250,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died refusing blood (page 20)

Tylinbrando

And Fink... That's why we should refrain from speculation on actual numbers. 1 to 250,000 doesn't matter when just 1 is too many. I agree with you about the dangers of stating hard numbers as facts, it's better to generalize when there is no hard data. It is easier to accept, understand and lend merit.

Stand for Pure Worship

The Governing Body is just shaking in its penny loafers over you people.

EdenOne

If anyone is interested, this website explains how someone came to the figure of 250.000:

http://masonemerson.freeyellow.com/christianwitnessescom/id76.html

Now, here's the basic flaw of their reasoning.I quote:

American Red Cross figures published in 1980 indicated that one hundred people per thousand, or 10 percent, need blood in some form every year. With today’s Watchtower organization drawing more than twelve million people worldwide to its meetings, nearly five million of these being active Witnesses and the rest children and new converts in the process of joining, 10 percent would mean that between 500,000 to 1,200,000 among them “need” blood in some form every year, yet refuse treatment.

Not even pointing the fact that medicine has come a long way since pre-1980 days (33 yeas ago at least), the figure from the American Red Cross indicates that 10% "need blood in some form every year". 10% of what? Of the entire US population? That's impossible. More likely is that 10% of all the people involved in medical emergency situations / elective surgery in 1979 needed blood.

However, the author of the extrapolation goes on to say that, consequently, an average of 10% of all the 5.000.000 active Jehovah's Witnesses (circa 2005) - therefore, 500.000 - "need blood in some form every year, yet refuse treatment". Can you see the glaring, basic fallacy here?

The author would like its readers to accept that one can draw from an estimation of 10% upon a target group of people who have been involved in a medical emergency / elective surgery can be extrapolated into an entire population of Jehovah's Witnesses, whose vast majority hasn't been involved in a medical emergency in the course of a year.

This is the false premise upon which the entire figure is deducted. It's false, false, false, with an intent.

Eden

Finkelstein

Seems like more people here can agree or accept that approximately 60,000 + have died, including myself.

Imagine for a second a small town of 60,000 inhabitants made of up typical age variations from small new borns to the elderly.

and a one stroke they all instantly died on the spot and fell to the ground.

That would make the Jonestown tragedy look like a backyard picnic.

EdenOne

TTATT,

This woman took upon herself the responsability to represent an organization that wants to expose the 'falsehoods' and the 'dangerousness' of the Watchtower Society. It defeats their purpose to use false figures with the clear intent to stirr hate in the public eye regarding the WTS. It denotes a vendetta, not a genuine desire to use the "truth" about "the truth". As in other ocasions in the past, the ends justify any means, for this lady. I can't agree with that.

Eden

Simon

Have 250.000+ people died as a sole direct consequence of refusing blood? I've been a JW over 25 years, and I've never knew anyone who had died as a result of refusing blood. If that figure had any measure of credibility, I should have met a handful of cases like that in my life, and I haven't.

This is where I am too. For all the stats and maths and surveys, I know from being in contact with several congregations (through friends / family) which means many hundreds of people over a 20-30 year period that there were no cases beyond the few that made the news.

If the numbers quoted were real then I think many of us would have first hand experience & direct knowledge of cases but I don't think many of us do.

So, I think the assumptions / models are missing something.

Maybe it's simple like JWs leading conservative lifestyles (not much sport, no smoking, drugs, dangerous activities etc...) perhaps the reality is simpler that only the die-hard (literally) types actually stick to it when things are really on the line.

adamah

Marv said-

adamah,

To the best of my knowledge no one has ever questioned the statement published by Bergman, until today when I pointed out that his cited source does not suggest what he claims. This piece of information is hard to come by because the source cited by Bergman is not given proper bibliographic treatment in his book. It took me months to locate the source. Then I was unable to find anything remotely suggesting the claim made. Hence I doubt Julia Barrick would know what I’ve shared here for the first time (to my knowledge).

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Hopefully a lesson was learned all around of the hazards of dabbling in biostats, and hope springs eternal that this time it might actually stick!

SFPW said-

The Governing Body is just shaking in its penny loafers over you people.

Look at you! Aren't you precious, all acting as if you're the official spokesperson for the GB, as if you're an insider? You DO realize that the threat you're poo-poohing is to YOUR life, and you are expected to die on cue, right?

Just curious: how do you feel about that, anyway?

I had a blood transfusion a few years ago, and oddly enough I had to literally BEG the doctors and nurses to give it to me (not that it was life-threatening situation: I experienced blood loss during surgery, due to complications and felt like I was having difficulty maintaining adequate blood pressure).

Adam

TTATT

Maybe it would be a good thing if you started to wrap your minds around what Finkelstein just wrote insted of attacking a fellow exjw? Another exjw wrote this in a tweet a couple of months ago: " Whether they love you or hate you, they're thinking about you. You are that influential."

The issue here is far more important than your silly discussions about who is right or wrong! People are dying out there.

OUTLAW

The Governing Body is just shaking in its penny loafers over you people......SFPW

Too Dam Lazy to get a Real Job,WBT$ GB Rock Star Popes..

........Use Donated JW Pennies in their Penny Loafers..

......................

.................................. ...OUTLAW

adamah

TTATT said-

I was told that this was the place to find information about the Watchtower, but I guess this is just a discussionboard where people discuss for the sake of the discussion, not the information.

Ironic choice of pseudonym: are you sure you wouldn't have been better-served by choosing something like TLATT (The Lies About The Truth)?

As has been repeated ad nauseum, the issue is CREDIBILITY: being willing to resort to lies and falsehoods only shoots oneself in the foot, and plays right into the GB's mantra of "those angry apostates who are willing to lie".

Fact is, there's no need to lie, and ironically enough, one of the few things that GB got right IS "the truth WILL set you free"....

Adam

250,000 Jehovah's Witnesses have died refusing blood

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