Are JWs allowed to get Platelet-rich plasma?

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

An argument could be made with this concept. The idea would need further study between a conscious animal and an unconscious animal. While the blood is being drained, the heart still beats. Then the question becomes a matter of circulation or flow.

I agree that you could make such an argument. But the heart stops beating before all the blood is drained. That was my point. The animal can have a lot of blood still remaining and yet dies while being drained. The heart stops and there is plenty of blood to be drained. (We had 3 of our bulls slaughtered when I was about 15.  Technically they were "steers.") I was interested in the process due to the blood issue, because in this case, the animals were shot in the head first (bolt gun), then strung up to drain. Technically, we were supposed to ask the butcher not to save the blood for fertilizer or feed or any other purpose, and we would pay him a bit more for disposal. (In those days the Watchtower told us that we should not even let our dogs and cats eat unbled meat.)

 

[JW Insider]

2 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

The theory of blood by-product under a microscope can have the same concept. When meat is purchased at the store. Sometimes red liquid is seen in a package.

I don't believe anyone would claim that this red liquid in the package is blood. But as you say, it contains blood, whole blood cells. So does the meat itself.

But it looks like your argument boils down to something like this:

• No one can actually get rid of all the whole blood cells that will be found in meat by any practical process. And the Bible's laws never technically meant that absolute full drainage was required anyway, as the idea of "lifeblood" was intended, not blood, per se. Therefore, if we were not supposed to worry about small amounts of whole blood, we should not necessarily worry our conscience about fractions or particles of blood, either.

2 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

The question then becomes what Biblical standard we are willing to subject our thoughts to adjust those scientific standards when there was none in ancient times just God’s commandment to drain the lifeblood of the animal. The concept of squeezing every last drop becomes an unfounded scientific concept.

I agree with this, that it's a "question of what Biblical standard we are willing to subject our thoughts to,"  but it doesn't really seem to address the question of why certain fractions are prohibited from the perspective of the Watchtower's guidelines, and certain fractions are considered to be a matter of individual conscience.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

BOVINE BLOOD IS COWS BLOOD

A BOVINE, IS A COW!

"SYNTHETIC HUMAN BLOOD" THE GB APPARENTLY APPROVES OF IS MADE FROM FILTERED COWS' BLOOD.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

3 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

That red liquid is technically referred to as cow bovine, not blood.

No. The red liquid is not technically referred to as cow bovine. It is bovine in the same way that a cow's hide is bovine, or a baseball glove is bovine, or a leather chair, or a kind of saliva, or a certain type of sound, or a kind of meat, or a specific kind of hoofprint in the mud, or a certain kind of "mudpie"/"patty"/"buffalo chip"/etc.

In other words, the milk I drank this morning was bovine, but it did not contain any bovine. The meat I ate last week was bovine, but it did not contain any bovine. There is no such phrase as "cow bovine" as far as I know. 

JW INSIDER IS EXACTLY CORRECT !

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

The only thing that matters is this:

What was in the mind of everyone at the time the edicts were given, that when Jehovah God had those edicts given, it was crystal clear, without any mental gymnastics.

All these considerations, options, analysis, pondering, and mental gymnastics are complete and total unadulterated, ugly as home-made sin RATIONALIZATIONS.

WHAT?

ARE WE TRYING TO CONVINCE GOD WHAT HE REALLY HAD IN MIND?

 

[Judith Sweeney]

  ....And that is No ....Bull.   

[JW Insider]

3 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

I believe you are referring to a cow being killed through a headshot, while I was referring to a cow being killed through slitting its throat.

Sort of. I was referring to both. And our steers were only stunned with the head shot, not killed outright, so the heart was still beating. I was just saying there was a time when I was more interested in the various processes, so as to compare them, partly because of the blood issue, and partly because we had raised our steers from calves (along with a heifer and a milk cow). I therefore had a concern about their suffering. Naming them was a bad idea. I was interested in the process then, because a true kosher slaughter, at least at the time, required that the animal be readied for stringing up and then the throat cut as soon as the animal was strung up. There was no stunning or bolt gun with the kosher method, with the idea that the heart (and fear of the process) would help the heart beat stronger, and pump out more blood. How much more, I don't know. I might not have even been given completely correct info. 

3 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

One will be conscious while the other will not. The cow shot will in effect have its heart stop by having no further communication with the brain to function.

The bolt-shot (stunned) unconscious animal might be in a kind of shock, lowering the heart rate I would assume, but I suppose the amount of blood drained could be similar, but might take longer, when compared with an animal that is fully alert, and the throat is slit with a fully beating heart. I think it's interesting that our slaughterhouse told us that the kosher method is faster because the animal is so afraid of dying that the blood is pumping more strongly and the heart rate is off the charts. But more recently, when more people are interested in whether the animal experiences fear and suffering, the kosher method is sometimes touted as "instant death" -- which it definitely is not.

3 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

If the cow is conscious or not, if the heart is beating or not. The process will have the same end result. The animal’s blood will be drained.

That might be. And I might have been given wrong information about how the kosher method supposedly drains more blood, by throat slitting without ever knocking out or stunning the animal.

[JW Insider]

4 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

ARE WE TRYING TO CONVINCE GOD WHAT HE REALLY HAD IN MIND?

We don't really care, or shouldn't care as much what God had in mind in Genesis, Exodus, or Leviticus. But we should care what James and Peter had in mind when they gave an edict "abstain from blood" to Paul and Barnabas to spread among the Gentile believers.

Even so, I think you are right -- assuming that we truly believe that the intent of the edict "abstain from blood" referred to any means of taking it into the body. And this is exactly what we believe, whether by medical procedure or by consumption through the mouth.

I always imagined it like this:

• Let's say Adam and Eve had been told to abstain from eating from a certain tree of the garden and let's say that this tree had been, for example, a banana tree, and there was only one of these trees in the whole garden. So they proceed to pick the fruit and find ways to make food products from it: banana puree, banana wine, banana sugar, banana jam, dried banana chips, banana powder, banana oil, including products from banana peels, banana leaves, banana tree bark, and banana tree roots. Satan appears in the form of a tarantula spider and tells them that all these products are just fine because they aren't really eating from the tree, they are eating byproducts from the tree. Satan says that as long as you process and smash and dry and mix and powder and recombine with other products, it's not really the same as eating from the banana tree. Just don't eat the whole banana fruit at once,  or the whole leaf, or the whole root, or the whole peel. Otherwise, it's just a matter of conscience. 

I should add, however, that in the last couple of years, I've changed my mind on just how far one could apply this specific illustration. And now --based on something very specific and clear that the apostle Paul wrote-- I think that the whole blood issue is entirely a matter of conscience. Due to conscience, I might personally view the matter more strongly than another believer, or less strongly. But I would not wish to impose my own conscientious view on others.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

I think that the whole blood issue is entirely a matter of conscience. Due to conscience, I might personally view the matter more strongly than another believer, or less strongly. But I would not wish to impose my own conscientious view on others.

I agree .... what other people do or do not do, inside and outside of the Truth in this regard, is their business between them and God, and his Christ.

I am not their master ...

If I was given the job, I would reject it.

However, what bugs the hell out of me is rationalizing, irrational arguments of those who float like leaves on the winds of adopting specious thinking, adopting bogus philosophical arguments, BECAUSE they are afraid of dying.

Without Divine Intervention, 1,500 years from now, we ALL will have been dead approximately that long ... and that is just the beginning.

For perspective, I strongly suspect that each "Creative Day" was, and is, one-half billion years in duration.

[JOHN BUTLER]

Wow I'm glad I missed that lot of discussion.  Hope you all sorted it out now. Where as I don't think Jesus even mentioned the blood issue. 

 

[Anna]

23 hours ago, JW Insider said:

- I think that the whole blood issue is entirely a matter of conscience.

I suppose you think it should be a matter of conscience because you believe the scripture at Acts 15:29 is ambiguous?

[JOHN BUTLER]

3 hours ago, Anna said:

I suppose you think it should be a matter of conscience because you believe the scripture at Acts 15:29 is ambiguous?

Written at a time when literally drinking the blood of fallen gladiators was the 'in thing' and when blood transfusions were not even imagined.