Very Accurate and Creative (Not)

Kum Vulcan

You must have been given the example below in your dealings with JWs and blood. At least I have been told the same stupid thing over and over again by every JW, I've had any discussion on the topic with and by any speaker on the platform when it came to the "abstaining" from blood.

Here it goes: "If your doctor told you to abstain from alcohol and you had it injected in your veins, didi you really follow your doctor's advice? (A self -righteous "I gotcha now" look follows....)

Is it the fact that the very example is given in the frist stage of the indoctrination manual (err.. the "What te Bible Really Teaches" book), or the drones in Brooklyn are that stupid to understand the difference between bioligical proceses and that blood, unlike alcohol, does not get metabolized when put into the bloodstream. Or is it the GB's inifinite arrogance and self-delusion to know that hte crap is wrong and yet pedal it down to the R&F drone to test the limits of unquestionable accepatance, maybe in preparation for a policy reversal or who knows what?

What do you think? Your thoughts may enlighten me on how to resppond in any future discussion without throwing up first...

-KV

sir82

Here is what I consider to be a very strong argument:

A blood transfusion is an organ transplant. Somewhere in a WT article they even admit that - a WT-CD search should be able to find it.

Now, thinking of organ transplants: If a man were starving to death, and he received a liver transplant, would that resolve his problem? Why not?

So, in what sense is receiving a blood transfusion equivalent to "eating" blood?

Olin Moyles Ghost

I would turn the argument around on the JW as follows:

If your doctor told you to abstain from MEAT, does this mean you can't have a LIVER TRANSPLANT?

And to answer your question about why the WTS uses this type of reasoning, I would say they use it because it works. It's easy to understand and easy to remember. The fact that it's scientifically dubious and logically flawed doesn't matter. It's the equivalent of a sound-bite. And just like the sound-bites that politicians use (for example, "death panels"), they don't stand up to scrutiny...but that doesn't matter because the target audience doesn't subject them to scrutiny.

glenster

JWs drunks rejoice--you have a loophole:

JWs leaders allow about half the blood of animal meat (the amount removed by
normal slaughtering) to be eaten and characterize koshering as fanatical. That
means that if a JWs leader told you to abstain from alcohol it would be okay if
you just drank half a bottle at a time or whole bottles at half the proof.
Teetotalers are extemists.

sabastious

I love the out of context "Abstain from blood" line.

Why ever read any research article when you can just take one sentence out of context and understand the whole paper right?

The first question I ask when someone vomits this line on me is "Before we create a doctrine off this scripture, who was Paul talking to, and what did he mean to THEM? He wasn't talking about blood transfusions was he?"

ENTER THE ALCHOHOL ANAOLOGY.

First off, there are no situations where injecting beer into your viens is the only means of saving your life, way to trivialize a serious f'ing matter WT!

Second, like you have said it is a completely different scientific process when injecting blood and ingesting blood, so the anaology is logically fallacious.

Mr Watchtower: You ARE the weakest link. Goodbye.

-Sab