up until the very end, my mother refused blood.
it didn't matter if it was a blurred line or not, the bible says "no blood"!
i wonder if she was in the minority, in her thinking.
So even when they allowed fractions, she wouldn't bend on the previous application of 'no blood, no how, no way'
You know what, my mother is the same. But she is old school and there are few with that sense of conscience and fundamental principle anymore.
The vast majority will do anything they can't be DFed for (or disassociated by their actions to be precise).
Not only that, but going the other way also means considering things like vaccines and things grown in bone meal.
while visiting someone at the local hospital i saw this leaflet " will i need a blood transfusion ?
- patient information" .
now i was raised in the belief that doctors are transfusion-happy and just give you one willy nilly if they operate , further that a trans.
The blood prohibition only remains because the WTS cannot give it up completely without looking like a bunch of idiots and, more to the point, risking opening up a host of legal claims for compensation. Ultimately EVERYTHING in the WTS comes back to money.
They have created a maze of logical nonsense to give Witnesses as many options to take blood as possible to try and minimise the risk of deaths and the associated bad publicity.
They have got caught trying to water down an edict that really they can only interpret with a fundamental bias that they are not prepared to stand by.
Sure they stick to Biblical texts as the basis for the prohibition (which is more than they do for the generation explanation) but it would be naive to think the continued arbitrary position on whole blood and the four so called primary components is any thing other than a compromise to suit organisational policy goals.
They have the similar issues with 1914 and the generation interpretation.
october 1, 2017 to all bodies of elders in nigeria re: local needs for the week of october 16-22.
If the letter came from the Nigerian branch office, then the language and verbiage are not off to me. This African use of English is not unusual, even well educated Nigerians will not usually sound like westerners, even brainwashed ones.Not saying the letter is fake one way or the other but you forget that branches in Africa still have their fair share of white Westerners in senior positions just to keep the locals nicely in line.
up until the very end, my mother refused blood.
it didn't matter if it was a blurred line or not, the bible says "no blood"!
i wonder if she was in the minority, in her thinking.
Sorry Ray but I think you might have misunderstood what I meant.
You are right that Witnesses take the blood policy seriously and often make a stand almost as a reflex action. In these circumstances however what is really happening is that the Witness is making a stand for whatever the FDS have said is currently acceptable and not acceptable. They don't make logical and conscience driven decisions based on their own understanding and research.
If the FDS change their mind then so too the mind and conscience of the majority changes. This is where my comment comes in.
If the FDS ever further reduced the scope of the prohibition or even removed it then my money would be on the R&F simply following them and accepting the new scope. They would all take whatever if the WTS said it was now ok.
I have to say I don't see the WTS removing the prohibition completely as the legal exposure is probably scaring them.
As has been pointed out in another thread the whole blood situation is far more about organisation policy management than a truly theological position based on honest and conscience driven interpretation.
up until the very end, my mother refused blood.
it didn't matter if it was a blurred line or not, the bible says "no blood"!
i wonder if she was in the minority, in her thinking.
All of them. They are all prepared to take it in whatever form the GB say is OK.
If the GB said it was all OK they would happily stick the needle in themselves.
this is sort of a continuation of threads on dubs and how they are conditioned to discipline their children.
someone questioned whether the society actually encouraged dubs to whup their children.
i only had enough time to dig up a few salient quotes from the wt magazine.
I have had some very odd conversations with people on this. I did smack my children occasionally when a relatively new father but I thought about it, worked out I was being a dick so stopped. I can't understand why so many still feel it's not just acceptable but a reasonable way to moderate behaviour. You have to stop sometime and find another way so why not from day 1?
Not that long ago a friend said to me that a lack of smacking is why kids are so bad today. I had a heated conversation with her as the ignorance and logical fallacies spewing out of her mouth infuriated me. She still didn't get it, accusing me of not respecting others' right to raise their kids as they see fit. I told her society's historical deference to the seemingly unassailable right of parents to do what they like with their kids is why child abuse has gone on for so long.
(a little background info before i ask my question...).
my sister-in-law (non-jw), who manages a popular chain restaurant near a kingdom hall, just found out that my wife and i have recently faded, so she decided to get something off her chest the other day... you guessed it: she wanted us to know that jws are the worst customers ever!
she then told us some really embarrassing stories about how jws would request a table for 15 to 20 people (after a sunday meeting) and then (when the bill came) some of the jws would start deliberating amongst themselves on whether or not the waiter was diligent or not (to justify the low tip he was getting anyway).
I have eaten in groups both of Witnesses and non-Witnesses. I have never had such bad experiences as when with Witnesses and this goes back to when I first went out in groups of young ones 25+ years ago.
I recently made the statement that Witnesses are often as tight as a gnat's chuff and there is nothing like a group meal to bring that out. I've seen it time and time again and it continues. My daughter recently went out and a load left paid their "share" and left as soon as the bill arrived, leaving the table £100 short! As usual one person stumped it up and is now trying to get the cash back from a bunch of other people.
Friends of ours had a problem with just 4 people. They were out, everyone ate the meal with no complaints then one couple said they were only going to pay half because the meal was not what they expected. They stood their ground and let their "friends" stump up the excess to save any more embarrassment. Needless to say they've not eaten together since.
It's shocking, childish and embarrassing to see how poorly Witnesses behave in restaurants.
while visiting someone at the local hospital i saw this leaflet " will i need a blood transfusion ?
- patient information" .
now i was raised in the belief that doctors are transfusion-happy and just give you one willy nilly if they operate , further that a trans.
I wonder as well what the blood policy would look like if being started from scratch now.
If the GB came up with a ban on blood transfusions based on Genesis now then would it be anywhere near as convoluted as it is? Would they even try to do it?
while visiting someone at the local hospital i saw this leaflet " will i need a blood transfusion ?
- patient information" .
now i was raised in the belief that doctors are transfusion-happy and just give you one willy nilly if they operate , further that a trans.
Thanks FM for reminding me that JWs look to the GB for direction on what to believe. I'd forgotten that.
Honestly FM you do make me wonder what point you are really trying make sometimes. Nobody questions the fact that what is said here makes zero difference to the GB and most Witnesses will submit to their ramblings whatever they are. How does it move the conversation forward to say that the GB would disagree with the view of an exJW or someone still in but questioning the policy?
while visiting someone at the local hospital i saw this leaflet " will i need a blood transfusion ?
- patient information" .
now i was raised in the belief that doctors are transfusion-happy and just give you one willy nilly if they operate , further that a trans.
FM, I don't think Lee is ignoring the base scriptural reference to blood. The point is that the WTS has not actually stuck to their original position on this scripture. When the policy was first implemented you just had whole blood transfusions. Whilst the relationship between eating blood and intravenous delivery can be argued, at least the position was consistent with a simplistic interpretation of scripture.
With the advancement in medical technology the lines have become ever more blurred over time. Instead of sticking to their position they have muddied the waters by allowing the wide use of products obtained by processing donated blood. It is impossible to back up what actually is permitted with scripture - what is acceptable or not acceptable is simply down to the whim of the GB.
There are a mass of inconsistencies, illogical arguments and nonsense surrounding this policy which are conveniently ignored by the faithful simply because they are indoctrinated to accept the ramblings of the F&DS.
Why have the Witnesses got themselves in this mess? Because they are stubbornly holding onto a policy for no other reason than to keep the lid on a legal Pandora's box were they to say they were wrong and remove the prohibition.
To that end it is and organisational policy. Sure, it has a history in scripture but policy and scripture are so far apart now it's ridiculous.
