Mommy, I think you're right. All statistics aside, if someone has lost their life because they adhered to an insupportable doctrine, then they (the org) bears the responsibility, imho.
Edited by - Sassenach on 8 March 2001 16:12:57
They SLAUGHTER KIDS in JWdom, don't they, Mom?
by Focus 26 Replies latest jw friends
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philo
Who said "In historical terms, Joseph Franklin Rutherford was a purely evil man"? I forget.
I was wondering who was manning the downlink from heaven when this policy came through. Was it Franz or Rutter?
philo
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larc
philo,
It was Knorr.
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Xandit
Sassenach you are quite correct, using the Memorial attendance as a base number is ludicrous. Publishers are about as close as you can get, maybe add 5% for children too young to publish. I just never got to that part of his lengthy discouse because it fell at the first hurdle.
Everything I've seen and heard indicates that mortality and morbidity rates for JWs undergoing surgery are no different than the general population. The only difference is that Witnesses are released from the hospital 24 hours earlier on the average (which makes them very attractive to insurance companies and HMOs). Those numbers don't come from Witnesses but have been presented at medical conferences by Doctors that have been associated with transfusionless medical treatment.
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Sassenach
Xandit, non-smokers are also released form hospital earlier than smokers--they have less respiratory complications. That might be a big factor in why jws as a group are released earlier.
I agree with the others here that stated that they would refuse blood if other options could be used. But it's nice to be able to choose for myself without worrying about having to figure out what is and isn't allowed.
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philo
Iarc,
Are you saying Knorr was president when the policy started, or do you mean it was his idea. As I undersdtand from a number of sources, Franz was Knorr's oracle. And Knorr focussed on organisation over doctrine, while Franz did the bookwork.
It doesn't get us much closer to who dreamed up the idea though. I wonder how many abstained or voted against on the committee when it first came up.
philo
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Focus
Sassenach wrote
I know focus misrepresented the Doctor as being "sympathetic" to jehovah's witnesses
I see nothing in the Watchtower of 15 October, 1993 on p32 to make me believe that the quoted doctor was other than sympathetic to the Jehovah's Witnesses. I did not and do not suggest that such sympathy was in any way improper, or in any way affected his conclusions! But as JWs are the main set of people who refuse blood transfusions (we are NOTdiscussing people denied blood transfusions for medical reasons, of course), it would be a trifle naive to believe that a doctor conducting a study of this area and reaching a conclusion that he knew ran counter to accepted medical thinking up to that time (and ever since.. LOL.. but he perhaps did not foresee that [:-)]) would either be unaware that JWs were the main group involved or what their usage of his work would be.
Hey, perhaps Rolf Furuli (author of the """scholarly""" The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation is not sympathetic to JWs either! [;-)]
Perhaps I should have said "sympathetic to the case of the Jehovah's Witnesses", in which case there could have been no objection. But as stated I didn't misrepresent the doctor, I think!In the London area there has been reported one death for every 13,000 bottles of blood transfused." -New York State Journal of Medicine, January 15, 1960..
which is the claim that I made that Xandit was trying to imply that the Watchtower have not quoted!
NOTE THE SIGNIFICANCE - THE WATCHTOWER KNOW FROM THEIR OWN ARTICLES THAT MORTALITY RATES ATTRIBUTABLE TO REFUSING TRANSFUSIONS ARE ENORMOUSLY HIGHER THAN THE 1 IN 1,000 TO 1 IN 5,000 MORTALITY RATES THEY THEMSELVES QUOTE...
Sassenach later said:
The quote is from 1960. I wonder what the recent statistics are? I would think with all the precautions now, it would be less--therefore less likely to die from transfused blood. That is only a guess. If they used 1960 statistics in the 1992 Awake, that wouldn't make sense
But they are STILL in 2001 using the quote in the current website at:
>> http://www.watchtower.org/library/hb/article_02.htm
, Sass, so I don't understand your "wouldn't make sense" re their using it years before.To me, it makes PERFECT "sense" that the Watchtower would use an outdated quote if the more recent ones are EVEN LESS FAVORABLE to them! They did this all the time in the Creation book (e.g., in quoting from a specific, out-of-date edition of Encyclopedia Britannica when the next edition contradicted what they wished to say!) - it is just the deceitful WTS way of carrying on!
Sass also wrote:
I think the 90% assumption on that figure is generous. The hall I went to increased by about 100 people at memorial time. That included a lot of studies and their families who never came to the hall again.
Sure. But many have absorbed the doctrine, and irrespective of whether or not they are regular publishers - when the crunch comes they will "abstain from blood". Since you are reasoning by anecdote, so will I - Mark Orrin Barton (killed his kids in Atlanta in 1999, using a hammer to ensure they did not see imminent Armageddon where they would be slaughtered as their non-JW mom was removing them from his influence, and thereby ensured they would be resurrected into Paradise earth) was by the Watchtower's own claims "not one of us", just an irregular bible study etc.! Even irregular KH-attenders retain MANY of the beliefs.
Those mental bonds are the hardest to break. So many ex-JWs, who have serious issues and complaints about the WTS, and who even view themselves as "apostate" per the Watchtower's self-serving definition, STILL retain sympathy for some WTS teachings... Even if it is 70% and not 90%, that is still 400 EXTRA deaths per year..
Xandit, you are so far off-base it is laughable if not for the serious subject of this thread:
Publishers are about as close as you can get, maybe add 5% for children too young to publish
ADD *** 5% *** for the children too young to be counted as publishers?? 5%????? OH, YEAH?????
OK, I already have age-related populated statistics. So what is your estimate for the proportion of children, brought up in a JW-household, who are aged:
(a) 0-6 years
(b) 7-9 years
(c) 10-11 years
(d) 12-13 years
(e) 14-15 years
(h) 16 years
and who are counted as publishers?This should be quite revealing!
By the way, even if Xandit was right, we are still talking about four to six thousand unnecessary deaths on the ALTAR OF THE WATCHTOWER.
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Focus
(The Beastly Thing must be destroyed! Class)