My sister renaii will get cross with me, just found and read this whilst looking up serena williams, didnt know she was a JW!
who are the jehovahs witnesses and why do they refuse blood transfusions.
by chikikie 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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reniaa
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/the-big-question-who-are-the-jehovahs-witnesses-and-why-do-they-refuse-blood-transfusions-399129.html
By Paul Vallely, Associate editor
Tuesday, 6 November 2007Why ask now?
Because Emma Gough, a 22-year-old mother has just died in a Shrewsbury hospital hours after giving birth to twins. She was a Jehovah's Witness (JW) and had refused a blood transfusion. There are 130,000 JWs in the UK, and almost seven million worldwide. Their numbers have almost doubled in 20 years.
Believers – who include the tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, model Naomi Campbell, and singers Prince and Michael Jackson – routinely sign forms before hospital treatment insisting on no transfusions. They say the Bible forbids them.
What exactly do they believe?
Jehovah's Witnesses are an off-shoot of Adventist Christians, who think the world is about to end. They began in 19th century America when a Protestant farmer named William Miller predicted the second coming of Christ would happen on 22 October 1844. When it didn't – a non-event which became known as The Great Disappointment – the Millerites fragmented into various factions, including the Seventh Day Adventists. The JWs grew from this culture. (In 1966 they said the world would, probably, end in 1975, which set back the movement's growth for three years, but it recovered.)
The JWs are biblical literalists. If they can't find an idea in the Bible they insist it's wrong. So they reject standard Christian doctrines like the idea that Jesus was God, that he died on a cross, that he was physically resurrected, that souls live after death, that Hell exists etc. Ideas they do find in the Bible lead them to reject gambling, masturbation, abortion, homosexuality and excessive public displays of affection.
So what is with all the knocking on front doors?
The movement was founded by a a chap called Charles Taze Russell in 1879. he called his followers "Bible Students". An emphasis on house-to-house preaching began in 1922 and they changed their name to the Jehovah's Witnesses (after Isaiah 43:10) in 1931.
The idea is that JWs are "in the world but not of it". So they live and work among the general community, and send their children to state schools, but every member spends at least 70 hours a month on door-to-door missionary activity. They have no professional clergy; all baptised members are considered ordained ministers.
In 2005 Jehovah's Witnesses around the world spent over 1.2 billion hours on missionary work, handing out their magazine, Watchtower. Published in 161 languages it has an average print run of 27 million, making it the largest circulation magazine in the world.
So why are they such figures of fun?
No one likes having their evening's telly interrupted. But it's more than that. Their publicly-flaunted separatism irks or angers others. They don't fit in. They refuse to celebrate Christmas. They don't vote at elections. They decline to salute flags or sing nationalist songs. In the First World War in Britain, Canada and the USA they refused to fight and their American leaders got 20 year sentences for treason. In Nazi Germany they refused to say Heil Hitler and denounced the swastika as idolatrous. Half of them were sent to concentration camps where their purple triangle badges indicated they could be released if they recanted their religion. Few did. Half of them died there. In the US, three quarters of all conscientious objectors were JWs. In Britain they were tarred and feathered. So it goes on. Today they are persecuted in Russia, Uzbekistan, Belarus, and Cuba.
Why don't other religions stick up for them?
Because they have gone out of their way to be rude about them. They have their own, rather eccentric, translation of the Bible and rubbish everyone else's beliefs as "mere human speculations or religious creeds". They have routinely described the Roman Catholic Church as a "semiclad harlot reeling drunkenly into fire and brimstone". Then there are "the so-called Protestants" and the "Yiddish" clergy "like foolish simpletons" participating in "the world empire of false religion". I could go on. They do. They are not exactly big on inter-faith.
What's the situation with child abuse?
Not good. They take Deuteronomy 19:15 literally, which demands two witnesses to a crime (not easy in cases of abuse). And they cite 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 – "Does anyone of you that has a case against the other dare to go to court before unrighteous men, and not before the holy ones?" – to justify trying to deal with criminals with courts of elders rather than courts of law. A Panorama investigation reported they have an internal list of 23,720 reported abusers which they keep private. Studies in the US suggest they have proportionally four times more sexual assaults on children than the Catholic Church.
So where does blood fit in?
They cite four biblical texts (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:12-14, Acts 15:29 and Acts 21:25). They say these mean that blood, the life-force, belongs to God and is not there for human use. They believe it a sin to eat not just black pudding but also to eat the flesh of animals that have not been properly bled.
And they extend the ban to transfusions. They won't even allow someone's blood to be stored before an operation and then used after it to replace their own blood loss. Blood is not to be stored; it is to be poured out and returned to God. Some JWs even reject dialysis or cell salvage on these grounds. Some will not accept red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma, but accept "fractions" made from these components.
There is a philosophical problem here. When a substance is broken down into components does the original remain? Some 90-96 per cent of blood plasma consists of water. The remainder is albumin, globulins, fibrinogen and coagulation factors. JWs say these may be used, according to conscience, but only if taken separately. Opponents say is like outlawing a ham and cheese sandwich but allowing the eating of bread, ham and cheese separately.
They are criticised for other inconsistencies. Blood fraction products are only available because of blood donation – a practice JWs condemned as unethical.
But didn't they change their policy a few years back?
No. In 2000 the church council announced that it would no longer expel members who had willingly had a blood transfusion. But only because by doing so they had excommunicated themselves.
Many JWs still carry a signed and witnessed advance directive card absolutely refusing blood in the event of an accident. And the church's website still carries alarmist material about the dangers of transfusions in transmitting Aids, Lyme Disease and other conditions. It also exaggerates the effectiveness of alternative non-blood medical therapies.
What do doctors think?
The British Association of Anaesthetists guidelines insist that the wishes of the patient must normally be paramount. US doctors take a similar view; they know giving blood to someone who does not want it could get them sued – one of the busiest trauma hospitals in Florida even has a blanket policy of refusing to treat JWs.
Other countries, like France, take a more dirigiste view. And a landmark case in Dublin recently ruled that doctors were right to give a woman blood during childbirth because the right of her child to have a mother over-ruled her own right to refuse the blood.
There are even more subtle dilemmas to come. One asks whether doctors are obliged to give chemotherapy, which is normally accompanied by a blood transfusion, to patients who insist on having it without the blood, without which it is highly likely to fail. As medicine advances things are likely to get more, rather than less, tricky.
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reniaa
It was hard kept getting error messages but I manage to put the article up that your talking about :) silly sister you know I don't mind, it's not bad for a newspaper article. :)
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DanTheMan
The British Association of Anaesthetists guidelines insist that the wishes of the patient must normally be paramount. US doctors take a similar view; they know giving blood to someone who does not want it could get them sued – one of the busiest trauma hospitals in Florida even has a blanket policy of refusing to treat JWs.
Zoiks! I know that one of the major medical networks in my city has me listed as JW in their database, I wonder if I should call them and let them know that I'm no longer in the fold.
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chikikie
thanks becky, i cant do any of this copy pasting stuff, how do you do those smilies
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DoomVoyager
but every member spends at least 70 hours a month on door-to-door missionary activity.
Holy crap, I'm glad that part isn't true! The rest is very good and it all looks like it's up to date on their current beliefs.
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chikikie
Thanks doomV, Im very suprised that i didnt get more people commenting, I was just supprised at how well the journalist did to get the information so correct and uptodate!
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One true Jesus Freak
I would hate for a family member need to go to the hospital. If they refuse blood I wouldn't be able to live with myself based on their decision. I don't recall in the Bible that we cannot take in blood to retain life. I know that we're not suppose to 'eat' but my idea behind that is God means that we are not supposed to drink each others blood such as gothic and/or vampires or those who practice witch craft. I don't see how getting blood to live is any harm. I guess if you are likely to die, why not take the risk and receive blood with a chance to live. IF you don't take it, you could also die. I would go for it myself.
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OBVES
If you know my posts I am an indpendent servant of God using Luke 9.49-50 to justify my position and I don't have to be in the opposition to the small group of united servants whom I find among Jehovah's Witnesses.
How we look and criticize Jehovah's Witnesses they still remain as the best christian organization and they fit into the end-time pattern as I had presented on many occasions.
The issue of blood is very controversial from many points of view. If I told you not eat the soup from the dish you see on the table I would expect your total obedience . You should not even desire to eat the soup in your thoughts or try to find some other way to eat that soup .
If the drinking blood is understood as forbidden in the Bible and someone wants to perfectly obey that rule he should do all possible in his power to abstain from blood in any form . We must bear in mind that God Yahweh is life-giver and has power to raise the dead.
Our present life is short and if we look back whether we are 30 years old or 78 years old all past is like one lump of past time the same to all of all . And the most important thing is to secure the prolongation of our existence by putting our trust in God of the Bible.
Many people opposing Jehovah's Witnesses on blood seem to not belive in life after death ! This life is all there is in their belief. No wonder they will look differently on the blood issue.
The same people don't realize how many lives Jehovah's Witnesses save . Millions of aborted babies die worldwide each year. How many crimes are committed by those who produce tobacco that causes thousands of deaths each year on this planet.
If a child of truly believing Jehovah's Witness dies from parent's refusal of blood this child will go to sleep in which there is no time lapse.It is like sending his own child abroad without seeing him or her for a while and then the believing parents will see their child again living !
Death is like a deep sleep when you lay your child to bed.
When I look back on my life I wonder how fast these years went past and see how many years I have wasted that it really doesn't matter now how many years I lived. Listening to the music I can completely forget all my past and live the present moment alone !
And it happens commonly as we in a given moment of our life don't think about past at all but think about what we see , hear ,feel now ! Here lies the basic reason for us to hope for the everlasting life .Not the past life but the present and the future life is what really counts and is our driving force. Since God Yahweh can give us life everlasting we can know when He acctepts our faith we'll be able to repeat our life cycles all the time . The present we are now is going to be the past in a moment and so on.
The basis of our life is the Present and the Future .And only God Yahweh can fulfill this cycles of life for His worshippers.
In the eternity it will not count if I lived 1 000 000 000 years or 1 000 000 076 years.
Don't worry about children of Jehovah's Witnesses ! They may seem to loose some time for a child but it is nothing when compared with the eternity. Think about yourself if you are not loosing your life completely forever ! This would be a hoorible loss as you have wasted a chance to live forever and that is much more than 1 000 000 children of Jehovah's Witnesses who died as a result of refusal of blood transfusion by their parents. They will rise and live while you may be dead forver.
The lost eternal life is not 1 000 000 children x (say) 100 years of possible life extended with blood transfusion !
The etrnal life is more than 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 and it is only life of one person saved . While 1 000 000 x 100 = 100 000 000 only .
And that 100 000 000 years lost will fade away when the eternity sets in !
Michael Jackson a Jehovah's Witness ? This is controversial in my view ! As I myself would not allow people "worship" me as an idol for the world pop music ! Simply I don't see in the light of the Bible any Jehovah's Witnesses in a role of an idol !
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Satanus
why do they refuse blood transfusions.'
It's because people who become jws have all their blood replaced w synthetic fluid, which allows the wt corp to turn them into robots. A transfusion of human blood would threaten that control by bringing back some human tendencies.
S