Children — Blood — Everlasting Life

by Marvin Shilmer 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  Marvin Shilmer

  Children — Blood — Everlasting Life

  Today I uploaded a new article to my blog. Watchtower has a lawyer by the name of Donald Ridley who took time to correct a secular writer for a bit of misleading information about Jehovah’s Witnesses. It turns out the secular author had a very good reason for experiencing what he did from Witness patients. Perhaps Ridley should save his advice for Watchtower. Ridley is, after all, engaged in the business of counseling.

  My article is titled Children — Blood — Everlasting Life and is available at: http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com/2011/06/children-blood-everlasting-life.html

  Marvin Shilmer

  http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com
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  Mad Sweeney

  If there's a more evil brand of attorney than a Borg attorney, I've never met one.
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  undercover

  Good blog article.

  Thanks Marvin...
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  sd-7

  This makes me think. My dad was in the hospital awhile ago; it wouldn't have surprised me if the rest of the immediate family--all JWs except me--were to recommend he not receive blood in the hopes that he'll get a resurrection. Maybe even more than just 'recommend'. For their lawyers to say the Society exerts no pressure is a huge lie. The entire concept would not exist without pressure. If they didn't pressure them for something as simple as field service time, people wouldn't care. This is one of the morally sick parts of the religion, to say the least. --sd-7
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  Marvin Shilmer

  I'll never understand why capable adults let themselves be used like this. But it happens. I think it's the result of idolatry.

  Lawyers at Watchtower must feel the ground move under their feet each time their gods change a doctrinal position they may have to stand up for.

  Marvin Shilmer
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  pirata

  Martin,

  I think the lawyer is technically correct. He is discussing the situation where the parents object but the medical community still give a blood transfusion. In this case they are not to feel it is their fault. This is similar to the Watchtower's policy that if you scream when you are raped, then it is not your fault. I use that parallel because the Watchtower has suggested comparing a court-ordered blood transfusion to rape when testifying in court. This was emphasized in the S-55-E outline at the 2010/2011 Kingdom Ministry School.

  The quotes from the Watchtower are talking about the situation where parents accept or give permission for a blood transfusion; in that case JWs do teach that they and/or their minor child would lose out on everlasting life if they are unrepentant.

  The current game played is this: Parents object to the blood transfusion until the court order is given, then the life of the child is saved and they don't have to feel guilty. However, this only seems to be a relatively recent development. One of my childhood friend's parents felt it necessary to steal away his younger brother from the hospital to prevent the younger brother getting a blood transfusion. I'm not sure the exact cause of death, but the child ended up dying.

  That being said, I am really enjoying your blog. It is starting to become one of the best resources on the web for blood (and other) JW issues.

  pirata
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  Marvin Shilmer

  pirata writes:

  “I think the lawyer is technically correct. He is discussing the situation where the parents object but the medical community still give a blood transfusion. In this case they are not to feel it is their fault.”

  Ridley is technically correct and my article does not dispute this. But his technical correctness is in concert with correcting another author when that author shared his own real experience with belief held by individual Jehovah’s Witnesses. Put another way, Ridley was correct and the other author, Sheldon was correct. Ridley correctly shared Watchtower’s current teaching. Sheldon was correct for sharing his real experience with what individual Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, who by the way had been led over the years to believe as they do by none other than Ridley’s primary client, Watchtower.

  The point of this particular blog article of mine is to express in other words that if Watchtower representatives want to correct others they need to make full-disclosure part of their protocol. In this case, though Watchtower had changed its teaching according to what Ridley wrote, Watchtower has not completely undone the belief of Jehovah’s Witnesses held over from Watchtower’s historical teaching on the same matter. Ridley failed to acknowledge in his correction that the other author (Sheldon) had experience with Witnesses that was to be expected though not necessarily current Watchtower teaching.

  Marvin Shilmer