My thinking is just fine thank you. My thinking is so fine that I think that I cannot possibly think what God thinks. But if you have special God thinking powers then thats pretty neat, though I don't believe that you have. The truth is that you think that it's petty if God cares more for a symbol of life than life itself, and if you read the bible it is explained that there are things which you would probably call a symbol of life which is worth more then (this) life. Obeying commandments like Do not murder and Do not bow before a false God are sufficient enough for you to, if you are in the situation, die for before disobeying them. Does that mean God is a petty God? That's what you make of it, and those are words that you put in my mouth (by use of a type of ad hominem). I never said that. I must admit that some things I do not understand. I don't understand why God would rather have my life to be taken away when I can save it simply by bowing in front of a statue. But I do know that God is the one who gave me my life, who created me. That + the promise of eternal life in a paradise gives me enough reasons to obeye his commands.
Delta20
JoinedPosts by Delta20
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
TD,
I understand exactly what you are saying, but you are placing the word *eating* there as the necessary verb, without that word being necessary at all. But lets suppose you are right. Let's just say that the bible indeed says that you shouldn't eat blood. I agree with you that if one shows that bloodtransfusion is prohibited in the bible then we are done with this discussion. Now, we already agreed on the fact that the bible states it is prohibited to eat blood. Now, what is the definition of eating? I read your post just before i want to class, and I didn't have time to reply then, but I came across a medstudent at my Uni and I started a discussion with her about this. Basically, when you eat something, the body will absorp some of the components of what you eat into the bloodsystem. This happens in the small intestines. If you want more information about that, you should visit: http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/smallgut/absorb.html. It features a lot of information about the digestion system. So, if you eat blood it would go into your body and components of the blood would go into your own blood. But the same goes for bloodtransfusions, a bloodtransfusion will also put those components into your blood, so the effect is the same. Now obviously bloodtransfusion looks different then eating although it has the same effect, but what is eating then? Can you only eat through your mouth? No, people who can't eat through their mouth can eat through a med. drip. I honestly think that you can call the "getting needed components into the blood" eating. So in this case, bloodtransfusion is equivalent to eating.
Think about it, if God forbids to eat blood, does that mean you are allowed to use it through a drip? I don't think it does. Same goes for bloodtransfusion. Of course this takes a believe, you have to believe that with eating God isn't only talking about the act that we call eating these days, but also implies that you are prohibited from taking in blood at all. And because I cant think of any way, at the time these acts were written, of other ways that someone could take in blood besides the mouth, it is very well possible that God means not to take any blood at all. And thats the point I have been trying to make all the time, in this sense, bloodtransfusion is identical to eating, and in this sense it is prohibited by the bible. So if you say that the JW dont have a rightful claim on this "doctrine" then you are simply wrong.
RebelliousSpirit,
Not to mention the fact that I have 2 children to think of - this means THEIR future as well - if I raise them in "the truth" that will set the stage for the course of their entire life, for the potential for great heartache if they don't measure up to "JW standards" - and that's not a price I'm willing to pay.
OK, I dont have any kids myself but I understand your concern. But this means you are choosing not to "pay up the price". I can understand that too. There are many examples in the bible of people who have suffered great loss in the name of God. I would suggest reading the book of Job again. That man lost all of his children ones! Of course at the end he had new children, but that doesn't take away the hurt and feelings for the children that were lost, its not like "Ow I can stop feeling sad about my lost children because I have new ones", at least at the present time it isn't. But what it teaches you is that, if you keep the faith, not only will God save you, but your children can be saved too (I imagine that Job's first children will get a ressurection). Its something only you can decide, either believe, with the chance that if its all true that you, your husband and your children will get a new life in a paradise, or disbelieve, and lose this chance. I agree that the JW-standards are high, but that is parallel to what has been said in the bible, that the path of the truth is small and narrow.
The things about the paradise might seem stupid to believe, same with believing in angels and Satan and all the other things. But think about it really carefully... in the end it makes sense, and it gives use, a goal, it adds more purpose to your life. All arrows point in the direction that there is a God, and that we are here because of his will. So it might be smart to not dismiss this believe so easily. Just my few cents ;)
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
The references of Valis were all 70 years old and older... Havent I admitted already that organizations can be flawed and people make mistakes... if I didnt then here it goes: organizations can be flawed and people make mistakes. But that the golden age (which i figure was the Awake a long time ago?) said "Quite likely there is some connection between the violation of human blood [vaccines] and the spread of demonism..." and this is of course not the case. Same might go for most of the others, same might go for 1975, yadda yadda. Does this proof that the religion of JW's is flawed. Not in my opinion. It only proves that JW's are human, and if that was your point Valis, then I agree, and you didnt have to put all thoser references on to show me that! But if that wasnt your point, please make your point a bit more clear... maybe I am just missing something.
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
Ah, I finally found the quote command... stupid balloon. So here we go again!
Well I don't think those Scriptures in Job are saying what you are implying. First of all the earth is not hung on "nothing" it is held in place by gravity which follow the so called "laws'" of physics. So hardly would one call this "nothing" it is "something".
So you are calling gravity something. Can you tell me then, what is it? This is a question that still bangs the heads of scientists today, we can calculate with gravitation, but we have no exact idea what it is. And the earth isnt held in place only by its gravity, its more complicated then that. But look to the earth from a window of a spaceshuttle. What do you see? Do you see a turtle or a great Atlas carrying to earth? No! You see the earth just hanging on nothing. But I hardly believe Job (or the author of Job) had a spaceship. How did he know?
And the Genesis account of creation are actually two very different accounts one has man being created after the plants and animals and the other account starting in chapter two show man being created before the plants have started to sprout because God didn't make it rain yet. Also the first account shows each creative period as a day with the sun setting and rising to mark off each period. We now know this to be false for this is too short a time period for these things to have occured because archeaological findings prove otherwise.
Is this true? When I read the first two chapters of Genesis I see an ongoing account of how the world came into existance. Maybe I dont understand what you mean with the second account, chapter 2 continues from day 6 on. Genesis also explains:
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth [ b ] and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth [ c ] and there was no man to work the ground, 6 but streams [ d ] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-
So there was water on the surface. How about the days mentioned in Genesis. Well, I actually wrote an entire paper on them, wish you could read dutch, so that I wouldnt have to type it over (its 10 pages). Anyway, the sun has only appeared on the 4th day, so its hard to believe that a day in genesis is a day of 24 hours. Read your JW lecture, the hebre word day, jom, is also used as "timespan". In the JW's interpretation the earth can be billions of years old, for those days could have been very long. I don't know what kind of Elder you were, but its very strange to me that you do not know about this when this is, in my opinion, on eof the key believes of the JW's and mentioned in countless articles!
So I must say I dont see any answer in your post.
TD,
What this means in practical terms is that there is no such thing as abstinence from a physical object. Instead, we only abstain from finite acts done in connection with objects. For example, while you can abstain from tearing paper, or writing on paper or wasting paper, the phrase "abstain from paper" is meaningless in and of itself. There is no transition of action between subject and object.
So, I went to dictionary.com to see if you were right.
ab·stain ( P ) Pronunciation Key (
intr.v. ab·stained, ab·stain·ing, ab·stains- To refrain from something by one's own choice: abstain from traditional political rhetoric.
Abstain from traditional political rhetoric, wheres the verb?
I must admit to you that some of the things under this one said abstain was per definition about 'consuming'. But still, what you say doesn't hold. If you can abstain from rhetoric you can also abstain from blood.
The other part of your post has to do with the grammar one, for you are changing the 'taking' with 'eating', so the analogy you are using doesn't hold without the first grammar part.
Human tissue continues to function as human tissue after the transplant. Such is also the case with blood
If you read medical journals, then you will read that the body doesnt just 'continues to function'. It is going to try to fight the intruding 'strange' cells. So its not as easy as you make it sound.
To get back to the blood, and that such a commandment would be ludicrous. Remember our jewish friends? Remember the commandment Thou shall not cook the (young goat)'s meat into the mother goats milk. Our jewish friends made of that: Thou shall not mix milk with meat, and if thou ate meat thou shall wait 6 hours for it to digest before you drink milk, and if thou drinks milk thou shall wait 2 hours before thou shall eat meat. I find the step JW's make from taking blood to no bloodtransfusiin a lot smaller then the step from the commandment about the milk/meat as it is in the bible and as the jews act to it nowadays, and I have countless of examples of that kind of behavior. So its not uncommon.
Well, maybe I should apologize, Its just that I need to answer many people with many points, and I dont have time to answer them all. Plus when im finally done writing a post and hit the submit post button, 5 new posts have already ben submitted in the time i was writing mine, and so on. So sorry I miss a couple of posts but the skeptics (= me) are short of men and the believers (= most of you) are in a vast majority (to put it in the words of Michael Behe).
So to your post. Well, her answer makes me laugh out loud as well. So we agree there. Something I find fasdcinating about JW's is that they dare to say "I dont know". Some things they just dont know! Some things I dont know either (lotsa things actually!). So if people ask me questions I dont know the answer to, then thats going to be my answer.... I dont know. And being afraid of polluting, well, if you are so weak minded then the brainwashing sequence wasnt finished properly, aye? :D
Seriously though, As I said before, I am a critic and I ask questions. And if I get baptized and they dont like me asking questions then they have a big problem... because I don't stop asking question until I get an answer (and I dont know counts as answer). And if that will disfellowship me then so be it. The people Ive met seem never to be able to do that, but reading your stories and this last post of yours really made me doubt about that (and of course people can seem like A, but can be B). But because I dont have any proof of this being the case besides your post, I'd rather experience it for myself if you dont mind. But dont worry, I'll be careful and i'll keep asking questions ;) And especially those annoying ones like "If you really are the organization of God on this earth, then why <INSERT ANY OF THE POSTS ON THIS FORUM>?" =)
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
Well, problem is I need to find the scriptures again, and that takes time, and I also have a Logic assignment to finish... but if you were an elder for over a decade then you must know the following thibgs used by JW:
Earth is round (Job)
Earth is hung up on nothing (Job)
The correctness of how life came to be in Genesis
'Belief' is something "layed into every human"
Theres also the prophecies of:
Prophecies in Daniel
Coming of the Messiah
RevelationsTheres more like that but these are a few of the top of my head. And these are only the things that werent public knowledge at that time, and would be very hard to guess, im not even mentoining, as I said before, the historical compatibility. But I'm interested in your answers, if you want me to find you the scriptures then it gonna take a while, because I first need to finish some other things. My special interest goes to point 3 "The correctness of how life came to be in Genesis". Gotta love that topic!
Ow, and yes, I love contradictions, meaning I love the way people use contradictions, meaning contraductions are being misused, meaning that people shout contradiction when there's no contradiction at all =) I also love paradoxes ;)
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
o.0, You guys are active! Gotta love that! Here we go,
TD,
OK, so we are talking about pikuach nefesh here, related to bloodtransfusion. In that sense pikuach nefesh is hypocritical, because that principle is being misused. I named Maimonides as one of the misusers of that principle. You might ask, how did they misuse that principle? Let me explain. Suppose we have the example we used last time, a man who at the time of jom kippur, gets dizzy because his fluids were drained and he needs water. Luckily today water is easier available to us then thousands of years ago. But suppose there is no water, the man is in the desert. And then he sees a dead animal which still has blood inside of it. And suppose this blood is enough to save his life. What would he do? What would the bible say he should do?
1 Samuel 14
31 That day, after the Israelites had struck down the Philistines from Micmash to Aijalon, they were exhausted. 32 They pounced on the plunder and, taking sheep, cattle and calves, they butchered them on the ground and ate them, together with the blood. 33 Then someone said to Saul, "Look, the men are sinning against the LORD by eating meat that has blood in it."
"You have broken faith," he said. "Roll a large stone over here at once." 34 Then he said, "Go out among the men and tell them, 'Each of you bring me your cattle and sheep, and slaughter them here and eat them. Do not sin against the LORD by eating meat with blood still in it.' "
So everyone brought his ox that night and slaughtered it there. 35 Then Saul built an altar to the LORD ; it was the first time he had done this.
We are talking about Saul here, who at that time already starting to annoy God. But even he realised that eating blood was wrong, very wrong. And this is just one example of the many in the OT where it says that eating any kind of blood is a sin. But so far we have only talked about eating, what about transfusion? First let me quote Acts 15:29:
29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality
So we are to abstain from blood. Suppose we were talking about a medicine. When it says we should abstain from this medicine, does that mean we shouldnt eat it, but we can inject it into our bloodstream. No! As I said before (and maybe made more clearer now) pumping stuff into your blood is more radical then eating, so when you are not allowed to eat it you are definatly not allowed to pump it into your bloodstream.
This is exactly what JW believe (I am almost completely typing this over from one of their texts). And this really seems to make sense to me. What should the poor guy in the desert do? If he believes in the bible and doesnt want to offend God, then he doesnt take the blood from the animal. You can say alot about JW, but you cannot say that they havent grounded their principles on scriptures. To this end I want to conclude that there are borders to the use of the principle of pikuach nefesh. And I thought that one of those lines were surpassed when Maimonides allowed Jews to convert to Islam. To end my point, please reread Daniel 3 here:
13 Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, 14 and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? 15 Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?"
16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."
These people, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, would die for God even if he wouldnt save them now before they ever would bow before another gods statue. I conclude that Maimonides was wrong in telling the Jews to convert to the islam. And I also conclude that its wrong taking in blood. And of course its the hardest thing one can possible imagine if your children lie there and need blood. But read www.noblood.org and other institutions like that, theres alternatives.
Pole,
"This is totally fallacious. So if you have no idea what the current interpretation is, you go for the one that kills your children, just because it's not "the easy one"? Do you really think God made up stupid metaphysical rules like you can accept hemoglobin (97% of red cells), but you can't accept whole blood and he wants you to follow them even if you have to dsacrifice your child? Don't call it a test of faith - as you have admitted it's not scriptural."
As for scriptures, see above. As for that hemoglobine is 97% of red bloodcells. Sure. but look again at the diagams. are red bloodcells 97% of blood? No! Hemoglobine != blood, especially not if that hemoglobine is produced in laboratories etcetera. At least thats my opinion, so I dont find it hypocritical at all to accept that. Its like telling someone who is not allowed to eat meat that they are hypocrits for eating soya meat. Sure, soya meat looks like meat, but it isn't the same.
frankiespeakin,
"There are no such things in the Bible. The bible writer never displayed knowledge that was beyond ken. Are you making this stuff up???"
Errr... I see that you aren't a Ex-JW! Good for you! You should actually visit a KH and talk to some Elders about some of your questions about the bible. But to answer your question, no I am not making this up, yes I can show you scriptures (and se can all the other Ex-JW's here) and I would show them to you if I werent tired from working all day and writing about the bloodtransfusion thing. This all is real brainmuscle workout =) I can try suppying you with some info later on, but you're better off going to the local KH , ask them about scientific proof that the bible is corect and that it even says things those people couldnt have known, and they are happy to supply you with info. Plus I think they can easily clear up some of your "contradictions". I love contradictions, so many people use that word in such wrong ways, ah well, thats an entirely other philosophical debate =)
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New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
Pole,
They have relaxed their standings because there has been new scientific breakthorughs, like the posibility of creating hemoglobine, or substitute blood. Its same in Judaism, jews arent allowed to turn the lights on on sabbath, but because new technology can set a timer to switch the light on and off automatically, the ejws can now use that.
Also, you said I: "don't understand the JW policy on blood. Neither do many witnesses. But you already consider dying for it and perhaps even having your children die for it in some cases"
I said I don't know 100% sure what God means by this law in the bible, but since its written all over the place and seems very important, I take it so seriously that I even consider the latter. Again, this is a case of life and death, and not only that but also eternal life and eternal death, and I do not take that lightly. In my opinion, nor do the JW.
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145
New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
Pole,
I think I'm actually right. Let me explain. I said blood is forbidden and that hemoglobine is a substitute for it. Hemoglobine is indeed a part of the blood, namely the protein which binds oxygen and does the work which the blood is for. But is that the part that makes the blood holy? What is it that makes blood holy? The WTS decided that the hemoglobine produced in laboratories and which can act as substitute blood isn't what the bible means with blood, but the blood in bloodtransfusion is what falls under blood. I agree with the article that its the WTS that decides on this, and there is ofcourse nowhere in the bible that says "If you are in need of blood, the substitute hemoglobine is allowed." But their reasoning is based on their interpretation of the bible. Now, let me make clear that I have absolutely no idea of God would say that its right or wrong to take blood for transfusions, in the bible theres room for interpreting both of those ideas, and the "easy" version is that what most people believe at the moment. But again, since this is a very important decision to make (what happens if it wasnt correct to take blood, see above) it might be better to be safe then sorry, and thats what JW chose for.
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New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
I want to say 2 things about what you just posted.
First of all, if its true what it says about having to stop studying and only being able to read and talk about WT articles or WT-pro articles when you are baptized, is thats true then that is a very bad doctrine and I would surely fight it. So if that is true, I must say that you are totally right that that is a big flaw. It means that the organization, on a very high level, doesnt listen to its own religion (which says that knowledge is a good thing). But heres the thing, and I wrote this before.... In my experience this is not the case, and I cannot test the claim that it is the case for I have not been baptized yet. And Of course I could take your word for it, but theres always 2 sides to a story. What do you think a JW would say, lets say an Elder, when I asked him if that were true? =)
About the links you gave, especially the one about the trinity, some stuff is plain wrong. I study philosophy and theres has been a Trinity since Plato's Timaeus. And this greek philosopher was known at the time of the christians, we know this because Philo of Alexandria wrote about it (between 30-50 GT) plus theres a lot of other documentation about it. So this quote:
"It is probably a mistake to assume that the doctrine resulted from the intrusion of Greek metaphysics or philosophy into Christian thought; for the date upon which the doctrine rests, and also its earliest attempts at formulation, are much older than the church's encounter with Greek philosophy."
Is plainly wrong because the churchfathers have been misintepreting it from Plato's and Philo's work (we know this now).
But the writer of the article also takes things out of the context, for example:
Booklet: "Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament."
Source: There is a period (.) here while there is actually a comma (,). While the quote is exact, it has been taken out of context. Directly following the statement, the encyclopedia proceeds to document the implicit teaching of the Trinity and quotes Biblical passages where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are associated together and concludes with:
"Thus the New Testament established the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity."So where was the booklet wrong? What is wrong with saying that the doctrine or the word trinity never appears in the NT? The encyclopedia ends with concluding that the NT established a basis for the doctrine. That doesnt mean that it appears somewhere in the NT, it means that some people (even Philo out of the OT and strongle seduced by Plato) interpreted or even rationally concluded that there is a trinity. But this is not what the bible says, its what the interpreters, stringly motivated by the believes of that time, make of it.
Some of the other texts are taken by the writer himself out of context. So if we carefully examine these texts (at least some of them, dont have time to do all of them) then we can conclude that both the author is wrong and some of the texts are outdated and cant be brought forth as proof against the doctrine of the Trinity. By the way, some sources havent even been looked up correctly, for I see a few here that I looked up here and I could find them but the author here seems to have not been able to do so.
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New here
by Delta20 inmy name is jaron, 19 years old, i'm from the netherlands, and in about a month i am going to start joining the jw's meetings and i'm kind of looking forward to become a jw.
i can of course tell ya'll my entire spiritual story, but that would take an entire bookwork.
in a nuttshell: my father is an ex-jw, my half-sis (from an earlier marriage from my dads) is one of those "special pioneers", and i am jewish (my mom is jewish).
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Delta20
The bible clearly states that blood is holy. And you can perfectly defend the case of a bloodtransfusion, you see, if, as you say, we are not allowed to eat blood, and when we eat blood most of it stays out of our system (digestion system), isn't it then a much larger decision to pour blood directly into yours? If you dont think so then we ahave a disagreement here, but that doesn't mean that what I am saying isn't based on the bible.
Also, Judaism created that principle, and sometimes the persecuter can be yourself. You can want something which is wrong and have to fight an internal battle. That doesnt take away that, in the cases I described its against God's Law to do so, even if the death penalty awaits. Isn't that, for JW, the same with blood? It's something God has forbidden, so in this case the persecutor, or better the Judge, is God himself. You dont always need a persecutor to do God's will.
Pole,
If you read the top article you see that JW can now safely use the hemoglobin substetute for actual blood. What is wrong with doing that? If you can have either a blood transfusion or a sibstitute, and you know its wrong taking blood itself, then why not take the substitute?
Actually for me believe in the bible as God's word has become more of an axioma, a sort of 'basetruth' that you can rely on. You have to have something like that, otherwise you come into an endless regression (toy say something is the foundation, but you need proof for that, but that means that that proof is more basic, so the actual foundation, but then you'll need proof of that proof etcetera). I don;t have proof that my foundation is 100% correct, but I do have arguments that support it. It helps that the bible seems to be historically correct, learns you wise lessons, contains fullfilled prophecies, say things about the world that the writer couldnt have known, plus the bottomline of the bible, love god above all and your neighbour as yourself, is a very wise lesson and if you hold to that you will live a good life.
If you ask me the question, is the bible true? Then I will answer yes. If you ask me are you 100% sure of that, then I will answer no. That's mostly because im not 100% sure about anything (besides cogito ergo sum and some intrinsic contradictions). But besides all the above, I agree with what Pascal ones said. Suppose you believe in the bible and turns out the bible is true, then you go to paradise. Suppose you believe in the bible and it turns out that its not true, then at least you lived a good life. Suppose you dont believe in the bible and it turns out to be true, then you do not go to paradise. Suppose you dont believe in the bible and it turns out not to be true, then it all depends on how you filled in your life, you could have had a good or a bad life. But either way, believing seems more profitable in this case. Maybe a better analogy: Suppose you work at the airport as security personel, and you get a phonecall that theres a bomb on the airport, wouldn;t you take it seriously? Yes you would. Why? Because IF ITS TRUE, the damage it does by NOT believing this caller is going to be tremendous. Of course you know that there are things like prankcalls, but the fact that those exist isnt enough reason to judge this particular call as a prankcall. Again, the damage if its real is too great. This is, for me, a very good reason to take the bible as a starting point.
Even if there was no proof, its not deductively correct to say that because theres no proof, its false. So what you are saying doesnt make sense logically ;) And I am not trying to judge you, what I did was telling you guys what your replies look like and that I'm looking for other forms of replies to 'falsify' the JW, and if that doesnt happen, then they might be the truth after all. But Im not concluding that yet ;) Im no way near there.