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...
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...