Watchtower: DEATH is their Value What about the Laws of Noah?

by Terry 19 Replies latest jw friends

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  Knowsnothing

  Terry, allow me to play JW advocate here. I've had multiple discussions of this nature at another board I participate in, and one poster mentioned that Tertullian wrote that the christians of his day were willing to die before eating a blood sausage.

  As for the Noahide laws, you've failed to mention that Acts also warns against things "strangled", which obviously includes eating blood. Would that by extension mean that the Noahide laws included such a prohibition?

  I think the more logical position to take is, that since we don't believe in the bible as the word of god, we aren't subject to those crazy rules. But, to say that the bible doesn't forbid eating blood is dishonest. It does. It forbids eating blood, even to gentiles.
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  Terry

  As for the Noahide laws, you've failed to mention that Acts also warns against things "strangled", which obviously includes eating blood. Would that by extension mean that the Noahide laws included such a prohibition?

  Excellent question!

  Things strangled would focues on two matters: 1.Cruelty to animals is prevented (postive virtue) and 2.No blood is poured out (Health concerns).

  If these Laws are viewed as Mystical Fiats rather than Practical and Positive social amendments you end up with people (in any time or place)

  reading their own conscience and imagination into "observance" and "obedience" striving for perfectionism.

  Paul said nothing a man eats defiles him. The exception he reluctantly cites is that WEAK PERSON's conscience! The weakest link in all matters of observance.
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  Terry

  But, to say that the bible doesn't forbid eating blood is dishonest. It does. It forbids eating blood, even to gentiles.

  Yes, but without knowing WHAT END RESULT WAS SOUGHT we fall into quibbles and squabbles.

  LIFE should always be the end result.

  What is Christian charity if not the affirmation of LIFE for those less fortunate.

  When the U.S. Constitution was written it was UNJUST in the extreme. Why? It disenfranchise Blacks, Women and people too poor to own property.

  Was that the PURPOSE of said Constitution?

  Certainly not.

  Those who want "original intent" at all times are idiots who don't realize we did not achieve LIBERTY until 1964 after a series of Amendments (changes) allowed Women the Vote, Freedom for Blacks and No Poll Tax for anybody too poor to own property.

  What is my point here?

  The Object and Purpose of Constitutional Government was the free exercise of the citizen's right to RULE HIMSELF through representative government while retaining State's rights and individual liberty.

  To treat it as a series of RULES excluding this person and that JUST BECAUSE IT SAYS SO is moral idiocy!
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  Knowsnothing

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/218497/1/Tertullian-Blood-Sausage

  Yes, but without knowing WHAT END RESULT WAS SOUGHT we fall into quibbles and squabbles.

  LIFE should always be the end result. -Terry

  That's not what christians sought. They saught to please their god first and foremost. Blood was one of the prohibitions. They believed they died to please their god.
• 

  Terry

  LIFE should always be the end result. -Terry

  That's not what christians sought. They saught to please their god first and foremost. Blood was one of the prohibitions. They believed they died to please their god.

  We cannot KNOW what Christians sought. "Christians" is a conceptual category consisting of thousands of INDIVIDUAL instances of human being with their own intellect.

  We do our knowledge base an injustice by generalizing specific human beings into a general category.

  Could we make a similar statement about "christians" today? That we KNOW what "christians" seek and be certain we got it right?

  I understand what you are saying. But, you are, factually basing such a general statement on very little plausible information transmitted to us in a most unreliable fashion that has been sifted through tens of thousands of hands over a couple of thousand years.

  Certainty is the last thing we could have confidence in.
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  Knowsnothing

  Certainty is the last thing we could have confidence in. -Terry

  Well then, call it an approximation if you will...

  Why do you think Tertullian states some (so as to not generalize) christians refused to eat blood sausages, even when tempted by the Romans?
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  wobble

  Eating blood is not the same as transfusing blood. The prohibition on blood in Acts does not in any way refer to the medical use of blood to save life.

  The JW argument/example about abstain from alcohol = do not inject it, has been dealt with on here, and has also been made redundant by their acceptance of blood fractions.

  That great trinitarian Tertullion may well have been referring to christians of jewish background to whom blood sausage would be anathema anyway, or perhaps they contained "things strangled", again, the early christian refusal is not of a life saving medical procedure but of a food.

  The Acts decree is to deal with a problem that arose between gentiles becoming christians and the jews who already followed christ, it is a decree to solve a first century local problem, and has nothing to do with medical practice in the 21st century.
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  Knowsnothing

  Wobble, I'm not arguing for the WT stance. Their flip-floppery on their own defeats any credibility the doctrine may have. To be fair, the whole concept of the sanctity of blood is bull if you don't believe in the inerrancy of the bible, which I don't.

  However, the christians of that time refused to eat blood, even under penalty of death. It is important to note how they viewed the eating of blood.

  The WT leaders can come up with their own version/interpretation and say that to imitate the faithful example of those early christians, one must follow suit with their made-up policy of rejecting bloodtransfusions.
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  wobble

  Any seeming defence of the WT's murderous , unscriptural doctrine is like red rag to abull to me, I may have jumped too quick KN, but I still think it is worth saying, to deny your people life saving procedures, as the WT does, is the same as putting a gun to the head of the poor JW who lays dying.
• 

  Terry

  Tertullian reported and we read it.

  So did the famous Watchtower scholars :)

  Are we, in fact, chained in lockstep with people thousands of years before us?

  People back then picked up rocks and threw them very hard at children who disobeyed their parents. To KILL them. This was considered the right thing to do. Godly, even.

  Women had to shut up and listen. It was a man's world.

  Christians gave each other a kiss when they saw each other. They washed each other's feet. And so on.

  Should we be harnessed by that behavior as well? Why pick and chose? Why not?

  Of course some of us DO DECIDE we are mere shadows of the ancient's superior righteousness.

  My own thoughts are that BACK THEN is not TODAY. Period! Move on. Let's go into Enlightenment rather than the Dark Ages.

  Don't let people die because you think somebody said something or did something or meant THIS and not THAT.

  Lunacy to confute Bronze Age delusions of illiterates with some Absolute Standard for our Life and Family 2 millennia hence.

  Your mileage may vary of course.