dense? The point I was making is this: Fornication = sexual relations outside of marriage. Does this mean that people were not allowed to have sexual relations under any circumstances? ... No, it does not mean that.
This question is as much as non sequitur now as it was when you first asked it. It is relevance to this topic or any and, if I'm being honest, it suggests warped thinking on your part, @Mary. Now this opinion may be a bit hard for you to swallow, but I'm pretty sure you've had to swallow a lot of things since you've reached your adulthood, and that this isn't the first time someone has suggested an inability in you to comprehend what for others are rather simple concepts. And, to answer your question, if you believe me to dense, then what possible difference would it make to you what it is I might opine about myself in this regard when you have made it abundantly clear that you think me to dense?
Is English your second language? Everyone else got what I was saying, so please don't bother trying to twist my words around claiming I said something when I didn't.
Yes, my first one and my second one. If you feel that this would explain why it is that everyone else understood what you were saying, then why should I argue with you? Nothing I might say is going to convince you otherwise; I know this. But here's my question to you: Are you accusing me of having twisting your word around and/or of having falsely attributed some statement to you that you did not make? I wasn't aware that I twisted anything and made some false statement concerning you, so please post in reply to this question:
o What statement(s) of yours I twisted; and
o What statement(s) I attributed to you that were false
Um, you just underscored the exact same part I did egghead....
Is that what you see in your browser, @Mary? The words that were "in bold" in my post were these:
it is in connection with taking it as food
OMG.......are you truly comparing the reclassification of Pluto as a "planet"....
If this particular illustration should be incomprehensible to you, then I am going to have to accept that we have a communication problem. It's not so important to me to try to explain the point I was making in some other manner. Perhaps someone you respect -- like @TD, for example -- will jump in here and help you to understand the point I was making, but I have concluded from this admission of yours that you aren't able to hear me. (Matthew 13:14; Isaiah 6:10)
Ya....you're right egghead......everyone else on here is wrong and you're right....
Your sarcasm aside, yes, @Mary, I am right, and hardly anyone else that has contributed to this thread, including you, has been right.
@TD:
As the years went by and they had time to think about it a little more, most of them, including Jehovah's Witnesses rescinded that objection [re organ and tissue transplantation being cannibalism], and acknowledged that there are physical and moral differences between the eating of human tissue and the transplantation of human tissue.
These exact same differences exist with blood transfusion, which is why analogies with simple compounds like alcohol or penicillin fail.
What do you mean? It is red blood cells that take oxygen to the tissues of the human body. I don't see what an organ transplant has to do with blood transfusions, since, like any foreign tissue, blood transfusion is a tissue transplant and can suppress the immune system leading to immunologic reactions. I mentioned alcohol, but why do you here refer to penicillin as 'a simple compound'? What are these "physical and moral differences" that you say exists between someone that eats human tissue and the transplantation of human tissue as is done when one receives a blood transfusion? You're making no sense to me, @TD. My analogy to penicillin rings true.
You are not aware of it because you are not one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I'm telling you since I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses that this prejudice that many people have as to our religious refusal to accept blood transfusions starts with the doctors that make some outrageous statements to the public as to how horrible Jehovah's Witnesses are as parents to allow their children to die for religious reasons "when a blood transfusion could have saved their lives" is religious persecution being brought to bear against us because we regard blood as sacred and these folks that bash us do not and hardly believe in God.
It really doesn't matter if you believe this, @TD, but many Jehovah's Witness/non-Jehovah's Witness unions, like yours and your wife's, have often led to things being said that cannot be taken back because Jehovah's Witnesses truly believe in the right of self-determination, in their right to decide what is going to happen to their own bodies or to the bodies of their own children. Jehovah's Witnesses consider it akin to forcible rape for anyone not one of Jehovah's Witnesses to force a blood transfusion upon their bodies or the bodies of their children since we believe all human beings have the right to make decisions that affect their own bodies, and they consider it to be a sacred responsibility to raised their children to adulthood without their children having to end up as adults living for the rest of their lives with the harm that can come to them as a result of their allowing doctors to give them blood transfusions when they were children.
If a 17-year-old kid, who has returned from the war in Afghanistan to his home in the US with legs that no longer work where wet gangrene has set into them so that amputation is required, should refuse to accept this life-saving operation, which will save his life and without which he is going to die, does the doctor have more right than the parents of his young man to decide to overrule this young man's wishes which his parents support? Do you believe this kid to be committing suicide, or would you consider the parents of this 17-year-old to be murderers for supporting their son's wishes in this regard for personal non-religious reasons?
Does the husband whose wife sustains an injury that leaves her brain dead and whose life is being sustained by her being kept on a ventilator as was ordered by her doctor have less right than the patient's husband to keep the patient breathing artificially in this way, especially when the wife may have executed a living will containing a DNR (do not resuscitate) directive in it should it become medically necessary for her to let a machine breathe for her? Do you believe the patient in this case to be committing suicide by having such a directive in her living will or would you consider the husband of the patient to be a murderer for supporting his wife's wishes in this regard for personal non-religious reasons?
If an adult patient refuses to accept a blood transfusion because he knows that blood is such a complex tissue that according to the January 1969 issue of Journal of Forensic Sciences, at page 87, "there is a less than 1 in 100,000 chance of giving a person blood exactly like his own," and that it is possible to contract Hepatitis B from just one millionth of a milliliter of infected blood, and also learns that it could be several months after a blood transfusion before he would begin to produce detectable HIV-1 or HIV-2 antibodies from contaminated blood, do you believe the doctor to have more rights than the patient to overrule his wishes? Do you believe the patient in this case to be committing suicide for his refusal to accept blood transfusions in this regard for personal non-religious reasons?
What if, say, an eight-year-old girl sustains a life-threatening injury as the result of a car accident in which she loses some blood volume and requires surgery and her parents, who are Jehovah's Witnesses should stay the hand of the doctors so that they do not permit them to give her a blood transfusion, but otherwise seek the very best care that money can buy to save her life, including the use of blood volume expanders and drugs like recombinant erythropoietin which speeds up the body’s own production of red blood cells until this little girl's body is able to produce enough blood on its own.
Do you believe the doctor's medical judgment should overrule the parents of this child's religious beliefs with respect to blood and seek a court order to force unwanted blood transfusions on their little girl? Do you believe the parents of this little girl to be derelict in their responsibilities toward their daughter, and, if their daughter should die, to be guilty of homicide for not permitting the doctor to use blood transfusions in an attempt to save the patient's life for personal religious reasons?
Tell me this, @TD: Do the parents of the 17-year-old and the eight-year-old lose the right of self-determination over their own children should, following a serious injury, they refuse to accept the medical treatment that a doctor believes could save their child's life, even when there is a very real possibility that their child will die? Does the husband of a patient lose the right of self-determination over his wife's life, or does his wife, the patient, lose the right of self-determination over her own life, should either of them decide to sign a DNR directive or order when there is a very real possibility that the patient will die? Does the patient lose the right of self-determination over his own life should he refuse to accept the medical treatment that a doctor believes could save his life?
Transfused blood cannot save anyone's life forever, but Jesus' ransom blood is able to save life forever. It is by means of Jesus Christ "that we have the release by ransom through the blood of that one, yes, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his undeserved kindness." (Ephesians 1:7) This ransom sacrifice is the only arrangement that God has authorized by means of which the blood of one creature (Jesus) may be used on behalf of another to save life. (Matthew 20:28)
The only divinely sanctioned use of the human reproductive system in the Bible was through marital intercourse.
This is true.
Do Jehovah's Witnesses decide all matters of medicine using the same methodology they use with blood?
Yes, which "methodology" is, simply put, if God said don't do it, then we don't do it.
It could be inferred that all other uses of the human reproductive system were forbidden.... The resultant restriction would forbid all uses of the human reproductive system outside of marital intercourse for no other reason then that they unknown to the ancient world and therefore not listed as exceptions in the Bible. In-vitro fertilization would be lumped together with things like adultery, which is very, very different.
It's not so "very, very different" if God indicates in His word, the Bible, that He doesn't approve of in-vitro fertilizations.
It should be obvious that this line of reasoning is fallacious on many levels. In-vitro fertilization for a married couple is a preternatural use of the human reproductive system, but it is still a use in accordance with what Jehovah's Witnesses would consider the purpose of the human reproductive system to be. (i.e For married couples to produce children)
Nope.
This is what I was driving at when I asked if Jehovah's Witnesses judge transfusion under the same rubric as the mundane uses of blood known to the ancient world. Medical procedures unknown to the ancient world can't be judged that way and I would be surprised if Jehovah's Witnesses use that methodology in other areas.
This would be a different question, for the rubric as to which you speak here is different from the in-vitro fertilization-adultery paradigm or the idolatry-blood-fornication paradigm. Let me explain.
In-vitro fertilization constitutes adultery, whether the husband's sperm is used to fertilize an egg of another woman, not his wife, or this wife agrees to an insemination by intercourse with this other woman, not his wife. The Bible says: "You must not give your emission as semen to the wife of your associate to become unclean by it." (Leviticus 18:20)
Even if we were talking about gestational surrogacy, where implanted into this surrogate's uterus is the fertilized egg of the husband and his wife, which makes this other woman, not his wife, pregnant. So what happened that is so wrong here, you ask? The pregnancy is the result of a misuse of her reproductive organs, so that her womb is being used by someone that is not her husband. Both of these things that I mention here are immoral on many levels. I saw a preview of a television show recently where the newborn infant was going to die, and this baby that had been the result of a gestational surrogacy between a married couple and the wife's sister-in-law had been produced from the last of the wife's stored eggs after a hysterectomy, so that the husband and wife were discussing the possibility of harvesting the eggs of her newborn so that they might be used in a gestational surrogacy, again involving the wife's sister, which is just sick!
If the surrogate should receive the sperm of an unmarried man, this would then constitute fornication on her part (and on the donor's part as well). (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8) Life is sacred and sexual intercourse if how life ought to begin between a man and woman that become "one flesh," married. (Matthew 19:4-6) The marriage bed is not to be defiled in any manner. (Hebrews 13:4)
It isn't proper for a man other than the surrogate’s own husband to make use of the surrogate's reproductive organs, period, whether it be by means of the sperm you know, or donor sperm. (Leviticus 18:20; Deuteronomy 23:2)
@Listener:
DJ it seems that you are in disagreement with the GB as this is the situation
Ok.
TD has [presented] a good argument to explain how blood is not food when injected but rather tissue transplant.
How would you know a good argument when you hear one? On what basis do you conclude that @TD's argument was a good one. What is the nexus between an organ transplant and a blood transfusion? How did you come to the conclusion that @TD was comparing blood to food?
What really gets me though is how it even comes about that such a serious life and death situation is decided on a majority, surely it should be a conscience matter when all are not in agreement.
You might want to take a moment and read Jesus' words to his apostles at Matthew 16:19. After you will have done this, you might then ask someone what this verse means in the context of this question that you have asked here.
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@cofty:
Are you ignoring my point about an animal "already dead" because you are conceding you have no reasonable answer?
No, I believe I answered this concern of yours at least twice now.
Even the society acknowledged "a measure guilt was incurred by eating the flesh of an animal found already dead" in the old blood brochure. They must have realised the implications of this [because] they dropped all mention of it in the next booklet on the subject.
Even if what you say were something you recall reading "in the old blood booklet," guess what? We don't believe Pluto to be a planet today, even if some "old book" should say so, and likewise do not believe any measure of bloodguilt attaches to anyone that uses a blood fraction.
It really does seem to me that you want to impale Jehovah's Witnesses on the proverbial stake as heretics for abandoning doctrinal beliefs that they formerly understood to be true some 50 years ago, but why don't you impale those who formerly believed Pluto to be one of nine planets in our solar system before they decided to abandon this scientific dogma some six years ago as false? It seems to me that you are getting a lot of grief these days should you continue to assert Pluto to be a planet, aren't you, @cofty? The kids in your neighborhood no longer do so, and none of your adult friends do so. You are perhaps the only guy on your block that still asserts Pluto to be a planet, huh?
@djeggnog wrote:
Likewise, it is not impermissible for Jehovah's Witnesses to use such products if made from any of the four components of blood provided (1) the product of interest should be a "nutrient" derived from one of these blood components and (2) they should choose to do so, for such blood fractions are no longer blood, so [they] would not be reusing it in their own bodies, and they may conscientiously choose to accept or reject such nutrients (fractions) in connection with the medical treatment they receive.
Are we to consider the injection of serums such as diphtheria toxin antitoxin and blood fractions ... the same as the drinking of blood or the taking of blood or blood plasma by means of transfusion?
No, it does not seem necessary that we put the two in the same category, although we have done so in times past....
The injection of antibodies into the blood in a vehicle of blood serum or the use of blood fractions to create such antibodies is not the same as taking blood....
While God did not intend for man to contaminate his blood stream by vaccines, serums or blood fractions, doing so does not seem to be included in God’s expressed will forbidding blood as food....
@Listener wrote:
DJ is a blood fraction food/nutrient or not?
Is blood fraction a nutrient derived from a blood component from which gamma globulin, one of many blood fractions that are derived from a blood component is produced, yes, but is it a food derived from a blood component, no. Put another way, @Listener, is gamma globulin a food? No, it isn't, but is it a nutrient nonetheless? Yes, it is.
Have you ever spread a little gamma globulin on roast chicken? If no, then why not? I know why, but why don't you tell me why you've never done this? Have you ever taken a vitamin supplement, an iron tablet, maybe. Do you think of it as being a food or as a nutrient, a nutritional vitamin supplement?
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@isaacaustin:
Idolatry...fornication- not speaking of premarital sex but marriage to close relatives, CONSIDERED fornication under jewish law...and the eating of animal blood. Go read Leviticus 17 & 18 and you may learn something.
@Mary:
One more comparison I'd like to address: fornication is also mentioned as something that both the Israelites and early Christians had to 'abstain from'. In it's [sic] basis [sic] meaning, fornication means having sexual relations to someone you're not legally married to.
You and I agree on this, but @isaacaustin says fornication isn't about premarital sex at all, but is about someone marrying their close relative. He's arguing having sexual relations with someone to whom you're not legally married isn't fornication. But no one has argued that non one could engaged in sexual relations with the own spouse under any circumstance, @Mary, so why do you mention fornication in the context of two married people, Adam and Eve, when it isn't possible for a married person to be guilty of committing fornication when having sexual relations with one's own spouse?
Does that mean that the Israelites and early Christians were not supposed to have sexual relations under any circumstances? Of course not. God commanded Adam and Eve to 'reproduce' and to 'fill the earth' so obviously, having sex under ALL circumstances was not condemned or forbidden, but it was supposed to take place within a marriage. It did not mean that you could not have sexual relations under any circumstances.
The command to 'abstain from blood' is no different. It was eating the blood of a dead animal that was forbidden....
There were four (4) prohibitions mentioned that were about life, @Mary, for all four of them referred to life, which is sacred to God. The use of blood for any reason is onerous, so that the first prohibition, "to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols," involves eating foods in a religious context, which might include drinking blood as part of a religious ritual, which would be idolatry. The second prohibition, "to keep abstaining ... from blood," involves the eating or drinking of blood. The third prohibition, "to keep abstaining ... from things strangled," involves the eating of unbled meat. Lastly, the fourth prohibition, "to keep abstaining ... from fornication," involves having sexual relations with someone to whom you are not married, for the procreative process is designed for the purpose of conception, iow, for the purpose of producing a life, for God considers a child born through fornication to be unclean, its blood is unclean, which unions should only take place between a husband and a wife.
... but you cannot claim that this means you cannot use blood under any circumstances or in any other way. That would be like saying that committing fornication includes having sex even within a marriage.
Sure, I can, and perhaps you can explain how someone "having sex ... within a marriage" constitutes fornication. Maybe you should drop this part of your argument (it's not just a bad argument; it makes no sense).
@TD:
Marital sex and adultery are not equivalent acts because they both fall into the generic [category] of "Sex"
Marital sex and fornication are not equivalent acts for the first involves sex between two married people whereas the second involves sex between two unmarried persons that are not married to each other.
Drinking a glass of water and drowning at the bottom of a lake are not equivalent acts because they both fall into the generic [category] of "Taking in water."
How about lowering a bucket in a well to retrieve water? That would "taking in water," too, wouldn't it, so what is the point of this, er, equivalency? I don't get it.
The transfusion of blood and the consumption of blood are not equivalent acts because they both fall into the generic [category] of "Taking in blood"
Did you come up with this particular "equivalency" on your own or did someone help you with it? Would you call taking penicillin orally consuming it, @TD? Would you consider penicillin being administered intravenously to be yet another way of consuming the drug? If taking penicillin orally and intravenously are equivalent acts, then how can you say that transfusing blood is somehow different than consuming it, @TD?
People may scoff when I win them, but I never lose a debate because I am never on the wrong side of one.
Implying equivalency through semantics is the fallacy of equivocation
You referred to semantics earlier in this thread and I said nothing at that time, but now the time has come to call you on your calling something "semantics" that isn't semantics, almost like saying that half dollar isn't equivalent to 50¢. Tell me, @TD: I know you're not one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but you are familiar with our beliefs, so, then, according to your understanding of what Jehovah's Witnesses teach and believe according to the Bible, would you think it to be a case of equivocation on my part were I to say that Jesus is the Messiah or that Jesus is the Christ, but refuse to say that Jesus is the Messiah and Christ, knowing as you do that Messiah is equivalent to Christ?
If transfusion is wrong for the same reason(s) that eating blood was wrong, that equivalency would be based on a concrete set of conditions that could be tested and proven.
And with my illustration (above) about penicillin, I have proved the equivalency of transfusing blood and eating blood, since either orally or intravenously, the nutrients found in blood make their way into the bloodstream, even as does penicillin, whether administered orally or intravenously.
(Contrary to the nonsense that a couple of folks here have been spouting, doctors aren't trying to transfuse animal blood into human beings, what with antigens being one big factor and the fact that death can occur when someone with one blood type intravenously receives the wrong blood type, let alone the blood from an animal causing the white blood cells -- the immune system itself -- to war against such blood invaders until the patient dies being another big factor, it would just be nuts to believe that a doctor, unless he had jumped into a time machine from the late 1870s, would actually pull such a stunt today using animal blood!)
I think I'm going to have to withdraw from this thread now, because there's no possibility that I'm going to lose this debate as to what "abstain ... from penicillin" means, which has the same equivalency to "abstain ... from blood," and with @OUTLAW, who is usually a funny guy, making the mistake of saying (on Page 10) that the atonement made using blood was "for taking the Life of the Animal," I feel I must withdraw.
@Mary:
"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."------September 15, 1958 Watchtower, p. 575
The part in bold in the following is what you should have underscored if you wanted to be honest here (same quote):
"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."------September 15, 1958 Watchtower, p. 575
Even so, the QfR article from which this quote of yours comes asked the following question about, among other things, blood fractions:
Are we to consider the injection of serums such as diphtheria toxin antitoxin and blood fractions such as gamma globulin into the blood stream, for the purpose of building up resistance to disease by means of antibodies, the same as the drinking of blood or the taking of blood or blood plasma by means of transfusion?
No, it does not seem necessary that we put the two in the same category, although we have done so in times past. 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 injection of antibodies into the blood in a vehicle of blood serum or the use of blood fractions to create such antibodies is not the same as taking blood, either by mouth or by transfusion, as a nutrient to build up the body’s vital forces.
While God did not intend for man to contaminate his blood stream by vaccines, serums or blood fractions,
doing so does not seem to be included in God’s expressed will forbidding blood as food. It would therefore be a matter of individual judgment whether one accepted such types of medication or not.
While the Bible is infallible, Jehovah's Witnesses are not infallible, and so when we are wrong about something, we will print a retraction in our literature so that all Jehovah's Witnesses are informed of a necessary change in our understanding of a matter to which we need to adjust, since there is absolutely no benefit to anyone today, for example, to be referring to Pluto a planet when on August 24, 2006, it lost that designation. Back on February 18, 1930, it was ok to refer to Pluto as a planet, but 76 years later, the IAU vote in the Prague stripped Pluto of its status as a planet, so that no one today refers to it as such.
Likewise, pulling out old Watchtower articles as "proof" of what Jehovah's Witnesses believed to be true back in the 50s or 60s will not prove what Jehovah's Witnesses believe 50 or 60 years later. In this case, the quotation you used in your post from the Watchtower, dated September 15, 1958, was disingenuous, and you know what else, @Mary? You knew this when you decided to quote it in your post.
As I said to @TD, there reason I never lose a debate is because I'm never on the wrong side of one.
@dgp:
If one of the members of the Governing Body had cancer and chemotherapy could save him, but he needed to replenish haemoglobin, would he not take transfusions?
Why don't you read all of this post and see if you can figure out what my answer to your question would be?
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@djeggnog wrote (to @TD):
Your question was, how do I know that "abstain ... from blood" means do not eat, do not drink, do not re-use blood (as in transfusing blood from one person into someone else, which, when you think about it, is really no different than what a cannibal does)?
@The Finger wrote:
Surely using blood to obtain blood factions is using blood which if it is sacred what permission do you have to do this?
Yes, but in the same way that using the plastic bottle that folks that drink bottled water use is like using crude oil. The plastic bottle would be a crude oil fraction, which hardly resembles what it was before it was processed from it into plastic. I think it would be a stretch to say that someone you see littering by tossing their empty plastic bottle of water from their car onto the highway has littered the highway with crude oil, wouldn't it?
@djeggnog wrote:
Now were I a doctor and I were asked to give someone a blood transfusion, I would have no problem doing this, since, as in the example about the nation of Israel, who, as God's people, were obliged to properly drain the blood in meat before eating any of it, but who, as God's people, could opt to sell an unbled carcass to a foreigner, for non-Christians are, in effect, "foreigners," too, and no Christian can impose their own religious beliefs upon a non-Christian. (Deuteronomy 14:21)
@cofty wrote:
No, that's wrong. The Israelites could sell the carcass of an animal that died of itself or was killed by a wild beast to a foreigner; they could not kill an animal without bleeding it and sell that to a foreigner. There is a very important difference.
Ok. How does any of this bear on what I said though?
If an Israelite came across a dead animal of his flock or herd he had to decide what to do with it. It was impossible to bleed it of course. If he dug a hole, picked it up and buried it he was unclean and had to wash change and remain "unclean until the evening". If he cut it up and ate it he had to wash change and remain "unclean until the evening". Eating the blood of an animal "already dead" was a matter of cleanness not a criminal offense like failing to bleed an animal that was slaughtered.
This distinction is also made clear by the additional restrictions that were imposed on the priests. Unlike the people in general they did not have the option of eating the unbled meat of an animal "already dead" or of touching a dead body at all. Preparing the body of a loved on for burial is a virtuous thing to do but was prohibited for priests who had to remain clean.
I think your conclusion to be both interesting and wrong. At no time was it ok for an Israelite to eat the flesh of an animal that had died of itself, that is to say, an animal that he knew was "already dead" when he discovered it; to do such was a violation of God's law against their eating blood. However, it is possible that the Israelite thought that the dead animal had not died of itself, but that his wife or one of the kids had killed it. His having ingested the meat of an unbled carcass would then make him unclean.
But what if he knew that the carcass was "already dead" and he ate the meat of the unbled carcass along with the blood. I told you this in a previous post, because I thought you had telegraphed where you were going with this, but I'm telling you again: Leviticus 17:15, 16 would be applicable in such a case. What does Leviticus 17:15, 16, mean? According to Leviticus 7:27, it means death for the one that violates God's law, for anyone that intentionally eats the flesh of an animal that was unbled eats blood along with the flesh, which was a capital offense under the Law.
In Moses' speech you referred to above he is addressing the nation prior to his death and he encourages them to be a clean people. He does not have authority to repeal god's allowance of eating the unbled meat of an animal "already dead" but he does put this compromise to them that they should sell it to a foreigner rather than unnecessarily becoming unclean.
Ok.
By selling to a foreigner they were not causing the foreigner to do anything wrong as only the Israelites were under god's laws regarding cleanness such as avoiding certain types of food etc.
Ok.
Complying with god's laws regarding idolatry, fornication and blood are the three things that were required of any foreigner who was resident in Israel.
Not true. God's laws applied only to the Israelites, and so did not apply to those dwelling in their midst as alien residents. Any non-Israelite family that settled in the land given to the Israelites, who lived among the Israelites, but who weren't worshippers of Jehovah weren't proselytes, and so they only needed to live by the basic laws of the land.
These are the things that any foreigner is likely to engage in without even realising they were doing anything offensive. In Acts 15 this is the solution that they settle on to allow fellowship between Jewish and non-Jewish Christians without requiring gentiles to comply with the entire Jewish law, "For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath" Acts 15:21
In Acts 15, Jewish Christians weren't obliged to keep the Law of Moses and weren't observing it at all, so in this you are mistaken in your reading of Acts 15:21. I do notice that both the Good News Bible and Today's New International Bible both render Acts 15:21 as if the original Greek text stated "the Law of Moses," but the NIV, KJV, RSV, ASV, NAS and NWT do not. It would have made no logical sense for James to have even said this if he was there making reference to the Law of Moses by his mention there of "Moses," for Paul would certainly have called him on it, considering the fact that none of the Gentile Christians had been under obligation before becoming Christians or after becoming Christians to keep the Law of Moses. If you cannot see the problem with your logic, then I'll leave you to it.
The principle behind all of this is obvious to anybody who is not blinded by dogma.
What "principle"?
Blood is not intrinsically sacred; it is sacred only in so far as it represents a life that has been taken.
Ok.
@djeggnog wrote:
Methane is a component of natural gas (the other six (6) components are thane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptanes) and gasoline in a component of crude oil, but plastics that come from crude oil/natural gas would be a fraction since it is a byproduct of crude oil.
@wary wrote:
If God said 'natural gas' was sacred! do you think he would mind if you extracted it and broke it down for your own purposes?
Yes, I believe he would mind if he said "abstain from crude oil" or "abstain from natural gas." Why do you ask?
Dont you get it?
Get what?
@Mary:
Why did Jehovah allow the Israelites to sell unbled meat to non-Israelites if the command not to eat meat with blood in it was binding on all mankind as the WTS says?
Tell me this, @Mary: Why do you couch your question to me in such a way that makes it appear that you believe me to be the spokesman for either the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, which is merely a publishing corporation staffed by Jehovah's Witnesses that publishes the Bibles, books and other literature that we distribute, or for the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, who, as a religious body of elders, is responsible for directing the preaching work being done worldwide by Jehovah's Witnesses and the efficacy thereof, which at times includes their having to decide doctrinal matters (e.g., the matter of blood fractions) for which it (the governing body) only provide guidelines, while they must leave all such matters to Jehovah's Witnesses themselves for them to decide?
Look! Since all Jehovah's Witnesses must speak in agreement (1 Corinthians 1:10), whenever I speak about doctrinal matters, I am, in fact, speaking as a spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses, except @Mary, except when I am speaking for myself alone, such as my comment, quoted in @cofty's post, where I stated that were I a doctor and asked to give someone a blood transfusion, "I would have no problem doing this," but there are other Jehovah's Witnesses -- doctors -- that I'm sure would not be as willing to do this and wouldn't give anyone a blood transfusion. While the dictates of my conscience would allow me to do this, the dictates of someone else's conscience might view their doing such to be an unconscionable act and wouldn't transfuse blood for any reason, which would be their decision and perfectly fine for them to make.
Here now is my answer to your question, @Mary: During the 16th century BC, in the year 1513 BC, when God first gave the Law to the nation of Israel, until the first century AD, in the year 33 AD, when Jesus died in fulfillment of the Law making it possible for it to be brought to an end since its purpose in identifying the one man that could actually fulfill the requirements of the Law had been achieved when "the Son of man" proved himself to be able to fulfill it, the command not to eat unbled meat was binding on the Israelites, and the Israelites only. Jehovah had not given the Law to any other nation, except to Israel, and Israel alone, and I have scripture on this: Deuteronomy 5:1-3; Psalm 147:19, 20. Now this is the first "prong" of my answer to your question, @Mary, and a very important prong at that, but while I'm in this paragraph, I'm going to lengthen it mightily to say something else that I believe to be important for you to know, which I believe is going to make this a very, very long paragraph, and maybe the longest paragraph that you have ever read, or tried to read, in your entire life, and I don't intend to proofread it, so it's very possible that you won't understand all that I'm about to say in this paragraph: I don't know what your beef is with the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses or if you have a beef with the local elders of the congregation at which you may have formerly attended, but if you have been disfellowshipped or have severed your connection to Jehovah's Witnesses in any way -- maybe you're someone in fade, someone on the proverbial fence, someone "in," but in your heart is really "out," but for the sake of family is pretending to still be "in" it to win the same prize that others are "in" to win when you are really "out" and are no longer running for the prize of life -- but I need you to know that I didn't deliberately fail to answer your question because I may have copped an attitude about your status as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. If you are not actively one of Jehovah's Witnesses, that's on you, and your current status is of no concern whatsoever to me since what you decide to do is your decision and your decision alone to make, and I respect your right to make this decision, whether I agree with it or not. However, Number One: I am someone that recognizes a good question and had I not been so caught up, so to speak, with what @TD was saying, and exchanging posts with him regarding the low-platelet count from which his son had to battle back with the help of the doctors with he and his wife being helpless to do anything to help their son, I might not have missed your post, but @TD related a true story involving drug-induced thrombocytopenia, which he said was caused by DDPA (a drug-dependant platelet-reactive antibody) was quite gripping -- maybe you read it, too -- so all I can do is apologize. I'm human and I tend to do human things, being absorbed in the emotionally gripping life-and-death accounts that are related to me that are a part of the human experience on this side of Armageddon, although maybe my subconscious mind was still "reeling" from your slight on Page 7 when, after quoting something you read in a dated Watchtower (1961, wasn't it -- as if the doctrinal beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2011 must be frozen in time, cannot be updated and must remain the same as they might have been 50 years ago!), and accusing us of forcing others to commit suicide, you disparage the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses as being 'a bunch of senile old men,' or words to this effect, and after calling me "an asshole" in violation of the rules here on JWN I might add, I recall you going on to suggest that I come here to count the time I spend here on JWN when not one of Jehovah's Witnesses can in good conscience report the time spent on websites like this one, websites put up here in cyberspace for the entertainment pleasure of people like @cantleave, @wasblind and @OUTLAW (who obviously don't come here for the free beer, but because they are entertainers that come here not to enlighten anyone, but to entertain the JWN audience!) and then, without missing a beat, suggesting that I have "my sneak on" -- as the kids might say -- when I come to JWN, as if it were true that the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses must approve or disapprove my visits to websites like JWN where the message I might post can be read by apostates (if that should be what you are) and non-apostates (if that should be what you are) also visit and might post messages, despite my referring more than once in other threads to the 1974 Watchtower article, "Maintaining a Balanced Viewpoint Toward Disfellowshipped Ones," which gives a much better and reasoned perspective than I would give on the topic of dealing with those who are disfellowshipped; but none of this is a valid excuse for my untoward behavior toward you, @Mary, and for this I apologize to you for the perceived offense, and for seeming to ignore your posts on Pages 8 and 9 as well. I deliberately chose to respond to @TD's post over yours, but you deserved a reply and I subconsciously intended to post a response, but didn't until after your post on Page 10. Frankly, I think were you to mention all of the seeming "snobbery" to which I subjected you in this thread in a lawsuit, an excellent case could be made against me, especially if I couldn't convince the jury empaneled to hear the case that there were other factors that would mitigate the damages I caused you, like there not being enough hours in a day to give the kind of answers that I might want to give to everyone that seeks an answer to a question and I believe my being an imperfect man to be a good mitigating factor. But seriously, @Mary, if justice is what you're seeking, you really should sue me. In fact, that is my advice to you. I know that I've dictated a very long paragraph here, and btw I'm not yet done with it as I am going to be adding a second part to it without breaking it up, nor am I going to proofread it because I don't want to proofread this beastly long paragraph, so I hope you manage to get through it without getting lost if there should be any typos in this crazy-long paragraph (you see, my genius gives me to ability to write this stream-of-consciousness paragraph and know that I've not forgotten the thrust of the point I seek to make in it, while all at the same time managing to touch upon what have to be viewed as "side points" that are totally unrelated to my main point), and if not, then I'll just have to accept the fact you just won't be able to get through this paragraph, but I refuse to proofread it. And Number Two: There are lurkers here on JWN for whom questions like the one you articulated to me here resonates, for were they not lurking the questions asked here on this very popular website to which many folks flock upon their landing here after running a Google or Yahoo! search maybe out of curiosity at first, many of them will later return here again and again just to see if maybe answers to the questions that perplex them will be found here -- your question being a good example of a question that some of them might have or might have had -- or they may be seeking what for them would be a legitimate reason to either leave their current church to attend meetings at the Kingdom Halls where Jehovah's Witnesses go either in furtherance of their curiosity or to excuse their leaving Jehovah's organization because they do not want to believe Jehovah's Witnesses have the truth. I know the length of this paragraph is quite long; I wrote it, but I'll leave it to you to parse it, to figure out which subpoints in it are definitively responsive to your concerns (and which aren't).
The "second" prong of my answer to your question is this: Just as the apostle Paul told those men in Greece at Acts 17:30, 31, "God has overlooked the times of such ignorance, yet now he is telling mankind that they should all everywhere repent. Because he has set a day in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and he has furnished a guarantee to all men in that he has resurrected him from the dead."
Maybe you understand what the apostle says here and maybe you don't, but assuming you don't understand, what Paul is saying here, and what I'm here saying to you now, @Mary, is that whereas under the Law it was ok for an Israelite to sell unbled meat to a non-Israelite, when the Law came to an end, so did God's overlooking the ignorance of these non-Israelites, who may have been doing God-knows-what to these animal carcasses, maybe these non-Israelites used them to fashion hats and foot coverings for the cold months, or maybe they made what might be equated to that which we today would refer to as beef jerky, or maybe they gave them to their pets to use when teething or just to give them something to do (i.e, dogs), or maybe they used the concealed blood in them as medicine to treat open wounds or in concoctions for drinking to settle the stomach or to arrest diarrhea or as a laxative, or perhaps they flattened them out since there was blood inside them so that their children could have them soar in the air as one might throw a Frisbee into the air. I'm sure you didn't want me to speculate as to how these animal carcasses might have been used by non-Israelites peoples, but, well, I just did.
These men were savages by today's standards, they lived very hard lives by today's standards, before Christianity, woman had hard lives trying to please men that only viewed them as property, and I'm here talking about non-Israelites that weren't proselytes, and so weren't required to observe the Law of Moses when it was in effect, so even though God's command to "abstain ... from blood" was imposed upon all mankind before the Law was ever given to the Hebrews, which Law made the Hebrew people a nation, was imposed upon all mankind when Noah and his family found themselves on an earth wiped clean of all of the ungodliness that existed before the global deluge came and destroyed the ancient world from which these eight people had emerged, God was no longer willing to overlook the ignorance of these other nations that had not known God nor felt themselves obliged to obey Him.
So at Acts 17:30, 31, Paul was really issuing a decree from God, telling these philosophers that "the times of such ignorance" were over, that the time had come for mankind everywhere to repent because God had set a day -- Jehovah's Witnesses don't know when that day is coming -- but we know that on this day God "purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed," and that "man" would be the "Son of man," Jesus, and God has provided to all mankind "a guarantee" that this day is coming, so that absolutely no one should be in any doubt as to whether it is going to come, for on Nisan 16, 33 AD, God resurrected this man by whom He is going to be judging the inhabited earth, including those who now sleep in death and await the day when they will come out of their memorial tomb and will be among those that will be judged as being either "righteous" or "unrighteous" by this man (well, some of these folks weren't Jews or Christians and so they are definitely going to be pleasantly surprised, I'm sure!), that man being, the Lord Jesus Christ. (John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15)
@TD wrote:
To me though, it doesn't necessarily follow that the sacredness of blood is profaned or desecrated when it is performing the function that God designed it to do in the first place. (Circulating in the arteries and veins)
@miseryloveselders wrote:
By the way something I've been thinking about since following this thread is, the Law's stipulations regarding blood were dealing with the blood of animals, not humans. Its got me wondering if this debate is a lot more simple than we're actually treating it. We're arguing over the use of blood being transfused from one human to another human. The Law's intent was regarding the blood of an animal being consumed by a human as food/drink. That being said, for a Christian to not be obligated to follow the Law, and not consuming the blood of an animal, what is there to debate about at that point?
@djeggnog wrote:
Seriously??? Just two points and I'm done with this: Point #1: Can you imagine transfusing animal blood into a human being? Point #2: If God put animal blood to be sprinkled on His altar to representatively atone for the sins of human beings, where's the logic in God's allowing human blood to be sprinkled on His altar (or, in this case, transfused onto someone else's altar when animal blood and human blood belong to God!) when this animal blood foreshadowed the perfect human sacrifice of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world?
@Mary wrote:
OMG.....Outlaw, I believe egghead's above comment tops his previous post for sheer stupidity. The blood that was used to 'sprinkle on the altar', was to make atonement for the life that had just been taken. In the case of modern blood transfusions, there is no "human blood to be [sprinkled] on His altar" because no one was slaughtered and there is no life to atone for. It saves lives, it does not take life away. Transfusing human blood from the donor to recipient is completely different than [ingesting] the blood from an animal that has been slaughtered and no one on earth (other than the moronic Governing Body members) would equate one with the other.
You know what, @Mary? One would have to suppose that are right, that I must be an absolute moron to have posted this comment that you quoted in your post, that my comment tops my "previous post for sheer stupidity," because you always call the balls and strikes as you see them. (I believe they still use the phrase, "balls and strikes," in Brooklyn.) In the case of blood transfusions, no human being is being slaughtered on God's altar, so no blood is being sprinkled since God's altar is for the sacrifice of dead victims since no covenant with God, no atonement, is validated while the sacrifice still lives, and yet, as you admit in your post, blood is being used for an unapproved purpose, no human being is being slaughtered, no human being is being sacrificed, for God only allowed one such human sacrifice, that of His own son, Christ Jesus, and this sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of the world. (Hebrews 9:17) At Leviticus 17:11, Jehovah says, "I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul in it."
The fact that you believe that transfused human blood saves lives is irrelevant. In your mind, the transfusion of donor blood into a recipient of it "is completely different than [ingesting] the blood from an animal that has been slaughtered," but in making such a comparison, you are comparing apples to oranges, @Mary. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe is permissible for them to ingest the blood of an animal that has been slaughtered, or even if that animal should still be alive, but from whom a pint or two was removed for ingesting later with my fish and chips. To be fair, we need to keep the comparison on the same level, with human beings and animals both being alive and living blood donors.
Now just whose blood is it? To whom does the blood in an animal and the blood in human beings belong? Is it God's blood or man's? I don't know what you'll say in response to this, but if you believe it to be God's blood, then what right do we have to use blood in a way not approved by God? If you believe it to be man's blood to do with how he or she pleases, then I'd have to ask you this: By what means did the human donor come into possession of the blood that is coursing through his or her veins? If not by divine right, then by what right did this human donor come to own the blood they he or she donates for use in such blood transfusions?
Tell me this: Is this right somehow related to the right of manifest destiny that was asserted here in the US of human beings having the God-given right to do what one wants with their own blood, akin to devouring whatever land one wishes to spread one's sphere of influence, one's empire, across a country by divine right? Clearly, that concept was just an assertion, an excuse to separate people from their land since it says right there in my Bible, at Revelation 11:15, that when the seventh angel blew his trumpet, "the kingdom of the world did become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." Does your Bible say this?
Or maybe you believe human beings obtained the right to use their own blood as it suits them based on a different concept, the one about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," the one invariably referred to in the West, both in Great Britain and in Canada, as an "inalienable right" given humans by God. Is this perhaps the basis for right asserted by human beings to become a blood donor? Again, this is just a concept for Revelation 12:10 does say that "Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ." Does your Bible also say this, @Mary?
It seems the impasse here is based on the mere assertion of a right to decide for self what is good and what is bad. It seems I've heard this before (Genesis 3:22), and I also recall that this belief, this concept, this assertion didn't lead to a good place. The experiment is self-government that led to the destruction of an ancient world and to the horrific Eugenics Movement that drove a man named Adolf to believe there could be such a thing as a "master race." Deciding for ourselves what would be a good thing and what would be a bad thing is actually what led to the deaths of not just 6,000,000 people of Jewish (Semitic) ancestry in Germany, but there were some 6,028,000 Poles that were murdered in Poland, 3,200,000 being of Jewish ancestry and 3,000,000 of which being of Polish ancestry. Hitler's Third Reich decided what was good and what was bad for other people. Are these doctors deciding for you or are you deciding for you? If it is you deciding for you, then that is your right, but like many other Jehovah's Witnesses, I have decided that obeying God in "abstaining ... from blood" makes sense to me. You, @Mary, have the right to decide for yourself what is good and what is bad for you. I'm just answering the question that you asked me is all.
Apart from faith in the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there is no right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for while you are prepared to believe that blood transfusions "saves lives," and are prepared to believe that it is our blood to do with as we wish if our reason for using donor blood is an honorable one, namely, to save a life, and are prepared to believe that God has no say in the decisions we human beings make with respect to how we use the blood that belongs to him -- even though God says right there in the Bible "your blood of your souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every living creature shall I ask it back" (Genesis 9:5) -- I believe you're wrong, and not just wrong, but dead wrong, @Mary.
In my second prong, I point out that "God has overlooked the times of such ignorance, yet now he is telling mankind that they should all everywhere repent." Repentance doesn't mean that you would have the right to be deciding for yourself what is good and what is bad; this is not what the word means. To repent means to change your mind, to change your conduct, to feel regretful over having been set straight in something you formerly believed, to change your thinking, your conduct, due to your feeling regret or contrition over you having taken a wrong course.
And see there, @Mary, I didn't need to go to one of the Insight volumes to point any of this out of you. I have said this before, maybe not to you, but in this thread: That Jehovah's Witnesses are supposed to use Bible study aids to help them to learn what things the Bible teaches on a variety of subjects. They should not be tied, as it were, to a book, a magazine, or one of our publications since the truth of God," the way of God," must be taught in truth, planted in such a way that it takes root in one's heart. (Romans 3:7; Matthew 22:16). If one has no root in himself, then "he is at once stumbled," Jesus said, and Jesus was right, too. (Matthew 13:21; Luke 8:13)
I'm not tied to anything. Or maybe what I should say is that I'm only tied to my Bible, and that, for the most part, I don't need to use any of the Watchtower publications to help me remember what I've already learned. I'm human, but for an academic perspective, I'm probably nothing like you. I don't memorize stuff like many people tend to do and have to learn to stop doing; memories can and do fail. I learn. You may not, but I believe Jesus to be "the root," and anytime we think about blood transfusions, we ought to think about the sacredness of it, for it was by means of "precious blood, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, even Christ's," that we can be saved. (Revelation 22:16; 1 Peter 1:19)
And just to reiterate the Borg's favourite comparison: 'If your doctor told you to abstain from alcohol would you transfuse it into your veins?' The answer: If it was going to somehow save my life, you bet your ass I'd transfuse it.
Makes sense; you lack faith. I don't think any of Jehovah's Witnesses have ever used the comparison you give here; maybe it's not stated correctly, but the question seeks an opinion and doesn't reason on the matter. If your doctor ordered you to abstain from alcohol, would you think the doctor meant that it would ok for you to ingest alcohol intravenously as long as you didn't use the oral route to get it into your bloodstream? This is the way I would frame the question to someone, to see if he or she could following my reasoning, and I believe other Jehovah's Witnesses would frame such a question similarly.
"If I told you to PayPal me $200 today, would you do it?" That is the kind of question you asked, and, as I just pointed out, that would be a different kind of question; it seeks an opinion that I don't really care to hear when I teaching someone something.
"If you were to divide 14 by 0, what would your answer be?" might be a way to test someone's comprehension of the question asked, but "If you were to divide 14 by 0, would you do it?" sounds more like your question, @Mary.
What an idiot.......
I think this comment of yours here violates Rule 1 here, doesn't it? Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe it does. Where are the police? @Lady Lee? @Simon? It's not that I feel harmed or anything by the comment -- these are mere words -- but I'm thinking about the tenor of this thread and other JWN threads, where the very same people believe they do not need to adhere to any rules, and thinking themselves to be above needing to obey the rules here, they will violate these rules at will, and they seem to me to get away with such violations of the rules here. I think something should be done to encourage civility. @Mary could have meant to say that what I said 'sounded like something an idiot might say,' or that what I said 'sounded idiotic to her,' but what she actually did say is an ad hominem and, I think, a violation of Rule 1, and I think she should be arrested immediately. <g>
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@TD:
It's nice to talk to someone with a knowledge and interest in this area.
I've been admittedly selfish in this thread since I've never heard anything like your story before.
Drug induced thrombocytopenia is not an hereditary condition. Theoretically it can happen to anyone, but it's more common in children because of their more active immune systems. In technical terms this condition is caused by a drug dependant platelet reactive antibody.
I may have heard about (probably not!) drug-induced thrombocytopenia, but I don't recall reading anything about this, and while you are saying here that "acute thrombocytopenic purpura" is not hereditary, I believe "thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura" is hereditary, and while you indicate here that your son's condition -- obviously idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura -- was caused by a drug-dependant platelet-reactive antibody. As you know, I'm not a doctor, but was your son taking quanine? You said that there were "no injuries, no antibiotics and no aspirin," but might this have been a quanine-induced thrombocytopenia episode? I found an article on the 'net where someone's platelet count had dropped to <2:
http://tinyurl.com/5tbx7lj
What happens is that a molecule in the drug will [interact] with the cell membrane to produce a [neoantigen]. This is not necessarily harmful unless by chance there happens to be an antibody in circulation that is a match for this new antigen. A lot depends on what diseases and immunizations the person has recently had. If antibodies bind to the antigen on the platelet surface, the normal housekeeping functions of the body suddenly become harmful because now it's not just worn out and damaged platelets that are being destroyed via thrombophagocytosis; all the platelets are being destroyed.
This is a lot to contemplate. I want to say that I didn't mean to pry, but that wouldn't be true since I don't learn anything unless I ask questions. You see, I don't just listen to what folks say, but I will often do a little research, and then end up doing some lab work or I might ask questions of professors that make their living teaching certain subjects in which I have an interest. Thank you for sharing your story with me, @TD.
I have some questions about the balance of what you've said, but I'd like to preface them by saying that when a JW tells me that blood is sacred, they're preaching to the choir. I think blood is sacred too.
But when you say this, it's clear to me that you don't mean what I mean when you say this.
Transfusion is a use of blood as blood.
And this is the problem. As I view it, you do not view blood as being sacred. You see no problem with re-use of it as blood. I do.
It is not a use of blood as a food, ink, dye, stain, paint, gelling agent or any other use known to the ancient world.
You're right. I agree. So...?
Do JW's simply assume that transfusion medicine should be judged under the same rubric as the mundane uses of blood known to the ancient world or is there a logical construction that would get us to that conclusion?
The transfusion medicine "doctrine" is a re-use of blood that disregards God's command to "abstain ... from blood" at Acts 15:20. So, yes, it's the same rubric.
@djeggnog wrote:
The second one, to abstain "from blood," means that it cannot be eaten or taken into our bodies in any form, whether this be orally by drinking a cup of it or intravenously.
@TD wrote:
My question would be how do you know that it means this?
I explain how I know below.
There's no such thing as abstinence from a physical object. What would it mean to "Abstain from sky" or "Abstain from ocean?" When the word "Abstain" is used in connection with a physical object the meaning is implicitly understood. In order to make the meaning explicit, an interpolation must be made. (i.e. The translator inserts a finite verb) For a translator, the context is the only legitimate source.
You said something like this in your previous post, so let me say first that you're putting the wrong word into the blank. You used the words "ocean" and "sky," but put the word "foods" into the "abstain from what" blank. In a previous post, I gave you "abstain from peanuts," but in the Bible I lifted the phrase "abstain from foods" from the apostle Paul's words at 1 Timothy 4:3, and so if we were to substitute "foods" for "what," what might this phrase mean?
o abstain from foods
- abstain from kicking foods
- abstain from burning foods
- abstain from criticizing foods
- abstain from mocking foods
- abstain from bashing foods
- abstain from eating foods
- abstain from drinking foods
Which of these would seem appropriate to you? Now try alcohol, meaning the beverage, just like there as there aren't two kinds of blood, one for consumption and one for topical use, and tell me: What might this phrase mean?
o abstain from alcohol
- abstain from kicking alcohol
- abstain from burning alcohol
- abstain from criticizing alcohol
- abstain from mocking alcohol
- abstain from bashing alcohol
- abstain from eating alcohol
- abstain from drinking alcohol
Which of these would seem appropriate to you? Now try blood and tell me: What might this phrase mean?
o abstain from blood
- abstain from kicking blood
- abstain from burning blood
- abstain from criticizing blood
- abstain from mocking blood
- abstain from bashing blood
- abstain from eating blood
- abstain from drinking blood
"First-century culture and the context of the Decree. In reading the command to "abstain...from blood" it is clear that something is missing: a verb. The Decree does not come right out and say, "abstain from drinking or eating blood."
Sure it does. This was originally Greek and what James said at Acts 15:20 was translated into English and this phrase "abstain .... from blood" doesn't require a verb at all. He's entitled to his opinion, as are you, but we're just playing tiddly winks, aren't we, @TD?
He uses the phrase "abstain from paint" to make a different point; it's a useless strawman to prop up what he argues here about the need for "a verb of some kind ... to complete the thought": His thought. But the phrase "abstain from blood" requires no verb at all and this is no "work-around," as you characterize what he says:
"It is clear that 'eating' and 'drinking' are to be understood in the context of the Decree, for they were the only verbs that could have been understood."
Exactly, but how does the following statement he makes connect up?
"But the fact is, there is no verb specifically stated, so it appears that the holy spirit left the matter open in terms of what verb a Christian should supply....
The holy spirit doesn't leave matters open for the reader to interpret the need for an unspoken verb. I submit that he made this up in order to support the conclusion he had already reached (like when an evolutionist touts DNA and how wonderful the genetic code in living things are, only to then state his yet-unproven conclusion, "But here we are, the proof that evolution exists!"):
"The use of an unqualified prohibition regarding the use of blood would cover the present means of taking blood into one's system (eating/drinking) and it would also allow for a Christian to evaluate future uses of blood such as transfusions." (p. 434)
This explanation takes into account the limitations of the language....
You read Greek and I believe you have a good understanding of nouns and verbs, so maybe I could get you to analyze "abstain from foods" (1 Timothy 4:3) as you did "abstain ... from blood" (Acts 15:20), and hear what you have concluded as to difference between "foods" and "blood."
It appears though that you're telling me that the inclusion of transfusion in the prohibition is clear and explicit (?) On that I would disagree
I believe Acts 15:20 to be both clear and implicit, @TD.
When you read a verse, like Acts 15:20, you read the words, but the words on the page may not necessarily convey to you the meaning that it does to a servant of God, who has God's spirit, as I do. For example, you know how to read the surrounding verses, like, for example, I'm pretty sure it occurred to you, when you were trying to get the sense of what "abstain from ... blood" means in this verse, to read the following verse at Acts 15:21. Of course, you did that, but were you moved in some way by the spirit as you read this verse? Did the holy spirit cause you to think about what the verse meant when it says that "from ancient times Moses ... is read aloud in the synagogues on every sabbath"? What exactly does this verse mean by this, and how does what it says connect up with the verse previous to this one, the one at Acts 15:20 that we're now discussing? Who is Moses and why were those attending the synagogues back then reading aloud about him on every sabbath?
I know you don't have holy spirit, @TD; to my knowledge, you've never claimed to have it. Your wife is one of Jehovah's Witnesses and, as such, she is in possession of holy spirit, but because you, her husband, are not one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I would consider you to be -- based on the discussions I've had with you here -- a thinker? Yes. a very nice guy ?Yes. And a worldling? Yes, a worldling, but a very nice guy, who is a thinker.
I'm privy to God's spirit. I have it in abundance and whenever I speak -- even if I'm being silly -- it is always with me, which is why my speech is "wholesome" most of the time -- notice how I qualified this wholesomeness, because sometimes I slip -- or to use another spiritual word, "healthful." (Titus 2:1, 8)
When you quote verses from the Bible, you are quoting "spiritual words" (1 Corinthians 2:13), as am I when I do it, words taught by spirit and not by human wisdom, such as are the things one learns in a school, but the difference is, I also act according to the instructions and directives given me by means of holy spirit. Should you quoted these words to me from the Bible, @TD, it is not you that is speaking them, but the holy spirit that is speaking to me, these words are on your tongue. You may be a worldling now, but commit no crime if you should allow the holy spirit to speak through you by quoting this verse or that verse from God's word, the Bible. Like the kids say, "It's all good, @TD."
Your question was, how do I know that "abstain ... from blood" means do not eat, do not drink, do not re-use blood (as in transfusing blood from one person into someone else, which, when you think about it, is really no different than what a cannibal does)?
Well, in trying to get the sense of Acts 15:20, the question that ought to have come up after you had read Acts 15:21 (to pick up the context) is this: What did the apostle James mean when he referred to Moses being read aloud in the synagogues on every sabbath? The holy spirit tells me that James could not have been referring to the Torah, although often when "Moses" is mentioned in the Bible, it is a reference to the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, as the reference to "Moses" by Jesus at Matthew 8:2-4 was to the third book of the Torah, Leviticus, specifically the passage at Leviticus 14:2-32, who told the former leper that he had just cured of his leprosy to go and "show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses appointed, for the purpose of a witness to them."
James could not have been referring to the Torah despite our finding Jesus, at Mark 12:26, making reference "to the book of Moses," which was actually to Exodus, the second book of the Torah, since there is no such thing as the "book of Moses," when Jesus makes reference to "the account about the thornbush," and paraphrases what God said to Moses -- "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" -- at Exodus 3:6.
This was the year 49 AD, and upon Jesus' death, the Jews were no longer obliged to keep the Law of Moses, and were we to contextually the examine the circumstances that had existed back in 49 AD as set forth toward the beginning of this chapter, at Acts 15:5, we would find that some Jewish Christians that had formerly belongs to "the sect of the Pharisees" had been preaching to the non-Jewish Gentiles that had also become believers that "It is necessary to circumcise them and charge them to observe the law of Moses." Yes, these men from Judea, these Jewish Christians, had been teaching their Gentile Christian brothers: "Unless you get circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." (Acts 15:1)
So, clearly, the issue here was whether it was necessary for Gentile Christians to be circumcised as had all Jewish Christians before they became Christians, but what James states at Acts 15:20, beginning with the just before it at Acts 15:19, helps us to understand what he was saying about "Moses ... being read about in the synagogues on every sabbath" at Acts 15:21:
"My decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood."
So, then, what was James saying about Moses? To what in the Torah as he referring at Acts 15:21?
was being read aloud in the synagogues on every sabbath?
That God had indicated His will with respect to these "necessary things" (Acts 15:28) from which His worshippers needed to abstain, not listing circumcision at all, but listing the four "necessary things" that had predated the Law, but which Moses had written in the first book of the Torah -- Genesis -- which "necessary things" all true worshippers needed to observe, whether they be Jew or Gentile, at Acts 15:28:
"For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!
So while the requirement to observe the Law of Moses had now gone away, the requirement "to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols" (Genesis 35:2; Exodus 8:25-27), "to keep abstaining ... from blood," "to keep abstaining ... from things strangled" (Genesis 9:3, 4), and "to keep abstaining ... from fornication" (Genesis 26:8-11; 34:2-7; 19:5-11) continued upon Christians, and by extension, upon all mankind for God had given such commands to Noah and to Jacob, among others, before the Law had come into existence and mankind itself was obliged to observe these "necessary things" after the Law had come to an end.
Some have suggested that the prohibition against idolatry ("to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols"), drinking blood ("to keep abstaining ... from blood") eating blood ("to keep abstaining ... from things strangled") and immoral sexual relations ("to keep abstaining ... from fornication") were temporary, an olive branch given to appease the Jewish Christians that had been railing against Gentile Christians because they felt circumcision to be a 'necessary thing' in order to tamp down the arguments that were taking place at the time between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.
However, idolatry, drinking blood, eating blood and immoral sexual relations were wrong before God gave the Law to Israel. These things were wrong under the Law of Moses. These things were wrong after the Law was fulfilled upon the death of Jesus Christ. And IMO, these things continue to be wrong today.
Now were I a doctor and I were asked to give someone a blood transfusion, I would have no problem doing this, since, as in the example about the nation of Israel, who, as God's people, were obliged to properly drain the blood in meat before eating any of it, but who, as God's people, could opt to sell an unbled carcass to a foreigner, for non-Christians are, in effect, "foreigners," too, and no Christian can impose their own religious beliefs upon a non-Christian. (Deuteronomy 14:21)
While the consciences of some Christians might not be able to do this, my conscience would not be disturbed in the least to give someone as many blood transfusions as would be medically necessary, but I would have to recuse myself were the patient a betrayer of Lord Jesus Christ. Only food, and not blood, is sanctified by prayer over it, and a Christian that is willing to accept a blood transfusion is someone lacking faith in the value of Jesus' blood.
But here's the point: When a Christian abstains from blood, he or she, in effect, expresses his or her faith that the precious blood of Jesus Christ redeems him or her and will save him or her, not just for another 10, 20 or 30 years in this life, but completely, that is to say, save him or her forever.
@TD wrote:
I have some questions about the balance of what you've said, but I'd like to preface them by saying that when a JW tells me that blood is sacred, they're preaching to the choir. I think blood is sacred too.
To me though, it doesn't necessarily follow that the sacredness of blood is profaned or desecrated when it is performing the function that God designed it to do in the first place. (Circulating in the arteries and veins)
@just n from bethel wrote:
I think that is the best line of reasoning I've ever heard. Anyone who tried to argue against this point would have to be either retarded or blinded by a cult.
What "line of reasoning" did you hear? The first paragraph that you quoted from @TD's post is just a statement to me that he also believes blood to be sacred. @TD's second paragraph is just the expression of his opinion. Do you know how you can tell that it's an opinion? Because the first two words of this second paragraph you quoted are "To me...."
If you have nothing to say, it's not a crime for you say nothing. Can you tell a joke? Can you be funny? Outlaw thinks he can be funny (and I believe he's even funnier when I'm the brunt of his jokes!). If you have something to say of substance, then by all means, say it. Otherwise, saying nothing is ok. Someone once said it's better to be silent and thought a fool -- not that I'm saying that you're a fool -- than to speak and remove all doubt.
@TD wrote:
To me though, it doesn't necessarily follow that the sacredness of blood is profaned or desecrated when it is performing the function that God designed it to do in the first place. (Circulating in the arteries and veins)
@miseryloveselders wrote:
By the way something I've been thinking about since following this thread is, the Law's stipulations regarding blood were dealing with the blood of animals, not humans. Its got me wondering if this debate is a lot more simple than we're actually treating it. We're arguing over the use of blood being transfused from one human to another human. The Law's intent was regarding the blood of an animal being consumed by a human as food/drink. That being said, for a Christian to not be obligated to follow the Law, and not consuming the blood of an animal, what is there to debate about at that point?
Seriously??? Just two points and I'm done with this: Point #1: Can you imagine transfusing animal blood into a human being? Point #2: If God put animal blood to be sprinkled on His altar to representatively atone for the sins of human beings, where's the logic in God's allowing human blood to be sprinkled on His altar (or, in this case, transfused onto someone else's altar when animal blood and human blood belong to God!) when this animal blood foreshadowed the perfect human sacrifice of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world?
@garyneal:
I find it sad that we even have to have this discussion to begin with.
Why? You clearly are out of your depth as are most folks that criticize Jehovah's Witnesses for doing something that we have always been able to do, but wasn't such a big deal until the last 15 years or so. No one called these "blood fractions," even though this is what they were. However, because of the prevalence of AIDS and folks worrying that they might become HIV+ from a blood transfusion, people that weren't interested in either blood management or bloodless substitutes have fallen into line behind Jehovah's Witnesses who were already pursuing such alternatives to blood transfusions, but for religious reasons.
If the Watchtower's stance on no use of blood is purely on religious grounds then it would follow that no use of blood is permissible. The fact that the Society allows blood fractions, to me, negates the whole premise of their stance.
Methane is a component of natural gas (the other six (6) components are thane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptanes) and gasoline in a component of crude oil, but plastics that come from crude oil/natural gas would be a fraction since it is a byproduct of crude oil. It is no longer crude oil and it cannot be used as fuel. The same thing is true about blood fractions, which are a byproduct of one of the four components of whole blood. Because these fractions are no longer blood, and are no longer resemble the blood components from which they are derived, Jehovah's Witnesses may use such blood fractions.
If the Society wishes to argue that abstaining from blood is 'better medicine' because it helps people avoid blood born pathogens, then it would follow that those pathogens could also be contracted from blood fractions.
No, it doesn't. What you just said is ridiculous.
The truth is, the Society has painted itself into a corner with no way out.
What "corner"?
Too many lives have been lost defending this doctrine to just all of a sudden rescind it.
Jehovah's Witnesses have rescinded nothing.
Sadly, far too many witnesses are too captive of the concept that the GB speaks for God to even dare question it.
The governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses does not speak for God. You people here on JWN repeat this mantra over and over again and bash our governing body, and for what reason? Envy? NoOne is your god and you are always seeking to do NoOne's will. NoOne is the god of your own selfish desires, and you will say anything, do anything, to please your god. I get it. Like my God, Jehovah, NoOne cannot be seen, but not like my God, the true God, NoOne is a false god and cannot save you, cannot save anyone. Just as you speak for your god, I speak for my God. Do you want book, chapter and verse on that, even though you don't believe any of what the Bible teaches? It's 2 Corinthians 5:20:
We are therefore ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making entreaty through us. As substitutes for Christ we beg: "Become reconciled to God."
Of course, Paul here makes specific reference to the anointed brothers of Jesus Christ, but I also make entreaty for God as a substitute for Christ as an envoy as I, too, beg folks to "become reconciled to God." My God can and will save me. Like I said, NoOne can't save you or anyone. NoOne is an impotent god.
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@djeggnog wrote:
How did you know [acute thrombocytopenic purpura] ... was a textbook case, @TD?
@TD wrote:
I have medical textbooks that illustrate and describe it. Long story, but I worked in a med lab years ago.
Ok. I did realize the sensitive nature of the questions I asked you in my last post, but I have all of the textbook cases here (this, of course, would be to exaggerate what I do have here), but I understand thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura to be something that one inherits from their parents who each carry the mutated gene. I have no information about thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura that is caused by the ingestion of prescription medication that isn't the result of genetic inheritance. For this reason, I'm not willing to assume that "acute thrombocytopenic purpura" is the same as "thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura," but I've just made a note to myself to learn the medical significance of "acute" in this regard.
You are always saying something that makes me give more than just a little thought as to how I'm going to respond answer, and when making the kind of inquiry I made of you regarding a family-related matter, I struggle with how I may tactfully pursue such an inquiry without causing anger to flare up over my apparent insensitivity because of my desire to learn more than you may be prepared to share with a stranger.
I'm am opportunist in the sense that I pretty much know where all of the proverbial buttons are, but I will push some of them anyway (like I did recently in my message to @Mary during our discussion about her brother) because I don't care for sugar-coated responses to what I might say. IOW, I didn't say to @Mary, who indicated that her brother was in the advanced stages of "a horrifying form of leukemia called Myelodysplasia," nor do I say to you here upon your describing that from which your son suffered as "acute thrombocytopenic purpura," as horrific and emotionally daunting as these events in your lives were, respectively, I don't get why @Mary concluded that "a blood transfusion would have saved the life of my brother had he not been so concerned about being shunned by his 'cult' for doing so," or that "my son would surely have died had I been crazy enough to have abided by the beliefs of my wife's 'cult' and withheld my consent to his having a blood transfusion." Perhaps you read@jgnat's posts in which he characterized both you and @Mary as being experts on blood transfusions, and I'm thinking that what @jgnat was really saying is that he regarded the two of you as being experts on the life-saving properties of blood, which is interesting.
Concerning the two of you, @jgnat went on to say that "both became experts in their loved-one's diseases," to which I replied that "I am an expert," but what I did not say was that I'm not the kind of expert that becomes such by merely observing the human condition. No, I became an expert by (1) listening to the experiences of others -- experiences like @Mary's, like yours -- then (2) going to a public library, opening up several books and doing some research on a particular aspect of the human condition, and (3) acquiring knowledge about things that cannot be learned by reading Wikipedia articles and performing searches using one's browser when sitting at your PC in the comfort of one's home.
Really, the only things that one is going to learn on the 'net are only those things that folks think important enough to upload to a web page or contribute to a forum like this one or written to an internet chatroom or maybe to their blog. Indeed there are many "experts" on the 'net, but a mere fraction of the things I've learned can be found through an internet search, so even when reading me, one comes away having knowledge that is incomplete at best.
I did touch upon DNA earlier in this thread because I wanted to let @cofty know that he cannot pretend to know things about blood -- hemoglobin/haemoglobin to be specific -- when speaking to someone that is knowledgeable about blood, someone that would likely discern the line in him where knowledge ends and his ignorance about this subject begins, but there are a few things that scientists today do know:
Of the 3,000,000,000 characters that are found in our DNA, there are only 23,000 protein coding genes in human beings, meaning that 98% of our DNA doesn't code for proteins at all, but which are responsible for making the stuff in our bodies, and this especially includes human blood since the red blood cells are what carry oxygen to the various parts of the human body, and there are pieces of DNA that scientists refer to as switches which turn certain genes on or off. However, certain sequences of DNA's chemicals are responsible for throwing these "switches."
When in your wife's womb, certain genes within the embryo that became your son were turned on at certain times, and at certain points during his development, these genes may have been turned off again. Every human being is born with defects that become more and more apparent as the embryo develops, and very often we might not know how these defect will reveal themselves until, for example, we discover that we are diabetics due to a failure of the pancreas to produce enough insulin (called "Type 1") or due to what some people attribute to obesity or age (called "Type 2"). Whatever the reason, it's hereditary and, in the case of your son, "thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura" is hereditary, and if "acute thrombocytopenic purpura" turns out to be the same thing, then we're talking about a genetic defect caused by "switches" that were turned on or off following your son's conception.
This is the science involved and evolutionists are often heard saying these genetic defects, mutations, but the chemicals responsible for throwing these "switches" in our genes are in our DNA by design, some intelligent designer figured out how the three billion characters of our DNA would produce the 23,000 coding genes discovered by the Human Genome Project to exist in human beings. An ear of corn has some 32,000 coding genes and yet I've never seen an ear of corn actually do anything, but taste good with a little butter. In my formative years, I played a trombone, an alto sax and keyboards, and I've never heard of an ear of corn board a plane, take a cruise, board a train, or even sing, but I can do these things and have a spiritual relationship with the very God that gave me the ability to do all of these things with my "measly" 23,000 coding genes.
And you will notice, @TD, that blood has nothing to do with this science. This means that whether your son receiving a blood transfusion or not wasn't a relevant factor in your son's medical condition, but you were told that your son's platelet count was <10, and that <10 was life threatening. The human body contains plasma, which makes up about 55% of the blood, and red cells, about 45%, whereas platelets make up a negligible, but very important amount, about 0.17%, and just as negligible, but an important amount, white cells, about 0.1%.
What I'm not understanding here, @TD, is that it seems to me that there was an extremely high platelet count, called "thrombocytosis," where bleeding episodes are rather common, especially because some platelets don't function correctly (if these platelets should be abnormal forms, then the coagulation process doesn't work). A normal platelet count ranges between 150,000 and 350,000, and while platelet counts of <50 put patients at risk of severe bleeding, platelet counts of <20 can cause spontaneous and fatal intracranial bleeding. A hematologist would be very concerned if the platelet count were to drop to <5 for then we would be in the realm of bleeding that could be fatal, but anyone presenting with such a low platelet count would be a candidate for platelet infusion, which I assume was done in your son's case.
In this case, it was an adverse reaction to a prescription medication. When the membranes of cellular blood components become damaged, they're flagged by the attachment of antibodies and destroyed by special cells in the liver and spleen. There are a number of drugs that also attach themselves to blood cells at the molecular level and sometimes the body gets confused. Even salicylic acid can lower your platelet count slightly. The much more severe effect is a rare, but known side-effect of some medications. This is distinct from an identical condition with an entirely different cause known as Immune thrombocytopenic purpura. In this condition, the body is actively producing an antibody against its own platelets. Treating ITP can be much more difficult for obvious reasons.
Corticosteroid drugs, prednisone and methylprednisolone are typically used to treat idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, prednisone for lupus, but what kind of blood transfusion was indicated if your son was somewhere between <10 and <5? There are reticulated platelets (immature platelet fraction (IPF) and plasma thrombopoietin (TPO)) that are blood fractions, and these are not the same as a blood transfusion. Was your son taking aspirin or penicillin at the time? Had he suffered an injury where his spleen was removed? We're here talking about one blood component here -- platelets -- and not all four whole blood components, right?
@djeggnog wrote:
You're probably right, but did [your] wife, who is one of Jehovah's Witnesses, accept these Jewish teachings that were evidently at play here? If so, what was your wife willing to accept that you have reason to believe other Jehovah's Witnesses do not?
@TD wrote:
Consent only requires the signature of one parent. This was a very stressful episode in our relationship and that's all I'm going to say.
Ok.
What I was referring to is the tendency of what appear to be some very young JW's on the internet to state the phrase, "Abstain from blood" as an explicit prohibition against transfusion medicine.
An "Abstain from..." construction is not grammatically complete when it references a physical object. We can easily test this by attempting to state the negation of action as a simple finite negative. The fourth and last abstention is a good example. It is different from the first three, because "fornication" is the name of a finite act. Therefore we can easily state that abstention as a finite negative by converting the noun form of the word to its verb form:
"Do not fornicate."
We can't do this with the other three abstentions because they are the names of physical objects and consequently do not have verb forms. Expressed as a finite negative, what does it mean to "abstain...from things sacrificed to idols?"
"Do not ______"
The idol sacrifice is the object of the abstention, but it's not the act to be abstained from and we need a finite act to have a complete thought. Most Christians understand this to be an injunction against partaking of the idol sacrifice as a formal act of worship. Pragmatically speaking, it means, "Abstain from idolatry" even though "idolatry" is not specifically stated. Idolatry would be one of the "things" to carefully keep yourself from; not the idol sacrifice per se.
I now believe I understand the point you're making here, @TD, but what the Bible means at Acts 15:29 really isn't all that difficult to comprehend, unless one was against the stand that Jehovah's Witnesses take with regard to blood transfusions and then, purely on the premise that our position on blood transfusions has changed, they accuse us of having changed our position on blood transfusions to permit blood fractions after so many folks died due to their adherence to our (former) position on blood transfusions. I can positively state here that the premise of this particular objection is not correct. The position of Jehovah's Witnesses with regard to blood transfusions has not changed.
I'll get back to what Acts 15:29 says in a moment, but I have a perfect analogy that will explain the viewpoint of what some Jehovah's Witnesses has always been:
Some 10-15% of people here in the US are "at risk" for an anaphylactic reaction if exposed to one or more allergens, peanut allergy is one of such causes. Some folks may be allergic to eggs, milk, wheat and shellfish, but people that are allergic to peanuts cannot, of course, eat peanuts nor eat mixed nut or trail mixes, if these should contain peanuts, and, as you can imagine, they cannot eat peanut butter, nor peanut brittle, PayDays, M&M-peanut and Goobers candy, and, oh, yeah, those ice-cream cones with the nut topping that are typically sold in supermarkets.
The doctor, and I'm not talking about Jehovah God, but your doctor tells you to "abstain from peanuts," and when you hear these words, you take from them the understanding that if you do not want to find yourself back at the hospital, you will have to lay off the peanuts. You will have to force yourself to avoid eating anything that contains peanuts. If you happen to have a sister-in-law, like I do, who will routinely toss a few nuts as a topping for one of her cakes, (i.e., a German chocolate cake), and you happen to be her nephew, Eric, with the peanut allergy, but Eric should fail to remember to scrape off the frosting before you sit down to eat any of this cake, then Donna will not have abstained from peanuts and his parents will likely have to swing by the hospital on the way home.
Now Eric's mother is just poking around at home one day when she happens to start reading the ingredients of certain non-edible household products to discover when she opens the medicine cabinet: Tannic acid, which is used in some medicines as a cure for anti-diarrhea (albumine tannate) and there is also a can of wood stain containing tannic acid in it, and both of these were made from peanuts. The glycerine soap and shampoo in the bathroom were made from peanuts. There's some hand cleaner in the garage that was made from peanuts. But Eric has used all of these products without incident in the past, and he continues to do so. What he hasn't done though is ingested any of them.
Another way to look at the same phenomenon it is to examine how the meaning of an "Abstain from" construction can change depending upon the context in which it is spoken:
"Her obstetrician said, 'Pregnant women should abstain from alcohol.'"
"His dermatologist said, "Persons with sensitive skin should abstain from alcohol'"
Even though both doctors have explicitly said, "Abstain from alcohol" they're not talking about the same thing. We would understand the former to be a reference to drinking alcoholic beverages and we would understand the latter to be a reference to the topical application of alcohol. Although alcohol is the object of the abstention, the respective acts to be abstained from are derived from the context.
God's word is clear than this: One doesn't need a professor to comprehend the meaning of Acts 15:29, and the context is quite clear:
"Keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!"
There are four (4) things named in this verse, the first one, to abstain "from things sacrificed to idols," refers to the meat offered as a sacrifice as part of some religious ceremony. The parallel to this is when I walk into someone's office and someone shoves a slide of chocolate cake at me. Happy Birthday! As a mature Christian, it's not likely that I do anything as immature as to decide to make a formal declaration to everyone in attendance that I don't celebrate birthdays, but what I do is excuse myself and secret away that slice somewhere and plan to return to that secret place late to eat that slice of cake after all of the festivities are over.
I love chocolate cake and there's nothing wrong with eating cake, just as there was nothing wrong with the meat that had been offered as part of some religious ceremony, but if such were to be eaten in the place where people had gathered to worship a false god, then it would be inappropriate for a Christian to eat such meat under these circumstances, for such a religious act would constitute idolatry. I don't know whether or not you knew this already, @TD, so if you should disagree with this explanation, that's ok, but this view is the one held by Jehovah's Witnesses. BTW, this decree from the governing body to which Acts 15:29 refers occurred in the year 49 AD, and contrary to what some religionists are wont to say, based on their reading of Paul's words at 1 Corinthians 8:7-13, 10:25-33, it was in was after he had written his second letter to the church in Corinth -- 55 AD -- that Paul is found to be in harmony with what James and the other older men say to him there when reference is made to this same degree at Acts 21:17-26.
The second one, to abstain "from blood," means that it cannot be eaten or taken into our bodies in any form, whether this be orally by drinking a cup of it or intravenously. Some of the people that have posted to this thread object to Jehovah's Witnesses' using blood fractions, since none of these products would be available to them were it not for the donations that people volunteer to blood banks where such whole blood is stored, except all of such people fail to realize that God does not forbid these folks from donating their blood to blood banks. Now Jehovah's Witnesses know that were they to donate their blood to these blood banks, that their donated blood would more likely than not be used by a doctor in a medical context that includes one or more blood transfusions, so they would not make donations of their blood to blood banks. But they also know that all such blood belongs to God, that despite the various blood types in existence today, it is all just "one blood":
Acts 17:26, KJV:
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.
Acts 17:26, NWT:
And he made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and the set limits of the dwelling of men.
Jehovah's Witnesses also know as God's people that they cannot be excused for doing things that other people might do in their ignorance. See my point below with respect to "things strangled" below. Likewise, it is not impermissible for Jehovah's Witnesses to use such products if made from any of the four components of blood provided (1) the product of interest should be a "nutrient" derived from one of these blood components and (2) they should choose to do so, for such blood fractions are no longer blood, so that would not be reusing it in their own bodies, and they may conscientiously choose to accept or reject such nutrients (fractions) in connection with the medical treatment they receive.
The position of Jehovah's Witnesses with respect to the use of blood has not changed: We don't eat it, we don't accept transfusions of whole blood, and we don't accept blood transfusions of any of the four components of whole blood. Blood, as long as it is blood, was put on God's altar to atone for sin, and it foreshadowed the sacrificial value of Jesus' blood, and this is the reason we do not eat blood sausages, for example, and why we do not accept blood transfusions since God requires that all blood be poured out in symbolically returning the life represented by the blood to Him, so we cannot condone blood being transfused into our bodies since we know that God has commanded His people to "abstain ... from blood" and transfused blood would constitute reuse of blood that God requires to be returned to Him. There is no prohibition, however, on the use of blood fractions since a fraction is not blood itself, but a nutrient derived from a blood component.
The third one, to abstain "from things strangled," means that it would impermissible for Jehovah's Witnesses to eat unbled meat. For example, at Deuteronomy 14:21, the nation of Israel was permitted to sell the unbled meat that they were unable to eat themselves to foreigners who may have had their own uses for such carcasses.
"You must not eat any body already dead. To the alien resident who is inside your gates you may give it, and he must eat it; or there may be a selling of it to a foreigner, because you are a holy people to Jehovah your God."
I believe @cofty had asked me a similar question in one of his posts, but I didn't have the time to re-work my post to include a full response to his question, so that I answered it in a limited fashion, so, hopefully he'll see that I've answer it here. Now if Christians could not consume blood contained in meat from a strangled creature, it stands to reason that we cannot consume the blood from a living creature either.
The last one, to abstain "from fornication," simply means that no one is having sexual relations with someone else to whom they are not married, whether those relations should be between a man or a woman, or between two men or two women. It should be patently obvious that the marriage of two gay lovers is not a union that God would recognize, and such a union would not be recognized as either "holy" or a "marriage," since the marriage institution ordained by God involves a man and a woman. (Matthew 19:4-6, 9)
But what may not be so obvious is the fact that even if a married person should be separated from his or her spouse and it is clear that they will not be reunited again as husband and wife, unless and until a divorce granted upon the grounds of fornication has occurred, the separated married couple are deemed to be married, so absent a divorce, the separated person is still married and is, therefore, not having sex with anyone else, since he or she is still "one flesh" with his or her spouse, 'as long as his or her spouse shall live.'
In context, the reference to blood in the Apostolic Decree is a reiteration of the existing prohibitions against eating blood. If transfusion is wrong, it's wrong because it is either physically or morally equivalent to eating blood and the Biblical condemnation is implicit rather than explicit. I don't know why anybody would think it's okay to lift an incomplete phrase from a specific ruling made in regard to a specific problem at a specific point in the early history of Christianity and invoke it in an entirely new context. I'm not accusing you of this, I'm just venting a little frustration I've experienced
At least now you have yet another opinion from one of Jehovah's Witnesses that may (or may not!) help you to understand the position of Jehovah's Witnesses, but I will say though that it is a problem that so many of Jehovah's Witnesses today seem to have put their faith in what they have read in the Watchtower or in one of our other publications and not in the Bible, because although they may have been associated with Jehovah's organization for 10, 20, 30, 40 years or even longer, and they have studied many of our publications thoroughly, they have never learned how to study the Bible, so they really do not know what it says. Some of the people on JWN that were formerly Jehovah's Witnesses are not apostates at all; what they are is ignorant. Steps are always being taken to invite all such folks who have left us for any reason, including being disfellowshipped because of their being mistreated by their local elders, to return.
I observed that JW's with academic qualifications in this area avoid that pitfall and some, like Rolf Furuli for example, have produced some very elegant reasoning. But it is fatally marred by speculation.
Ok, but this would be your opinion, right?
I don't share my credentials or "academic qualifications" with anyone because my experience is that such information serves to alienate people from me so that they do not talk to me freely. Or, some people want to throw things at me to see how I would respond. This is a problem, but I'm not seeking anyone's glory, and I do not say this to suggest that Furuli is seeking glory from anyone.
I think it's probably a matter of perspective and would depend on whether or not a person believes that the scales need to balance. On one side of the scales, we have crystal clear, black and white, plain and unambiguous statements about the sanctity of the gift of life and the severe penalty associated with even contributing to the loss of life. If an emergency medical treatment like transfusion is to be declined regardless of the consequences, then it seems to me that justice would demand that we have something of equal weight to place on the other side of the scales.
Therefore it becomes important that any equivalency between the consumption of blood and the transfusion of blood is solidly demonstrated by premises that can be tested and proven and not simply assumed. I'm not saying this can't be done. I just saying I have yet to see it.
Blood is sacred; period. In a world where hardly anything today is viewed as sacred, not even marriage, there is nothing equivalent to the transfusion of blood. Nothing. It's sacred, it represents life, it foreshadowed Jesus' sacrificial blood, which he shed to atone for the sins of the world and it should not be reused for any reason. However, if blood should be removed from someone's body, for a blood test or for any other reason, its removal from the human body is not something prohibited by God, and if it was removed for a blood test, that blood should be properly disposed of.
If, however, a doctor should take blood from someone else's body and transfuse it into you body or transfuse blood previously removed from you own body and transfuse it back into your body, so that you are reusing either someone else's body or your own blood, then you would be in violation of God's command to "abstain ... from blood."
@jgnat:
Regardless of what agenda you arrived with on this thread, this is not about blood fractions.
Until reading this sentence in a subsequent post of yours, I didn't really know (or maybe I was trying to pretend not to know) that you had an ulterior motive for inviting me here to your thread. In the thread that led to me joining this thread, I referred to the "viability of bloodless surgery as an alternative to accepting blood transfusions," I had pointed out to you that "absolutely no sane person would ever voluntarily agree to undertake any medical procedure where there might be any degree of risk to the patient," and then told you that "I might be willing to discuss all of this in a different thread.... I told that "it's possible that I'll join your thread were you to start it."
When I joined this thread, I talked about the four blood components that "are now being processed in such a way that useful nutrients, called 'fractions' ... being used by doctors to treat patients for many illnesses." As a result, I am going to be withdrawing from it. I may or may not post other responses to your thread, but I'm pretty done with this one. Thanks for inviting me. It was a blast.
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@jgnat:
I am impressed that you took the time to respond to all posters on this thread. That's a lot of finger gymnastics!
Not really. I talk to my PC and it types whatever it is I might say. I say "might say" because part of this process is correcting the recognition errors that Dragon NaturallySpeaking makes, although transcription accuracy is probably somewhere around 95%. It takes a bit of time (which I've already put in!) to train Dragon to say what you "might" have said, but after years of doing this, Dragon pretty much "knows" my voice, what I am saying. BTW I'm using Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional, and I do not recommend either the Dragon NaturallySpeaking "Standard" or "Preferred" editions. I understand that there is a Mac version called "Dragon Dictate," formerly known as "Macspeech Dictate," which is a port from the predecessor of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, also called, "Dragon Dictate," but my Dragon runs quite well under Win7, WinXP and WinVista.
If abstaining from blood is strictly a religious choice, why does the Watchtower society cite concerns over blood transfusions (i.e. hepatitis)?
Before ephedra was banned in 2004 here in the US, and before the FDA began to issue consumer warnings about ephedra use, people were buying ephedra as an herbal remedy, which was being used as a dietary supplement to help them or the people for whom they were buying this herbal remedy to lose weight. After 2004, people here in Southern California were driving across the border into Mexico to buy ephedra, which had been banned here in the US. Before the ban, an article was published in the December 22, 2003 issue of the Awake! magazine entitled "Herbal Remedies-Can They Help You?" which warned the public that over 100 reported US deaths had been linked to ephedra. The article also served to remind Christians of the need to cleanse themselves of "every defilement of flesh and spirit." (2 Corinthians 7:1)
While the article didn't go into detail, the side effects of ephedra use included vomiting, hypertension, itchy skins, itchy scalp, headache, dizziness, seizures, irritability, dehydration, vomiting, profuse perspiration, hyperthermia, irregular heartbeat, insomnia, heart attack, stroke and death. After the ban, there were people here in Southern California that were warning folks not to keep driving to Mexico so that they could buy and keeping using ephedra for weight loss purposes, so why do you suppose the Society cited concerns against ephedra use? Do you think it had something to do with these side effects and our love for neighbor? Do you believe that true worship involves looking out for our own interests and not for the interests of other people? (1 Corinthians 10:24; 13:5) Quite frankly, Jehovah's Witnesses have no need to seek your approval or the approval of others in what we do, for we can exult in what things we are doing for our neighbors, "and not in comparison with the other person." Galatians 6:4)
Does this not create an aversion to blood, aside from the religious reason? Why would the society do this?
Do you mean like when we warned folks about ephedra use? Do you think there to have been no religious reason associated with that warning? Here's our "religious reason" for warning folks about the dangers associated with the acceptance of blood transfusions, which are typically offered by doctors as part of the regimen of medical treatment: "You must love your neighbor as yourself," and as to this "kingly law," it is our endeavor as Jehovah's Witnesses to carry this out. (Romans 13:9; James 2:8) What we do is our business, @jgnat. Why is what we are doing of any concern to you?
Beyond this, the WTBTS promotes bloodless options - my offence to the white lab coats - which I have called pseudo-science. Again, if this is strictly a religious prohibition, why an emphasis on options that MIGHT offer the believer the hope that certain death is not the ultimate consequence?
This is a case of you being of a different opinion that we as to the use of blood transfusions. We don't care that you think you know best which options are valid and should be offered. Jehovah's Witnesses also have an opinion, and we believe you are entitled to yours.
I'll give a personal anecdote to explain the [medical] community's conservatism and why bloodless alternatives have not globally replaced transfusions.
I saw nothing anecdotal about the story you shared in your post. Common to the human family is the fact that people get sick and die. When I joined this thread, I understood that it was supposed to be about blood fractions. I had no way of appreciating that it would become expanded to tout the superiority of hospital births over home births. No one has intimated -- I know that I didn't intimate -- that anything at all has replaced blood transfusions. What I have said is worth repeating: Jehovah's Witnesses have gotten the word out to both Witnesses and non-Witnesses of their need to be wary of those who would try to convince them of the myth that a blood transfusion can save their life, because no doctor can promise anyone that the blood transfusions they accept will, in fact, save anyone's life.
I've also said that the risks associated with the use of blood in connection with the transfusion of blood and blood products far outweigh the benefits that one hopes to obtain. I stand by this statement because it is the truth and I don't care that you don't like what we are doing. If it were true that blood transfusions save lives, then none of the people that have received them would have died. I care about other people and you only care about you. You think people should take a risk because you are a risk-taker. But the risks associated with the use of blood in connection with the transfusion of blood and blood products far outweigh the benefits that one hopes to obtain. You haven't heard me.
No doctor can guarantee anyone to whom he or she gives a blood transfusion will not die, or that a blood transfusion will not lead to complications due to a compromised immune system. Many hospitals today administer blood that is more than two weeks old, and the fact that they continue to do this to their patients has introduced a significant risk of complications, including post-operative infections, respiratory problems, kidney failure or death.
In reviewing some 6,000 heart surgical patient records, a 2008 study found that patients receiving blood that was more than two weeks' old not only had a significantly higher risk of complications, but an adversely impacted immune system found in critically ill patients led to things like colorectal cancer recurrence and organ failure, because a blood transfusion lowers the host's immune response and its ability to fight off infections, so that it predisposes a sick patient for the inset of infections that their immune system could have fought off were it not for the transfused blood. I only wish you were able to listen to me.
Which brings me to the human fallibility in assessing risk. I can guarantee, djeggnogg, that the riskiest life-or-death choice you've made in the past week was to take a ride in a motor-vehicle....
How did this become a discussion about assessing risk? Why did the discussion turn to one about the risks associated with blood transfusions? What made you decide not to discuss blood fractions in this thread? That this is your thread doesn't satisfactorily answer these questions.
Whole blood is not an off-the-shelf commodity. It is not stored at a pharmacy, and you can't get a prescription for it. Why isn't it widely available to citizens? Because blood carries risks....
No, blood isn't a prescription drug. It doesn't come with a warning label. It doesn't carry any risks. Its use carries risks like the ones I mentioned above.
Why would a conservative medical establishment continue to use blood? Because for certain circumstances, only whole blood will do.
No, hospitals, doctors, continue to use blood because this is that they've always done. Earlier in this thread, I quoted Dr. Aryeh Shander, Chief of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, who stated: "If you can't demonstrate benefit, all you are offering the patient is risk." You want to believe blood transfusions are life-saving; they are not life-saving. The transfusion of whole blood into patients predisposes them for infections that their compromised immune system can no longer defend against. But you don't want to hear this.
I know of an infant who contracted hepatitis from a blood transfusion at birth. He attended intensive medical supervision for the first year of his life to monitor his liver health as a consequence. Why did he get blood? Because of an incompatibility with his mother's blood type, he was critically anemic at birth. The blood transfusion saved his life.
What did the infant contract from a blood transfusion at birth? Hepatitis, was it? Why did the doctors give this infant blood? "Because of an incompatibility with his mother's blood type, he was critically anemic at birth"? No. This infant was given a blood transfusion because this is what the doctors have always done and for no other reason.
Why does the society, besides quoting the religious prohibition, also go in to great detail on the risk of blood transfusions, and glory in the bloodless alternatives being developed?
This question has been asked and answered, but I can answer it in a different way: The reason -- the only reason -- that you find Jehovah's Witnesses publishing to non-Jehovah's Witnesses what the adverse effects associated with blood transfusions are is to strengthen the faith of those that listen to us in God, that they, like we, might come to appreciate the benefits that accrue to those showing a willingness to obey God in everything.
Aren't they emphasizing the dangers of transfusion, and diminishing the risk of refusing it?
Yes and no. It is not the Society, but Jehovah's Witnesses, who are the ones emphasizing the dangers associated with accepting blood transactions and Jehovah's Witnesses, who are the ones that are unwilling to understate the risks associating with the acceptance of blood transfusions by the medical community at large. Your question is phrased as "diminishing the risk of refusing," instead of "enlarging upon the risks of anyone accepting a blood transfusion," but I'm sure the fact that you are a cheerleader in this regard isn't lost on anyone.
When Jehovah's Witnesses "abstain ... from blood" (Acts 15:20), we are really exercising our faith in Jesus' precious blood. The use of blood fractions doesn't diminish our appreciation for the life that blood represents since it is by our faith in Jesus' blood that "we shall be saved by his life." (Romans 5:10)
This skews the Witness's ability to make an informed decision about risk.
What are talking about? The issue that Jehovah's Witnesses have regarding the unauthorized use of blood is that such use perverts the use to which God had specifically directed blood to be used, namely, for sacrificial use only. All of the animal sacrifices that were offered on God's alter under the Law of Moses foreshadowed Jesus' laying down his life as a ransom for all mankind as a sacrificial lamb, as it were. God put blood on his altar for the express purpose of its being used to atone for sins, because blood represents the human life that Jesus gave for mankind's sins, as Jesus' shed blood means forgiveness of sins and on which lies the basis of our hope for everlasting life.
Even before going into the hospital, Jehovah's Witnesses know better than most people the risks associated with our accepting a blood transfusion in connection with the medical treatment we receive. 'If the doctors cannot demonstrate the benefits that accrue from our agreeing to accept a blood transfusion, we know that all they are offering us is risk.' But there is a moral principle that drives the decision of Jehovah's Witnesses to reject blood transfusions.
Jehovah's Witnesses have learned from the Bible that blood is not a commodity, but it is sacred; man has absolutely no right to be selling blood for money, no right whatsoever to be using it in a manner that is not approved by God. The only reason Jehovah's Witnesses publish the adverse effects associated with blood transfusions is to strengthen not just our own faith, but to strengthen the faith of those that listen to us in that we, and they, might actually appreciate the benefits that accrue to those obeying God.
You also responded to my question regarding witness repugnance to blood transfusions. In the link I provided regarding Canadian "mature minors" refusing blood transfusions, two Witness children described the transfusions they received as "spiritual rape". I don't think the hospital nurses introduced this [description]. Neither does the bible use this expression. Why does the society depict life-saving blood transfusions as something so horrible?
Why are you lumping together what a couple of Witness children said in Canada, who are not really Jehovah's Witnesses until they are baptized as such, as to their characterization of being forcibly given blood transfusions by the doctors in a hospital of the experience as being akin, in their view, to "spiritual rape" with the Society? I've never seen the word "grandfather," "organization" or the words "governing body" in the Bible either.
You seem to revere blood transfusions, but what is your personal view of doctors that prescribe drugs like Valium, Xanax, Ativan or Ritalin to adults with ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), formerly called ADD (Attention-Deficit Disorder)? Adults with ADHD are regularly losing things, cannot sit for long periods of time (e.g., meetings), and can hardly finish the tasks they start.
What are your thoughts about medicating kids, about doctors that prescribe these same drugs to children with ADHD? Like adults, kids with ADHD cannot sit for long periods of time, have difficulty paying attention, regularly daydreams and is forgetful, may pull stunts like throwing things out a window or might exhibit impulsive behavior, like suddenly making a dash toward a busy street. Do you have the same reverence for drugs as you do for blood transfusions, or don't you believe drugs like Valium, Xanax, Ativan or Ritalin are also saving lives?
You describe the life-saving properties of whole blood transfusions as a "myth", I assume from your studious examination of watchtower materials. Congratulations. You have swallowed the lie.
No, I'm an educated person, highly educated. A Bible scholar; also a genius. Not only did I not say anything about "whole blood transfusions" being a myth, since this suggests that I view blood components differently than I do whole blood, nor did I speak about "life-saving properties" of blood being a myth. What I did say that Jehovah's Witnesses want to warn folks about those would try to convince them of the myth that blood transfusions save lives. Do you not see the difference between what you claim I said and what I actually did say? You see, unlike you, I don't believe blood has any life-saving properties in it.
The life-saving qualities of whole blood transfusions is part of conventional, conservative medical practice, as outlined above. If it were not, the medical establishment would have abandoned it long ago.
This is your opinion. I don't believe the medical community will abandon the use of blood transfusions unless and until a spate of deaths should result in their having to defend against too many multi-million dollar lawsuits.
I will gladly side with Caesar when he staunchly defends right to life. Religious prohibitions that endanger life are misguided and dangerous.
To what religious prohibitions do you refer? If you are not here referring to the view of Jehovah's Witnesses regarding the sanctity of blood and are only referring to our refusal to accept blood transfusions as being misguided and dangerous, I would need you to prove that our view is misguided and dangerous. I would need you to produce some proof to this effect. I cannot take your word for our refusal to accept blood transfusions being misguided and dangerous.
I can assure you that the US also intervenes in cases where children need blood transfusions....
Your assurances mean absolutely nothing to me. Based on what things I know about blood transfusions, I believe you are just blowing smoke.
As others have responded so well, parents can make foolish, life-risking decisions, but they cannot make that decision for a dependent.
Parents make decisions that affect their children every day. A doctor's opinion doesn't trump the rights of a parent toward their children.
Where the child is at risk of dying without a transfusion, the state will intervene. There are world-wide cases, including in the US, where this has happened.
Ok.
Regardless from what you have been taught from the Watchtower materials, whole blood transfusions are the conventional, conservative choice for a myriad of conditions. The judge takes the word of the medical profession, rather than the blood video. Ask yourself why.
What is this "blood video" stuff that you keep bringing up in this thread? The video to which you keep referring didn't inform me of anything that I had not already learned about the inefficacy of blood transfusions. I know so much more about this subject that do most Jehovah's Witnesses, and more than you even know. I'm an expert on being one of Jehovah's Witnesses, an expert on this subject and mentally tough. Again, what does any of this have to do with blood fractions?
Quote me a newspaper article where a judge refused an order of state custody over a blood transfusion of a minor. The articles I have followed for the past ten years state the opposite, and I provided a link. Can you do the same?
Yes, I can do that. Here's the URL to an appeal decided by the Kansas Court of Appeals involving one of Jehovah's Witnesses and her husband, a Muslim, who was appealing the child custody order with the hope of obtaining sole legal custody of his six-year-old son, who was born to the unmarried couple three years after they had met, during which time the mother (Monica) became one of Jehovah's Witnesses and the father (Adiel) had gone on to leave the mother when the child was about six months old.
The mother eventually went on to file a paternity action when their son was four years old and the matter was finally decided when custody of their son, now seven, was awarded to the appellee mother. Adiel challenged the decision of the district court and brought up, among other things, the Monica' s religious beliefs regarding blood transfusions, which argument the court rejected based on Beebe v. Chavez, [citation intentionally omitted], which held that "If, under the Beebe case, the Court is not allowed to take into consideration a religious practice that discourages treatment by physicians, the Court does not believe that it may consider in this case [Monica's] religious views which prohibit the use of blood products."
The appellee (Monica) had testified that there are 'bloodless therapies' available in lieu of blood transfusions," and she was a licensed practical nurse employed at a hospital, and studying at the time of the trial for her bachelor's degree in nursing. The court in Beebe had held that "a court may not deny custody unless the religious practice poses "an immediate and substantial threat to the temporal well-being of the child."
http://tinyurl.com/5skqjax
Even if I were to post several of such links, your attitude would not change in the least, so I have no real interest in doing that. Bloviation is annoying when an opinionated individual isn't really listening to the other points of view, and you are not listening to me at all.
I suspect you haven't lost a close loved-one.
You suspect wrong. That was also a pretty dumb statement for you to make without your knowing me or anyone in my family.
Your answers to TD and Mary come across as callous.
So what? What business is it of yours what it was I said to someone else? Busybodies aren't spoken of in a praiseworthy way in the Bible; they are lumped with murderers, thieves, and evidoers. (1 Peter 4:15) You seem to me to be a rather judgmental person, but why?
I can guarantee that both became experts in their loved-one's diseases, and were convinced by the medical authorities that in these types of cases, only whole blood would do. All the articles on fractions cannot escape this fact.
This statement is both interesting and false. Neither @TD nor @Mary became experts. I am an expert, and I didn't become such by simply observing the ordeal to which one of my loved ones was forced to experience. Why do you make such absurd statements anyway, @jgnat? Because you can and no one on JWN has ever called you on them before? You can live for the next 40 or 50 years and you will never acquire the kind of knowledge and wisdom that I possess on many disparate topics. I thought we were going to discuss blood fractions, but you didn't really do this.
About my ability to comprehend the Witness doctrine, consider that I have assisted my husband in many of his studies and attend some conventions and assemblies for the past ten years. I have watched the blood video and helped my husband negotiate the minefield of choices on his stance on blood.
What "minefield of choices" are you talking about? Again you have here mentioned this "blood video" that you saw as if your bragging to me about having seen a movie should mean something significant to me. (It doesn't.) You do not comprehend the Bible doctrines regarding blood transfusions or blood fractions as would one of Jehovah's Witnesses, even though you may now be married to one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
I briefly studied with a sister and we mutually terminated the arrangement. I am confident that I have learned enough to confirm that the Witnesses are not the exclusive holders of the "truth" as they claim. Nevertheless I am very, very familiar with their stand on blood, college education, identification of the anointed, shunning, , "divided households", meeting attendance, field service, and the value of book study.
Again, you do not comprehend any of the things that Jehovah's Witnesses believe, but only think you do. I could take you on with each of the things you mention here and prove what it is you don't know, but I won't waste your time or mine in such an unprofitable endeavor. I want to say in the strongest terms that you do not understand the stand of Jehovah's Witnesses on blood, even though I have articulated our stand with respect to blood, blood transfusions and fractions in this rather lengthy post.
About my husband's willingness or ability to inform himself, you silly, silly person, to presume to "know" what he would do in an emergency. I live with the man.
I don't presume to know what your husband will do in an emergency. You have spun what it was I stated in an earlier post, from which the following comes:
[@jgnat wrote:]
My husband for one. He does not fully understand the consequences and hopes the decision will be taken out of his hands.
[@djeggnog wrote:]
If anyone should find themselves having to face a surgical procedure of any kind, I cannot imagine that your husband would not inform himself of the potential consequences that will ensue were he to accept a blood transfusion. Often an employee doesn't bother to read the section in the Employment Manual on his or her Worker's Compensation benefits until an accident occurs on the day and he needs to know how much of his or her regular salary he or she will receive while they on Worker's Comp leave, but eventually they do inform themselves, and so would your husband.
As you should be able to see, unless you are blind, I didn't presume anything at all about your husband. Please don't put your own spin on my words. If you are going to quote me, quote me verbatim, because I do not trust your command of the English language enough to trust that you would know how to paraphrase my words without twisting them beyond recognition. Again, I never presumed to "'know' anything" as to what your husband would or wouldn't do in an emergency.
@djeggnog
317
Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine
by jgnat in
1. watchtower
2. beliefs
djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.
djeggnog

@dgp wrote:
It is always said that YHWH will punish or reward you on the basis of what you do. Apparently he would also punish or reward you on the basis of what someone else would do in your name.
@djeggnog wrote:
No. I didn't follow your logic here either.
@dgp wrote:
It should be easy to follow the logic. A two-year old cannot possibly make a decision about a transfusion, neither against it, neither in favor of it. How should she be accountable before Jehovah for a transfusion?
I never suggested that a two-year-old could be held accountable for a decision made for it by its parents. This is called a strawman argument, since it is you that make the argument and you that discount it down as being a bad argument. Furthermore, I have mastered the debate format, which is pretty much the same format whether one is involved in such in high school (as I once had been, actually several) and over many years since.
I cannot take your question here seriously since it assumes a fact that I do not believe to be a fact, namely, that a child has the same rights that any adult; it may be given privileges by its parents, but it doesn't enjoy rights per se. (If it did have the same rights, then there would be no need for parental consent forms.) Please do not read more into my responses to the rest of your post than would be wise.
How would it have value before any God if someone else refused a translation on your behalf, and you died for it?
Blood transfusions have absolutely no value before God. The only blood that has merit with God is that put on God's altar when Jesus' returned to heaven, his own.
I wonder how it is that Jehovah's witnesses don't consider this murder.
Ok.
@djeggnog wrote:
Why would this be murder? Murder is when you kill someone with malice aforethought. It's not reasonable to think that a parent -- any loving parent -- would want to maliciously kill their own child.
@dgp wrote:
You have a very particular definition of murder. In your opinion, it's not murder if there's no malice. That is simply not true. If I am drunk, shoot my gun, and someone happens to take the bullet, that is murder all the same.
You are certainly free to believe what you wish. What you describe here is manslaughter, manslaughter in the second degree, but not murder.
If I find my wife with another man and shoot the two bastards because my pain blinds me (and enrages me), that is murder even if there was no "aforethought" to the matter.
IMO, what you describe here is also manslaughter, voluntary manslaughter.
Common sense and the law have long recognized that it is not "intention" that matters, but "result".
I cannot agree with you here, but ok.
If we were to believe that murder isn't murder if there is no malice aforethought, then every criminal would claim not to have acted "maliciously" and that would be the end of the matter. No murder.
So you believe it is the accused that is required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt against himself or herself? that the end of the matter is what the defendant claims?
In the same line of thought, it doesn't matter whether parents think they are protecting their children by refusing a translation.
No one should either think or reason on such matters without having first studied law, which you evidently have not done.
The children die all the same, and they die as a result of a decision of the parents NOT to give them blood.
What children? Most children of Jehovah's Witnesses do not die due to their parents' refusal to give their content to having their child transfused with blood. In fact, most children of Jehovah's Witnesses do better than their counterparts whose parents do consent to them having blood transfusions.
It's not a matter of whether it's "reasonable" to think that "a loving parent" would want to kill a child. This is a red herring. It's a matter of whether the child dies as a result of what the parent decides.
Ok.
@jgnat wrote:
DGP, the impossibility of a minor to make a choice like this is the very reason why the government/courts will intervene here in Canada on behalf of minors. If adults want to risk their lives to follow their beliefs, fine...but they cannot make that choice for minors.
@djeggnog wrote:
If what you say is true, that's too bad for Canadians, for when it comes to one's choice of religion or in what religion a child will be raised, such decisions have in the past been sacrosanct here in the US, but maybe what you are saying here is not true and children do have freedom of choice in Canada as they do here in the US.
@dgp wrote:
Some time ago I learned a trick that people use. It's called "responding to a question, but not answering it". This trick is often used by politicians that people take for fools. You ask them a question about, say, taxes, and they "take advantage of that opportunity" to speak about something else. They are aware that they evaded the question, but their real intent is to talk about matters that matter (forgive me for the repetition) only to them. I feel you, Eggnog, are doing this here.
Ok.
"The impossibility of a minor to make a choice" JGNat was talking about is clearly not about "choice of religion". It is clearly about "choice of transfusion".
This, again, is your opinion. I'm ok with you having one, but what @jgnat was talking about IMO is about religion, and by this I do not mean what you evidently mean: I do not mean a religion chosen by a child, for a child has no right to choose its own religion. Even though you (and @jgnat) disagree with me, whether a child received transfused blood is not the kind of decision that I child has the authority to make. Such a decision is in the province of its parents, period. If a child hasn't been given by its parents the privilege to decide whether or not it will spend the night at its cousin's house, then how could it possibly be seen to have the power to decide whether or not it will accept any medical treatment for itself as prescribed by a physician without the written consent of its parents?
You come off to me as someone in their early- or mid-20s, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you were actually in your 40s or 50s, and while I could be wrong here, it does seem to me that you were either home-schooled (where a fundamental grasp of certain concepts can impede comprehension of other concepts) or were unable to complete your high school education (although you might have earned a GED).
A two-year old is not aware of what a transfusion is, or what it entails in terms of religion. Therefore, she wouldn't be "choosing" a transfusion. Her parents would, on the basis of their own beliefs, not the child's.
I agree; the child doesn't have the power to make its own choices in life. A child's parents have such power.
No one would allow the parents of a 20 year old, say, to choose for him.
Why a 20-year-old? Why not a 23-, 24- or 25-year-old? Perhaps you've never attended college so you may not be able to relate to college life where the college student that has never worked a day in its life -- the 23-, 24- or 25-year-old -- relies on its parents to pay the tuition, the rent, health care and any and all related expenses while it is attending school. I believe you are an adult, and you may even have one or more children of your own, but you sound rather clueless to me about this particular aspect of life, namely, children.
Why should it be different if the question were a life and death issue, and the person who would be dying were not capable of understanding the extent of refusing a transfusion?
I fail to see the connection between someone dying and their not being "capable of understanding the extent of refusing a transfusion." I'm going to assume from the context that you are here referring to a minor, that is to say, someone not yet 18 years of age, and that you saying that this 17-year-old, 12-year-old, even one-year-old child is incapable of comprehending the risks and benefits of having a blood transfusion. (I'm guessing here what it is you are trying to say -- what you say here sounds like how tennis greats, Venus or Serena Williams, or someone home-schooled as they were home-schooled might describe the decision to consent to a blood transfusion as one of "refusing [to have] a transfusion" -- so if I have failed to accurately comprehend the point that you're making here, please let me know.)
To answer your question though: Parents are responsible for making life and death decisions for their children, including things that might be viewed by some as mundane, like dietary-related decisions or walking home by itself when the child that normally accompanies their child on its walk home from school has a cold and its parents do not let their child attend school that day (most parents in 2011 think it to be irresponsible to permit their children to walk home from school without being accompanied by someone else), so it really isn't relevant what a child might be capable of understanding when such life and death decisions do not belong to the child.
JGNat was very clear. "If adults want to risk their lives to follow their beliefs, fine... but they cannot make that choice for minors".
Again, parents are responsible for making all decisions, including medical decisions, that affect their own children. It seems that you have made this topic about blood transfusions, and I have humored you (and others here) that have taken this thread off-topic, but I am here to discuss blood fractions. I have no opinion as to what decisions you might make for yourself or for your own children. Your decisions are your own, but, from a scriptural perspective, Christians ought to want to please God in the decisions they make, and whereas some Christians have no problem with accepting blood fractions, others might have a problem accepting such, and no one has a right to insert themselves in the decisions that parents make for themselves and/or for their children and their physicians, including congregation elders.
Incidentally, and not because I want to evade the point, but because you opened the door, CHILDREN ARE NOT FREE TO CHOOSE THEIR RELIGION. I chose to write in capitals because it's an internet convention that this means SCREAMING.
Ok. Perhaps I should point out to you thought that I'm not really new the internet, although, as I told @TD in this thread, I haven't mastered pasting Greek characters into my posts, but I'm have mastered typos (and I'm actually quite good at making them). You can scream whenever you wish, but if your point(s) is/are not understood, then screaming won't do anything to change this fact.
I was born to an atheist father and a Catholic mother and "naturally", my mother chose to rear me as a Catholic. I have Baptist friends whose parents were Baptists and, "naturally", they were Baptists, too. It should be unnecessary to point out that children are reared by parents in the parents' religions, and the feelings of the children are disregarded. Parents may be thinking that they are doing the right thing, but that should not prevent anyone from accepting the obvious fact that children aren't given the chance not to be reared in the religion of their parents.
I accept what is, in fact, an "obvious fact," that children do not choose their own religion, and that a child's way of life, that is to say, their religion -- whether they be theists (those they believe in one god), deists (those that believe in many gods), atheists (those that believe in no god) or Jehovah's Witnesses (those that believe Jehovah to be the true God) -- is based upon the religious mores (meaning, the moral and ethical beliefs) of their parents, that children have no say in how their parents may decide to raise them. I will add here that this is why the standing of the child -- whether it is considered by God to be "holy" -- is wholly dependent upon the believing parent. (1 Corinthians 7:14) Also, "as long as the heir is a babe" -- that is to say, as long as a child remains such -- "he does not differ at all from a slave" (Galatians 4:1), in that the "masters" of a child are its parents.
I said I didn't want to evade your point, and I am not evading it. With the previous paragraph, my point is that the children of Jehovah's witnesses aren't allowed the choice NOT to be Jehovah's witnesses. You will say that they are not baptized at birth, like my mother did with me, for example, but that does not mean children can choose. They can't choose not to go to the Kingdom Hall. I've read countless stories about children who weren't even allowed to be distracted while at the Kingdom Hall, and who were beaten simply because, NATURALLY, they couldn't sit tight. A two-year old haemophiliac child of two Jehovah's witnesses wouldn't be given the choice not to be reared as a Jehovah's witness, and you know it.
You are again positing strawman arguments here as if I had taken a contrary position. I'm going to pass on this comment because it does sound to me like a rant.
By the way, I mentioned my own Catholic baptism with full intent. My father is a strong atheist and he didn't want his son to be baptized. My mother baptized me one day he wasn't home, and she reared me as a devout Catholic in spite of my father's disagreement. So much for choice, eh?
What does any of this have to do with blood fractions?
Let me play Devil's Advocate here. You consider the Catholic Church to be a Harlot. So, I wasn't reared in "the Truth".
Do you know what it means to "play Devil's Advocate"? Someone that plays the devil's advocate posits an argument that is the opposite of his or her position on a particular matter. I would suggest that you take the time to do a little research to learn the meaning of this and other concepts that you might have been using to learn what they mean. This is the kind of thing I do for a living when I do witness-prep work in cases where the client in a post-foreclosure eviction case is the defendant wherein I take on the role of the plaintiff as an advocate and ask the client the kind of questions that the plaintiff's attorney may ask the defendant during the trial in order to test either the credibility of the defendant's testimony or the strengths or weaknesses of the defendant's case.
To answer your question though, no, I do not consider the Roman Catholic Church to be a harlot, nor does the Bible teach the RCC to represent the world empire of false religion. This distinction belongs to false religion, period, and is not the exclusive domain of the RCC, so if by playing "Devil's Advocate," you meant that you thought that you were taking my side of an argument, first, you didn't do that, and second, you failed to advocate an opposing position or to make a case that is contrary to a position that I hold.
In your own terms, was I given the choice to be reared in the true religion, or did my mother choose for me?
Earlier you wrote:
My father is a strong atheist and he didn't want his son to be baptized. My mother baptized me one day he wasn't home, and she reared me as a devout Catholic in spite of my father's disagreement.
Based on what you yourself stated here, your mother chose to baptize you, and she it was that reared you as a Catholic over your father's objection, but a parent cannot make a child "devout" about a religion that the child did not choose for itself. All a parent can do is rear their children in a particular belief system, but only the child itself can decide to become devout in his or her parents' faith. IMO your being baptized as a Catholic doesn't mean that you had given your assent to become a Catholic, since, in most cases, children are presented for baptism by their parents, often without their even being old enough to comprehend the scriptural meaning that attaches to water baptism.
Was my mother's decision any different from the decision of so many other parents?
I don't believe so, but, as I say above, you are largely off-topic here, as your questions have gone far afield from discussing blood fractions.
@djeggnog