Gopher
I think that what Gary means by "diet restrictions" is the prohibition regarding the eating of blood in Genesis and Leviticus.
Love, Scully
A conversation with JW's about blood fractions
by catch22 13 Replies latest watchtower medical
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willyloman
The JW teaching on blood started out crazy and progressed to incomprehensible and today not one Witness in a thousand could explain it to you. An elder and former HLC member, now running a bloodless surgery center for a major health care company, says 99% of all JWs who come in for treatment have no idea what their own position is on fractions; they just want whatever the Society says they can do. They'll take all of it, just tell them what to do. The average JW would take whole blood in a second if his life were in danger and the WTS said it was a conscience matter.
At a hospital-sponsored meeting of dubs the HLC member explained the many options available to surgical patients, all of which are deemed "matters of conscience" by the WTS. At the end of a one hour presentation, he asked the 100 or so people in attendance, a great many of whom were elders and their wives, for a show of hands as to who would avail themselves of all these options. Virtually every hand went up. He then asked if anybody "would not" use these procedures and two grim faced dubs, an 65-ish elder and his wife, put their hands in the air. They were the only two hold-outs.
Bottom line: The "blood issue" is whatever the WTS says it is and has become a litmus test for dubs. That's why they'll dump you if you take blood. By doing so, you prove you're "not one of them."
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garybuss
Gopher, The Hebrew laws were designed to apply to food, not medical treatment.
The Jewish dietary laws are the reasons the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse modern blood medical treatment. They think blood medical treatment is a meal. Yet the Witnesses have no diet restrictions based on the Jewish diet laws the medical treatment restrictions are based on.
Witnesses don't eat kosher killed meat, they eat any meat killed in any way. The laws they say are important enough to die for when they are applied to blood medical treatment are not important enough to even be followed at all when they are applied to food.
All the proof texts the Witnesses use to condemn blood medical treatment are dietary (food) laws that the Witnesses do not apply to food.
Orthodox Jews only eat from kosher pots and pans and only eat kosher killed meat and no pork. Ever see a Witness eat a BLT sandwich? . . . ham sandwich? . . . . but they will shun you if you say blood medical treatment is not wrong.
Witnesses I know are not aware that kosher fish need fins and scales, fruit from trees can't be eaten before the fourth year, animals must be slaughtered in a certain manner and all blood removed from the meat, meat and milk are not to be mixed, shellfish, insects and other creepy-crawlers of land and sea, as well as birds of prey, and milk from a non-kosher animal are all forbidden. http://www.aish.com/literacy/mitzvahs/Why_Kosher$.asp
Witnesses can't explain and do not observe kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). Blood was only one very small part of kashrut. Witnesses ignore all of this yet they hold to the death a teaching derived from Jewish dietary laws. How can I totally ignore the law while dying for the same law by not taking blood medical treatment? That's a good question for any Witness. GaryB -
XQsThaiPoes
The JW teaching on blood started out crazy and progressed to incomprehensible and today not one Witness in a thousand could explain it to you. An elder and former HLC member, now running a bloodless surgery center for a major health care company, says 99% of all JWs who come in for treatment have no idea what their own position is on fractions; they just want whatever the Society says they can do. They'll take all of it, just tell them what to do. The average JW would take whole blood in a second if his life were in danger and the WTS said it was a conscience matter.
At a hospital-sponsored meeting of dubs the HLC member explained the many options available to surgical patients, all of which are deemed "matters of conscience" by the WTS. At the end of a one hour presentation, he asked the 100 or so people in attendance, a great many of whom were elders and their wives, for a show of hands as to who would avail themselves of all these options. Virtually every hand went up. He then asked if anybody "would not" use these procedures and two grim faced dubs, an 65-ish elder and his wife, put their hands in the air. They were the only two hold-outs.
Bottom line: The "blood issue" is whatever the WTS says it is and has become a litmus test for dubs. That's why they'll dump you if you take blood. By doing so, you prove you're "not one of them."
Call me Polly Anna if you want, but this is it. The thing is a Jihad for JWs. If you die from refusing blood you get a "free ticket to paradise" that?s why it is so popular to refuse blood especially for elderly or terminally I'll anyway. In they only thing "banned" is whole blood (like they need that anymore for everything) whites, reds, platelets and plasma. The reason is the WTS like to keep things simple for the lawyers and the R&F. Those things sound like big parts of the blood by volume so they stay on the books (blood is mostly water). Also blood is not banned it is large amounts of blood. The WTS modern reasoning is we are allowed to eat meat. Meat retains a finite amount of blood. This finite amount is totally okay to eat. The kicker is it is up to the "individual" to guestimate using their "bible trained conscience" how much of that can be converted into blood used for medical treatment (the irony is the first time I heard this arguement it was out of the mouth of a nurse trying to get a JW to use blood). The WTS gives no measurements or conversion formula (they may have to in the future if they decide to salvage the blood issue).
The dumping is more of a bouncing. Because no JWs in their right mind will fight the issue of if BTs are biblical you can easily plea bargain your way back in just like all those teenage mothers have been doing about R ... umm well you get the idea (I'll save it for another thread). It was a moment of weakness, fear of men, stress, blah blah blah you'll go on public reprove, or be DA'ed on paper for a few months (usually the time it takes to recover if it was a major medical episode).
For minors it is all the blood you can stomach until you are 18 zero restrictions as long as you keep the stiff upper lip and party line (really), the catch is you and your parents can't officially want blood and must "fight it". Because legally the WTS can't force or tell you directly what to do, and parents can?t break the law with out the WTS being liable. Another thing is because medical records are private if you take blood it is hard to find out about.
The reason the WTS is so liberal is they are hoping science will obsolete those 4 "banned" parts of blood. It is exactly like organ transplants. Because JWs have no soul your body (and blood) is your soul. Read the early blood/ organ transplant articles. They are implying some type of celestial soul mix up where the donor becomes part of you, and may posses you, or some how some weird metaphysical thing will happen to make you leave God if the donor was an unbeliever (you'll pick up their bad habits like smoking or watching smurfs). Since none of that was ever true the WTS can't use those arguments anymore so the blood issue makes no sense. It has nothing to do with being Kosher.