Posts by TheWonderofYou

3

Blood as the seat of life: The blood paradox among Afro-christians.

by TheWonderofYou in

i find this an interesting read.. https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/perc.2016.14.issue-1/perc-2016-0003/perc-2016-0003.pdf.

TheWonderofYou

I find this an interesting read.

https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/perc.2016.14.issue-1/perc-2016-0003/perc-2016-0003.pdf

556

The Watchtower are Right About Blood...

by cofty in

... but, they fail to take note of one important detail.. i believe that if we are going to have any chance of reasoning with a jw about blood, this is the place we need to begin.. don't try to convince them that it was only a dietary law.

it wasn't, and they will never go along with it.. don't tell them that saving a life is more important than obeying a law, even a seemingly trivial one.

they take pride in obedience.

TheWonderofYou

Behind the ethical message of blood in the jewish notion and in the law of holiness in Leviticus we have the ancient, archaic idea that blood is seat of the human soul or life force.

The core ethical message of blood was that blood was the essence of life, its vitality and energy, which has to be devoted to serving as offering (korban) under the altar to God (Hashem as they call God) and its consequence that under this leading sign the best of human life, its vitality and energy, should be also devoted in humilty into the right direction, namely to god (life belongs only under the altar, namely as offering for god).

This ethical core thought is an interesting though and acceptable moral idea per se. Also because blood is not seen under the altar as "sacrifice", "ransom", or "payment for guilts" although it might have been used in such circumstances, but only as "offering"/"gift". Therefore the human blood of Jesus could in jewish notion never pay for adamic sins in a real "ransom" scenario, but only serve as "offering" at most. Paul must have been used the word "ransom" as metaphor i think.

This ethical core thought that blood is lifeforce could however lead to the conclusion that in jewish eyes "blood was" always "sacred" and not only in the moment of killing an animal.

These notions developped on the basis of the jewish shy from contact with blood. Blood was for the Israelites not merely used as a methaphor or symbol of life but they had ...brrrr.... great shy of contacting it. This is the archaic story behind blood with the blood rites uuuuh and menstruation blood uuuuuhhhh, today we know that not everything what the old folks spoke is to hold and search for a double meaning, deeper sense, namely also for the idea that life or lifeforce or the divine principle is actually seated in the blood, a lifeforce which is of divine origin and therefore belonged to God.

Today the JW are confused and trouble their head about this old idea and make of it a STARK NONSENSE.

556

The Watchtower are Right About Blood...

by cofty in

... but, they fail to take note of one important detail.. i believe that if we are going to have any chance of reasoning with a jw about blood, this is the place we need to begin.. don't try to convince them that it was only a dietary law.

it wasn't, and they will never go along with it.. don't tell them that saving a life is more important than obeying a law, even a seemingly trivial one.

they take pride in obedience.

TheWonderofYou

"Blood was sacred under The Law." - "Blood is not intrinsically sacred; it is only sacred insofar as it represents a life that has been taken."

Although I came often to similar ideas, and although i would like that this is a means of escape for a JW to accept blood transfusion, doesnt it sound very unlikely and illogical that a Jew would ever say that.

Would a Jew really say "animal blood is sacred, says the law" [Leviticus 17 is part of the laws of holniness] and would he explain this sacredness further as follows "sacredness means that blood is only sacred if I kill an animal, cause if I kill the animal it represents only then the life of the animal taken".

I think (as far as I know the matter) that something doesnt meat up to the desired conclusion.

I dont know what yet exactly, however I think that it is not so easy to say, that blood is only then sacred when it is used as a means for the offering and only then bears the "quality as offering" in it, in the moment of death.

----

I have read that the rabbis understood blood as the most living or spiritual part of human physical existence. For the rabbis it came the closest to the idea of soul or life itself. Blood was for a jew a sign of life.

In jewish thinking the Lord turned flesh and blood into a nephesh chayyah, a living being. Blood was the seat of life. So in hebrew language and notion the blood had the even closest connection to the divine, or spiritual part of men, its nephesh, the life. It was seen as intermediary between a spiritual reality and physical reality, the bones, the sinews and flesh. Because that was in jewish understanding the nature of the blood, therefore blood was seen as that part of the human body to which the soul, the life attaches itself to.

Therefore, if blood was seen as seat of life the "sacredness of blood" meant for a Jew supposedly much more than a "only sacred insofar as it represents a life that has been taken".

Leviticus 17-26 is called the law of holiness. The Law of Holiness was a milestone in the Israelite history of law. The speciality of this laws was that obidience to the law was bound to the basic quality of holiness. The understanding blood was part of this Law of Holiness.

The Tora was the holy scripture of Jews for Jesus and the original church. It was the only bible to which they could refer. Although christians held tight to the first testament writings they were subordinated to the work of the holy spirit.

From the apostolic council onwards for christians was valid what the holy spirit declared as "clean". What the spirit declared as clean the church should not declare as unclean, even appeling to the holy scriptures. (Acts 10, Peters dream)

Therefore for Christians the Israelite Law of Holiness, e.g. the rules for ritual and cultic purity and as well the interpretation of the deeper meaning of blood, is only relative for christians, it was a law for Israel, and are to be understood under the circumstances of the work of the holy spirit.

The jewish background and understanding of blood as seat of life and mediator between the divine and the flesh is for christans not binding. These ideas and notions were only relevant in connection with the Law of Holiness and were relevant for jewish-christians.

For other christians and other nations the jewish rabbis have been always discussing ethic rules they should follow to be acceptable for god. In the traditional noachidic laws contains 6 bans and 1 rule (this a theoratical draft but not a concrete Halakha) forbidden was only to eat parts of living animal, to avoid a brutal killing

Bans

Do not deny God

Do not blaspheme God.

Do not murder. (spilling of blood)

Do not engage in illicit sexual relations.

Do not steal.

Do not eat from a live animal.

Rule:
Establish courts/legal system to ensure obedience to said laws.

556

The Watchtower are Right About Blood...

by cofty in

... but, they fail to take note of one important detail.. i believe that if we are going to have any chance of reasoning with a jw about blood, this is the place we need to begin.. don't try to convince them that it was only a dietary law.

it wasn't, and they will never go along with it.. don't tell them that saving a life is more important than obeying a law, even a seemingly trivial one.

they take pride in obedience.

TheWonderofYou

Found this talk by Rabbi Mendel Kaplan about the jewish background of the "The Baffling Blood Ban"

Altough the jewish organisation Chabad is called a dangerous jewish cult and quite extreme in many aspects I think this talk about blood is very interesting, to understand jewish idea of blood ban. Blood is hebrew "dam"

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/3317454/jewish/The-Baffling-Bloody-Ban.htm

38

Anthony Morris - The Higher Education Broadcast

by pale.emperor in

last night i had jw broadcasting on in the background while i was working, i like to keep up to date with their crap.

which is strange because when i actually was a jw i hated reading or watching their material.. anyway, on the streaming section, anthony morris comes on screen telling me that higher education is bad and "the better the university, the greater the danger".

i never would have believed it if i hadn't seen him say it myself.

TheWonderofYou

"Jehovah's people are the THINKINGEST people on earth"

hahaha, thinking 1000 times about the same matter with the same result is rather repetition and hammering into than THINKING. As there is only one thought allowed - we are always right - all facets of thinking allowed are concentrating on repeating the own dogmatism simply from different standpoints.

556

The Watchtower are Right About Blood...

by cofty in

... but, they fail to take note of one important detail.. i believe that if we are going to have any chance of reasoning with a jw about blood, this is the place we need to begin.. don't try to convince them that it was only a dietary law.

it wasn't, and they will never go along with it.. don't tell them that saving a life is more important than obeying a law, even a seemingly trivial one.

they take pride in obedience.

TheWonderofYou

For exhilaration.....

According to some news dinosaurs had warm red blood. Conseqently dinosaurs' blood was also very holy for god and if dinosaurs didnt die out because god allowed their annihilation in his love, their blood would atone today, if they were killed for a meal and slaughtered kosher ;-)

But anyhow dinosaur had blood. And if a man survived the fight with a tyrannosaur and lately achieved to kill the beast, he had quickly think about not to get into yet more big troubles with capital punishement..

.....what to do with the blood,

go bear it to jerusalem

or drink it to get strong, it was like dragons-blood,

or pour it out or let it rin off, what a waste

No scripture for dinosaur to find ... not yet written....means aye freedom!

But why should god only love blood of cattle, sheep and not also dinosaur blood you might think? Only because Noah and his family liked only cattle and sheep? Or did Noah simply never see a tyrannosaurs although before the flood they lived somewhere in jurassic park and therefore could not sacrifice tyrannosaur blood to god.

But nevertheless tyrannosaur -"blood is / was sacred to god" because its red and warm, its a divine principle after all, come what may without exeptions- its only that no other species killed and ate tyrannosaurs yet. Only the fallen angels - giants - would have been strong enough to kill the beasts, but they didnt offer god a meal nor sacrifice, cause they were bad and only metaphors. Or the beasts died out together with their conquerors, who knows.

...

39

July's watchtower leaves out some important info from a quote!

by stavro in

jerome over on discuss the truth has picked up on something interesting.. in the july watchtower on page 28 of the article entitled “winning the battle for your mind” the following statement is made “keep in mind that satan does not want you to think clearly or reason things out well.

because propaganda is likely to be most effective, says one source, if people… are discouraged from thinking critically.”.

the quote comes from a book entitled: “media and society in the twentieth century: a historical introduction by lyn gorman, david mclean" the watchtower however, chose to leave out a portion of the quote.. the full quote is "therefore, it is likely to be most effective if people do not have access to multiple sources of information and if they are discouraged from thinking critically.. the following sentence which the watchtower also decided was best not to include states,.

TheWonderofYou

This scientist must be a big wheel. It amuses me that the media sorry...writing department thinks it is necessary to support an actually banal thought namely that someones critical thinking could be hindered in our century by media manipulation, half troughts and fake news by partial citing of a worldly book and not the watchtowers' grey bible itself.

This excessive addiction to cite someone for anything of the Watchtower leads to bad results. There would be more important subjects where citation would be necessary.

Implementing the idea in the heads that scientific books would be more trustworthy than common sense but at the same time missing the important whole of the cited thought is a bad domestic work of the writing department, nothing of the promoted investigations, checks before printing an article.

26

Russia and the letter writing

by Listener in

this is the whole of the instructions that the watchtower gave jws when writing to russian officials -.

content • you are writing to the official to request his intervention.

express the hope that the russian authorities will stop the legal action being taken against the branch office and the congregations in russia so that our brothers and sisters can continue to gather peacefully for christian meetings without interference.

TheWonderofYou

Putin will ask Trump. " What the hell?"

9

A nurse describes a noblood death

by OrphanCrow in

the jehovah's witness protection program.

my first clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that it was 7 am in the intensive care unit and getting to my patient was a challenge for all of his visitors in his room.my second clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that my patient was african-american and all of his visitors were white.now before we get all racially sensitive, i am very aware that many families are blended in many ways and many of us are close friends with people of all races.

however, in the hospital where i work, it is an uncommon sight to see a room full of white people at the bedside of a black man at seven in the morning.

TheWonderofYou

Holding hands is not important. Important is keeping up the business. Following what is the strict protocoll.

9

A nurse describes a noblood death

by OrphanCrow in

the jehovah's witness protection program.

my first clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that it was 7 am in the intensive care unit and getting to my patient was a challenge for all of his visitors in his room.my second clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that my patient was african-american and all of his visitors were white.now before we get all racially sensitive, i am very aware that many families are blended in many ways and many of us are close friends with people of all races.

however, in the hospital where i work, it is an uncommon sight to see a room full of white people at the bedside of a black man at seven in the morning.

TheWonderofYou

Reads as if a dying JW became a mere number in a protocoll of the JWPP.