--It's impressive to be sure, but it just doesn't quicken the pulse the way the Concorde did.
Posts by TD
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45So What Do You Think Of The New Airbus A380?
by Englishman inlooks a real stunner imho.
22 wheels?
wow!
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8
Transfusion-Free Surgery
by nicolaou ina religious belief of jehovah's witnesses may also be good medicine for everyone
by valerie reitman los angeles times tuesday, march 8, 2005 .
steve and jane hewitt searched far and wide for a surgeon who could straighten their teenage daughter's severely curving spine that had hunched her over at a 105-degree angle.
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TD
They make the choice at Baptism. A community has the right to make up its rules for association and individuals are free to join or not.
What would prompt such a statement?
First of all, a fair amount of JW's alive today made their decision to become such before 1961 and therefore most certainly did not consent to a policy that was disclosed to them prior to their conversion. The statement above therefore is not legitimately applicable to JW's en masse.
Second, JW church officials have a long-standing history of stepping in and making rulings concerning the propriety of new equipment and treatments only after individual JW's have been confronted with decisions regarding said procedures and treatments. Insofar as these individual cases are concerned, there is nothing resembling prior agreement.
Third, JW implementation of the transfusion medicine taboo is not and never has been static. Some of this can be attributed to advances in medicine, but there are also number of policy reversals on record, sometimes even subsequent reversals of the reversals. Policies dynamic to the point of capriciousness cannot, by their very nature be fully consented to beforehand
Fourth, there is nothing within the corpus of JW literature that can remotely be construed as full disclosure even of existing policy. The JW community in fact, routinely presents misinformation to potential converts, actively denying that medical conditions exist for which doctrinally proscribed preparations and procedures may be the only available treatments. J. R. Brown himself has publicly made such claims more than once in radio interviews.
If JW's find it distasteful to acknowledge that adherence to the transfusion medicine taboo could under extreme circumstances have adverse consequences up to and including loss of life, both for the potential convert and his or her children, the very least they could do is advise that medical implications of conversion to the JW faith should be discussed with the potential convert's own physician.
The ability to understand the act is a prerequisite to bearing full and complete responsibility for the act. In the absence of full and fair disclosure, such understanding is impossible and the statement above is therefore not even applicable within the framework of whatever myopically egocentric demographic is was spoken from.
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58
Does the WTS's past matter?
by M.J. ini know, i'd jump into this topic by saying, "heck yeah.
they're the ones saying they've been appointed by god based on what they were doing back around 1914-1919.
" but i'm trying to help someone out who has reached a roadblock with his wife.
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TD
The JW faith not only teaches that many biblical prophecies, parables, visions and "types" were realized in the late 19th and 20th centuries but that collectively, the JW faith was either intimately involved with or the actual target of most of them
From the JW perspective, how was the parable of the wise and foolish virgins fulfilled and when? How was the parable of the faithful and wise steward fulfilled and when? How was the parable of the talents fulfilled and when? How was the parable of the penny fulfilled and when? Who is the man with the writers inkhorn? Who fulfilled the vision of the valley of dry bones and how did those bones come to life? When were the seven seals of Revelation opened and what happened? When were the seven trumpets of Revelation blown and what happened? What were the symbolic locusts of Revelation? What did they do and when?
I've barely scratched the surface here....
The point is, what did or did not happen in the past is most certainly important to JW's because it carries a tremendous doctrinal significance. This is the unavoidable consequence when a religious organization wraps the entire Bible around itself.
Any JW who denies this is either ignorant or simply not thinking things through. (Or both --- unfortunately, this is probably the majority of JW's)
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Kyoto treaty - if it fails where will it end up?
by ballistic ina total of 141 countries have signed up to the treaty, promising to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
however, even if we can get america to sign up, it may be impossible to stop co2 emissions increasing as the world population increases.
what are the ultimate possible eventualities?
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TD
It may sound like sci fi but how will world leaders react when the climate is bringing food production to a halt and people are dropping like flies in the heat?
Don't misunderstand. I think any change to the Earth's climate should be taken seriously. For example, I'm certainly not happy about the spread of West Nile here where I live.
At the same time though, I have a hard time when a gas (CO2) vital to life on earth as we know it is classified as a "pollutant." One of the easiest ways to make plant life grow faster is to increase both temperature and CO2 levels. Like everyone else who has ever kept a green house, I know first hand that a natural gas heater is "cheap fertilizer" because it does both.
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49
I debated with my "devout" JW mom and her JW elders for 5 hours
by booker-t inas most of you know by now i have told you that my mom has been a "devout" jw for over 40 years and i can't get her to budge.
well the last time we debated she left me totally confused and in a daze.
i did some fast research and this past sunday we had a free-for-all debate that lasted 5 hours.
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TD
"She argued that no apostate can show her where JW's have said "We are inspired prophets and we can predict the future without error.""
You do not have to predict the future to be a prophet
The following is from the JW's own Bible dictionary, "Insight On The Scriptures" under "Prophet"
"The Greek pro·phe´tes literally means ?a speaker out [Gr., pro, ?before? or ?in front of,? and phe·mi´, ?say?]? and thus describes a proclaimer, one who makes known messages attributed to a divine source. (Compare Tit 1:12.) Though this includes the thought of a predictor of the future, the fundamental meaning of the word is not that of prediction. (Compare Jg 6:7-10.)"
This alone blows her argument completely out of the water.
Claiming that a teaching, any teaching, is the product of active Divine direction is a claim to the office of prophet regardless of whether it has anything to do with the future or not.
As Elsewhere has shown, that claim has been made many times. -
31
Missouri
by Englishman inwatching the simpsons the other day.
grandpa simpson said that he'd never accept missouri as ever being a part of the union.
(actually, he pronounced it mizzurah).
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TD
Like Big Tex said, it hearkens back to the bitterness between northern and southern states.
Missouri was admitted to the Union in what is known as the "Missouri compromise." Briefly, Missouri was admitted as a slave state at the same time that Maine was admitted as a free state. In this way the balance of power between free and slave states was maintained (This brought the total to 12 and 12) and the evil of slavery was perpetuated.
During the Civil War, the bad feeling between Missouri and neighboring states intensified with the activities of various individuals and factions like Bloody Bill Anderson, William Quantrill, Jim Lane, the Jayhawkers, the Redlegs and Bushwackers.
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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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TD
Greetings Jaron,
First of all, We cannot know exactly what this loss of innocent life is exactly. We cannot know how many lifes actually have been lossed because of not taking bloodtransfusion, and how many lifes have been saved by this.
I wasn?t referring to group statistics, (However the Witness position is dubious even in that context)
I was referring to the individual situation where you are told by the attendant medical personal that non-blood alternatives have been exhausted and someone for whom you are responsible, (e.g. a minor child) will die without the administration of a blood product.
I still read in the newspapers on a weekly bases things going wrong with bloodtransfusions. Just a week ago I read in a newspaper that 10,000 people (i thought in France) have been sent a letter in the mail to not donate under any circumstances any blood, because they have received bloodtransfusions themselves whi ch contained something that could cause severe complications (too bad i threw that away). Anyway, there are still a lot of those messages, and theres no way of telling what the "loss" or the "gain" is.
The most favorable study done in support of the JW position was conducted in 1993 by Dr. Craig S. Kitchens, a VA physician in Gainesville Florida. [1] Kitchens searched MEDLINE and compiled 1404 surgical cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses which were collated into 16 surgical categories. Although Kitchens questioned the propriety of reflexively administering blood and rightly so, his own figures showed increased mortality associated with refusing blood ranging from amounts too small to measure to 8.33% in cardiovascular surgery. Overall, refusing blood resulted in an increased mortality of between 0.5% and 1.5%
On the flip-side of the coin, Sazama analyzed 355 blood transfusion-associated deaths reported to the United States Food and Drug Administration just three years prior to this. [2] The short-term mortality rate from accepting blood, which corresponds to Kitchens'
estimate of short-term mortality rate from refusing blood, was 1 to 1.2 per 100,000 patients who received blood transfusions.In other words, accepting blood transfusion increased mortality by 0.001 to 0.0012%, whereas refusing blood transfusion increased mortality by 0.5% to 1.5%.
The risk of blood transfusion was again extensively reviewed in the "Medical Progress" review in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999.[3][4] In this review, overall mortality from blood transfusion is estimated between 23 and 44 deaths per million units
of blood. These numbers include every known complication from blood transfusion, not just short-term mortality as in Sazama's report.Even these figures do not directly speak to the magnitude of risk associated with allowing hemoglobin levels to fall much below 6g/dL. (Commonly considered to be the transfusion threshold in low-risk patients) Carson et al. studied 125 surgical patients who were Jehovah's Witnesses and thus refused blood transfusion. It was found that 61.5% of patients whose preoperative hemoglobin fell below 6 g/dL died following the surgery. [5] Patients who refuse a blood transfusion deemed absolutely medically necessary by a physician therefore create a very substantial risk of dying from severe anemia.
(1) Kitchens CS. Are transfusions overrated? Surgical outcome of
Jehovah's Witnesses. American Journal Of Medicine 1993;94:117-119(2) Sazama K: Reports of 355 transfusion-associated deaths: 1976
through 1985. Transfusion 1990;30:583-90(3) Goodnough LT, Brecher ME, Kanter MH, et al.: Transfusion medicine.
First of two parts--blood transfusion. New England Journal Of
Medicine 1999;340:438-47(4) Goodnough LT, Brecher ME, Kanter MH, et al.: Transfusion medicine.
Second of two parts--blood conservation. New England Journal Of
Medicine 1999;340:525-33(5) Lancet 1988 Apr 2;1(8588):727-9 Severity of anaemia and operative
mortality and morbidity. Carson JL, Poses RM, Spence RK, Bonavita G.
Department of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick.But I think that you are working under a very important premise, which is that the loss of innocent life is more important to God then anything else, or at least more important then not having a bloodtransfusion.
That?s not really the premise per se.
The core premise is something most true believers would not argue with. --Direct commands from God are only contravened by other direct commands for God.
If you?ve had any substantial contact with Jehovah?s Witnesses, (And it seems that you have) you?re very familiar with the example of Uzzah and the ark of the covenent. (2 Sam 6:7) Remember how Uzzah attempted to steady the ark when it was in danger of falling?
It did not matter whether Uzzah's intentions were good or not. He broke a direct command from God and God struck him dead for it.
You don?t break a direct command from God based on your own flawed human supposition of what you think he might want. If God wants you to break one of his commands, he'll tell you with another command.
But, if you read your bible, it says several times that blood is holy. That's also why the command of not eating blood is there in the first place! Blood is holy and it should only be used for holy usage.
O.K. For the sake of discussion, Blood is holy. Try to flesh this argument out a bit. How does it follow from this that God disapproves of transfusion?
While it could perhaps be argued that blood has been profaned or desecrated when it is either consumed as food or employed as an ink, dye, stain, paint, gelling agent, etc., on what basis should this be considered applicable to the basic set of functions for which God originally designed blood in the first place? (Circulating in your arteries and veins.)
Given that both life and blood are sacred, the organic function for which God designed blood cannot casually be relegated to the realm of the mundane as it is not only the tie which binds the two together, it is arguably the very reason why God chose blood as the symbol for life in the first place.
With that in mind, how would transfusion profane or desecrate blood? (Specifically) At what point in the procedure would this occur? (Specifically)
Now, the standpoint of the JW is what you may call "fanatic" on this one, compared to other beliefs. Sure, I totally agree with you there. But it is grounded on the bible. The question is wether or not, if it were specified, God would have forbidden bloodtransfusions.
Come now, God could easily have said, ?Do not use blood.? This would have covered all ancient use of blood known at the time as well as modern uses by implication.
But that's not what he did. All biblical prohibitions against blood occur within a very clear dietary context.
You say he wouldnt in the case of a child dying and when he/she is in need of the blood. You say yes, because you have a strong 'moral justification'. But what about the rest of the evil we see on this world? Couldn't God stop this too? And so we return to the question why God allows evil in the first place, which is something I am not going to debate in this thread right now.
I'm not sure what you're driving at here. Evil in the world is certainly not something for believers to imitate.
Truth is, at the end its all about what you believe, and what is more important to you yourself. If you say: "If you are a believer, it is not up to you to pick and choose which of God's commands you will follow." And one thing that has been repeatedly shown in the bible is that blood is holy, and is only used to glorify God, then you should ask yourself seriously if, when you take bloodtransfusion, you are not striving against God's will. I can see your point, of course I do, but that is not enough of an argument against bloodtransfusion.
A question I think you should ask yourself is this:
Is the real issue about blood as a substance or about what blood represented in the specific context of slaughtering an animal for food?
For example, Take a look at a bone marrow biopsy.
Here you see a little bit of everything. You see both juvenile and mature red blood cels, white blood cells and various precursor cells.
Remember that the Israelites were allowed to eat bone marrow and in so doing they ate blood. Therefore the Israelites were allowed to eat blood in some contexts and not others.
How then, can the issue be about blood as a substance? Isn't the issue more accurately about what the blood of a slaughtered animal represented?
I must come to the conclusion that we cannot prove these phrases, just like we can't prove that the bible asks us to obey the trafficlaws. But we can argument TO them. In the end this discussion is all about what you find more important, and I myself think that in keeping to Gods word, even if it causes death, and EVEN if it causes death to loved ones (which is usually far worse then the former), then your believe in God is really strong and you would follow in the footsteps of people like Abraham, Job, Daniel and many more. No JW would want these things to happen of course, but they will try to keep to the Truth that their Creator gave them, and will see their loved ones again in an eternal paradise.
Yes, Abraham is considered an outstanding example of faith because he attempted to sacrifice his own son at God's command.
On the other hand, the ancient Phoenicians are considered an outstanding example of the lowest depths of depravity to which human beings are capable of sinking for sacrificing their children.
What was the difference between the two? Abraham acted in obedience to a direct command. The Phoenicians did not.
I like Jehovah's Witnesses, but they truly, honestly don't seem to understand this difference. They give as much weight to their human interpretations as they do to what God actually said.
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Does an asteroid hit signal a divine failure
by Satanus inwt goes on about how perfectly the universe runs, even better than watch.
they quote the scripture about god calling each star by name, and none ever being missing.
do stars blowing up sigal a failure for the master worker?
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TD
....Not if it takes out Patterson
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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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TD
Greetings again Delta
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.
?Eating? ?Tasting? ?Drinking? ?Consuming? etc. are the only words supported by both the context and historical setting of the Decree.
The backdrop of the Apostolic Decree was a dispute in the early history of Christianity over the necessity of circumcision and adherence to the Law. This is clear not only from Acts chapter 15 and Galatians chapter 2 but from James? words to Paul in Acts 21: 20-25
?Then they said to Paul: ?You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. 21They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. 22What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, 23so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. 24Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. 25As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.?
The context is clearly the Law and that which was prohibited in the Law. Do you disagree?
Again, I know of no commentator, translator or translation anywhere up to and including the JW?s themselves who agree with the idea that the equivocal terms needed to support the transfusion medicine taboo are legitimate interpolations that may be made during translation. If you know of one, by all means bring it forth.
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.
Thank you, but I am very familiar with this subject. Prior to absorbtion, your digestive system must break the food you eat down into four water soluble materials
These are:
1. Simple sugars
2. Fatty acids
3. Amino acids
4. Trace elements.This is accomplished by three groups of enzymes: Proteases break down proteins, lipases break down fats and amylases break down carbohydrates.
All proteins coming into contact with protease enzymes are ?exploded? into polypeptides. The process is roughly analogous to taking a building apart brick by brick, loading the bricks on pallets, putting the pallets on trucks and sending the trucks in all different directions to other jobsites. Although individual bricks (amino acids) appear in many new buildings, (proteins) the original building (protein) is destroyed and completely loses its identity as such.
In adults any proteins that manage to escape destruction are simply excreted. The only time intact proteins even cross the epithelial mucosa at all is in the first few months after birth. However in these are still broken down by the mucosal epithelial cells.
No blood components survive this process. Even the plasma proteins that JW?s allow as ?matters of conscience? (e.g. albumin, IgG Factors VIII & IX) are destroyed and broken down into their constituent amino acids.
If you want references I?ll be happy to provide them, but the website you provided is more than enough by itself:
?Simply put, the digestive system is a portal for nutrients from the environment to gain access to the circulatory system. Before such transfer can occur, foodstuffs first have to be reduced to very simple molecules by a combination of mechanical and enzymatic degradation. The resulting sugars, amino acids, fatty acids and the like are then transported across the epithelium lining the intestine into blood.? (Emphasis mine)
(From the introductory page)
So, if you eat blood it would go into your body and components of the blood would go into your own blood.
I?m sorry Delta. That is untrue. "Blood components" (Erythrocytes, Leucocytes Thrombocytes and whole plasma) do not enter the circulatory system via digestion. The only way this is even remotely possible is if someone had a peptic ulcer or some other open lesion of the G.I. tract. Go back to your friend the med student. Ask her point blank if the cellular components of blood enter the circulatory system via the G.I. tract.
But the same goes for bloodtransfusions, a bloodtransfusion will also put those components into your blood, so the effect is the same.
The effect is not the same. Blood consumed is broken down and destroyed by the digestive system. Blood transfused resumes its function in the body of the recipient.
Transfusion is a use of blood as blood, not a use of blood as food. The latter is an act of cannibalism while the former is simply a tissue transplant.
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.
You are equivocating again. Blood is a complex living tissue in no way analogous to Dextran solution. A transfusion is a transplant of this living tissue, not intravenous feeding. A patient unable to eat cannot be kept alive by transfusion.
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.
I agree. Preconceived notions do seem to be the primary ingredient here. Referring to two disparate acts in generic terms (?taking in?) does nothing to establish physical or moral equivalency. You are equivocating yet again. (How many times does this make?)
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,
How about ou lepsa haima
?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.
I understand this argument, but there are some fairly severe moral problems with it.
First, this argument is for all intents and purposes a claim to know the mind of God by claiming to have some esoteric knowledge of what He was consciously thinking at the time the Decree was written even though such information is nowhere to be found in the words He inspired to be written. You are free to surmise and speculate on such things, the same as all the rest of of us, but unless your are truly inspired, you do not know the mind of God in that sense.
This leads to the second problem. God has already told you in plain and simple, black and white, crystal clear and unambiguous terms that you are not to cause or be the cause of the loss of innocent human life.
Yet adherence to the transfusion medicine taboo can make you responsible for the loss of innocent human life. Maybe not at this point in your life, but the JW?s will demand that you adhere to this policy for any life ever entrusted to you in future. This would include minor children, aged parents, adults of diminished responsibility and anyone else for whom you eventually become responsible before God and the state. (I have seen this with my own eyes. Even if one of the parents is not a JW, I have seen how the JW's will come to the hospital and pressue the parent who is.)
It would be one thing if you were attempting to reconcile two equally clear commands God has given which have been brought into conflict by unique circumstances. But that?s not what you are doing. You are hypothesizing into existence a requirement contrary to one of God?s existing commands.
In this artificial dilemma, God?s requirement to preserve life is challenged not by another command God has given, but by your speculative hypothesis on nothing beyond its own merit alone. What is the moral justification for this? If you are a believer, it is not up to you to pick and choose which of God's commands you will follow. You can't say, "I know about command A, but I have surmised that command B might possibly mean something it doesn't actually say, and that's all I need to ignore command A in this situation."
I understand that the Catholic faith holds that the Pope has the authority to modify holy writ, but where and how was such ex cathedra authority conferred upon you? I'm not necessarily looking for a classical three point Aristotelian Syllogism here (Although if the JW's had a leg to stand on, that would not be difficult) but conjecture is hardly sufficient.
I really have no desire to put you on the spot if you have some emotional stake in this. I mean that in all sincerity.
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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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TD
Delta,
So, I went to dictionary.com to see if you were right.
What I said most certainly does hold; the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs is a simple matter of language mechanics that I thought you either understood or would recall once it was pointed out.
The definition you provided from Dictionary.com appears to be adapted from the American Heritage Dictionary. Had you checked the synonyms at "refrain," you would have seen the following note:
Synonyms: refrain, 1 abstain, forbear
1 These verbs mean to keep or prevent oneself from doing or saying something: refrained from commenting; abstained from smoking; can't forbear criticizing them. (Emphasis mine)As I have correctly stated, "abstain" negates action. The fundamental meaning is to keep or prevent oneself from doing or saying something. There is no such thing as negation of an object. It is an ungrammatical concept.
I think perhaps you are stumbling over the fact that in an "abstain from" construction the verb does not have to be stated if it is implicitly understood.
All of the following for example are accepted English uses of the word:
"At the JW memorial, everyone abstained from the Emblems"
"Although the argument was intense, the couple abstained from hateful words."
"Due to his strict diet, he abstained from dessert."
In each case, action is transferred from subject to object by a verbal construction implicit in the context. You would naturally understand that no one ate the bread nor drank the wine at the JW memorial, that the couple did not speak hateful words and that the man did not eat dessert.
This is also the case in the example you have given, "...abstain from traditional political rhetoric." The verb, "speaking" or possibly "writing" is implicit in the context.
If, as you contend, abstinence from an object is possible, you would have no trouble both in understanding the meaning of the following phrases or in restating them as simple finite negatives like I proposed that you attempt to do with blood (And you ignored)
"Abstain from shrubs."
"Abstain from pebbles."
"Abstain from crankshafts"
Because the missing verb is not readily apparent either from the context (Or more precisely, the lack thereof) or the words themselves, these phrases are pretty much nonsense.
It's for precisely this reason that an "abstain from" construction can have entirely different meanings depending upon the context in which it was spoken. Take the phrase, "abstain from alcohol" for example:
"Her obstetrician said, "Pregnant women should abstain from alcohol."""His dermatologist said, "Persons with sensitive skin should abstain from alcohol.""
The phrase ?abstain from alcohol? clearly does not negate the same action in both sentences. From the context of the former we would understand that the pregnant woman was being instructed not to drink beverages containing alcohol. We would not understand the statement to mean that she couldn?t use alcohol as a topical antiseptic or in a cosmetic. From the context of the latter, we would understand that the man with sensitive skin was being instructed not to apply alcohol directly to his skin. We would not understand the statement to mean that he couldn?t drink beverages containing it. When the ?abstain? phrase has not context it all, it becomes meaningless. What would the unadorned phrase, ?abstain from alcohol? mean without a context? It could mean not to drink beverages containing it or it could mean not to use it as a topical antiseptic, or it could mean both, or it could mean neither. Without a context it might not have any application in a medical setting at all, since the phrase ?abstain from alcohol? could just as easily mean ?Abstain from using it around an open flame.? There is no way to tell.
The point to all this is that an "abstain from" phrase cannot be divorced from the context which completes it and invoked as an independent construction as you have done with the phrase, "abstain from blood."
I'm not the best communicator in the world and perhaps I am still not explaining this clearly enough for you. What follows is an excerpt from the book, Jehovah's Witnesses Defended An Answer to Scholars and Critics which may make more sense:
First Century culture and the context of the Decree. In reading the command to "abstain....from blood" it is clear that something is missing: a verb. The Decree does not come right out and say, "abstain from drinking or eating blood." Yet, a verb of some kind is needed to complete the thought. For example, if I were to day "abstain from paint" it might be understood from the context of my statement that I am referring to "inhaling" paint due to its noxious and possibly lethal effect. Or, I might be referring to "touching" paint as it could ruin your new suit! Of course, I would probably phrase my statement a bit differently, perhaps no using "abstain" at all. But I am using it here to illustrate how a verb is needed to complete the thought and how this verb could and would be understood from the context of the Decree." (p. 433)
The JW's themselves in some of their more lucid moments have acknowledged the act implicit in the context several times over the years:
?Each time the prohibition of blood is mentioned in the Scriptures it is in connection with taking it as food, and so it is as a nutrient that we are concerned with in its being forbidden. Thus when mankind for the first time was permitted to eat the flesh of animals, at the time of the restatement of the procreation mandate to the Deluge survivors, blood was specifically forbidden. (Gen. 9:3, 4) In the law of Moses blood was forbidden as food, and therefore we repeatedly find it linked with fat as things not to be eaten. (Lev. 3:17; 7:22-27) And so also in the days of the apostles; it was in connection with eating meat sacrificed to idols that the eating of strangled animals and blood was forbidden.?Acts 15:20, 29.? The Watchtower September 15, 1958 p. 575 (Emphasis mine)
More recently, the JW Bible dictionary, "Insight On The Scriptures" has stated:
"The decision then made was that circumcision was not required for Gentile believers but that they should keep free from idolatry, from eating and drinking of blood, and from sexual immorality. Insight Volume II, "Paul" p. 587
As I mentioned earlier, the missing verb appears as an interpolation in a number of dynamic equivalent and paraphrased translations:
"abstain from food that has been offered to idols, from tasting blood, from the flesh of animals that have been strangled, and from sexual vice."
Moffatt "eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood; eat no animal that has been strangled; and keep yourselves from immorality."
Today's English Version"avoid what has been sacrificed to idols, tasting blood, eating the meat of what has been strangled and sexual immorality."
Phillip's Modern English"You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or eating the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality."
New Living Translation"Do only what is necessary by keeping away from food sacrificed to false gods, from eating bloody meat, from eating the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual sins."
God's Word Bible ?But you should not eat anything offered to idols. You should not eat any meat that still has the blood in it or any meat of any animal that has been strangled. You must also not commit any terrible sexual sins."
Contemporary English Version"That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from [tasting] blood and from [eating the meat of animals] that have been strangled and from sexual impurity."
The Amplified Bible"You are to keep away from everything that has been given to gods. Do not eat blood or meat from animals that have been killed in ways against the Law. Keep away from sex sins"
New Life Version"You must not eat food that has been given to idols. You must not eat the meat of animals that are killed by choking. You must not taste blood. You must not commit adultery. If you keep away from these things, you will do well. Goodbye."
The Bible in Worldwide EnglishYou have brought up a couple of non sequitors:
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.
Surely you must realize that the technical viability of the procedure has nothing to do either with its scriptural propriety or the soundness of your analogy.
In my wife's congregation there is a girl with one kidney. This kidney was donated by her father when she was 12 years old. She is now in her early 20's and recently married. Although she has taken and will continue to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life, this kidney is still functioning as a kidney. If it were not, she would have died many years ago.
It should be apparent therefore, that there is a basic and fundamental difference between eating another human's kidney and receiving it as a transplant. There is no basis for comparing the transplant of living tissue in a manner consistent with its design purpose with the taking of a substance (e.g. A medication) that is metabolized by the body no matter how it is administered.
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.
First, the Jews do not use this prohibition as an excuse to justify causing the death of innocents as the JW's have done with blood. They recognize that God's requirement to preserve life contravenes Kashrut. Therefore there is no danger of incurring what the JW's refer to as "bloodguilt" by the additions they have made to the Law
Secondly, what is normative in other religions is neither here nor there when it comes to the legitimacy of the JW transfusion medicine taboo. The JW's like most other Christian religions never miss an oppurtunity to criticize both the Jews and the Oral Tradition. Therefore neither you nor they would really be justified in using it to excuse their own actions. If the JW's want to establish this doctrine using the Bible alone, (As I believe they do) then their options are really limited to only two:
1. Prove that transfusion is prohibited in the Bible2. Prove that transfusion is equivalent to something that is prohibited in the Bible