Van, I wonder if a person could rationalize extramarital sex into "fractions?"
I can just imagine some pseudo-expert Witness spelling out to the surgical team what they can and can't do.
What is the current policy on blood?
by stillin 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Vanderhoven7
LOL Stilin, that would be problematic given that even looking at a woman the wrong way is anathema.
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TD
Basically all blood is acceptable.
With respect, I think you have misunderstood.
As Vanderhoven said, intact red cells are not acceptable. Whole plasma is not acceptable. Intact platelets are not acceptable.
These are the three most commonly transfused components by far and make up the vast majority of transfusions.
Fractional elements of these components constitute a more esoteric group of preparations. Hemoglobin from red cells, for example, was used (In a polymerized form) in a handful of blood substitutes that were for the most part, failures and have been pulled from the market.
You said:
Lots of my friends and relatives have taken blood.
This is true of most of us in a sense, because common childhood immunizations contain albumin (A plasma fraction) either as an adjuvant of excipient. In what sense are you talking about? Were your friends/relatives transfused for blood loss?
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smiddy3
can you just imagine JESUS being asked these questions with regard to the BLOOD issue ? that Jehovah`s Witnesses have made such an issue out of ?
King Davids men went to eating meat that wasn`t bled according to Jewish law and yet they received no punishment according to the law because their life was at stake .They were in fear / danger of starving to death if they didn`t get the required sustenance to keep living in a relatively short period of time.
Jehovah did not condemn them or even made them do some penance for violating that law WHY ?
Because their life was at stake.
Didn`t Jesus make the same point in breaking the Sabbath if your sheep or goat was in a situation where it might die you would go out and save it ?
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zeb
For a procedure here in Australia along with the permission forms you are required to fill in is a new one where you ask for blood to be used.
I recall seeing an official poster upin a hospital which stated the potential dangers of taking blood. This was for the general public, visitors, patients. It said something along the line of "that blood is not the cure all that many suppose it to be.."... Please discuss this with... and so on.
The wt stand gets me as they say this component is ok that one is not.. Hello! it all comes from human blood donors and what about a WT approved product called haemopure which i get comes from bovines.. Wheres The Flux..!
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blondie
smiddy3, I wish I could give you 5 likes for that post.
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TD
Didn`t Jesus make the same point in breaking the Sabbath if your sheep or goat was in a situation where it might die you would go out and save it ?
Jesus' argument was that healing did not break the Sabbath. Big difference....
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Vanderhoven7
Excellent point and article TD!
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blondie
Well, I guess, I read this differently.
Didn`t Jesus make the same point in breaking the Sabbath if your sheep or goat was in a situation where it might die you would go out and save it ?
First, Jesus was talking to the religious leaders reminding them that they taught that pulling a sheep out of a ditch to prevent injury was breaking the Sabbath. He probably knew that was not the case in practice, that perhaps some of them or their friends and family had done that very thing that is why he used that illustration (probably what made them mad).
Second, he knew that feeling compassion and acting on it was not breaking the law as their God saw it.. Certainly in the religious leaders minds they knew that their God did not restrict himself to doing good to them only on the other 6 days of the week.
And third, applying it to the WTS doctrine on blood, it is not breaking the law to save someone's life with a blood transfusion (I do understand that blood transfusions are not guarantee of survival) even if some religious leaders say it does. The WTS view in my mind is like the Jewish Talmud which added many complicated explanations adding it to the Hebrew scriptures as if God was incompetent and could not state it clearly)
(Those that don't believe this account because they feel the bible is a fairytale, please don't use that as a point in this. The thinking behind this is still valid, even if it isn't from a person named Jesus)
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TD
Here's a sampling of Jewish authors on this question (For whatever it's worth)
"A common misperception is that healing was permitted on the Sabbath only in the most extreme circumstances only when life was in danger. When this supposition is applied to these controversies, one inevitably concludes that the issue was Jesus' humanitarianism versus the inflexibility on the part of the Pharisees to bend the Law in the face of human need or suffering. But according to Mishnah, the rubic on Sabbath healing is "whenever there is doubt whether life is in danger, this overrides the Sabbath" (Yoma 8:6) The discussion shows how very lenient was the interpretation of "doubt" including ravenous hunger, a sore throat, or a pregnant woman's craving for food." (Salmon, Marilyn J. Preaching Without Contempt: Overcoming Unintended Anti-Judaism Fortress Press 2006 p. 90)
"To look at the Gospel accounts of Jesus' healing on the Sabbath in the light of Jewish teachings may help us to understand the behavior and attitudes to which these Christian accounts testify. They also show us the antiquity of laws which otherwise might be mistaken for late rabbinic innovations. In all cases, it is likely that Jesus' healing in itself constitutes nothing that many scribes or Pharisees, if not all, would have found as breaking Torah law." (Basser, Herbert W. Studies In Exegesis: Christian Critiques of Jewish Law and Rabbinic Responses 70-300 C.E. Brill 2000 pp. 17-18)
"The Pharisees never included healing in their list of activities forbidden on the Sabbath; and Jesus’ methods of healing did not involve any of the activities that were forbidden. It is unlikely that they would have disapproved, even mildly, of Jesus’ Sabbath-healing. Moreover, the picture of bloodthirsty, murderous Pharisees given in the Gospels contradicts everything known about them from Josephus, from their own writings, and from the Judaism, still living today, which they created..." (Maccoby, Hyam Revolution in Judea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance Taplinger Publishing Co. 1980 pp. 11-12)