Court (and science) saves Jehovah's Witness girl's life

Not long ago there was a young boy that die because the parents(JW) refused to allow any blood transfusion because of their beliefs. I think SA read that news and made a critical decision to save a life instead which I think was the best move.

I'm fine with freedom of religion, but when it gets weird or out of hand, the law of the land should take over to save a life.

Info: jehovah's witness blood transfusion

 

Actually, not at all the same thing. The blood command was dictated much before the law existed, and was re-stated after the law was fulfilled.

Christians are no longer under the law code governing every action of our day-to-day life, but there are still some thing that are considered wrong. Misuse of blood is one of them.

Thanks!

 

Isn't it ironic that people get all upset when they hear of one person dying and they refused blood. What they don't seem to care about is the hundreds of people dying as a direct result of taking blood!!!

One kid died you say? Here's an article about 80 children dying!

Most people also think that refusing blood = death. Few people really educate themselves on the alternatives, which about. Blood-free surgery costs less, and there's a higher rate of survival.

People, the whole point of this is not to be radical or different because we read one scripture. Think about it. The challenge laid out in the book of Job was that man would give everything in behalf of his life, even forsake his loyalty to God. No one would serve him out of love, only out of selfish gain or if its convenient.

When people take a blood transfusion knowing the scriptural command, they prove that challenge right. They are doing whatever necessary to save their life. Those with faith and logic realize that God is all-powerful, and has promised a resurrection of those who obey him. So what's the point of saving this 80-year life span at the cost of eternity?

 

Do what you want to yourself, But don't impose your beliefs on a child who would have died, guaranteed, if she had not been given blood.

This is the point. I don't think you should be prevented from refusing blood, You are a grown up who is able to make informed decisions regardless how irrational those decisions may appear to everyone else, Cut your own head off if you feel like it. what i am against is when parents impose their religious beliefs on their child at the expense of that child's life or well being.

have people died from being given blood? Of course.
have many millions more been saved because of it? Definitely.
Blood class identification and transfusions are probably the second biggest saver of lives after immunisation.

What strikes me as odd is that people defend things done in the name of religion which, in any other situation, would call for the children to be taken away and the parents put in prison. Genital mutilation for example; what, except religion, could make such a barbaric and sick act acceptable? Imagine if i said i wanted to mutilate my child's genitals because of voices in my head? what would say say? that i'm insane, right? But when people do it because of voices someone else heard in thier head 2000 years ago and wrote in a book we don't see a problem with it.

What people need to do is stop giving religion a free pass. when the religious do something think about how you'd feel if it was done in the name of something other than religion and you might start to realise the terrible things people get away with because they claim to be doing it for god.

 

Well, frank, I hear this sort of thing all the time from Christians, not just JW, and I can't say it makes a lot of sense. We are told that the Bible is the word of God, and all sorts of rules from Levit. and Deut. make into not just the Christian religions, but the secular laws we all must follow. Fortunately, this is changing.

Why did the appearance of Yeheshuah signify a suspension of some dietary laws, but not others? Where is the scriptural authority for this?

Why were only these laws suspended? Why were they included in the immortal word of God in the first place?

Didn't God know that people would come along and say, now here, what's this, first God wants you to have some rules about what animals to eat.God says the pig is unclean to you.

But now Jesus is here, so, guess what. Pigs are clean. Go ahead, eat some bacon. Oh, those hundreds of lines of dietary law? Well, never mind. I sent my only begotten son to let you all know it's okay to eat a ham sandwich. Go crazy. But don't get involved in those nasty blood transfusions that will be invented in 1800 years.

Who is this flaky God and why can't he make up his mind?

 

People are entitled to their beliefs. I don't agree with the belief that we need to turn down medical care, but if thats what they wish to do, I'm accepting of that. We sure wouldn't have been as concerned about her life just over 12 years earlier.... ironic, is it not?

 

Yea people died from getting blood transfusions but that is tainted blood. I would venture to say that manyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more people were saved from blood transfusions then died from them. This kid needs blood to survive. It isnt enough that shes suffering now? Instead of screaming at the top of your lungs "give the blood to her and ease her suffering", your trying to explain it away? Heck dude, even im scared of blood transfusions, yet when i had a shoulder operations 20 years back I had a blood transfusion but i used my own blood from a day before, but thats another story .

The bible isnt a set of rigid laws you must obey at all times. Even jesus himself said this.

 

Like any religion to fully understand it you must study it. What religion do you follow?

 

I have studied religion far too much to follow any of them.

My spiritual orientation is closest to Hindu or Buddhist, and I think in terms of these systems. But I freely take wisdom from everywhere, and leave dogma in a steaming pile on the sidewalk.

 

I would say you have not studied enough to be honest. Making judgments when you do not understand the religion leads you down the wrong path. Your Beliefs limit you, you are looking for "Man" to explain religion instead of investing your soul.

 

I would say you have no idea what you are talking about. I don't need "man" to explain anything to me. When I see a contradiction in dogma, I address it.

God has nothing to do with any of this. With all due respect, frank and his co-religionists are suffering from a misunderstanding of their own religion.

I don't respect the sloppy theology here. I am perfectly conversant with it.

 

Based on what? The fact that he thinks you are wrong?

I take it you haven't read the Avesta at all (or even knew it existed probably), yet feel confident to reject it in favour of your particular book.

Why do the religious automatically think that when we disbelieve in their god and their book that it is in some way different from them disbelieving in the thousands of other gods that have been invented and the thousands of other religious texts that were made up?

If we reject your religion on the same grounds as you reject zoroastrianism would it not be a valid reason?

 

Are you talking about any religion specifically. If my own religion did this I would react the same way. Years back the vatican and Pope said that we shouldnt hand out condoms to teens and adults in Africa and I was totally against that. I argued with many catholics that not passing out condoms to and educating people in Africa how to protect themselves from the aids virus was cold and heartless. Many of my stoic catholic friends thought I was crazy as they progressed (or regressed) to the point where they followed the laws like robots. Suffice to say many of them never brought the subject up in front of me again as I would not change my mind or my heart.

Sure enough years later, the new pope and vatican said that condom education should be allowed saying that it is the lesser of 2 evils and a very humane thing to do. Sure those people agree with me now but they still missed the point.

Laws are good to have, but almost every law was made to be broken at some point. It all depends on circumstances.

Heck even the name israel means to wrestle with god.

 

He is not at all flaky, he is structured and purposed. The scriptures are very clear the law served a specific purpose. Once its purpose was complete, it was no longer in effect. That's right, I don't live in a tent on my roof for one week out of the year.

When a person understands the overall theme of the Bible, the prophecy therein, the very reason Jesus came and died, then it all makes perfect sense. It is both logical, and also kind of cool to see the use of foreshadowing and symbolism, like how we used to dissect great literature back in English class.

If you are sincerely asking me why the Law was done away with, and why some 'laws' remained in effect I will gladly explain. If you are just throwing that at me as an insult of my intelligence, then chances are you don't want to listen to a explanation, nor are you willing to really think about it.

Parents do what is in the best interest of their children, because they love them. Refusing blood is a sacred belief, and one not to be taken lightly. We believe that be so doing we remain loyal to our loving Creator, who is able to recreate life at the time He chooses. Simply because you don't believe in a Creator doesn't invalidate my beliefs.

This is not like the case of the parents in the States who refused to take their daughter to a doctor, and she died. That belief was based on nonsense, and in fact completely contrary to Scripture.

I completely agree that religion should not have a carte blanche. Look how many wars are fought in its name.

Actually, this is again a case of misinformation. In the vast majority of cases, the lives that were saved were due to the blood volume being restored/sustained, or the red blood cell count being maintained. These can be done safely and cheaply through alternative strategies, such as volume expanders, red blood cell production stimulation, and just plain old careful surgery. In fact, there is an increasing number of bloodless hospitals opening up worldwide as this knowledge becomes more abundant.

Would you call circumcision genital mutilation? We had our child circumcised, though it's not at all a religious requirement. We did it for health reasons, as do millions of others.

Female genital mutilation on the other hand is messed up. Again, a very good example of bastardization of beliefs.

That's a pretty strong statement. By saying that you elevate yourself above us simple-minded clods, as though you've figured something out that I haven't. Well, I do agree with you that most 'religionists' believe for the sake of believing. But I submit that I have thought and and studied deeply my beliefs, and suffer from no severe misunderstanding. I do not accept anything on blind faith. Especially something so serious that it involves which medical procedures I adhere to.

Yes, but I don't understand the point of that reference...

 

The problem with this, frank, is that this wonderful word of God is something you pick and choose parts of and then have to perform acrobatics to maintain.

I don't doubt your sincerity. You have been hearing and repeating this sort of thing that you don't realize how convoluted it sounds.

See, I do know a thing or two about this Bible of yours. I studied it in the original, for over a decade. I was instructed by scholars who are fluent in Hebrew. I have read dozens of other books on near-eastern literature, studied it extensively, and I know things about your book you don't seem to know.

I know the origins of it. A collection of verse, composed in a highly metaphorical fabulistic style quite common in the near East at the time.

You don't, because you believe it is something it is not. I hate to be so harsh about this, because personally I have nothing against you. Truly.

But bad theology is destroying the world, and you are free to believe as you wish...and be taken to task for the glaring inconsistencies you have chosen to adopt.

Have you read the Epic of Gilgamesh? It's older. It has the Flood story in it. It also has a pantheon of many gods, the chief of which is El or Elil

Since you are so fond of misappropriating and mispronouncing Hebrew words, you will appreciate that El is also a name for God in the Torah, as well as the root word for Elohim...a word bearing the Hebrew suffix for plurality. This is the same word which became Al-lah.

Your Bible was a polytheistic text, edited by centuries of dogma against foreign gods until it became devoted only to the King of the Gods, and the others were banished entirely. The first commandment is "I am the Lord your God who delivered you from Egypt." Who was saying this? Why, Moses. Who delivered the Israelites? Moses. This was MOSES declaring that he was the living God, just as the Pharoah in Egypt did. All kings did that in those days.

The second commandment is " You shall have no other gods before me." This does not mean there are no other gods, in fact it implies the opposite. YHVH is a jealous God who is made insecure when people choose sexier religions, like the Babylonian temples with their prostitutes.

To this day, all Jews regard Moshe as author of the Torah, although he clearly couldn't have actually written any of it. Most of it was written much, much later.

It is derivative, and quite similar to the other mythological poems of the time. Most of the "Law" is nothing more than the contemporary health code of the time. And some of it was straight lifted from Babylon. Hammurabi's code contains several laws which made it into the Bible, most famously "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

This book is indeed important literature, but not for the reasons you think.

So I don't take your claims seriously. You don't know the history of the book that makes you so ga-ga. In fact, you don't know the first thing about it. Namely, that it was partly written by poets who recognized the existence of other Gods. Hence the many names of God in the Bible. Some of them were actually different gods in the original. This can be demonstrated through comparative literature and linguistics.

That's why I say this has nothing to do with God, and certainly nothing to do with Jehovah. You do realize that that word has no reality in Hebrew? That it must not be pronounced, and if it were, it certainly would not be with a "J".

There is no J in Hebrew. The way you spell the name God is the result of using German orthography. In German, that's how you spell it, because J in German is Y in English. This is also true of Jesus; his name was nothing like that. Jee-zuss? You can't say that in Aramaic. You might get more respect from me if you spelled these "holy words" with some regard to the way they are pronounced. You remind me of the Californian pronouncing "Costa Rica" kaw-sta because, I suppose it costs so much to live there.

Here's what the Tetragrammoton, the four-letter word improperly translated as "Lord" really means:

YHVH (Yod Hey Vav Hey)

Yod means Hand
Hey means Window
Vav means Nail
Hey means Window again. In Hebrew, the second Hey has a dot in it.

So "YHVH" means: The hand which opens the window nails it shut.

It describes a simple system for social control. The entire Torah is based on this formula for simultaneously teaching truth and reserving part of it for the highly educated. Religous Jews are not permitted to study this until they have reached the age of forty, even Rabbis.

This can be done with the entire Torah. Every letter has semantic meaning, allowing each sentence to contain a hidden paragraph.

You cannot begin to understand what the Bible means unless you know the Hebrew alphabet. Even then, most Jews have gotten trapped in the literal meaning and forgetten to read between the lines. The tradition of Kabbalah is very strong in Orthodox temples...those are the Jews against Israel.

So save it for the other suckers. I'm not buying the "dispensation" theory or any other convenient dodge which allows you to claim a book you can't possibly understand is the ultimate authority on all things while ignoring whatever part of it you choose.

I repeat: Yeheshua the Nazarene (google what that really means) did not come to let you all know it's okay to eat bacon, but you better not have a blood transfusion. In fact, he came for the same reason we all did, because he had no choice.

 

When a parents actions and/or beliefs put the safety of their child at risk society has to step in and say "you aren't allowed to do that to your child".

If i had a "sacred belief" that god wanted me to starve my child to death should i be allowed to? If not, Explain the difference between causing certain death by denying medical treatment and causing certain death by denying food.

Just because you think god wants you to do something doesn't give you the right to go around doing it at the expense of other peoples lives.

Misinformation? so you are saying blood identification and transfusions haven't saved millions of life? all you have done is pose an alternative. Should we investigate alternatives and use them? Of course we should. But the fact remains, blood transfusions have saved millions.

Volume expander can only work in cases where the problem is blood loss and where not too much has been lost to compensate for the drop in pressure that is associated with blood loss. In cases where a significant amount of blood has been lost or where the blood is diseased the blood has to be replaced by blood, Not just something to increase it's volume.

It would depend on the reason for doing it. For instance, I would happily take my child to the dentist, That's normal. What's not normal is to spend an afternoon drilling their face because an old book says it's what god wants.

So if you done it for medical reasons i don't much have a problem. I don't think there is much real evidence to suggest it has any significant health benefit beyond a few anecdotal stories here and there, But your motivation was a normal one so no, i wouldn't consider that to be genital mutilation.

When it's done solely to please the invisible man in the sky it's genital mutilation and getting dangerously close to a human sacrifice, And something which really needs to be stopped.

Adults can do whatever they want to themselves. They can refuse medical treatment which will cause certain death, they can sit there hacking at their penis with a bread knife if they want, But leave children alone.