Malawi and MCP Cards?

[Thinking]

On 12/3/2023 at 8:04 AM, Many Miles said:

Early Christians were a body of individuals united in a common cause of following the Christ as best they could. They understood that no matter their family history God accepted their worship so long as they feared (respected) Him and worked righteousness. Jesus life, death and resurrection served as assurance, it gave them hope to add to love and faith they already had. That was it. Those same Christians also realized there were persons who had yet to learn of Jesus, and likely among them were persons' whose worship God accepted, just like He accepted the worship of Cornelius. Christianity was not a unity intended create a hierarchy to lord over worshipers of God and potential worshipers of God. Christianity was a common cause of helping all of these learn of the hope in Christ, and that God had not forsaken them. 

Today we can theorize about concepts like denomination, but it's an exercise in futility. Nothing has changed about what God expects, and focusing on things like the nit of denominations has potential to detract us from things that really matter, like natural law.

Yes.

See my first paragraph above. Insofar as I know, nothing has changed except humans have transposed a bunch of ideas that distract from Christian unity. It's God place to determine whose worship He accepts, and no one else's.

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.

[Thinking]

On 12/8/2023 at 5:53 AM, Many Miles said:

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.

That was a nice post…

[TrueTomHarley]

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.”

On 12/4/2023 at 9:55 AM, Many Miles said:

This is a document that is signed by treating doctors and the child's parents and is "TO BE PLACED IN THE FRONT OF THE CHART". (Upper case in original document) The primary language reads:

"In an emergency, where your child is apparently experiencing severe suffering or is at risk, if the treatment is not administered promptly, of sustaining serious bodily harm, medical staff will provide treatment that is allowed by the law, which may include blood transfusion."

This document was put together just for JWs, and it was drafted with full support from the society's hospital information services department. When JW parents have minor children in other hospitals HLC members have initiated inquiries as to whether the institution has such a letter of understanding, and if they do not would they consider using one.

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.

[Srecko Sostar]

I'm of the opinion,JWs (and WTJWorg) must decide with what argumentation they want to present their doctrine of refusing blood transfusions. Do they want to do it with exclusively religious proof that their position is correct? Or, Do they want to include in their theology the accompanying medical and material aspects that increase the effect of why it is good to refuse blood transfusion?

If theological reasons are the only important and decisive for the JWs position on blood transfusion, then all other "scientific and material" aspects should not be considered and used as a supplement to that only important "biblical" reason. Accordingly, the "philosophizing" that GB engages in explaining the acceptability or prohibition of certain parts of blood (components and fractions) becomes mundane and inappropriate while discussing "the most sacred substance" in the entire universe, blood.

[Many Miles]

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

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.

Bartholin's opinion was based a premise that transfusing blood is equivalent to eating blood. For more than a century that notion has been known to be false.

If you're going to place confidence an notions from the 17th century then maybe we need to re-start witch swimming to know who's innocent and who's guilty.

I can understand why Bartholin held the opinion he held. But I can't understand why anyone in the 21st century would hold that eating blood is equivalent to transfusing blood. It's just false. Plain false. Transfused blood works as tissue, not nutrition.

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

So the Witness transfusion policy on transfusion, like the above policies on other secular matters, is much safer than it once was.

I'm sure that's reassuring to family who've lost loved ones for nothing more than bad teaching. Worse, for known false teaching.

 

4 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

To the extent it is true, if someone caves on the blood issue due to cowardice...

My primary concern is for individuals who devotedly follow what the society teaches on the subject simply because they've been convinced to trust and obey whatever it says.

[Pudgy]

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.

[Many Miles]

5 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

...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.

TTH, based on what you write above, you have an opinion of something you describe as "the occasional price that has been paid". Presumably you're referring to deaths caused by the society's position on blood.

What, in your experience, does "occasional" mean?

For example, how many of this sort of deaths would a single congregation experience over what period of time. 1 per 5 years? 1 per 10 years? 1 per 15 years? 1 per 20 years? 1 per 25 years? 1 per 30 years? 1 per 35 years? 1 per 40 years?

I'm curious what your experience is and how you'd quantify "the occasional price". I understand you'd only be speaking of one man's opinion and experience. But you do have an opinion, because you shared a characterization of it.

[Thinking]

1 hour ago, Pudgy said:

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.

Excellent post..well said .

[Thinking]

1 hour ago, Many Miles said:

TTH, based on what you write above, you have an opinion of something you describe as "the occasional price that has been paid". Presumably you're referring to deaths caused by the society's position on blood.

What, in your experience, does "occasional" mean?

For example, how many of this sort of deaths would a single congregation experience over what period of time. 1 per 5 years? 1 per 10 years? 1 per 15 years? 1 per 20 years? 1 per 25 years? 1 per 30 years? 1 per 35 years? 1 per 40 years?

I'm curious what your experience is and how you'd quantify "the occasional price". I understand you'd only be speaking of one man's opinion and experience. But you do have an opinion, because you shared a characterization of it.

It was a bad line and wording, but I don’t think he meant it as it sounded.

I don’t know..I’ve been in the truth for nearly fifty years and I’ve never known anyone who has died from refusing a transfusion. A few times such a thing was reported on by the news papers and one time a mother bled out after birth but I don’t know why.?

I would say it’s very uncommon to die from a lack of blood nowadays and even in the old days I think fear mongering went on and the numbers of death were not as large as reported by the news outlets.

We had a young lad who was surfing and a shark bit his leg clean off…as he was loaded up into the ambulance he made his thoughts on blood be known and they respected his wishes…he’s alive…

I think they are heroes…because they were ready to lay their life down for their God and his principles..and that would have been so excruciatingly hard for that mum and her new born child….

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, Many Miles said:

What, in your experience, does "occasional" mean? … I'm curious what your experience is… I understand you'd only be speaking of one man's opinion and experience

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.”

[Many Miles]

2 hours ago, Pudgy said:

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.

That's a nice opinion. But it fails the test.

Of the substance of blood, nothing whatsoever records God having humans treat blood as a sacred substance until Mosaic Law. Pre-flood humans were not required to treat blood as a sacred substance. Post-flood, humans were still not required to treat the substance of blood as sacred.

I think you conflate the value God attributes to life with the substance of blood. Everything you say I find agreement in biblical text in relation to life. But regarding the substance of blood, I see none of it until the time of Mosaic Law.

The thing about not boiling a baby its mother's milk? I totally get that. But this thing about the substance of blood? You conflate.

[Many Miles]

3 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

I realize that some persons have died, as you’ve indicated. I have just never personally known of one.

How can you realize something you've never personally known of? You must have some idea in your mind of how often an occurrence. You characterized it as "occasional". What is that supposed to mean?