Thinking

…. consider the time from the beginning of the first hemoglobin molecule metabolizing sugar and oxygen to Moses as preschool and kindergarten, but as soon as humanity learned to “do basic math”, figuratively speaking, bathe more or less regularly, and not poop in the middle of the tent it was time for God to introduce them to a new concept (for them) now that they had centuries of experience as a frame of reference to integrate with….
Now it was time for some more abstract concepts …. about life and death … about responsibilities to God …. about respect for God in a violent and crude world, and to teach the Jews basic background information about how in the future the blood of one man was so valuable that God would accept such a simple thing to rescue the entire human race that respected that blood.
Sorta like once you have the 12x12=144 table down pat …. going on to Algebra I.
 

I’m sad to hear this.

Well it’s one of them..do you want me to find four more…

I've weighed in on the blood issue discussions before, but I don't feel competent to add anything of value. Just opinions. Miles seems to have given it more thought and had more direct experience with it, so I'm glad to hear him out.
It happens too rarely these days but now and then someone stops by ready to share and discuss information in more depth on a topic. I'm always happy for that even if I end up with nothing to offer, or end up being unconvinced about a position, because I always learn something.
I'm not sure exactly what Miles' position is but I'd like to go back and catch up with what's going on in this topic.
And why is the blood topic in a discussion that started out about Malawi anyway?

No one here seems to have fully grasped the fundamental explanation behind why Scripture offers guidance in Genesis 9:3-4 and Acts 15:20. It surprises me that, despite discussing the topic extensively, no one has realized the importance of correctly interpreting Scripture considering the actual living conditions of both the ancient Israelites and the Jews under Roman rule.
Once again, the term "butcher" is relevant. What would become of an animal following a sacrifice? While it may seem implausible to some, those of us familiar with the customs of that era would recognize that the animal would be taken to a butcher for processing.
Therefore, in many cultures that offered animal sacrifices to their Gods, which were not in accordance with the Israelites' norms (Mosaic Law), it was common for the blood to remain inside the animal.
The Roman Gods were subject to the same rule. Hence, the Jews were similarly required to refrain from consuming blood that had been strangled. This ensured transparency regarding the source of meat sold in open markets. Nevertheless, the New Testament provided a more detailed explanation for this practice.
This is the crucial point where spiritual maturity becomes essential, highlighting the undeniable importance of possessing reasoning skills for those who are witnesses, both here and beyond.
The moral of the stories should be: What can spiritual Israel learn from the outward appearance of God's people?
Even though the Israelites and Jews may have abandoned their sacrifices, it would be a big assumption to believe that "all" Jews were honest, as other cultures continued to practice sacrifice. This is an important point to consider.

An Elder had a similar experience with his daughter. The doctors persuaded my dear friend to give his daughter an operation to correct a spinal defect. They assured him and his wife of decades of dedication to Jehovah that the operation was routine. They agreed to the process. When they started the operation a complication unfolded, they immediately came out encouraging the parents to accept a blood transfusion to level the blood loss. The heart of parents losing their 15-year-old daughter came to a realization, and they agreed to that life-saving procedure, a parent's will or faith. 
They gave the daughter over 30 units of blood and despite all that, she died at the table. 

Some expected me to. I caught some flak next morning from one of the boy’s hometown elders. I didn’t answer then as I would today—that they should have been there themselves if they were concerned about his outcome. I just knew at the time with this unknown teen that if he hadn’t formed a stand by now it was a little late to start just then, or for me to encourage that.
Then, of course, adding to my prior answer to Many Miles, there was the time I was admitted myself for a sudden onset of pain and they advised surgery come Monday morning. I made clear at least twice how I felt about blood and was told, ‘Not a problem, easily accommodated, we do it all the time. Just sign here and here.’ Then, on the operating table, in comes the anesthesiologist who says, ‘I see you’re a Witness. If it should turn out that you need a transfusion, will you accept one? Or would you rather die?’
The experience is in ‘Tom Irregardless and Me,’ where it was attributed to Wayne Whitepebble. But it was really me.

I agree. But you characterized the occurrence as "occasional". How many times need I ask to get an answer of what you mean by that? If you can't quantify it then how to do characterize it as you have? So what does your characterization mean? 
Fight? Not hardly. I don't care a wit one way or another. I'm just asking a legit question. If you don't want to answer then just don't answer.

I have known three people in my lifetime who were told, point blank, and without much empathy, that they would die without a blood transfusion. None agreed to one. None died. One of them was a teen backed by her parents. 
I realize that some persons have died, as you’ve indicated. I have just never personally known of one.
I also recall being asked to visit a teen from some rural congregation who had been in an accident and was being advised a transfusion was necessary. His mom was a Witness, his dad was not. I went with the idea that if this lad, who I did not know, wished for no transfusion, I would back him in his wish.  He did not indicate any such desire and he was transfused. I do not know what became of him afterwards. The experience was awkward and uncomfortable for me, not knowing any of the people involved. 
The closest experience with blood that I know, not exactly what you have asked,  is of a nearby couple whose son had a defective heart from birth. The local hospitals would not agree to operate without blood. His parents took him to a hospital out of state that specialized in bloodless medicine, where the heart was repaired without incident. Several years later the problem (or a new one) returned. This time, neither the local hospital nor the bloodless one held out much hope. Parents took him to the hospital that had operated the first time, and he died. Sorry, I don’t have the specifics of exactly what his defect was.
The husband was not a believer when these trials began. He acquiesced to his wife’s stance. The support he received from the friends at the faraway hospital made such an impression upon him that he later became a Witness, and was one at the time of the child’s second operation. He has remained steadfast in the faith and serves as an elder today.
Another elder who I don’t know well—his youngest suffered some malady and hospitals wanted transfusions. They held firm and the boy is well today, with what treatment I forget, but the man recalled to me his anguish at the time that his son might die “to no purpose.”

Sometimes, when you read something, or somebody tells you something, it makes perfect sense. Other times you get the uneasy feeling it’s somewhere somehow you were being observed through binoculars by a duck.
…. there is an actual Latin word for this, but it escapes me at the moment.
You probably remember the scripture that says, paraphrased, “… you must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk .…”.  The instant I read this scripture, many years ago, I understood why God would command such a thing, and I wholeheartedly agreed with it at the same level of seriousness that I instantly understood that it was intended.
Occasionally over the past 50 years, in discussing other subjects, I would mention that commandment, and was genuinely stunned that others did not also instantly “get it”. It made no sense to them. If you are going to KILL an animal for food … what’s the big deal how you cook it?
The younger animal is food. The mother’s milk is food. What’s the big deal? Neither one knows or is capable of comprehending WHAT is done with their being a resource.
Just as soldiers become soldiers for dozens of different reasons, even among soldiers, sometimes what is a moral necessity for one is incomprehensible for another.
The SYMBOLIC (  … if you will, the SPIRITUAL …) value of blood is unique, because by example and by edict from God, it is a common theme that runs throughout the whole Bible. It’s clear that we have permission to use as food anything that walks, crawls, swims or flies, including (if you can overcome the strong CULTURAL taboos, like when Jerusalem was under siege) people … presumably bled out from war wounds. Some people would rather starve to death …. and have.
The prohibition against blood is consistent in principle throughout the entire Bible, but what convinced me was the example of King David, a soldier who slaughtered men and animals by the thousands … himself … personally … in hand to hand and eyeball to eyeball combat. When he in laying siege to a city remarked he was thirsty, and the only close by water was in a well near the city walls, two of his men risked their lives in a hail of arrows, spears, and rocks to bring him back a bucket of water. 
David did NOT drink the water. He poured it out on the ground, not because it was blood, or even blood fractions, but because it REPRESENTED the lives of his two soldiers, the EXACT same way that blood represents all air-breathing (pneuma=air) souls. 
In 1960, when I first read that, I instantly “got it”, the same way I instantly understood about the “boiling a kid in it’s mothers milk”.
That’s why, for me, it is just as much respect for the IDEA, or SYMBOLISM of respecting that which Jehovah God has clearly stated is his jealously guarded personal property, as well as actual blood.
Some people “get it”.
Some people don’t.

It is too easy to take the JW blood transfusion stand as an arbitrary concoction of their ‘top brass,’ imposed on everyone else for—who knows what reason? In this crazy world of ‘anticult activism,’ it can be spun as a technique of ‘controlling people:’ Lay a few conditions on others and there is no question as to who is boss.
That is why I like this quote from Professor of Anatomy at the University of Copenhagen, Thomas Bartholin. (1616-1680) Yes, it was a long time ago. Does that make it irrelevant? If anything, it makes it key. 
“Those who drag in the use of human blood for internal remedies of diseases appear to misuse it and to sin gravely . . . Cannibals are condemned. Why do we not abhor those who stain their gullet with human blood? Similar is the receiving of alien blood from a cut vein, either through the mouth or by instruments of transfusion. The authors of this operation are held in terror by the divine law, by which the eating of blood is prohibited,” he writes.
It is key because it shows the stand educated people took, at least some of them, before the occasional price that has been paid caused ‘the faithful’ to go all weak in the knees. Did Jehovah’s Witnesses make this stuff up about blood transfusions just to be ornery? No. Their stance was once the stance that immediately occurred to God-fearing persons such as this professor. I’d take him over that smart-ass GC philosophy professor any day.
The smart-ass philosophy professor—no question about it—leans heavily toward atheism, if not embracing it entirely. He consistently insists that ‘rationality’ must define all. He consistently insists that belief in God is ‘irrational.’ You can do it if you want—he gives his permission—but just don’t imagine you’re being ‘rational.’ To be sure, there are philosophies that would prohibit you, but they are as logically inconsistent as the ones that allow you, so he doesn’t know what to do until he has rationally settled the problem, a project that isn’t going too well, though that doesn’t phase him.
It makes a difference if you are atheist or not. Leaning toward atheism means that any loss of life is permanent and therefore must be averted at all costs. Exceptions are made for loss of life due to war, due to scientific or other exploration, even for extreme sports. For the latter, the deceased is likely, not to be derided as the idiot everyone else thinks he is, but to be lauded for having ‘lived life to the full,’ ‘following his dreams’ and so forth.  But if that dream has to do with religion—then and only then is such loss of life deemed near-criminal.
To be sure, atheists are not glib about loss of life. They endorse efforts to make war safer, for instance, by sending in drones to do the bombing, rather than soldiers who might get hurt. They make us all wear seatbelts when we drive. No spouse has ever nagged so much as my car nags me if I ride unbuckled—the alarm starts pleasantly enough but soon escalates to nuclear war alarm level that is well-nigh unbearable. Protective equipment, even concussion protocol, is devised for football athletes—no, not that silly game where you kick the ball around but can’t touch it with your hands, but the one where you can manhandle it and anyone with it pretty much anywhichway you like—violence comparable to rugby, I am told. They’ve made it safer. They even stopped the game when the Bills players dropped on the field and the ambulance came out to administer CPR before taking him away. It took about an hour, during which teammates crowded around so fans could not see the fellow being worked on, an hour during which the sports broadcasters had to uncomfortably tread water, but they did afterward call off the game and all the fans went home. They didn’t do as in Ancient Rome: ‘Another one bit the dust! Bring out the next combatant!’
Jehovah’s Witnesses have also made their Bible-based transfusion stand ‘safer’—not directly they haven’t, but by spurring on the advent of bloodless medicine, they have made holding fast far ‘safer’ than it used to be. From Tom Irregardless and Me: 
“The Watchtower organization never meant to kill a god; Witnesses just wanted him to leave them alone. We initially assumed when doctors told us we were crazy for refusing blood transfusions that we were, at least insofar as the present life is concerned. But each passing year has revealed our position to be more sound medically, and the transfusion god’s less. We never imagined doctors would ultimately expose transfusion as a sham and kill the god. It wasn’t our intention for that to happen. We don’t gloat about it. 
“To be sure, it hasn’t happened. The god of blood transfusion is not dead. He’s alive. But he’s not well. He’s limping where he once walked tall. He is like the god of churches that Sam Harris boasts he has killed. He’s respected so long as he stays in his place. But his place used to be anywhere he wanted it to be. He’ll be around for a long time because too many incomes depend upon him. But he’s not the god he once was.”
So the Witness transfusion policy on transfusion, like the above policies on other secular matters, is much safer than it once was. It is certainly far ‘safer’ than it was in Bartholin’s day, back when a godly person would instantly recognize that to misuse blood was to “sin gravely” and be “held in terror by the divine law.”
To the extent that this is true (I’m pretty sure it is, but I just don’t want to rubber-stamp it), it has not become a situation in which the prevailing view of transfusion has changed. It has become a situation in which HQ says it is not for them to enforce one’s compliance or non-compliance. They are moving more into the arena of ‘each one must carry his own load’ as opposed to ‘You’d better carry it; we’re watching you.’ It would be in perfect harmony with the revised stand ‘over counting time.’ It might be okay for the enforcer to verify that you count time, but not the shepherd. 
To the extent it is true, if someone caves on the blood issue due to cowardice, like Peter caved in denying his Lord and then later in the matter of partiality, it is between them and Jehovah. If someone ‘caves’ on this issue due to conviction, it is also between them and Jehovah. The shepherding organization may well assist, healing in the instance of cowardice, educating in the case of possibly misplaced conviction, but will otherwise stand aside and not meddle in the affairs of the ‘house slave’ of another. It is a win-win. Being a win-win, to continue to rail over transfusion beliefs begins to smack of ‘fighting against God.’ There they are, plain as day, according to Bartholin. The support organization has fixed the issue. What more could you ask for, other than usurping the power to resurrect? You’ll just have to wait on that for a while.

This is a good and just point…I do remember big question marks on this document and nobody really talked about it. I also remember asking the brother as to how I could have a study with someone and teach what I didn’t believe or was not sure of. He explained you could make the statement …this is what the society believes …which I did and obviously some would inquire as to what I believed ….then we hear instructions from the GB we are not allowed to say that or make that statement…
I can remember thinking…..yeah that’s just because they don’t want to be caught out if it was proved wrong….I still say it today…..
Unfortunately legalities often come into play.

That was a nice post…

I would say a lot has changed since then, you are talking about one select group of people ( Christ’s followers )who came out of the Jews who were up until Christ Gods chosen people. That’s it..two groups..
We now have a world of a huge amount of faiths that never existed back then…and what of the Indian faiths who seem to worship all gods..and what of the faiths who see no problem in kissing the cross as they go to war killing their own spiritual brothers…all of them love Jesus…you simplify or try to simplify something that is not at all simple….
Amongst ex Jews on line many of them had been very hurt…and there was this starting of what I now call the Jesus movement …amongst us…off course I understand the pain..I was there…but it’s simply not as easy as you paint it.
And yes we know it is only Jesus who will judge who is acceptable to his worship.
Seeee we JWs think the same as you…and I understand your scars..some have had to stop attending meetings for the sake of their mental health…and I’ve seen that with my own eyes…..personally I don’t think these things can be fixed until that New World Order can be hushered in….i don’t see any great relief in this old system…it shouldn’t be that way…but that just shows we need Jesus to rule totally..so we have to wait….and limp along the best we can.
As to the blood issue personally I can see how Jehovah views blood, so I understand why we abstain from it…let’s put aside the medical view of it but the satanic practices seem to all require the sacrifice and offering up of blood, ether that just be a killing or a killing a drinking of blood…take the era of vampire movies….satan has done all he can to encourage mankind to disrespect blood.

I would say a lot has changed since then, you are talking about one select group of people ( Christ’s followers )who came out of the Jews who were up until Christ Gods chosen people. That’s it..two groups..
We now have a world of a huge amount of faiths that never existed back then…and what of the Indian faiths who seem to worship all gods..and what of the faiths who see no problem in kissing the cross as they go to war killing their own spiritual brothers…all of them love Jesus…you simplify or try to simplify something that is not at all simple….
Amongst ex Jews on line many of them had been very hurt…and there was this starting of what I now call the Jesus movement …amongst us…off course I understand the pain..I was there…but it’s simply not as easy as you paint it.
And yes we know it is only Jesus who will judge who is acceptable to his worship.
Seeee we JWs think the same as you…and I understand your scars..some have had to stop attending meetings for the sake of their mental health…and I’ve seen that with my own eyes…..personally I don’t think these things can be fixed until that New World Order can be hushered in….i don’t see any great relief in this old system…it shouldn’t be that way…but that just shows we need Jesus to rule totally..so we have to wait….and limp along the best we can.
As to the blood issue personally I can see how Jehovah views blood, so I understand why we abstain from it…let’s put aside the medical view of it but the satanic practices seem to all require the sacrifice and offering up of blood, ether that just be a killing or a killing a drinking of blood…take the era of vampire movies….satan has done all he can to encourage mankind to disrespect blood.

When reading for pleasure my interests tend to be history and biographical. I like fiction on the big screen, especially science fiction. But fiction books were just never a thing for me.
If I'm not reading for pleasure the analytical part of me comes out. I work to keep it at bay. But sometimes I open my mouth, or keyboard the submit reply button without realizing I might be ruining someone's day for no reason.
I don't know much about your written works, but it sounds like you have fun with it. By itself that's reason enough to keep at it. Ignore people like me.

It is like when a man just returned from his day's work invited me into his home, in which he had several Bibles. I had stopped by previously; his wife said to return when he got home, for he loved to discuss God's Word.
He was a humble man, hospitable, instantly likeable, of just what church I forget. I made some points. He made some points. He invited me to a certain passage of scripture. He meant to read it aloud but I got there first and made to read it myself. 
"No, not you, don't you read it," he said, chuckling in good-natured faux panic. "You'll mess it all up!"

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/vaccinated-people-more-likely-to-suffer-blood-disorders-ear-disease-studies-5535789?utm_source=brightnoe&src_src=brightnoe&utm_campaign=bright-2023-12-04&src_cmp=bright-2023-12-04&utm_medium=email&est=BsdRb9gjAdO%2BBeMMXjqlceQtelgPeLGQ%2Fg20e1SK3I6j9lIOEWaXidFLDDo%3D
A bit extra on Covid shots and blood diseases ….

Was it? 
How is the following any more than a reasonable conclusion upon reflection of the article itself?
“The problem is that transfused blood needs nitric oxide to keep the blood vessels open, otherwise, the carried oxygen never reaches the tissues. But nitric oxide begins to break down within three hours of storage, and donated blood is presently stored up to 42 days. To be sure, researchers think they can remedy the problem. But that does nothing to improve the effectiveness of blood transfusions already given, each one of which was hailed as "life-saving," yet few of them actually qualifying as such, at least not any more so than saline solution, which offers no danger of rejection. We all know that the body spots foreign tissue in an instant, and tries hard to get rid of it.”
I mean, I get where you’re coming from. I make clear in the article that I am a Witness. That negates the commentary itself, which even acknowledges researchers aim to rectify the problem and perhaps partially have by now? This is the mindset with which, for example one reads something about an uncontrolled southern border and says, ‘Well—what do you expect? He’s a Republican who wrote it.’ Or one reads something about the abuses of big business and says, ‘He’s a Democrat. Of course he’s going to say that.’ 
This is example of the inane prejudging of information the greater world typifies today. The Great Courses philosophy professor does this in spades. Discussing climate change, he touches on the fact that many weatherman don’t believe it. ‘A meteorologist is not a climatogist,’ he tells us, thus equating anything the former might write to so much toilet paper. How did it get to be a world where people are brilliant in their chosen field, but if you nudge them just a tiny bit out of it, they are clueless? What Great Educator fallen from the heavens packages information this way? And why—unless he is also the Great College Administrator. Hehehe )))). 
If I refer frequently to this philosophy professor, it is because I can see he and his featuring prominently in any future book about Job and other theodicies that I may write, and I am getting a few licks in early. How should I present such a future book? If I include reference to Jehovah’s Witnesses in it, people will say, ‘Oh, that’s an apologetic work.’ But if I don’t, it will leave a gaping hole because the theodicy most coherent is that of Jehovah’s Witnesses. (with a possible nod to the Seventh Day Adventist writer) If I cover all the Witness theology, but don’t say where it came from, it’s as though to say it can be found anywhere—even though it can’t. It becomes like pointing the person seeking water in any random direction, unconcerned with whether I am pointing to the Sahara Desert. Moreover, if I cover the ‘theodicy’ without saying where it came from, I give the impression it came from myself! 
No. I will say it came from JWs. And guys like MM may say, ‘Oh, well, this book is an apologetic work. Why waste my time?’ But I cannot conscientiously do it any other way.

It gets worse. When I release any such book, not only with MM dismiss it because it is apologetical in nature, but my own people will say, ‘Hmm—are we supposed to be doing this? Isn’t it someone else’s job to write about God?’
It’s like when I fill out a skills list for use in building projects. I say I know how to clean. If I say I also know how to write, follow up remarks will reveal that my experience comes through blogging—a dirty word to most Witnesses. It is not as though anyone has said a person can’t do that. It is that no one has said that you can, (a dilemma known as Pudgy’s Razor) and so the thinking of most will be, ‘If it were worth doing, the org would be advancing and recommending it.’ Instead, they have cautioned of how ‘it is not necessary’ and ‘some indiscreet brothers’ have done it, leading others to conclude that ‘Thou Shalt Not Blog’ is the eleventh commandment. 
So, for me it is somewhat like @Juan Rivera, who has said he pays a social cost for being a Witness. Juan, too, could write some books, and may someday. But he will face the same dilemma, and already does in ways that are parallel. He would, if he were a Baptist, write a book about God. Baptist Press would promote it, and even say: ‘Look at this guy! A real thinker, he is, a theologian and one of ours!’ Whereas, when he writes as a Witness, he becomes that brother who is likable but a little odd and possibly one who should be given a wide berth. You can ‘beat the rap’ simply by being a good person in the congregation and out, but the notion that one should feel there is a rap to beat will unfailingly stick in the craw of those overly swayed by today’s age of independence.
For me, I will acquiesce and say, ‘That’s the way it is. Suck it up.’ If it is a downer, it is many-fold more times compensated for by other benefits that I perceive stem from being a Witness. When people unite, all must chip in a little. If they don’t, then the unity doesn’t happen. Is there a social cost to being a Witness and making oneself subject to the Witness’ organization? There is also a social cost to not doing it: 
Recently, we had people from Texas come into town to work on a Kingdom Hall remodel nearby and they needed a place to stay. Sight unseen, we handed them the keys to our house while we were heading away for a few days. Many people would kill for such a brotherhood where you can place such trust in total strangers. 
That happened. The following two paragraphs I made up:
At the Independence Day church, Mr. and Mrs. O’Reilly heard of our adventure and decided to do the same. The first guests who stayed at their house broke their TV. The second set of guests tracked mud throughout the house. The third set found the Go Packs and raided the funds set aside.  The fourth set emptied the house completely and the O’Reilly’s returned to four bare walls.
Steamed, they contacted Independence Day Church headquarters. “Oh, yeah, that happened to us, too. No, they’re not congregation members – they’re imposters. But we have such a half-assed organization that any scoundrel can pull the wool over our eyes in a twinkling of the eye.’
Notice how it is not a matter of rationality to prefer the Witness organization to the Independence Day church. It is more a matter of what one values more. ‘Taste and see that Jehovah is good,’ the verse says. I had previously witnessed to the O’Reillys extensively but upon hearing Jehovah has an earthly organization, they decided that tasted bad. They preferred the Independence Day Church, where no one will lean upon them in any way. If they have to buy a houseful of furniture once in a while, it is in their eyes a small price to pay. 
 

Exactly. That is why you sit in the penalty box for a while till they let you back in the game.
Many Miles all but blew a gasket when I pulled this illustration on him, but it is exactly what I would do if I had caved on this issue, either out of conviction or out of cowardice.
Of course, if it were out of conviction I caved, so that it was not really caving but standing on principle, and my conviction was such that since headship is misguided on this position, it is misguided in everything else as well, then I would not head for the penalty box. I would head directly to the showers. But most people are not such black-and-white thinkers. Even the Great Courses philosophy professor cited some research somewhere—I will look it up in time—to the effect that most persons are content with what is mostly true, a finding that seems to distress him because he thinks through philosophy he can discover what is absolutely true. Good luck on that project. 
His course of 36 lectures (let us estimate 5 per lecture, deducting the introductory and concluding lecture, to arrive at our count) considers 170 philosophies, some in detail, some in passing, and for each one he cites logical inconsistencies. Even as I write this, I know it cannot be as high as 170, but it is a lot.
He says: “Philosophy can be frustrating because it's so difficult to find concrete answers. For example, we just studied a number of ethical theories but each one failed in one way or the other. We didn't definitively define what's morally right and wrong and we certainly didn't find the truth makers for moral statements we were looking for.
Now this might tempt us to draw the conclusion that, just like with free will and persons and the mind, that morality is just an illusion. The reason that we can't find the ground for moral facts is because there are none, and that might be true however.”
Or . . .it just may be that he is looking in the wrong place for everything. It just may be that Zilch is the price he pays for confining his search to that of the ‘physical man.’ If he was to expand to the ‘spiritual man,’ it might be different, but he has consistently made a great show that everything must conform to ‘reason.’ He is not put off by his entire lecture, which sums up the entire body of philosophy, not finding any ‘reason’ that is consistent. 
Believe me, if this guy has a problem, it is not that his intellect fails to shine through. It’s that he should put a basket over it. He has confined his search to what is rational, to what is intellectually satisfying, and he will not go beyond it. It is a great shame, because the body of knowledge Witnesses adhere to is not afraid to go beyond it. It has to conform to reason, and it does, but it doesn’t have to bow to it as Master, the way this professor representing philosophy does.
It is like my comment on the educated world’s division of Job into two parts: “Is the appeal here that by doing so you are in position to understand neither while in both cases flattering the intellect?” By separating chapters 1 and 2, you get to shine before your educated peers, reassuring them that you, too, are not so stupid as to believe in a literal devil. At the same time, you get to spin treatises on the windy speeches, unconcerned that they may be a test at the end. Whatever theories you propose will be no better or worse than the next guy’s.
It is not intellect that matters to God. It is heart. If you have intellect, by all means, bring your gift to the altar, but don’t expect anyone to bow and scrape to you on that account, much less to hand you the reins.
But coming back to Srecko, I would say that if I caved, whether it be out of cowardice or conviction, I would sit in the penalty box for a while. If it were conviction, I would bitch a little bit inwardly, to be sure, but I wouldn’t flame anyone. They’ll eventually let me back in, and in the meantime, I can read Pudgy’s cartoons. 
Not to make light of MM’s trials. Had I experienced the things he had experienced, I might feel differently. I too, might thereafter present myself as an investigator of faiths (through rationality, no less) rather than as an adherent of one. I, too, might seek to undermine whoever I thought was advancing the ideas I came into such jarring conflict with. 
It is the human experience. John Butler experiences child sexual abuse long before he becomes a Witness. Thereafter, he cannot participate in a discussion of it without lapsing into near hysteria. The Sandy Hook parent loses his child and crusades for gun violence. A mother’s son is run over and Mothers Against Drunk Driving is born. None of these things would have happened without a horrific experience to precede it.
I am sympathetic. Maybe I would go there, too, in similar circumstances. My only experience with childhood sexual abuse came when some pervert happened along as my 15-year-old self was walking before dealer row considering the car I might buy when of driving age. No one was around, and the creep, leaning into me a little bit more than one would think proper, urged me to go with him behind the dealership because that’s where they keep the really good cars.
I wasn’t stupid. I got away from him in no time flat. I saw right through him—though, not for the right reason. They’re not going to keep the really good cars in the back. They’re going to put them up front where people can see them!
But if some horrific thing had happened, maybe I, upon recovery, would be like Butler. Or with different tragedies, like the other three. Or like Many Miles. Maybe I would come here as Many Many Miles and say to him, ‘What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?’
If I so far have not, it is out of recognition that, whereas humans excel in demolition, they are far less skilled in construction.
 
 

Gasp!!!!
A conspiratorially-minded person could take this confession for an admission that MM IS The Librarian!!!! Now, that would be a puzzle piece to crow about!
Just like I have progressed from being rebuked years ago for shamelessly promoting my first book, Tom Irregardless and Me, to participating here to such a degree that some think I actually own the site.
When the number of my comments surpassed those of the formerly dominating @Pudgy (under a different name) I said, ‘What’s wrong—cat got your tongue? I never thought they would surpass those of @JW Insider, but that too eventually happened.
A few dark and paranoid persons began insisting I was the owner. I denied it, but there is a certain type of person who once they get something into their heads, you can forget about ever getting it out. So I began to play along with the notion, and will continue to do so until this site shuts down, which you never know if that will happen or not. @admin was sweating it a while back about some proposed legislation that would make it hot for webmasters. Apparently, the storm blew over. Meantime, I put most of my writing on my own platform, so if this ever does go up in smoke, I go up to a lesser degree.
I dedicated In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction to @The Librarian. A writer needs more than a muse. He also needs a villain—and she has provided a playground where villains roam freely, as well as others falling in diverse places on the spiritual spectrum. It’s not always clear where they fall, but it sure is engrossing to put together the puzzle—just know, if you find you have stepped into it, you have to back out for a time. Not every one on a mission is actually on one. Sometimes, they just so closely resemble a person on one that you can’t tell the difference.
Avant-garde to carry on in this way? The entire system is avant-garde, from the slippery one who chuckles hehehe))))) as he is cast down from the heavens, to the brother who rebadges the WaPo byline as ‘Theocracy Dies in Darkness,’ to the brother who cries ‘There is not a righteous man, not even one; there is no one who has any insight; there is no one who searches for God—except me.’

You said this treatment wasn’t known To most witness…in other words not discussed or talked about or widely known …..

Writing with professional terminology requires special knowledge on the part of the reader, i agree. In the case of WTJWorg, the reading should be simplified by a vocabulary that does not use phrases and sentence forms that are unclear to a normal, averagely educated person. Of course, WTJWorg is susceptible, prone to the low education level of its members because they "hate" so-called higher education. But the society is not averse to seeking and hiring (free labor) lawyers to defend them in court. WTJWorg even pay their school fees to attend university so that they can later use it for some  morally questionable and dishonest actions.
All in all, simplicity is the key to a happier life, you're right. But is "simplicity" in theology as offered by WTJWorg the way to truth? 
Was the medical explanation offered by the organization in several versions simple enough for the "normal" JW? So the Society discourages "higher education" and then dares to interpret what blood is and what blood is not. And then it sets up hospital committees elders to explain to JW patients what is acceptable and what is not, not realizing that they often do not even know what they are explaining or why they are explaining it that way.

And there you have it. In a nutshell.