Lee Elder

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Posts by Lee Elder

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  13

  Blood Issue and Hypocrisy

  by teenyuck in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have told a couple of people on the board, thru e-mail, who i am, who my mother and family are.

  i hope what i am about to post will not get my mother in trouble.

  my mother met a man about 24 years ago.

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  Lee Elder

  Yours is an odd post - I understand that you are troubled by your mothers apparent hypocrisy, but no where do you mention that this man is a Jehovah's Witness. Do you think that the irrational beliefs of some Jehovah's Witnesses should be brought to bear upon their non JW friends? I have seen a number of situations where JWs tried to refuse blood for their non-JW family members but what you suggest is very peculiar.

  Why would you think that your mother is reponsible for the doctors giving this non JW man a transfusion of blood or platelets? Your mother seems to have passed on these strange views since she told you that your husband has first say regarding whether or not you would have a blood transfusion = utterly bizzare thinking. The whole point that we have worked to stress is informed, autonomous decision making in health care matters.

  Not to put to fine a point on it, you and your mother need to stay out of this man's choices regarding health care unless he is a Jehovah's Witness and has signed an advance directive regarding the refusal of blood products that names one of you to act in his behalf. By the same token, it is no ones business but yours as to whether or not you want to receive blood products. If you have JW family members who will not respect your wishes, you need to do the following:

  1. Have a discussion regarding your views with your personal physician and place a letter in your medical file.

  2. Appoint some non-JW family member or friend with a health care power of attorney/advance directive/health care proxy that expresses your wishes.

  3. For added insurance, place some written directives in your purse or wallet that will alert medical personnel to the fact that you have JW relatives who may be anxious to impose their irrational views of blood upon you in an emergency if you are unconscious and direct them to the individual you've named in #2.

  Make peace with your mother and shed the JW baggage.

  Best regards,

  Lee
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  14

  Valentines Day

  by Lee Elder in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sitting here sipping an italian margarita and getting ready.

  to enjoy a romantic dinner with my beautiful wife of 20 years.

  it just hits me - how great is this?

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  Lee Elder

  Sitting here sipping an Italian Margarita and getting ready
  to enjoy a romantic dinner with my beautiful wife of 20 years
  it just hits me - how great is this? I love Valentines Day - what
  a great holiday!

  I hope that all of you have someone to put your arm around tonight
  and tell them how much you love them. Robert Frost wrote, "Love is the
  irresistable desire to be desired irresistably." To love is to live.

  Cheers,

  Lee
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  11

  JW's blood as to Mormon's polygamy

  by Moxy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i think in time, the blood transfusion doctrine will fade away very similarly to mormon's polygamy doctrine.

  the doctrine met with increasing legal pressure from the state and internal dissent from more liberal members.

  the tide seems to have turned after the doctrine was about 50 or 60 years old (i am using 1830s as origin date) and from about 1900 on, the lds church no longer offically sanctioned the belief.

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  Lee Elder

  The comparison is a pretty good one. Our strategy has basically been to make the WTS appear foolish and unethical before the medical community with the hope that at some point they will get tired of the embarrassment and finally shed this irrational policy for good. A few law suits or aggressive governments would speed things up as would an escalation in the "drying up" of support for the doctrine among the membership but the direction is already clear. I think its just a matter of time before the WTS jetisons the entire millstone. I think that most of us who have prematurely lost loved ones will be glad to see it finally over.

  Lee
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  30

  would you take blood?

  by master chief in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  im confused would i take blood if i was about to die and had no other alternative treatment well to me thats allways been a hard one one to answer and people have allways hated witnesses for refusing it or not giving blood to there own kids.you see my mothers due in to hospital on tuesday and having a major operation the problem for her is she is inactive as a jw and has no blood card which is upto date what do you think she should do 1.phone elders 2.trust in jehovah and refuse blood.3if it comes to the worst take blood and live.

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  Lee Elder

  This is a potentially useful and important story for several reasons. We would like permission to use the story. If you consent, please email the story to us at: [email protected]

  Thanks,

  Lee

  Wickid wrote:

  Actually had to make that decision for myself a few years ago. I was facing brain surgery when my JW father stepped up and and boldly informed my surgeon that there would be no blood transfusions. I was 30 at the time. The surgeon said: "well okay, if that's your wish, I'll honor it. But you should know that you have an artery as big as my thumb near the area I'll be cutting. If I accidentally knick it, there's a good chance you will bleed to death." After some very objective research and serious soul-searching, I was able to secretly get the 8x10 "no blood" decal removed from the outside of my medical file without my family knowing about it. Just to be sure, I made my best friend, who is an attorney, responsible for my healthcare decisions, and had the Advanced Directive form removed from my chart as well. In the surgery prep area I was acosted by an incredibly zealous JW scrub nurse who said she had seen my "no blood" forms, and by golly, she was on my side and was going to make sure I didn't get any of that evil stuff. Like a trooper, my pal stepped up and took care if it before she could finish her sentence as I was being wheeled off. I never had to say a word, and I never had to disappoint my family with the news of reversing my decision. Everything went fine, and no transfusion was necessary, but that is such a hard decision to make after a lifetime of indoctrination. I just couldn't believe that the God I serve would value blood more than the life it could save.
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  30

  would you take blood?

  by master chief in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  im confused would i take blood if i was about to die and had no other alternative treatment well to me thats allways been a hard one one to answer and people have allways hated witnesses for refusing it or not giving blood to there own kids.you see my mothers due in to hospital on tuesday and having a major operation the problem for her is she is inactive as a jw and has no blood card which is upto date what do you think she should do 1.phone elders 2.trust in jehovah and refuse blood.3if it comes to the worst take blood and live.

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  Lee Elder

  I have spent countless hours studying this issue. I would prefer to avoid the use of blood in favor of non-blood alternatives. If my physician advised me that my condition required the use of blood products, I would consent with a request for a conservative use of these products. I wouldn't have any concern about whether the blood product I needed happened to be on Watchtower's list of permitted blood products or not. Their list is in a perpetual state of flux and there is no rational basis for their determination of which blood products are permitted or forbidden.

  Lee
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  40

  Why God cannot have existed forever.

  by sleepy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  why god cannot have existed forever.. this is something a friend of mine brought up a number of years ago.at the time i just thought that to understand how a god existed forever was just beyond our little brains.. well now after reading a lot more physics books i think its evidence a god couldn't have existed forever and therefore would had a begining (if there was a god).. basically if god had lived from infinity in the past we wouldn't have been created yet as there would always be forever untill we were created.. do you get that?.

  at any point in time we could take, if time went back forever then you could never get to that point in time.

  you would always have infinity infront of you.. sorry if this doesn't make much sense as it is not easy to describe.

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  Lee Elder

  Trying to understand "God", is like trying to explain color to a blind man or a 3 dimensional world to a 2 dimensional "flatlander". If he exists, he or she is incomprehensible in every sense. How much time have you spent trying to explain your existence to your cat or dog? Wouldn't do much good, would it? To me, the intriguing question is why is there something (the universe) rather than nothing?

  Believe what you find comforting - just be sensible and honest enough to distinguish between faith and reality thereby limiting the potential for belief systems to control or manipulate you in a detrimental way. The whole point of faith is that it does not require proof or evidence. Believers who try to prove God's existence, prove the Bible is the word of God, etc., have missed the point.

  Lee
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  65

  Amazing's Triumph - Mixed Feelings

  by Perry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  amazing wrote:.

  "i was able to get my wife and children out, and this led to my son-in-law and a close friend leaving at the same time.

  so, i am among the more fortunate in that my immediate family, and non-jw friends and relatives were all there with me as i exited.

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  Lee Elder

  Very interesting thread that demonstrates the need to educate current JWs about how distance themselves from the Watchtower without destroying the important relationships in their lives. Someone could devote an entire web site to the topic and feature experiences from those who survived this perilous journey.

  Lee
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  5

  Is there a god module in the brain!!!!

  by master chief in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i recently read that certain patients who have damaged their brain in an accident or even had epelectic fits etc have for the first time in their life had a religious experience due to a certain region of the brain being sought of activated which deals with divine experiences or god.

  some have even written in depth writings about there visions some have also claimed to be called by god so this made me think about abilities like maths,language,taste etc these are also preset into us arent they otherwise how else could learn to do these things so then are we preset to worship god.

  aha so we are sought of like a computer with software programmed into us,so if so do we worship through free will or through a preprogrammed god module ????

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  Lee Elder

  There is recent credible research that demonstrates a genetic predisposition to spirituality in some humans. The research is based
  upon studies of identical twins raised separately and is discussed in
  the book, "How We Believe," which incidentally is a great read. The author is Michael Shermer who is the director/founder of the Skeptics Society.

  Lee
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  1

  HemoPure Update

  by Lee Elder in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here is a report from one of the centers participating in the phase iii .

  clinical trial of hemopure - the bovine based hemoglobin blood .

  substitute permitted by the watchtower society and presently in use in south africa.

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  Lee Elder

  Here is a report from one of the centers participating in the Phase III
  clinical trial of HemoPure - the bovine based hemoglobin blood
  substitute permitted by the Watchtower Society and presently in use in South Africa.

  http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=bpur&script=410&layout=7&item_id=251540
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  1

  The WT and Blood

  by Defender in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  having read the dialogue between and existing elder in alabama and the wt society posted on randy's site (thanks randy for this scoop), one can see that the society will not and cannot change their blood policy anytime soon.

  barring some outright coup, the society will maintain the existing stand.. they have invested so much effort into this.

  they have received recognition from secular quarters re their pursuit for blood-less surgeries and other blood alternatives and would appear silly if they suddenly backtracked now.

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  Lee Elder

  The WTS is between a rock and a hard place on the blood issue. As far as your argument is concerned, you could have tried to make the same point in May of 2000 only to see the WTS make sweeping changes a month later by permitting all blood products fractionated from red cells, white cells and platelets (plasma fractions were already permitted).

  I think it is very difficult to try and forsee where the WTS is headed with their policy which is precisely why there is such a need for us to be proactive. The WTS was thoroughly exposed before the medical ethics community and soundly defeated in my view. The unreasonableness of their position is becoming widely known via published articles in various medical journals. The effect of this will not be truly known for years but my belief is that the pressure will continue to mount.

  In the meantime, all we can do is try to educate others so that they can make informed, autonomous choices and continue exposing the WTS' irrational policy to all that will listen.

  Lee