? for Jehovah's Witnesses---Eating Blood

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Ben johnson

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I watched a re-run of a "PRACTICE" episode---concerning a comatose patient who needed a transfusion to live. Her mother, a Jehovah's Witness, protested---so they went to court.

I have looked in my gadget "pocket computer Bible" (wish it wasn't NIV), and have read the verses that say, "don't eat blood".

I am a carnivor---I eat meat. Beef, ham, chicken, fish. The color of especially beef, is the color of blood. The color comes from red-blood-cells in the meat. It is impossible to remove every last trace of blood from the meat.

I am assuming that Jehovah's Witnesses are also carnivorous, "meat-eaters". Yet, if so, they seem to understand that one can NOT remove every last speck of blood from the protein they eat---they are therefore, in actual fact, eating blood. But it seems clear that the INTENT of the Scripture is still being upheld---they "eat blood as little as possible".

Cut to the "loved-one-in-the-hospital". The loved one after a major surgery, or a traumatic injury. The loved one that needs blood. Is a transfusion, "EATING"? Eating by definition is consumption by mouth, first action by diastase & amilase, then enzymatic reduction in the stomach by hydrochloric-activated pepsin. Absorption by the intestinal villa, finally expulsion of unabsorbed remnants. I cannot understand how "transfusion" is "eating blood".

OK, here is my question: If it is accepted to suspend the hard rule of "EATING BLOOD", for the purpose of DINNER (because the underlying principle is still upheld), why then is a Jehovah's witness required to WATCH THEIR FAMILY MEMBER DIE, rather than to EQUALLY suspend the rule of "eating blood", which still would uphold the underlying principle?

In other words, "why is a full stomach of so much more value than a wife, or a son or daughter?"

My most humble apologies if I have offended anyone---this is a sincere question, I meant no harm nor offense...
 

OldShepherd

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Originally posted by Ben johnson
I watched a re-run of a "PRACTICE" episode---concerning a comatose patient who needed a transfusion to live. Her mother, a Jehovah's Witness, protested---so they went to court.

I have looked in my gadget "pocket computer Bible" (wish it wasn't NIV), and have read the verses that say, "don't eat blood".

I am a carnivor---I eat meat. Beef, ham, chicken, fish. The color of especially beef, is the color of blood. The color comes from red-blood-cells in the meat. It is impossible to remove every last trace of blood from the meat.

I am assuming that Jehovah's Witnesses are also carnivorous, "meat-eaters". Yet, if so, they seem to understand that one can NOT remove every last speck of blood from the protein they eat---they are therefore, in actual fact, eating blood. But it seems clear that the INTENT of the Scripture is still being upheld---they "eat blood as little as possible".

Cut to the "loved-one-in-the-hospital". The loved one after a major surgery, or a traumatic injury. The loved one that needs blood. Is a transfusion, "EATING"? Eating by definition is consumption by mouth, first action by diastase & amilase, then enzymatic reduction in the stomach by hydrochloric-activated pepsin. Absorption by the intestinal villa, finally expulsion of unabsorbed remnants. I cannot understand how "transfusion" is "eating blood".

OK, here is my question: If it is accepted to suspend the hard rule of "EATING BLOOD", for the purpose of DINNER (because the underlying principle is still upheld), why then is a Jehovah's witness required to WATCH THEIR FAMILY MEMBER DIE, rather than to EQUALLY suspend the rule of "eating blood", which still would uphold the underlying principle?

In other words, "why is a full stomach of so much more value than a wife, or a son or daughter?"

My most humble apologies if I have offended anyone---this is a sincere question, I meant no harm nor offense...
My God knows the beginning from the end and He knows the difference between eating blood, as was and is, a widespread pagan practice, for the purported purpose of attaining some of the characteristics of the animal whose blood is being eaten, and receiving a blood transfusion for medical purposes. I guess the god of the JWs doesn't/didn't know the difference.

I recently read a different JW view. What they call new light. The Bible states that the blood is the life, and that is why it is not to be eaten. Giving a transfusion to another person you are supposedly giving them life and only God can give life. But again God never changes, didn't God know about transfusions way back then and could have specifically mentioned it? A transfusion is not eating.
 
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Ben johnson

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The Bible states that the blood is the life, and that is why it is not to be eaten. Giving a transfusion to another person you are supposedly giving them life and only God can give life.
But---if the GIVER remains ALIVE, then the life was not GIVEN, was it?

And they accept medicine (apart from transfusions)---does not medicine keep one from sickening and dying? Is not medicine therefore, "giving life"?

I still would like to hear one-who-holds-to Jehovah's Witness, answer the question about "eating meat"---it is impossible to eat meat without eating a little blood. How is that acceptable, but not to save your loved-one's life?

(Good reply, Oldshepherd...)
 
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Evee

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I studied for a time with Jehovah's witness and attended the kingdom hall.

 I believe they think of blood transfusions as an intravenous feeding.

 They say drain the meat of blood and wash well.

 Still there is blood.

 Could they mean purposefully eat or drink blood?

 I hear blood pudding is made of blood. 

 Yuck!

Also do the Jehovah's witness accept anothers organs such as heart or liver etc?

 I never attended long enough to know this or not.
 
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LightBearer

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Originally posted by Ben johnson

I am a carnivor---I eat meat. Beef, ham, chicken, fish. The color of especially beef, is the color of blood. The color comes from red-blood-cells in the meat. It is impossible to remove every last trace of blood from the meat.

I am assuming that Jehovah's Witnesses are also carnivorous, "meat-eaters". Yet, if so, they seem to understand that one can NOT remove every last speck of blood from the protein they eat---they are therefore, in actual fact, eating blood. But it seems clear that the INTENT of the Scripture is still being upheld---they "eat blood as little as possible".

Cut to the "loved-one-in-the-hospital". The loved one after a major surgery, or a traumatic injury. The loved one that needs blood. Is a transfusion, "EATING"? Eating by definition is consumption by mouth, first action by diastase & amilase, then enzymatic reduction in the stomach by hydrochloric-activated pepsin. Absorption by the intestinal villa, finally expulsion of unabsorbed remnants. I cannot understand how "transfusion" is "eating blood".



God did not demand taking fanatical measures to drain the blood. By taking reasonable steps of drainage, his servants could manifest respect for the significance of blood. (Deuteronomy 12:15, 16, 21-25) Animal blood could be used in a sacrificial way on the altar, but it was not to be eaten. Deliberate violation was punishable by death, for God's people were told: "You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off." So by complying with God's command to drain the blood to the best of thier abilities (That is the life blood contained in the arteries not the residual blood in the tissue) they were showing respect for his law. Not to have bothered would have shown total disrespect. Leviticus 17:10-14.

The Bible comands that we ABSTAIN from blood.  "Hence my decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, 20 but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood". Acts 15:19-20.

In a hospital, when a patient cannot eat through his mouth, he is fed intravenously. Now, would a person who never put blood into his mouth but who accepted blood by transfusion really be obeying the command to "keep abstaining from . . . blood"? (Acts 15:29) To use a comparison, consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient to or complying with the doctors request if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?
 
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OldShepherd

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Originally posted by LightBearer
The Bible comands that we ABSTAIN from blood.  "Hence my decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, 20 but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood". Acts 15:19-20.

In a hospital, when a patient cannot eat through his mouth, he is fed intravenously. Now, would a person who never put blood into his mouth but who accepted blood by transfusion really be obeying the command to "keep abstaining from . . . blood"? (Acts 15:29) To use a comparison, consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient to or complying with the doctors request if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?
Your analogy breaks down on several levels. First the Dr is NOT God so he is not giving commandents but medical advice. Alcohol is a foreign substance, blood is NOT! Alcohol is a depressant, taken directly into the circulatory system it will kill the person. Blood does NOT kill. I could go on but you aren't reading anyway.

Let's go back to my original question. Does God know the difference between eating food and blood as a medical procedure? And did He know that when He commanded Moses to write the law? God did NOT say do not take blood in any form but said do NOT eat.
 
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LightBearer

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Originally posted by OldShepherd
Your analogy breaks down on several levels. First the Dr is NOT God so he is not giving commandents but medical advice. Alcohol is a foreign substance, blood is NOT! Alcohol is a depressant, taken directly into the circulatory system it will kill the person. Blood does NOT kill. I could go on but you aren't reading anyway.

Let's go back to my original question. Does God know the difference between eating food and blood as a medical procedure? And did He know that when He commanded Moses to write the law? God did NOT say do not take blood in any form but said do NOT eat.

Someone elses blood is a foriegn substance.  It's actually a tissue transplant with immune responses such as hemolytic transfusion reaction. This is a severe immunologic reaction that may occur acutely or in a delayed fashion some days after the transfusion; it may result in acute [kidney] failure, shock, intravascular coagulation, and even death."

Transfused blood passes on many diseases of the the donor some of which are fatal such as AIds, Hepititus.  Then there's syphilis, cytomegalovirus infection, and malaria, herpes virus infections, infectious mononucleosis (Epstein-Barr virus), toxoplasmosis, trypanosomiasis [African sleeping sickness and Chagas' disease], leishmaniasis, brucellosis [undulant fever], typhus, filariasis, measles, salmonellosis, and Colorado tick fever."

According to U.S.News & World Report, about 5 percent of those given blood in the United States get hepatitis 175,000 people a year. About half become chronic carriers, and at least 1 in 5 develop cirrhosis or cancer of the liver. It is estimated that 4,000 die. Imagine the headlines you would read if a jumbo jet crashed, killing all aboard. But 4,000 deaths amount to a full jumbo jet crashing every month!

Actually, the list of such diseases is growing. You may have read headlines such as "Lyme Disease From a Transfusion? It's Unlikely, but Experts Are Wary." How safe is blood from someone testing positive for Lyme disease? A panel of health officials were asked if they would accept such blood. "All of them answered no, although no one recommended discarding blood from such donors." How should the public feel about banked blood that experts themselves would not accept.

Moreover, a specialist in infectious diseases warned: "The blood supply may have to be screened to prevent transmission of several disorders that were not previously considered infectious, including leukemia, lymphoma, and dementia [or Alzheimer's disease]." Transfusion Medicine Reviews.
 
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Ben johnson

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The Bible comands that we ABSTAIN from blood. "Hence my decision is not to trouble those from the nations who are turning to God, 20 but to write them to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood". Acts 15:19-20.

In a hospital, when a patient cannot eat through his mouth, he is fed intravenously. Now, would a person who never put blood into his mouth but who accepted blood by transfusion really be obeying the command to "keep abstaining from . . . blood"? (Acts 15:29) To use a comparison, consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient to or complying with the doctors request if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?
Thanx for your reply. :)

I understand about the "abstaining from blood"---those heathens ate it for the sake of eating it. But the mandate is still honored by one who eats meat, and unavoidably ingests a little blood along with it---I'm just struggling to understand why the same "honoring-of-the-mandate" doesn't allow transfusions---when someone NEEDS a transfusion to survive, he is not "ingesting for the sake of ingesting", but rather making a choice to LIVE rather than to DIE. There was a REASON to direct them not to "eat blood"---mostly to be set apart from the heathens. I don't understand why a transfusion could not still honor that reason (just as the blood-eating-with-meat still honors the intent of the dictate)...

BTW, there are plenty of things given intravenously that are not, and can not, be given orally.

You are correct about the diseases transmitted---which makes me feel guilty. I have not donated blood, and I have a lifestyle void of sexual impurity and illegal drugs---I have no excuse for not donating (except a slight fear of the needles)...

Personally, I have never understood medical directions like, "Take one pill three times daily". Taking it the FIRST time is easy---but getting that silly pill BACK for the SECOND and the THIRD times, is MURDER...
I hear blood pudding is made of blood.

Yuck!
Evee---you would NOT make a good "Klingon"! Not with their coarse parties, blood wine...

:p
 
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Actually Lambslove, I am sure you passed along information you read or heard as the truth but it isn't. While I am not one of Jehovan't witnesses nor do I agree with all of their theologies I am quite familiar with their beliefs. Transplants have always been up to one's own concience. It has always been an individuals right to make their own decision on this matter unlike other practices which are restricted by the Governing Body and organization as a whole. I am not sure who you were making reference to as being one of their leading preachers???? They do not have such a thing but am assuming that maybe you were meaning one of the governing body members. But I assure you, there has never been a change in doctrine in the congregation over one of them needing a transplant. I am not defending them, nor am I saying blood is or isn't right. As far as I am concerned, that is a person's decision no different that it is a person right to choose an antibiotical treatment as opposed to surgery in the case of someone who has chronic tonsilitis. I just think that when one makes a judgement call on anyone, be it good or bad it should be based on fact. If you want to think they are hypocrits because they eat meat and don't take blood , that is your decision, but you can't judge them as bad because they changed major doctrine over the need of one man's transplant because it never happen.

Thanks.
 
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