The earlier post about the tragic burning deaths of Muslim schoolgirls and today's news have spawned a Category here at HABOP. Faith vs. Reason posts will highlight occasions when stupid people put faith before reason. Britain's Daily Mail reports today that a young mother died hours after giving birth to twins because she refused a life-saving blood transfusion. A Jehovah's Witness, Emma Gough signed a form before the birth barring transfusion. Hospital staff begged her husband, also a Jehovah's Witness, and other relatives to allow it. Believing that blood transfusions are prohibited by the Bible, the family would not sanction the treatment.
Imagine the conversation a few years from now when the twins want to know why they don't have a mommy. What will dad say- mommy bled to death when you were born because God, daddy, and auntie wanted her to die rather than allow her body to be sullied by proven medical technology available to the most indigent of patients? If that chat takes place before they're fully brainwashed the cult has lost the kids for sure. That may be the only good thing to come of this. There's nothing good about blood doctrine nonsense. It's all bad.
It's Bad Science. In a 1961 Watchtower, a doctor and surgeon was quoted as saying "Moral insanity, sexual perversions, repression, inferiority complexes, petty crimes often follow blood transfusion." Another is quoted: “The blood in any person is in reality the person himself. It contains all the peculiarities of the individual.... The poisons that produce the impulse to commit suicide, murder, or steal are in the blood.” This is bad vampire fiction. Cross-matching, screening for infection, anticoagulant preservatives, and control systems all but guarantee safety from less supernatural risks.
It's Bad Religion. Blood transfusions are mentioned in the bible as often as CAT scans, tennis shoes and popsicles; never. The prohibition is generated by parsing and extrapolating scripture beyond its original meaning. Blood doctrine evolved from recommendations for abstinence in 1909 to prohibition by 1945, to a disfellowshipping offense in 1961, and ad absurdum to forbidding transfusions for pets and use of blood-based fertilizer in 1964. It's a classic example of the Making Shit Up school of theology. All faiths do it. Yours does. It's funny or sad depending on the consequences. Furthermore, it's far from universally accepted within their own church. Witnesses, like Muslims, Catholics, and Jews, exhibit a refreshingly human lack of uniformity in acceptance of official dogma.
It's Bad Morals. It's nothing more than assisted suicide. Jack Kevorkian did hard time for that but at least had the decency to provide the feel- good drugs. In the case of denying proper 21st century post- partum care, it's gender apartheid on a par with enforced marriages and genital mutilation.
I'm a huge believer in the right to be stupid at your own expense. Unfortunately the victims of stupid people's mental and moral lapses are often not themselves but innocents caught under the wheels of their crazy train. By the act of procreation, parents lose the right to flush their own lives down the toilet. A proper god would consign this woman's soul straight to hell.
KILL WHITEY!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis WatchTower Society requirement that Jehovah's Witnesses must refuse to accept any blood transfusions dates back only to 1945. Misinterpreting the Old Testament prohibition against eating animal blood as a routine food item, the WatchTower Society began teaching in 1945 that receiving a blood transfusion was "eating human blood". Jehovah's Witnesses believe that receiving an infusion of human blood into their body's circulatory system is scientifically the exact same thing as eating or ingesting blood into their body's digestive system.
ReplyDelete"A patient in the hospital maybe fed through the mouth, through the nose, or through the veins. When sugar solutions are given intravenously it is called intravenous feeding. So the hospital's own terminology recognizes as feeding the process of putting nutrition into one's system via the veins. Hence the attendant administering the transfusion is feeding the patient through the veins, and the patient receiving it is eating through his veins." -- The WATCHTOWER magazine, July 1, 1951.
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that when human blood is transfused into their body's circulatory system that the transfused human blood remains to be human blood and continues to function as human blood. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that if blood is eaten, then the ingested blood enters the body's digestive system, where the blood would be treated by the body exactly the same as it would treat a hotdog, a potato chip, or any other food item. Ingested blood would be completely digested and broken down into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and waste; which are then either assimilated or excreted by the body.
The WatchTower Society uses scriptures which speak about the blood of slaughtered animals to teach Jehovah's Witnesses that blood is "sacred" because blood is the "symbol of life". Then, the WatchTower Society turns around and requires Jehovah's Witnesses to sacrifice their own "life" to maintain the alleged "sacredness" of a "symbol" of the very thing they are sacrificing -- their life. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to acknowledge that the WatchTower doctrine on blood moronically places a higher value on the SYMBOL than it does on the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the Old Testament scriptures permitted the eating of unbled animal meat, which the Bible treats exactly the same as eating animal blood itself. In isolated occasions, when humans needed to eat unbled meat in order to sustain their own human life, the Mosaic Law permitted such, but then required the eaters to fulfill the requirements of being "unclean" for a few days. Thus, the Bible recognized that the sustaining of human life was more "sacred" than maintaining the sacredness of animal blood. To do otherwise would be doing exactly what the moronic WatchTower Society does. It would make the SYMBOL more SACRED than the THING SYMBOLIZED.
In fact, the WatchTower Society is leading Jehovah's Witnesses to disobey GOD and violate the Holy Scriptures in one of the most serious ways possible. Because humans were created in GOD's image, GOD considers human life sacred. A Jehovah's Witness who sacrifices their SACRED LIFE in order to maintain the sacredness of a SYMBOL of that SACRED LIFE varies little from those who profane life by committing suicide. Those Jehovah's Witness Elders who teach and police this moronic doctrine vary little from common accessories to murder. The Bible is fairly clear in how GOD views murder, and how He deals with Murderers.
This moronic twisting of scripture would be laughable if not for the fact that it has lead to the pointless deaths of numerous Jehovah's Witnesses in the past, and it will continue to lead to the pointless deaths of many more Jehovah's Witnesses in the future.
SUMMARIES OF 300 JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES LAWSUITS & COURT CASES
The following website summarizes over 315 U.S. court cases and lawsuits affecting children of Jehovah's Witness Parents, including 200+ cases where the JW Parents refused to consent to life-saving blood transfusions for their dying children:
DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
http://jwdivorces.bravehost.com
Difficult to read format but extensive information on the linked website- thanks for contributing.
ReplyDeleteDifficult to read page layout but extensive information at the link provided- thanks for the good contribution. It always makes me sad to read of deaths like these. I always picture God thumping his forehead and muttering "that's NOT what I MEANT, when will these KNUCKLEHEADS stop MAKING SHIT UP instead of following the rules...!"
ReplyDelete