Holly, just a side note, but blood is considered connective tissue, not an organ.
…for more silky smooth segways, write to “silky smooth segways” 610 n 10th street, Albuquerque NM 87109.
It seems to me that questions such as the OP here are raised because of the distinctive nature of the Witnesses’ doctrines:
Refusal to accept blood transfusions or abortion.
Refusal to participate in politics.
Abandonment of primary dopctrines of mainstream churches: a triune God, eternal fiery torture in hell, and an immortal human soul.
Observance of man-made laws where they don’t conflict with God’s laws.
In the spirit of Mark Twain’s maxim at the start of Chapter 15 in Pudd’nhead Wilson–that nothing needs correction more than the habits and preferences of others–it’s clear to me that many among the Teeming Millions would prefer that the Witnesses abandon their religion and be like everyone else. (This reminds me of my drunkard stepfather, who wanted my brothers and me to be drunkards too. If the shoe fits, wear it.)
“It’s clear to me that dougie_monty would prefer that murderers abandon their convictions and be like everyone else.”
The issue, dougie, is not freedom of religion. The issue is parental responsibilities, and protecting the rights of others.
As soon as you say that it’s perfectly acceptable to KILL (or allow people to be killed) in the name of how a few people (not even close to a majority) interpret some theological texts, you are saying that we should just let Muslim extremist terrorists and Fundamentalist Christian abortion doctor killers off the hook because, after all, freedom of religion is important. :rolleyes:
As soon as your freedom of religion starts to impact others, especially negatively, then the rights of those who are affected take presedence, just as the right to yell “Fire” does not extend itself to a crowded theater.
Yer pal,
Satan
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Somehow a reply from a Doper who calls himself “Satan” is not convincing nor does it inspire agreement or contrition.
You may remember the example of the ancient Spartans, who took babies from their parents and kept them segregated until the age of about 60 (my original source, Virgil Hillyer, A Child’s History of the World, 1960).
Supposedly this ensured that the city-state Sparta would be invincible; but nobody told this to the Athenians, who defeated the Spartans anyway.
Parents are responsible before God for how they rear their children. If the Witnesses’ doctrine in this matter doesn’t suit you, well, that’s not my headache.
**
Nice ad hominem. I was unaware that my name had anything to do with this debate.
**
And this has what to do with the issue in America in the here and now?
It’s not that it doesn’t suit me. It is that it doesn’t suit the people who are DYING! If a parent endangers the welfare ald life of their children in the name of anything, this does not excuse them.
As I said, freedom of religion is paramount, but when you start infringing on other people’s freedoms, and allowing this freedom to get in the way of your responsibilities, such as raising your kid in a manner which is condusive to allowing the kid to not BE a kid and GROW UP!
You also failed to comment on what I said about how your reasoning means that abortion doctor-killers and Islamic terrorists are perfectly justified because their religious convictions mean more than man’s laws, which is exactly what you said.
I guess you were too busy looking at my user name than to actually try and take on something I asserted in the debate, huh… :rolleyes:
Yer pal,
Satan
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Dougie-Monty said:
That’s the best you can do? Attack his handle? Well, that says a lot about your argument right there…
(I used to go by the handle of “Crackpot.” When somebody would say something like, “What should I expect from somebody called Crackpot?” I knew I’d won the debate. So did everybody else who was reading the forum. Indeed, that’s one reason I used the handle.)
Does this mean that I won, David?
Wow! I ain’t never won anything before! You like me! You really, really like me!
I’d like to thank the academy, without whom…
Yer pal,
Satan
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All right, all right–I probably should not have used such an argumentum ad hominem comment. I still stand by my positing against transfusions; nobody has more to lose than the children themselves and their parents.
And, to respond to an earlier objection, yeah, I know transfusions are not mentioned in Scripture. So what? The Bible doesn’t mention automatic weapons, hit-and-run driving, securities fraud, nuclear warfare, or even Internet hackers–that doesn’t mean the precepts of the Bible would condone such things. Nor does the Bible say you shouldn’t shovel your dog’s droppings into your neighbor’s yard! By the Scriptures I have cited in this thread, the Bible doesn’t condone blood transfusion either.
I will ask for the third time:
What about Islamic terrorists who kill innocent people in the name of a jihad they feel is mandated by Allah?
What about the Christian who murders an abortion doctor because of “God’s laws” as mandated in the Bible which need to be enforced?
If you are saying the the religious freedoms in this country allows a parent to put their child in danger, don’t they also protect these people?
I see no way you can say no to this and remain consistant. And if you say yes, then I really do feel you are in the wrong country.
Yer pal,
Satan
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Danger: long rant to follow.
Genesis 9:3-7 says 3 things:
first, it’s okay to eat meat as long as it does not have its soul, or blood, still in it. In other words, don’t eat an animal that is still alive. In various cultures, in various times, it has been common for people to carve steaks from living animals to keep the rest of the meat fresh for later use. This verse is quite clearly emphasizing the sanctity of life, not the magical mysterious holiness of a body fluid.
It wouldn’t make sense for God to say, “Eat meat only if there’s no blood (literally, blood) in it” because all meat contains quite a bit of blood, even when the animal has been bled to death beforehand. If God didn’t want people to eat blood, he would not permit them to eat meat at all. About 50% of the blood remains in the meat.
Secondly, this passage warns against shedding blood (murder). Murderers shall be put to death. Again, this deals with the sanctity of life.
Third, this covenant with Noah requires that Noah and his descendants be fruitful and multiply. JW’s do not follow this command; they do not prohibit birth control. On the contrary, the Watchtower has often warned its followers to defer such things as marriage and childbearing, since the end is so near. (They’ve been saying this for over 100 years, but the most recent official date the Watchtower gave was 1975- although less officially, the Watchtower strongly hinted that the end would come before the year 2000. After dozens of false prophecies, the Watchtower apparently learned a lesson and now simply says it’ll be real darn soon.)
The verses in Leviticus are dietary regulations, binding on the Jewish people under Mosaic law. Of course, Jesus was supposed to have freed everyone from having to follow those pesky Jewish traditions. The early church was divided between Jewish Christians and gentile Christians. There was a major controversy: were they still required to follow all those rules, or not?
To help resolve the conflict, James repeated the regulations found in Leviticus 17 and 18, asking the gentiles to follow these as a bare minimum to make them tolerable to their Jewish Christian counterparts. These rules were the ones listed in Leviticus that were binding on gentiles living in Israel. This did much to placate the Jews, who were adamant that the gentile Christians should submit to circumcicion. (Requiring all new converts to get circumcised would have put a damper on the new religion’s popularity.)
Anyway, the JW doctrine is pretty hypocritical. As time goes by, the Watchtower Society changes its stance, allowing more and more blood components to be acceptable. Much of this makes no sense whatsoever. For example, blood plasma is forbidden, but the individual components of plasma are allowed. Hemophiliacs are allowed their Factor VIII, even though this requires a pool of blood from thousands of donors.
Decisions on which components to allow and which to forbid are based on how much of the component is present in whole blood. This is why Factor VIII is allowed: it’s such a tiny fraction. Ironically, the Watchtower uses the threat of blood-borne diseases (hepatitis, AIDS) as evidence that God disapproves of transfusion, but a JW hemophiliac who is allowed a dose of Factor VIII is being exposed to 2,500 blood donors per dose (by the Watchtower’s own admission, in the June 15, 1985 edition). A person who receives a forbidden unit of packed cells is at much, much smaller risk.
Albumin is allowed, even though it contains about 1% leukocytes, which are forbidden. Immunizations that are made from blood components are now tentatively allowed, whereas all immunizations were forbidden in the past. Organ donation was forbidden for the same reasons blood is forbidden today, but now transplants are allowed.
Human breast milk contains more of those forbidden leukocytes by volume than whole blood, but hypocritically breastfeeding is not condemned. As has already been noted, JW’s are not forbidden to eat meat, which is also hypocritical.
What about the unborn babys that are aborted every year? Theres no way you can agree with supporting prosecution of parents who do this and mothers and doctors who abort babies.
Hoow nice that I’m not at the LBMB now, because I can say exactly what I feel…
Look up “baby” in a dictionary, asshole. Abortion has nothing to do with babies. It has to do with an adult person with a blob of congealing cells and blood which has the potential to become a baby, but is not one yet.
If you wish to start an abortion thread, feel free. Do not compare a breathing, thinking, feeling human being with a blob that needs a breathing, thinking, feeling human being in oorder to become a breathing, thinking and feeling human bing.
In nicer terms: Straw Man.
And abortion - whether your personal morality says it shouldn’t be or not - is perfectly legal. Terrorism and killing doctors who perform abortions is not. Just because you think that a blob has the same rights as an actual human does not make it so. Sorry.
I repeat - Feel free to bring this up in another thread, but it has nothing to do with this - on several levels - so do not bring it up again here, please.
Yer pal,
Satan
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[Moderator Hat ON]
Um, not quite. Don’t call anyone an “asshole” in GD, please. I seem to recall seeing a moderator on another board say “profanity is the last refuge of a beaten person.” Perhaps you should take those words to heart. 
Congrats on one week smoke-free, by the way. I wish you success in your endeavor.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
So in an entire post I say one little word which really isn’t even that bad, and you have to call me out. Uh huh. Whatever… :rolleyes:
Yer pal,
Satan
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[Moderator Hat ON]
Satan, I “call out” people for saying “idiot” and “moron”, let alone “asshole”–which I consider worse than the first two. You’re not being singled out; direct personal insults are not allowed in GD, and never have been. I’m sure you could find times when David and I have missed an insult in a GD post, but we do try to catch all of them. If you have further comments about my moderating, start a thread in the Pit or take it to email, please.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
All right, I was wrong to ignore this question posed to me:
In reference to the first point, I would he hard put to find a passage in the Koran–let alone the Bible–justifying “holy wars,” which to me is an oxymoron. (Any Muslims among the Teeming Millions may reply with passages from the Koran, which have been used, or may have been used, for this purpose.)
I certainly don’t condone the “murder of an abortion doctor,” although I most certainly oppose abortion–which to me is the pound of cure. (If you want to take this topic up with me, start another thread.) Unless I am mistaken, God is quoted in Romans (12:17-21) as saying, “Vengeance is Mine; I shall repay.” (Emphasis added.)
And while we’re talking about parents allegedly putting their children in danger, how about blood transfusion itself? I would venture to say that blood, far from being conveniently divided into groups O, A, B, AB, or RH negative and Rh positive, is as individual as the person–hey, isn’t there DNA in blood? A person’s DNA is as individual as his fingerprints. [sarcasm]And may Witnesses’ children have been taken from their parents, given blood anyway, and brought back dead. 
Science marches on. [/sarcasm]
Blood transfusion is not without risk. No medical treatment, from brain surgery to taking a single aspirin, is without risk. The risks are weighed: if a child can easily survive without a transfusion, a doctor will not force the issue to the point of asking the state to intervene.
The fact remains that sometimes transfusion IS necessary to save a life. In this case, the risk of complications from the transfusion is dwarfed by the risk of NOT having one. There is no substitute for blood.
What are you saying here, exactly? Rarely, a person may have a transfusion reaction. I have not personally seen this, though I have administered thousands upon thousands of units of blood to patients. I have, however, seen JW’s die after refusing a transfusion. (As an aside, red blood cells have no nucleus and thus no chromosomes and no DNA.) Furthermore, the Watchtower Society allows several components of blood to be transfused- why are these components any different than the forbidden ones?
If the child is sick enough to require a transfusion, he needs one right away. Say your child is in an accident, has multiple injuries, and loses a perilous amount of blood. The delay caused by having to wait for the state to make a judgement can be enough to kill that child. Have you ever heard of the “golden hour” in trauma? It’s more like the “golden thirty minutes”.
Some patients die despite having blood transfusions. Some patients die because they don’t get a blood transfusion in time. This does not mean that the blood transfusion caused the death.
I’m curious as to your opinion about the Watchtower Society’s hypocritical stance on blood. Why, if blood transfusion is against Jehovah’s commands, are hemophiliacs allowed to accept Factor VIII? Why do you suppose the Society reversed its stance on organ transfusion? Why are many blood components permitted, but others not?
Reversed its stance on organ TRANSPLANTS, duh.
Why ask me? Whay not ask them?
I know what the Watchtower Society’s stance is on blood. I’m curious as to why anyone would follow this doctrine when cursory research shows it to be false and hypocritical.