Eating Blood.

refiners fire

I was just reading the Sept 15, 1960 Watchtower,an article entitled
"The sanctity of blood"
The article was mainly about EATING blood and listed numerous very nasty practises such as leaving blood in meat to make it heavier, (hence less "meat" for your money)and not draining blood out of carcasses quickly enough.
This prompted a thought.

Gods law on Blood being so important to Witnesses, and the practises of Butchers indifferent to Gods law being what they are....
Why does the organization allow its members to eat meat purchased from the "world"?
After all, these practises by meat sellers, so contrary to Gods law are "endemic'.Brothers from poorer countries are especially vulnerable .
Dont they have a moral obligation to protect the brothers from inadvertantly breaking Gods law?
Why the focus only on the issue of blood transfussions, when the brothers go home from the meeting to tuck into a steak that might well have blood deliberately left in it by a profit hungry meat supplying corporation?
Why dont they play it really safe and become vegetarians?
Why doesnt the organization set up its own butchery business, supplying the meat needs of the brothers?
It might be a nice earner for them,after all...
Further...
The scriptures on the matter of eating blood are plentiful, and irrefutable (if you believe the Bible at all)yet the backing on the matter of transfussions is none existant.
Why focus on the bizarre, at the expense of the obvious?

anyone know the answer?

picosito

None of those things would be cost-effective. It's not really a religion, much less "the Truth," it's just a stupid business masquerading as a religion. I think that Jehovah, if that's who he is, would appreciate more our interest in Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowhip, for example, if we could help ourselves and perhaps have some spirituality and kindness to share with others, than to waste our time on quotas of "field service" and other BS items that WTS calls part of "the Truth."

refiners fire

brother picositto.
you raise an interesting point.

waste our time on quotas of "field service" and other BS items

.
you list another interesting focus of the WT organization.And as you say, it is bullshit.
Blood transfusions, and field service, why these bullshit items as focuses of attention by the org?
Instead of, say, charity works.

AlanF

Just remember that the head 'theologian' of the Watchtower Society when they came up with their initial ideas on blood transfusions in the 1940s, one Allis Bulsitian (aka Freddie Franz), was a Pharisee of the first order. Pharisees don't need anything beyond their dead brains to do their thing.

AlanF

concerned mama

Were they to be serious about not eating blood, kosher meat would be the obvious alternative. Kosher meat is treated so that minimal blood remains in it, but because of the extra time and labour, it must be more expensive (I have never bought it, so I don't know). However, I have eaten Kosher steaks several times, and they were completely flavourless with a more pasty texture.

Having to refuse a blood transfusion is a fairly rare occurance in most people's lives, but eating and the flavour of food is an everyday issue. Can you imagine not being able to eat in most restaurants and having to pay a premium price for what meat you do eat? I have this feeling most people wouldn't stick to that diet for long.

concerned mama

edited because I can't punctuate or spell

refiners fire

I suppose when Alan says Pharisee he means "hair splitter", "nit picker' misser of "rafters" and remover of "splinters".

Sam Beli

When I recently told a new physician that all of my relatives were JWs and that if I was unconscious one day and in need of a transfusion they very well might refuse permission, she among other things asked “are they vegetarians?”

Rather perceptive don’t you think?

Sam Beli

I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted. Solomon

Will Power

"...waste our time on quotas of "field service" and other BS items that WTS calls part of "the Truth."

Good line
and this is Sacred Service being rendered, right?

Sounds like the meaning for "eating blood" as in the scripture they cling to, must mean "as taken intravenously", not by mouth. I think Strong's has a number for that one!

Revere the blood, trash the life.
Revere the Org, trash the facts.

Francois

I don't think there's one particle of sanctity in blood. Not one. Not to us. Not in the 20th century.

Blood had plenty of sanctity among all savages living in tribes prior to about 2,000 b.c. Blood was a big deal among the Aztecs, and among the Incas. It was a big deal to the Commanche and to the Sioux. And this was human blood, too. Blood was also a big deal in the tribes of the Deccan, in India. And THAT was human blood, too. And of course, blood was a big deal in the Levant, in Palestine. Chemosh wanted it, Baal to a lesser extent (Baal was into property rights), Ashtoreth wanted it, in fact EVERY ONE OF THE TRIBAL GODS wanted it, and it had to be human. And that included Jehovah too.

This explains why Moses did all that theatric stuff on the fulminating volcano. Came down claiming to have spoken with god himself. The fact that the volcano was spewing fire and lava at the time was very dramatic and impressive to the ignorant, illiterate, Hebrews he was leading.

Moses indeed had a higher vision of God and he did a damn fine job of convincing the Hebrews that they had theretofore gotten it wrong: Jehovah was superior to the other gods in the neighborhood JUST BEACUSE he didn't want human blood. "Never crossed my mind," said Jehovah through Moses. (Moses also knew that the real God was not named Jehovah, but he couldn't tell the Hebrews; too much change all at once.) Moses was slick, though. He told the Hebrews that God only wanted animal blood, and he wanted it accompanied by an incredibly complex system of ceremonial sacrifices. And just in case anyone missed the point, human blood, it was announced, was VERBOTEN. The big Jah didn't want anyone sneaking off sacrificing anyone's children. So he said that the blood was sacred to him. Said the soul was in it. (He didn't say in which fraction, you'll notice; but he must have told the old farts in Brooklyn 'cause their policies definitely indicate that they know where it is. Actually, they don't believe in a soul, so why should they care, then, about blood at all. I just doesn't make any sense.)

So here we are in the third millenia after Christ, 6 after Moses, stressing out about a policy that was designed to end the tribal, savage practice of human sacrifice among the Hebrews (I mean why would any tribe of people jump at the direction of blood sacrifices if they hadn't already been doing it, Hummmmmmm? And you can bet your ass that if all the surrounding tribes were doing human sacrifice, so were the Hebrews.

And here we are, as noted, straining out gnats about the so-called sanctity of blood, while gulping down camels in the practice of disfellowshipping people, the ultimate rejection of God's command through Jesus to love your neighbor as your self.

My $0.02

Francois

blindfool

francois,
that is the best explanation I've ever heard about the original laws on blood.
Thanks

Eating Blood.

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