Only JWs demonize blood. It's a JW thing.
I'm Still Torn About the Blood Issue
by palmtree67 74 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
jookbeard
I believe the important issue is how many people's lived are saved yearly from taking a blood transfusion? probably hundreds of thousands, contaminated blood is tragic and will happen, but do the maths and look at the amount of people who's lives have been saved? no contest
-
palmtree67
Hi Carla - Yes, I've followed Mary's story, soooo sad. It's one of the things that has made me start thinking more about all this.
OTWO - Long before I left, I was coming to the conclusion these people were not directed by Holy Spirit. The first step was not believing the elders were appointed by HS. Yes, you are right, that is the main issue to alot of these debates, isn't it?
Hi, Minimus! - No matter how serious your posts are, your avatar always makes me smile!
-
minimus
when it was animated, it would've made you laugh.
-
journey-on
Even today, after years of being out of the org, I cringe at the thought of taking blood. It would have to be a life or death situation for me to take a blood transfusion. Life trumps. I still haven't figured out why exactly I feel so adamant about it. I don't think it has anything to do with the religion, but I just have an extreme aversion to allowing it for any reason other than saving my life.
-
BluesBrother
None of their reasoning's are making any sense to me now.
Right on with that !
As to the blood question...The WTS have always said that their objections are "spiritual" rather than practical, so medical questions should not come into it. But they then follow up with a lot of medical advice. do they not? I see it this way :
1] The interpretation of the scriptures can be debated and seen to be wrong, once the blinkers of the WTS have fallen away from our eyes. As soon as we can rationally reason on things, there objections to blood seem just wrong.
2] None of us are experts in the field of medicine, I cannot say whether blood is the right treatment in any particular case. I do know that the doctor knows more than I do. Of course there are times that blood has done more harm than good, but a lot more times that blood is credited with saving peoples lives. On average a wise thing has to be to take doctors advice.
3] Frankly it is just not right that the G B in Brooklyn try to tell me what medical treatment I should have. My body is my own. Even if I were still dedicated to God, it is between me and him , not any other man. It is said that "Abstain from blood" in the Bible means what they say it means..but it is men who have decided what fractions are acceptable and what are not acceptable..What did Jesus say about those who "teach commands of men as doctrines"?
-
TD
Palmtree:
Is blood good or bad? Right or wrong?
Like any other medical procedure, the intended benefits have to be weighed against the potential risks. When you have surgery for example, there's roughly a 1 in 30,000 chance that you will never wake up from the anesthesia. That is a known risk. Would that stop you if your doctor said your appendix was on the verge of rupturing? Most people would view that as a case where the intended benefits far outweigh the potential risks.
If your source of information on transfusion medicine has been the JW organization, then there is no possiblity of being fully informed on this issue. It's important to understand that the JW organization presents information for the sole purpose of reinforcing the teaching and they've been honest and upfront about that agenda. The Proclaimers book, for example openly states that the presentation of medical information has been to, "...strengthen their appreciation of the prohibition that God himself had put on the use of blood." (p. 184)
You mentioned leukemia. It's been known for years that lasting remissions are extremely rare among Witness patients. In the year 2002 for example, an article appeared in The Oncologist entitled, Faith Identity and Leukemia - When Blood Products are Not an Option. This article was aimed at helping doctors, nurses and other medical professionals deal with the feelings of guilt, frustration and anger associated with the routine loss of Witness patients.
It containted a series of short interviews with the medical team that had recently attended to a Witness patient. One of the nurses made this observation:
"When she made the decision to accept the bovine product, we started to question her choices, asking, "What does this really mean? Why is she doing this? Why doesn't she just take blood?" There was a conflict there because she was also telling us that she still wanted everything done. She wanted everything done, but she wouldn't take the one essential thing that would save her life." (Faith Identity and Leukemia: When Blood Products are Not an Option, The Oncologist, 2002;7:372)
Severe forms of leukemia, aplastic anemia, Hodgkin's disease and lyphoma were once thought to be absolutely incurable. Today, thousands of lives are saved every year via bone marrow transplant. But because there is a period of weeks; sometimes even months when the recipient of a bone marrow transplant is not producing red cells or platelets on their own, transfusion remains an integral part of the procedure without which, the patient cannot survive.
One of the best articles I've ever read that shows just how absurd JW notions about transfusion medicine are to the real world of medicine appeared in the Vital Signs column of the August 1988 issue of Discover. It gave the story, told from the perspective of the emergency cardiologist of a female Witness patient who had a recurring benign bladder tumor. When this tumor would flare up, she would bleed profusely through the urethra. (i.e. Urinating her own blood.) When this would happen, surgery would be requred to stop the bleeding.
One time though, this patient waited too long to go in and her blood count dropped too low to attempt surgery. Alternative methods of stopping the bleeding were tried one by one and they all failed. The emergency cardiologist, a Doctor Elisabeth Rosenthall was called in when the patient began experiencing pulmonary distress:
"As I walked into the room, carrying my portable cardiac monitor, I was awed by the scene in front of me. At the center of everyone's attention was a large woman with an oxygen mask gasping for air, breathing faster than seemed humanly possible. At the head of the bed were three friends, fellow church members coaching her through her moment of wretched glory. At her side were several doctors - one monitoring her falling blood pressure, another coaxing some blood from an artery. The fluid which slowly filled the syringe had the consistency of Hawaiin Punch: tests on the sample later revealed a red cell count of only 9."
Doctor Rosenthall explained the problem in no uncertain terms:
"Your friend is going to die, I told her." My words were direct. "I will take her up to the coronary care unit because I legally have to, but there will be nothing effective I can do. We will give her oxygen, but her blood is already carrying all the oxygen it can hold. We will give her medications to keep her blood pressure up. When they cease to work, we will pound on her chest to force the blood out of her thorax and into her limbs. We will shock her heart with jolts of electric current to stimulate its conduction system to fire. But without red cells to bring nutrients to her heart, nothing we can do will save her."
The patient, after hours of suffering went into cardiac arrest and died. No one denies that transfusion should be avoided if at all possible. But when the benefits clearly outweigh the risks, the choice should be simple.
-
Scully
If you're looking for some scriptural guidance, here's a passage that clinched it for me:
"Shear off your uncut hair and throw [it] away, and upon the bare hills raise a dirge, for Jehovah has rejected and will desert the generation with which he is furious. 'For the sons of Judah have done what is bad in my eyes,' is the utterance of Jehovah. 'They have set their disgusting things in the house upon which my name has been called, in order to defile it. And they built the high places of To'pheth, which is in the valley of Hin'nom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart." ~ Jeremiah 7:29-31
This made me realize that God was not interested in human sacrifice - it was something that had not come up into his heart - and for those people who practiced human sacrifice, there was but a single outcome: they would suffer God's fury and rejection. It made me realize that the WTS was as far removed from God as possible, by way of this one practice of requiring followers to sacrifice themselves, their spouses, and their children for lack of blood transfusions.
By the way, similar words are repeated twice more in the book of Jeremiah.
"And you must say, 'Hear the word of Jehovah, O you kings of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem. This is what Jehovah of armies, the God of Israel, has said: "Here I am bringing a calamity upon this place, of which when anyone hears, his ears will tingle; for the reason that they have left me and have proceeded to make this place unrecognizable and to make sacrificial smoke in it to other gods whom they had not known, they and their forefathers and the kings of Judah; and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent ones. And they built the high places of Ba'al in order to burn their sons in the fire as whole burnt offerings to the Ba'al, something that I had not commanded or spoken of, and that had not come up into my heart."'" ~ Jeremiah 19:3-5
"'For the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have proved to be mere doers of what was bad in my eyes, from their youth on up; for the sons of Israel are even offending me by the work of their hands,' is the utterance of Jehovah. 'For this city, from the day that they built it, clear down to this day, has proved to be nothing but a cause of anger in me and a cause of rage in me, in order to remove it from before my face, on account of all the badness of the sons of Israel and of the sons of Judah that they have done to offend me, they, their kings, their princes, their priests and their prophets, and the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And they kept turning to me the back and not the face; though there was a teaching of them, a rising up early and teaching, but there were none of them listening to receive discipline. And they went putting their disgusting things in the house upon which my own name has been called, in order to defile it. Furthermore, they built the high places of Ba'al that are in the valley of Hin'nom, in order to make their sons and their daughters pass through [the fire] to Mo'lech, a thing that I did not command them, neither did it come up into my heart to do this detestable thing for the purpose of making Judah sin.'" ~ Jeremiah 32: 30-35
These passages all made me realize that what the WTS was promoting was patently offensive to God, a cause for his outrage, and the reason for their ultimate rejection by God.
It made me very clear in my resolve that I wanted nothing more to do with the WTS or any practices of the WTS, especially those concerning blood transfusions.
I don't know if these passages will help you see blood transfusions in a different light, but they really made a difference for me (even though I have become an atheist in the meantime).
-
palmtree67
Wow,
Thank-you so much, TD and Scully. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your responses. I definately have lots more to think about and consider on this.
Again, very much appreciated, everybody!!
-
skeeter1
What is a fraction?