Hae anyone come across a quotation to that effect?
Has the Watchtower ever admitted in writing that blood transfusions could save a person's physical life?
by Vanderhoven7 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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DesirousOfChange
I think they may have actually admitted that in the old "Blood Brochure" as it made the point that the refusal of blood is NOT for health reasons but religious/moral reasons. Thus, even if it may save your life temporarily, it could cost you your everlasting life.
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Ding
Watchtower, June 15, 1978, p. 26, "Firmly Resolved About Blood," comes close:
"Hence, though most persons may be unaware of what God says and may look on blood as just something to sustain human life temporarily, not so with true Christians. Based on God’s Word we appreciate Jehovah’s view on life and blood. Let us be resolved to uphold that view and to live in accord with it."
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Atlantis
1945 Dutch Consolation
Vertroosting (dutch Consolation), September 1945, blz. 29 Dutch:
"Wanneer wij ons leven verliezen, doordat wij weigeren, inspuitingen te laten maken, dient zulks niet tot een getuigenis, ter rechtvaardiging van Jehovah`s Naam.
God heeft nooit bepalingen uitgevaardigd die het gebruik van medicijnen, inspuitingen of bloedtransfusie verbiedt."
Het is een uitvinding van menschen, die gelijk de Farizeeën Jehova's barmhartigheid en liefde buiten beschouwing laten.
Jehova te dienen met geheel ons verstand beteekent niet ons verstand uit te schakelen; vooral dan niet, als het om een menschenleven gaat, dat Jehova toegewijd en daarom heilig is".-----------------------------------------
English translation:
“When we lose our life, because we refuse, inoculations,
that does not bear witness as a justification of Jehovah’s name.
God never issued regulations which prohibit the use of drugs, inoculations or blood transfusions.
It is an invention of people, who, like the Pharisees, leave Jehovah’s mercy and love aside. Jehovah to serve with all our reason, doesn't mean not to disconnect our reason, in especially when it concerns a human life that is devoted to Jehovah and therefore it is holy."---------------------------------------------If anyone wants that Dutch Consolation just say the word and I'll grab a link for you. (Remember, it is in Dutch)Atlantis! -
RolRod
I don't have a reference, but I recall Judge Rutherford praising blood transfusions
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Atlantis
Around l940 the JW leaders believed: "…blood transfusion has saved many lives."
(Consolation 1940, October l6, p.11 Australian edition)Their own magazine recorded experiences like this one:
The Mending of a Heart
In New York city a housewife in moving a boarder's things accidentally shot herself through the heart with his revolver. She was rushed to a hospital, her left breast was cut around, four ribs were cut away, the heart was lifted out, three stitches were taken, one of the attending physicians in the great emergency gave a quart of his blood for transfusion, and today the woman lives and smiles gaily over what happened to her in the busiest 23 minutes of her life. (Consolation Volume XXII, 1940, December 25)Atlantis! -
Vanderhoven7
Thanks guys. That is indeed close Ding. DofC, I checked it out and you were right. Thanks!
"Jehovah's witnesses do not argue that blood transfusions have not kept alive patients who otherwise might have died. We do not take it upon ourselves to conduct an objective debate of the advisability of the use of blood in medical therapy. The point is not for us to determine. God himself has ruled on the matter, and it would be presumptuous for us, in the name of medicine or humanitarianism or anything else, to open the issue to debate, to pit human wisdom and experience against the law of God....Although Jehovah's witnesses will not eat blood as a food, nor in medical use consent to any kind of blood transfusion or, in place of it, an infusion of any blood fraction or blood substance, this does not rule out all medical treatment."
Blood, Medicine and the Law of God (1961) pp.38,39
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neat blue dog
Atlantis, that's interesting from the Dutch Consolation. So no similar thought at all was in the English same issue? If not, what happened, a local writer putting their personal opinion?
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TD
It's implicit in the acknowledgement that refusing transfusion could cost you your life.
They actually glorified that idea in the infamous May 22nd 1994 Awake!
(The one with the pictures of the JW children who apparently have died)
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road to nowhere
The usual argument is people with blood loss sometimes live anyway and some who get blood still die. True, but they ignore the brain damage that has occured in some from insufficient oxygen. Then they bring up imcompatible blood, aids, hepatitis. There is no way to know the outcome of an path not taken.