Religion: pros & cons pt1 (Religion)

by dhw, Friday, October 24, 2014, 20:11 (3464 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

PART ONE-DHW: The two passages in Acts tell us to abstain from things polluted by/sacrificed to idols, from fornication, from things strangled and from blood, the last two of which presumably refer to the “kosher” way of slaughtering animals before eating them. 
TONY: So perhaps if it were just pure blood and in a cup and you drank it, which is not "eating" you would be ok. Maybe if you put it in a enema, and shot it up your rear end you would be ok too. -I don't follow your reasoning. We're not talking about performing revolting actions for the sake of it, but about a medical procedure whose sole purpose is to save life. You claimed that the bible banned ingestion of blood. I pointed out that the OT used the word “eat” (I can't find “ingest”), which to me suggests a ban on blood as food.
 
TONY: Abstaining from things strangled does indeed refer to a kosher diet. So what about that second tag? Why include it if the first tag covered the same topic?

Perhaps because even if the animal has its throat cut, it's still perfectly possible to eat some blood. All this illustrates how the bible is open to interpretation, which you deny, because you insist that “eat” does not refer only to food but also to the then unknown practice of transfusion.-DHW: If a patient's life can be saved by a blood transfusion, but the patient doesn't have one and dies, what part does medical safety play in your argument? I would still very much like to know how many patients have died as a result of this highly debatable interpretation of an ancient text.
TONY: ...I've looked, but I have not been able to find hard numbers. Out of curiosity, how many deaths are required to condemn us for our beliefs? 1? 10? 100? Maybe 1000? -You did not answer my first question. You have argued (correctly) that the practice is not safe. I'm arguing that if the patient dies, your practice is clearly not safe either. As a matter of interest, perhaps David could tell us roughly what percentage of his patients died from blood transfusions by comparison with those whose lives were saved.
 
TONY: My guess is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if we are right or wrong. It doesn't matter if none of us died or a hundred thousand of us died. We reject what is the social norm, and that, in and of itself, is enough to condemn us. Of course, no one mentions how our teachings and practices SAVE lives. No one mentions the drug addicts, alcoholics, smokers, or other reckless life threatening practices that Witnesses actively work to stop....etc.
 
Sadly, I have to agree with you, and here we must distinguish between the personal and the general. I used to have long discussions with a delightful Jehovah's Witness couple (both dead now), who came regularly to the house. I bought the Watch Tower and Awake and several excellent books, including a very useful one on evolution (Life - How did it get here? By evolution or creation?). I admire the dedication and social work of the JWs. Unfortunately, you are right that many people condemn them or laugh at them, largely on account of the blood issue and the salvation of the 144,000. But the issue we are discussing has nothing to do with JWs as such. You defend your interpretation of these biblical texts brilliantly, and I wish we had another scholar to debate the details with you, but the fact is that other scholars DO disagree with you, and (a) this proves that the bible is open to interpretation, and (b) by labelling them ignorant, malicious, or self-interested, you are expressing precisely the same dismissive (and grossly unfair) attitude that you resent when they “condemn” JWs.
 
DAVID: We hold life as sacred, but we hold that Jehovah's sovereignty, love, mercy, and justice is worth more than our own lives. It's called faith. I know you respect faith, but your answers over the course of this discussion make me wonder if you really understand it. So I pose a question. Do you have faith, and if so, in what?-I can understand people being willing to die for their beliefs, and I do respect such faith, except when it impinges on the life, health, wellbeing or happiness of others, e.g. fundamentalist suicide bombers who combine martyrdom and murder for the sake of their religious cause. (You have said that God will judge people by their motives. If he welcomes them to paradise, so be it.) My arguments are meant as a critique not of faith but of dogmatism. Perhaps I have a built-in resistance to any claim that X is the truth and everyone else is wrong. (Hence my antipathy to militant atheism.) You ask if I have faith in anything. It's a difficult question, and I've had to think hard about it. The only answer I have come up with is so corny that I hesitate to put it in writing, but I will, because it's what I feel: I have faith in the power of human love and laughter.