About 25 years ago, the Catholic Church decided that limbo was no longer a thing. They invented it, then for whatever reason, DE-INVENTED it. In a similar fashion, the Jehovah's Witnesses have now determined that elements of blood if not whole blood may be used to save the lives of JWs. Check me on this, but hasn't the whole business of blood transfusion been a major foundational point of the Witnesses since Hector was a pup? I have to ask: WHO DIED??? Who among them who was so critical to the existence of their sect lost their life to some form of disease? I want to know what event or series of events catalyzed this change of heart.
Because stuff like this doesn't come out of a vacuum.
I grew up in the JW cult. I distinctly remember having to carry around a "No Blood" card and sign it while I was a literal child. They made it up and now are taking it away to absolve themselves of potential legal responsibility. No more, no less.
I do! I was in high school, with a lot of Mormons.
The Black people are still "lesser" in status, of course, but that's America for you.
It was the tax exemption that led to that "revelation" but there had been grumbling for quite a while with the Morg so heavily proselytizing Pasifika people, some of whom have darker skin than many African-Americans.
Remember when the Bible Students (precursor of Jehovah's Witnesses) taught the same thing? If you told that to a modern Jehovah's Witness, they'd probably think you're lying. I know this ultimately because their publication “Reasoning from the Scriptures" has an entry that addresses the question of whether black people were cursed by Noah. Of course, it answers (and argues) no but the fact that the question was given consideration to begin with, I found really bizarre and it led to my learning more about it on the Internet. I'm a black Nigerian and I hadn't known at the time that the curse of Ham had been used to justify the subjugation of black people.
Of course the eternal and unchanging god almighty has changed his mind. It has always been a stretch to claim that a blood transfusion is the same as making a meal out of blood.
I think I know why the big rule change. The JWs have been hemorrhaging (pun intended) members for a while now, keeping the ones who still want to stay from dying of blood loss is practical. This may backfire on them, though, as many will jump ship when they realize that a relative who bled to death yesterday could have survived today.
of course not,........surprised its taken so long...so much b/s....they used to be famous for pushing ahead the date when the world (supposedly) ends.....They're STILL pushing the "Ours is the ONLY way " nonsense... (sigh..)..
I thought it was dumb as a kid. "So they go out to get more people but there's room for only 144,000 in heaven? Does that mean their grandma gets thrown out in favor of a new recruit?"
As they say now, the math wasn't mathing when I was 7.
As a former Jehovah's Witness, I find Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine silly but you're misrepresenting their position. Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe "there's room for only 144,000." They reject the mainstream Christian doctrine that good people to heaven. This is in fact one of their defining attributes that differentiates them from most other Christian denominations, so I'm surprised when someone gets it wrong. They believe rather that in the future, righteous people—except the 144,000—will live on a paradise Earth as God originally intended; the 144,000 are the made up of Jesus and faithful Christians who rule as part of God's kingdom. Jehovah's Witnesses regard God's kingdom as an actual government that was set up in October 1914 which will restore humans to perfection as in the Garden of Eden. Phewwww!
"While they teach that many detailed dietary laws in the Old Testament portion of the Bible no longer apply, they say this prohibition on partaking of blood is upheld as a universal principle for believers in other Bible passages."
More cherry-picking from the cult of Abrahamic mythology
That particular part doesn't apply to me because reasons, yadda. ~ The tattooed guy noshing on a cheddarwurst while protesting Timmy Has Two Mommies being in the public library.
The JW's are kind of like Scientology minus the towering intellects. There has never been an idea so absurd there will not be people who believe it, and there has never been a leader so corrupt and incompetent there will not be people who willingly follow.
800096 Like the Catholics before them who got rid of limbo, this change was made by men supposedly from the inerrant, revealed word of God. It's just another example of how all religion is man made and changes from time to time to suit the fickle changes of the male leaders.
"The second step is when they start accepting that evolution happened and that humans already existed for millions of years."
As well as accept that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and (for the most part) died millions of years ago, long before there were any humans on earth, leaving birds as their descendants; and the planet is billions of years old.
The elders will be on guard against much more such concessions. Otherwise, they would find themselves presiding over the effective dismantling of the Jehovah's Witnesses. THEY KNOW THAT, and giving up much more of their doctrine won't come easily if it comes at all.
Do like an acquaintance of mine did; she lived in a neighborhood that got a lot of JW and Mormon doorknockers.
So one day she opened the door in the middle of bathing her pet constrictor snake. Because the easiest way to bathe the snake is to wrap it around you and take a shower.
The family on the doorstep freaked the FUCK out when a naked woman with pink or purple hair answered, wearing a 15 foot snake.
It's as if there were a rule saying you had to abstain from "alcoholic drinks," but it's okay if you have a glass of OJ, 2 tablespoons of grenadine, and a shot of tequila, all in separate glasses. Oh, and eat the worm separately.
Hmm... the cynic in me says that recruiting numbers are down or that an Elder or one of their loved ones needed medical intervention and opted for a transfusion rather than death, therefore "God" changed the rules.
I similarly wonder what goaded the Catholic Church into renouncing their belief in limbo. In both cases, there almost must be a cause or causes for these effects.
I don't think Limbo ever made it to the status of official dogma.
And I imagine a lot of priests got really tired of telling women whose babies died before they could be sprinkled with water that they would never see their child again because God was a stickler for the magic rituals.
So much of Catholic doctrine cannot be found in the bible that it's laughable. I'm surprised that more people haven't called them on it, but of course, we aren't talking about thinking people. We're talking about sheep.
As a good Catholic you should know that the Bible is just a secondary document where only the parts that don't contradict the Catechism must be believed.
There is also the question of 'Which Bible.' There is no remaining copy of the original. What we do have has been edited and translated for centuries. Editors have the tendency to edit things the way they want. And when translators have no translation for archaic words, they just have to pick the one the like.
How much of this decision must rest on what has to be the repeated incident of JWs facing mortal consequences of their belief in having to refuse blood transfusions and subsequently dying for their misbegotten beliefs? Certainly, auto-transfusing has been a common practice for decades, but too often, it is insufficient to the task, and the patient succumbs because of DOGMA.
And, as I stated earlier, transfusion is NOT EATING. Is it just possible that the elders of the Jehovah's Witlesses finally copped a clue about that? Or was the death toll just too much for them?
No great surprise, the JWs have been getting this wrong all along. EATING blood will not result in the body's own blood volume being improved in any significant fashion. TRANSFUSING blood WILL, because transfusion bypasses the process of DIGESTION.
One wonders if JWs abjure eating steak rare to medium-rare!
PS: Many of us have argued again and again that the law of Leviticus 17:14 is a dietary regulation. Jehovah's Witnesses kamikaze doctrine makes sense only if it's interpreted as a medical instruction—it isn't.
Sure, it was always on them, but taking such action could come with a pretty untoward penalty: being disfellowshipped and SHUNNED.
Still, it would be interesting of a JW with more than a little chutzpah confronted their congregation and said, "The doc told me that I could go with a transfusion by parts, but it would not be as effective or lead to a successful outcome as would a whole blood transfusion. Whether you like it or not, HE KNOWS HIS BUSINESS. I trusted him, and because of that, I'M STILL HERE."
Maybe that person gets kicked out, too, but they could leave holding their head high.
Sounds like they just don’t want to be held liable for all the death rather than having any change of heart. Kill yourself if you want, but leave the children out of it!
But don't worry, all the other shitty policies are completely legit, now and forever. So continue hating the gays and shunning your family members if they deconvert.
I've known several people over the years who left high-control religions because they just couldn't anymore, and had to depend on a sympathetic relative for news about their birth families. And one woman who moved three states away and let her family assume that she was still in the cult and still attending services, because she knew what it would cost her if they knew the truth.
When a cult has to depend on such draconian measures to shore up its ridiculous beliefs and retain members, that's a giant red flag.
This isn't the first time that odd sects like the Jehovah's Witness have changed their outlook through a new "revelation" though is it? Revelation which just happened to coincide with either public opinion or secular law – like the admission of black people to the ranks. But I think in dog I trust has it to be honest. Some bigwig needs blood.
About 25 years ago, the Catholic Church decided that limbo was no longer a thing. They invented it, then for whatever reason, DE-INVENTED it. In a similar fashion, the Jehovah's Witnesses have now determined that elements of blood if not whole blood may be used to save the lives of JWs. Check me on this, but hasn't the whole business of blood transfusion been a major foundational point of the Witnesses since Hector was a pup? I have to ask: WHO DIED??? Who among them who was so critical to the existence of their sect lost their life to some form of disease? I want to know what event or series of events catalyzed this change of heart.
Because stuff like this doesn't come out of a vacuum.
Truth. Men making up rules to rule over others.
Also men making up Gods in their own image.
Yes! they have humanised God
I grew up in the JW cult. I distinctly remember having to carry around a "No Blood" card and sign it while I was a literal child. They made it up and now are taking it away to absolve themselves of potential legal responsibility. No more, no less.
Remember when God told the mormons that Black people are okay now?
JUST before they would have LOST their tax-exempt status! Funny thing, that! 😝
I do! I was in high school, with a lot of Mormons.
The Black people are still "lesser" in status, of course, but that's America for you.
It was the tax exemption that led to that "revelation" but there had been grumbling for quite a while with the Morg so heavily proselytizing Pasifika people, some of whom have darker skin than many African-Americans.
"that's America" including the United States. 🤔🤭😳
Remember when the Bible Students (precursor of Jehovah's Witnesses) taught the same thing? If you told that to a modern Jehovah's Witness, they'd probably think you're lying. I know this ultimately because their publication “Reasoning from the Scriptures" has an entry that addresses the question of whether black people were cursed by Noah. Of course, it answers (and argues) no but the fact that the question was given consideration to begin with, I found really bizarre and it led to my learning more about it on the Internet. I'm a black Nigerian and I hadn't known at the time that the curse of Ham had been used to justify the subjugation of black people.
Yes, when they realized how many new tithers they could rope in.
Which spawns yet another question: how is attendance in Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Halls been lately?
I’d be curious about that as well.
That was my assumption. Someone died, or someone was about to die.
𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟-𝑐𝑢𝑡 𝑎 𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛.
𝑆𝑜, 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝐽𝑊 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔.
Of course the eternal and unchanging god almighty has changed his mind. It has always been a stretch to claim that a blood transfusion is the same as making a meal out of blood.
I think I know why the big rule change. The JWs have been hemorrhaging (pun intended) members for a while now, keeping the ones who still want to stay from dying of blood loss is practical. This may backfire on them, though, as many will jump ship when they realize that a relative who bled to death yesterday could have survived today.
First thing I thought when I saw the rule change. The JWs have been dying a slow death and can’t afford to see their numbers dwindle any further.
of course not,........surprised its taken so long...so much b/s....they used to be famous for pushing ahead the date when the world (supposedly) ends.....They're STILL pushing the "Ours is the ONLY way " nonsense... (sigh..)..
I thought it was dumb as a kid. "So they go out to get more people but there's room for only 144,000 in heaven? Does that mean their grandma gets thrown out in favor of a new recruit?"
As they say now, the math wasn't mathing when I was 7.
yeah, JWs dont honor older folks..... they juz' trash em........
As a former Jehovah's Witness, I find Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine silly but you're misrepresenting their position. Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe "there's room for only 144,000." They reject the mainstream Christian doctrine that good people to heaven. This is in fact one of their defining attributes that differentiates them from most other Christian denominations, so I'm surprised when someone gets it wrong. They believe rather that in the future, righteous people—except the 144,000—will live on a paradise Earth as God originally intended; the 144,000 are the made up of Jesus and faithful Christians who rule as part of God's kingdom. Jehovah's Witnesses regard God's kingdom as an actual government that was set up in October 1914 which will restore humans to perfection as in the Garden of Eden. Phewwww!
It all comes down to money.
ETA: Always.
And power, though that is closely related to money.
Speaking of a meal... does this mean they can't have their steaks medium rare?
Only if the steaks come from humans, I think.
"While they teach that many detailed dietary laws in the Old Testament portion of the Bible no longer apply, they say this prohibition on partaking of blood is upheld as a universal principle for believers in other Bible passages."
More cherry-picking from the cult of Abrahamic mythology
That particular part doesn't apply to me because reasons, yadda. ~ The tattooed guy noshing on a cheddarwurst while protesting Timmy Has Two Mommies being in the public library.
The JW's are kind of like Scientology minus the towering intellects. There has never been an idea so absurd there will not be people who believe it, and there has never been a leader so corrupt and incompetent there will not be people who willingly follow.
And that is a sad note on humanity. :(
A lot of people feel comfortable having someone else make decisions for them.
outsourcing decisions and autonomy is so prevalent . . .
There are intelligent people in Scientology? You could have fooled me.
800096 Like the Catholics before them who got rid of limbo, this change was made by men supposedly from the inerrant, revealed word of God. It's just another example of how all religion is man made and changes from time to time to suit the fickle changes of the male leaders.
Agree - misleading folks isn't accidental. The true motivation doesn't benifit humanity, we deserve NOT to lie within a lie.Thanks🌐🗽
"abstain...from blood."
Too bad one of the most violent religions on Earth didn't take that stance to heart.
They don't mind spilling blood, its just taking it in that they object to.
Accepting blood transfusions is a first step.
The second step is when they start accepting that evolution happened and that humans already existed for millions of years.
The third and most important step is that they stop knocking on my door in the morning when I had just a few hours of sleep and a severe hangover.
"The second step is when they start accepting that evolution happened and that humans already existed for millions of years."
As well as accept that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and (for the most part) died millions of years ago, long before there were any humans on earth, leaving birds as their descendants; and the planet is billions of years old.
But, but, ... but then the pictures I saw showing Jesus riding on a velociraptor are fake?
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Yes, its all A.I. and FLOCK cameras. 🤪
Abraham Lincoln was right!
Hilariously done, thanks
🍀♾️🐬🎐
Sadly, yes. If they had existed at the same time you would be far more likely to have seen a picture of Jesus being eaten by a velociraptor.
The elders will be on guard against much more such concessions. Otherwise, they would find themselves presiding over the effective dismantling of the Jehovah's Witnesses. THEY KNOW THAT, and giving up much more of their doctrine won't come easily if it comes at all.
Do like an acquaintance of mine did; she lived in a neighborhood that got a lot of JW and Mormon doorknockers.
So one day she opened the door in the middle of bathing her pet constrictor snake. Because the easiest way to bathe the snake is to wrap it around you and take a shower.
The family on the doorstep freaked the FUCK out when a naked woman with pink or purple hair answered, wearing a 15 foot snake.
That did it.
Did she had an apple in her hand?
Nah, she had her hands full with the snake, and making sure it didn't constrict too much.
It was sufficient without the apple.
And interuppting Saturday morning cartoons? Isn't that like blasphemy? "That's All Folks"
Yeah , like a captive audience ▪︎ Who wastes thier free time - arguing with a closed determined mine,,, no winning.🤓⚠️🙄🌐🗽
It's as if there were a rule saying you had to abstain from "alcoholic drinks," but it's okay if you have a glass of OJ, 2 tablespoons of grenadine, and a shot of tequila, all in separate glasses. Oh, and eat the worm separately.
Make mine two parts vodka, one part Kahlua, on ice, thanks! 😁 🥃
make mine a 'double'
That's my absolute favorite drink!
When I'm not drinking single-malts or a good blended scotch, it's mine as well!
The "worm" doesn't have blood, so it's all good.
While starin' slowly 'cross the sky?
Hmm... the cynic in me says that recruiting numbers are down or that an Elder or one of their loved ones needed medical intervention and opted for a transfusion rather than death, therefore "God" changed the rules.
I similarly wonder what goaded the Catholic Church into renouncing their belief in limbo. In both cases, there almost must be a cause or causes for these effects.
And I want to know just WHAT they are.
I don't think Limbo ever made it to the status of official dogma.
And I imagine a lot of priests got really tired of telling women whose babies died before they could be sprinkled with water that they would never see their child again because God was a stickler for the magic rituals.
Boy, how low can you go.
Valid points, I wouldn't want those quanderies 👀😐🗿
Thanks🌐🗽🎐
They should renounce their beliefs in Purgatory, too. That place doesn't really exist at all.
Purgatory and limbo are as real as heaven and hell.
And as real as unicorns and vampires.
So much of Catholic doctrine cannot be found in the bible that it's laughable. I'm surprised that more people haven't called them on it, but of course, we aren't talking about thinking people. We're talking about sheep.
As a good Catholic you should know that the Bible is just a secondary document where only the parts that don't contradict the Catechism must be believed.
There is also the question of 'Which Bible.' There is no remaining copy of the original. What we do have has been edited and translated for centuries. Editors have the tendency to edit things the way they want. And when translators have no translation for archaic words, they just have to pick the one the like.
As RCC members and shamans get older, it's harder to get under the bar.
I asked the six-fingered plagiarism robot about that and it said that there is no evidence of a leader or a love one needing blood components.
None that has been reported on the interwebs, that is.
How much of this decision must rest on what has to be the repeated incident of JWs facing mortal consequences of their belief in having to refuse blood transfusions and subsequently dying for their misbegotten beliefs? Certainly, auto-transfusing has been a common practice for decades, but too often, it is insufficient to the task, and the patient succumbs because of DOGMA.
And, as I stated earlier, transfusion is NOT EATING. Is it just possible that the elders of the Jehovah's Witlesses finally copped a clue about that? Or was the death toll just too much for them?
Perhaps the powers that be did drink blood. They just didn't want to share.
Further Thought:
𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑠ℎ.
-- Leviticus 17:14
No great surprise, the JWs have been getting this wrong all along. EATING blood will not result in the body's own blood volume being improved in any significant fashion. TRANSFUSING blood WILL, because transfusion bypasses the process of DIGESTION.
One wonders if JWs abjure eating steak rare to medium-rare!
Still no black pudding: still not joining.
Why am I hearing that line from "Psycho" in my head? "Mother... blood..."
This is a brilliant point!
PS: Many of us have argued again and again that the law of Leviticus 17:14 is a dietary regulation. Jehovah's Witnesses kamikaze doctrine makes sense only if it's interpreted as a medical instruction—it isn't.
It's been God's Law up until now, huh? So a bloodthirsty deity suddendly grows a conscience?
Either that or their elders found themselves up against untoward circumstances they couldn't just wave away. Inconvenient truths are like that.
> "...the new policy allows Jehovah’s Witnesses to make their own decisions"
To be accurate, they always had that ability. That they chose not to exercise that ability is on them.
Sure, it was always on them, but taking such action could come with a pretty untoward penalty: being disfellowshipped and SHUNNED.
Still, it would be interesting of a JW with more than a little chutzpah confronted their congregation and said, "The doc told me that I could go with a transfusion by parts, but it would not be as effective or lead to a successful outcome as would a whole blood transfusion. Whether you like it or not, HE KNOWS HIS BUSINESS. I trusted him, and because of that, I'M STILL HERE."
Maybe that person gets kicked out, too, but they could leave holding their head high.
Sounds like they just don’t want to be held liable for all the death rather than having any change of heart. Kill yourself if you want, but leave the children out of it!
But don't worry, all the other shitty policies are completely legit, now and forever. So continue hating the gays and shunning your family members if they deconvert.
I've known several people over the years who left high-control religions because they just couldn't anymore, and had to depend on a sympathetic relative for news about their birth families. And one woman who moved three states away and let her family assume that she was still in the cult and still attending services, because she knew what it would cost her if they knew the truth.
When a cult has to depend on such draconian measures to shore up its ridiculous beliefs and retain members, that's a giant red flag.
This isn't the first time that odd sects like the Jehovah's Witness have changed their outlook through a new "revelation" though is it? Revelation which just happened to coincide with either public opinion or secular law – like the admission of black people to the ranks. But I think in dog I trust has it to be honest. Some bigwig needs blood.