as a witnoid kid i always heard that the animals were already dying as a part of daily life in eden (pre-sin) as that is how adam 'n' eve knew what the punishment was for sinnin'
perhaps the animals were killing each other off as a way of dying???
who knows.
the JWs always have these elaborate explanatory schemes to account for all their totally unanswerable beliefs
-K
Posts by Kudra
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24Animals didn't sin so why do they kill each other?
by Spectrum inhow does a benevolent and loving god explain away his ecological system whose very persistence relies on the killing and suffering of animals that have fear and pain receptors and know when they are about to get it?
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can the personilaty attributes religions have given this god be reconciled with his creation?
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Kudra
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Kudra
Britney Spears,
More than a girl?
Not quite a woman? -
5
I think the blood-mass-email went out!!!
by Kudra ini just got the associated press article in my inbox!
woo hoo!
wonder if any of my witness buddies that i submitted for the mailing will speak of it... .
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Kudra
This is the email that was sent out (I think by Severus)
Blood ban tests faith
Even as Jehovah's Witnesses reassess teachings legal challenges may force change
RICHARD OSTLING
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK—Jehovah's Witnesses are renowned for teaching that Jesus Christ is not God and that the world as we know it will soon end.
But another unusual belief causes even more entanglements — namely, that God forbids blood transfusions even when patients' lives are at stake.
The doctrine's importance was underscored last month when elders lead more than 98,000 congregations worldwide reciting a new five-page blood directive from their headquarters. There are about 155,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada, according to the 2001 census.
The tightly disciplined sect believes the Bible forbids transfusions, though specifics have gradually been eased over the years.
Raymond Franz, a defector from the all-powerful Governing Body that sets policies for the faith, thinks leaders hesitate to go further fearing total elimination of the ban would expose the organization to millions of dollars in legal liability over past medical cases.
The Witnesses have opposed transfusions of whole blood since 1945.
A later pronouncement also barred transfusions of blood's "primary components," meaning red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma.
An announcement in 2000 in the official Watchtower magazine, however, said that because of ambiguity in the Bible, individuals are free to decide about therapies using the biological compounds that make up those four blood components, such as gamma globulin and clotting factors that counteract hemophilia.
The new directive could create confusion about these compounds, known as blood "fractions."
Without noting the 2000 change, the new directive tells parents to consider this: "Can any doctor or hospital give complete assurance that blood or blood fractions will not be used in treatment of a minor?"
Aside from the new directive, a footnote in the Witnesses standard brochure, How Can Blood Save Your Life?, mentions the 2000 article on fractions — but then omits its contents.
By coincidence, the new directive follows some heavy criticism of the blood transfusion policy from lawyer Kerry Louderback-Wood of Fort Myers, Fla., writing in the Journal of Church and State, published by Baylor University.
Louderback-Wood, who was raised a Witness but now has no religious affiliation, accuses her former faith of giving "inaccurate and possibly dishonest arguments" to believers facing crucial, serious medical decisions.
Louderback-Wood complains that many Witnesses and physicians aren't given clear instruction about their faith's blood transfusion policy, particularly on the subject of fractions.
She's no disinterested bystander. The lawyer says her mother died from severe anemia in 2004 because local elders didn't realize hemoglobin is permitted.
Louderback-Wood learned that hemoglobin was allowed from the website of Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood, which was founded in 1997 by dissenting local elders, eight of whom served on hospital liaison committees that advise Witnesses and physicians.
The founder of Associated Jehovah's Witnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his standing in a faith that does not tolerate dissent, says liaison committee members know about the revised teachings, but most Witnesses automatically refuse all forms of blood without consulting the committees.
Physicians are often ill-informed about Witness beliefs, he says.
Louderback-Wood thinks the faith is subject to legal liability for misinforming adherents, which to her knowledge is an untested theory in U.S. courts.
Related issues arise in a court case in Alberta, however, related to the death of teenage leukemia patient Bethany Hughes.
Witnesses headquarters refused an Associated Press request to interview an expert on blood beliefs. Instead, General Counsel Philip Brumley issued a prepared statement rejecting Louderback-Wood's "analysis and conclusions" in general.
"Any argument challenging the validity of this religious belief inappropriately trespasses into profoundly theological and doctrinal matters," Brumley stated.
The Watchtower's 1945 ban said "all worshippers of Jehovah who seek eternal life in his new world" must obey.
Such edicts are regarded as divine law, since the Governing Body uniquely directs true believers. Violators risk ostracism by family and friends.
A subsequent Watchtower pronouncement forbade storage of a patient's own blood for later transfusion. In all, Associated Jehovah's Witnesses lists 20 shifts and refinements in blood-related rules over the years.
At the core of their blood beliefs, Witnesses cite Acts 15:29, where Jesus' apostles agreed that gentile converts should "keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood." The Witnesses also cite parts of Genesis and Leviticus.
Judaism and Christianity have always understood these scriptures to ban blood-eating for nourishment. This underlies Judaism's kosher procedures to extract blood from meat, which Witnesses do not follow. Christianity eventually decided the rule was temporary.
Experts assume that Raymond Franz's late uncle, Frederick Franz, who served anonymously as the Witnesses chief theologian, decided those passages cover blood transfusions. But Raymond Franz raises questions about the blood policy in his book In Search of Christian Freedom. Among them:
Why forbid a patient's own stored blood yet permit components derived from large amounts of donated and stored blood?
Why allow organ transplants, which introduce far more foreign white blood cells than transfusions?
The Witnesses forbid plasma, which is mostly water, but allow the components in it that provide therapy.
So what's the point of banning plasma?
Advances in bloodless surgery have reduced many of the medical dangers for Witnesses, but Associated Jehovah's Witnesses maintains that the blood policy is a life-threatening problem elsewhere.
Louderback-Wood says she'll be contented if her protest saves one child's life.
www.ajwrb.org -
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I think the blood-mass-email went out!!!
by Kudra ini just got the associated press article in my inbox!
woo hoo!
wonder if any of my witness buddies that i submitted for the mailing will speak of it... .
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Kudra
I just got the associated press article in my inbox!
Woo hoo! Wonder if any of my witness buddies that I submitted for the mailing will speak of it...
Thank you Severus! (I think that was who sent the email out!) -
30
What I learned at the KH on Sunday 3/19/2006
by MinisterAmos inthe speaker told us that the end is almost here and the storm in australia is the proof that we are in the last days.
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Kudra
How in the world did they tie in the storm to the end of the world?
Please, enlighten us... -
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Told one of my Return Visits that I wont be coming around anymore
by XBEHERE inwe were out with a group on saturday and circumstances came up that i had a chance, for a change, to do one of my rv's alone.
i knocked on the door and she came out asking if i was dropping off the new magazines.
since i had them i said yes and then proceeded to tell her that i can't drop them off anymore.
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Kudra
wow. That's really interesting- I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing anything like that.
It sounds like it was pretty un-premeditated (if that's a word).
Was you heart just racing when you got back to the "cargroup"? -
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Anyone from UKIAH, CA???
by Kudra inhey, .
just checking if anyone in here is from ukiah.
i'm still hopefull about getting to talk to someone i knew while in the "truth" who is now out-n-free... .
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Kudra
Gregor: I knew the Hobby's but have no idea where they are now or what they are doing...
LaCapra: making fun of Ukiah!?!?!? How COULD you? When Willits offers itself as such a better target...
Anyway, I love it there now- wine country, right in the redwoods, (two in our yard) Lots of rivers to swim in, tons of hiking, you know everyone at the bars... which is ok if you don't live there all the time.
Ukiah is beautiful. For fun we hung out in the woods, the river and "The Forest" bar... a great place :)
For some kids it's not that great and they end up like, making meth for fun. For me it was a pretty sweet place
K -
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Anyone from UKIAH, CA???
by Kudra inhey, .
just checking if anyone in here is from ukiah.
i'm still hopefull about getting to talk to someone i knew while in the "truth" who is now out-n-free... .
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Kudra
Vichy Springs, an excellent place for field service.
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Anyone from UKIAH, CA???
by Kudra inhey, .
just checking if anyone in here is from ukiah.
i'm still hopefull about getting to talk to someone i knew while in the "truth" who is now out-n-free... .
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Kudra
me too. it took me like 3 years before I "went on apostate sites"
and now I'm totally demonized. -
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Anyone from UKIAH, CA???
by Kudra inhey, .
just checking if anyone in here is from ukiah.
i'm still hopefull about getting to talk to someone i knew while in the "truth" who is now out-n-free... .
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Kudra
apathy!
we're taught it as JWs- you don't really have to have any thoughts or opinions on anything cause Jehovah will fix everything. Nothing matters cause this systems going to pass away soon.
you don't even have to feel for the victims of any tradgedy because that is what is to be expected in this old system. -I hated that mindset!
None of my JW friends ever had an opinion on ANYTHING political, social, scientific whatsoever!
It is so wierd to me when I go back to Ukiah that everyone is still in the "truth". It is so obvious to me that it is dead wrong that I can't understand how people have still stayed there, stagnant.