Posted by AF [AF] on November 23, 1999 at 21:52:07 {KNpNN6QGfw1EwaxRomAMdaOt1gg/Zk}:
In Reply to: ****Blood Transfusion posted by Friend on November 23, 1999 at 20:15:09:
: One thing I find hard to fathom is why so many people are afraid to write the Society with their view. As long as that view is expressed politely and genuinely they will not react adversely. Even if it is not so polite they will not necessarily react adversely. I know people claim fear of reprisals, but I just don’t buy that. It is lame! I have always shared my views with the Society and never had them react as if they were angry. In fact I have found them appreciative.
Your experience is not that of many people. I wrote a letter around 1972 and 1977 asking for clarification of certain issues. Those were obviously from a concerned JW and I received replies, without reprisals. However, in mid-1991 I wrote five letters, four taking the Society to task for misrepresentations in the Creation book and elsewhere. The fourth strongly questioned the ransom doctrine, and was answered only because I called in a favor from a Gilead instructor. My late-1991 reply to that went unanswered. The Society wrote back to my congregation making inquiries about my possible "apostate" tendencies. No elder ever informed me of these inquiries, but they certainly informed my wife and I have no doubt that it contributed to the breakup of our marriage. I only learned about the inquiries when my soon-to-be-ex-wife let it slip five years later. Don't you dare try to tell me that the Society is honest and upfront about this stuff. Too many people have been disfellowshiped when elders who later asked an inquirer about his loyalty to the F&DS didn't give the right answers.
: AF said:
:: "The Bible says nothing about blood transfusions and so henceforth, neither will we. Transfusions are a matter for each individual's conscience."
: I do not necessarily agree with that simple statement.
Then it's too simple for you, and certainly for the average JW. But there's nothing tricky at all. If you disagree with the first statement, then show chapter and verse where the Bible says anything about blood transfusions. Of course, you can't. Thus, anything a person claims that the Bible says about them is purely an inference, and as the Society has so amply demonstrated, such inference takes a good deal of tortuous and probably bogus argumentation. You already agree with the second statement.
: I believe the Bible supports donating our life to save life. Likewise I believe the Bible supports donating blood to save life. If you had done more than a cursory reading of that original post you would have realized that.
While I completely agree with your sentiments here, the Bible "supports" not only your conclusion, but the opposite one which the Society takes, and many others besides. In other words, the Bible can be made to say many contradictory things about this subject, and so the only reasonable position is as I said -- realize that it actually says nothing at all about blood transfusions.
: Otherwise, sure, a simple one sentence statement would do the trick. But that would leave people wanting to know and follow their Bibles with little if any answers. That need requires giving reasons rather than just a bottom line.
Horrors! People wanting to follow their Bibles with little help from the godlike Watchtower Society! What satanic suggestions will next appear on H2O?
As I explained in my longer post, the JW community wants and needs to be coddled. Thus if it takes a lot of dubious and tortuous "argumentation" to bring them around, so be it. But let those of us who know better not pretend that the explanations given are anything but rationalizations designed to placate those too stupid or lazy to think for themselves and excercise their own consciences.
AF