Thinking

I have a feeling I must have come across in this thread as a promoter of whole blood transfusions. But I'm really looking for clarity myself. I also hate the idea of someone's blood pumped into my veins. There was a time when I would have died rather than allow that. But then I had children and realized that even though I had every right to die for my beliefs, I better be awfully certain of my reasons before imposing a similar death sentence on my children if the situation arose. 
Over the years, however, I have ended up visiting worldly relatives, friends and neighbors while they were hospitalized, and even visiting a hospital where my daughter worked as part of her college work in biochemistry and pre-med stuff. I still had that same sick feeling when seeing those packs of blood. But I realized that some of the JW arguments FOR medical use of blood make sense, and I learned that there were Witnesses taking blood that had required blood from hundreds of blood donors, and it made me wonder why Witnesses could only TAKE blood from worldly donors, and never offer anything back in terms of donated blood. 
Then the change in the WT's view of organ transplants happened the year I got married and started thinking about children, insurance, what to do if my wife had a serious medical issue, what she should do if I had one. 
It was a time I studied the situation hard, and we both (wife and I) came up with the idea that we are both willing to die for Acts 15, even when it comes to fractions, but that we could not impose our conscience on our children. We realized how most of us, as Witnesses, were always anxious to discuss the medical dangers of blood, and leave it at that, as if the dangers of blood alone made us so much better than all those worldly people who were risking their lives for nothing. Focusing on the dangers was supposed to be enough so that we never had to even think about the many more positive outcomes where blood actually saved a life. 
It reminded me of that same time period 10 years earlier, when many types of transplants were in early testing stages and had bad outcomes. The WTBTS focused almost completely on how many failures there were. 
*** g72 7/8 p. 28 “Keep Abstaining from . . . Blood” ***
Life magazine, September 17, 1971, showed a picture on the front cover of six persons who had received heart transplants and who seemed to be well and happy at the time. But within just eight months after the picture was taken all six of these had succumbed to their body’s efforts to reject foreign tissue. The article told how “the rejection drugs triggered bizarre acts,” and that “their ballooning faces haunted one doctor.” The author of the article, who has written a book on the subject, Hearts, also reported that the death rate for heart transplants for the first three years was more than 85 percent. One surgeon, who transplanted twenty-two hearts, had every last one of his patients die. And while he dismissed the entire matter as “a procedure which we tried and—for the time being—discarded,” the patients were not able to be so casual about it. And here again, it might be noted, that the stand of the Christian witnesses of Jehovah—that such transplants are in effect a form of cannibalism—proved a safeguard. How so? In that it spared them much frustration, grief and anxiety, which were experienced not only by the patients and their relatives but even by many of the assisting medical personnel.
 

I figured that George88 was coming at this from the verses he quoted. Still, It reminds me of an old teaching once promoted by a GB member at Bethel: that it's the natural, physical heart that is the seat of motivations. In a talk I heard him give at our Assembly Hall he would say that persons who have  been given heart transplants from a criminal have reported that they themselves now have criminal tendencies. It was common to see things like this in the "Watching the World" pages of the Awake! too. Later, when I worked for this brother, he had already been asked to stop giving that talk that promoted the physical heart as the actual seat of human motivation, but he asked me to always be on the lookout for any new information that might support the theory.
*** g71 11/22 p. 31 Watching the World ***
Disenchantment with Heart Transplants
◆ Since 1967 doctors have performed 166 heart transplants, but the initial enthusiasm is gone. Too many patients have died—more than 85 percent thus far. There were also bad side effects. There were depression, brief periods of being psychotic, memory lapses, sleeplessness and marked changes in personality. According to Life magazine, immunologists have concluded that “the heart is a peculiar, particular organ, not only a pump, but a creature of some internal, unknown majesty.”
*** w81 9/15 p. 15 Insight on the News ***
“Heart Overrides Everything”
● Heart specialists now believe that about one third of heart patients have emotional problems after surgery. This often begins about the second day following the operation and may last about a week. Some patients become delirious; some suffer from weird dreams and hallucinations; others have severe bouts with anxiety and depression. To deal with the emotional problems that some patients have after surgery, heart surgeons and psychiatrists around the world recently formed an international consortium. The consortium would like doctors and nurses to pay as much careful attention to a patient’s emotional state after heart surgery as they do to heartbeats.
The specialists speak of the psychological significance of the heart. For example, psychiatrist Richard S. Blacher of Tufts–New England Medical Center in Boston says of the heart: “It’s a very special organ. People commonly think of it as the seat of emotions. In our minds, the heart overrides everything.”—“Newsweek,” May 25, 1981, p. 63.
How true it is that the heart tends to overrule the head, the seat of intellect! In view of this, the heart, above all else, must be disciplined and trained to respond to Bible guidance. It must be taught to appreciate spiritual qualities. These qualities spring from God. “More than all else that is to be guarded,” says God’s Word, “safeguard your heart, for out of it are the sources of life.”—Prov. 4:23; compare Matthew 15:19.
 
*** g70 10/22 p. 29 Watching the World ***
Personality Change
◆ According to a report that appeared on United Press International of August 18, 1970, the daughter of Philip Blaiberg said that he had experienced a complete personality change after undergoing a heart-transplant operation. 
Awake! 8/22 p. 29:

*** w75 9/1 p. 519 Insight on the News ***
It has long been known that heart-transplant patients have a higher-than-average amount of postoperative psychiatric problems. But it seems that the same is true with regard to some other vital organ transplants, such as kidney transplants. U.C.L.A. psychiatry professor Dr. Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco is quoted as saying: “An outstanding finding following transplantation is the not infrequent occurrence of serious emotional disturbance.” One study of 292 kidney-transplant patients showed that nearly 20 percent experienced severe depression after the operation, a few even attempting suicide. By contrast, only about one out of every 1,500 general-surgery patients develops a severe emotional disturbance.
A peculiar factor sometimes noted is a so-called ‘personality transplant.’ That is, the recipient in some cases has seemed to adopt certain personality factors of the person from whom the organ came. One young promiscuous woman who received a kidney from her older, conservative, well-behaved sister, at first seemed very upset. Then she began imitating her sister in much of her conduct. Another patient claimed to receive a changed outlook on life after his kidney transplant. Following a transplant, one mild-tempered man became aggressive like the donor. The problem may be largely or wholly mental. But it is of interest, at least, that the Bible links the kidneys closely with human emotions.—Compare Jeremiah 17:10 and Revelation 2:23.
 
In the Awake! 10/221969, I noticed the attempt to make sure ALL transplant statistics showed more people dying than living. So much so that with kidney transplants they wouldn't give the actual survival rate, which had been above 50%, but instead Awake! found a segment of kidney transplant recipients (donor unrelated) where the survival rate was still below 50%. 


The point of most organ transplants is often not based on the idea of long-term survival. Most transplanted organs "wear out" often even kidneys after just a decade or so. No transplant offers any guarantee of long-term survival, they are merely procedures that often provide a temporary extension. In that sense they are like other potentially life-saving medical procedures. But a more complex decision than most other procedures.   

Yeah, I think my vagus nerve when haywire for a time. Call it a nervous breakdown, of which the best way to describe it is to being stuck in that ‘fight or flight’ moment of unease for 4 straight years, during which there was not a night I slept more than 4 hours. During that time, my blog disappeared; you know I am ill if my blog disappears. I credit the truth for overcoming this breakdown—not the truth in itself or I would not have succumbed in the first place, but for providing the solid foundation upon which to recover. The disorder runs in the family, and my mother and grandmother both fared worse than me, having never recovered once struck.
Now why go public with this, which I have not done yet in anything more than hints?
[Almost] no man has ever had greater love than this: that he should bear his soul for his buddy @George88. Several times in the past, George has said things like:
“While I do not feel the need to disclose the specifics, as there may be individuals here who lack empathy and would make light of my experiences while showing sympathy towards others like a coward would, the impact of these experiences has nonetheless been truly traumatic.”
I suggest you come out with them. You do not lesson yourself when you do that. You gain the upper hand. Just like how Paul came to say that he would not lead off with his strengths; he would rather lead off with his weaknesses, because in serving through those the Lord was glorified. People may be more magnanimous than you suppose. If anyone makes light of your experiences, they reveal more about themselves than about you.
This is because, apart from Alphonse, who does seem to like you, you give nothing of yourself. Worse, there is usually a tone of ‘rebuke from superiority’ in your comments, which brings out the best in no one. Giving of oneself is necessary to establish the human connection so that ones may feel inclined to bond with you. You don’t do it. You should. It would aid you to get past this problem you perceive, like Rodney Dangerfield, of getting no respect.
So I am showing you the way. Got any specifics more debilitating than mine? Out with them. It may help smooth relations with your fellows online, and possibly everywhere else. Moreover, in so baring my previous woes, I am expressing the confidence that you will not try to use such against me. If I am wrong in that, then I will offer you another lesson in how to cope with ill talk. But I am confident the need for this will not arise. You may feel as privileged, George, as the woman at the well—excepting only that she learned for the first time that her companion was the Messiah, whereas you have learned for the first time that your companion is a fellow yo-yo with prior issues.
When you return from enormous personal trial, it is a little like being raised from the dead. You know a little of how Job felt. It only benefits you going forward.

It’s an old teaching..may or not be true ..I have see even studies  from the world concerning this 

They carried a donkey full of scrolls I presume….

I dunno. This looks a lot like Vic Vomodog who, years after he left the faith, would continue to show up at hospitals, bare his arm, and order, ‘Fill ‘er up!’ just to show Jehovah’s Witnesses what he thought of them. Doctors invariably tried to shoo him away, but he would always return.

They carried a donkey full of scrolls I presume….

They carried a donkey full of scrolls I presume….

You may be missing something here.

a brothers nightmare …

The deeper all of this is analyzed, to me it makes the wisdom of “abstain from blood“ better and better.
Besides, we’re not supposed to be that afraid of death…
 

I'm not even sure anyone is clear on the policy any more. All I get is "What should I do bro X?" and I say, read the scriptures, use your conscience and as long as you're settled in your mind and heart, that's all you can do. You can still be wrong, but then again everyone makes mistakes especially when things are ambiguous or they get complicated.

In the end I want non-blood medical management. Single unit transfusions are useless box-checking done to please the legalistic hospital administrators and to rack up line item expenses. Remember the hospitals and doctors are for-profit entities. My avoidance of blood in any form is more due to my ideas that it's not healthy for me physically, but even it if was good for me, like I had my own "blood boy" I would still not do it because of the history religious and otherwise. I suppose I might be likened to a jew who had never eaten pork and for whom doing so was gross. I might acknowledge that it was legal now since the mosaic restrictions aren't in place, but my brain would still be whispering "Yeah, so then why was it forbidden? Huh? Whatcha gotta say about that?"

My only wish is that not only fractions but also whole blood became a conscience matter, and not a disfellowshipping offense. Only because there  are some unanswered questions (although I did say it seems pretty clear to me).

Sometimes I think we overuse the chariot illustration. 
Recently my wife and I were invited on a KH remodeling project. At my age and non-skill level, I am not going to be any major player in anything, but I appreciated the invitation and accepted a two-day stint along with my wife.
Safety training is required—a lot of it before you even set foot on the project. For one session online that I was informed might take up to three hours—several videos followed by answering questions off the master safety document, I found myself beating back the cynical thought that some too-starryeyed artist might insert God strapped into his chariot in one of the videos. But it did not happen and I could not help but think that the quality of training would be the envy of any construction organization. The way scriptures were interwoven was masterful. Even the verse of the ‘overconfident one who comes to ruin’ was applied to the experienced worker inclined to blow past safety regulations because he is so experienced as to think himself immune. Nobody blows past anything when it comes to safety, experienced or not. You’re dismissed from the site if you do, but I didn’t see anyone coming even close to grumbling over such rules of safety, which are iron-clad. Zero accidents is the goal.
Not just the training, but the project itself. The people skills on display far outshone what would be found on any secular construction site. The abilities of volunteers, some experienced and some not, was harnessed to an astonishing degree. Always, there was a brother with oversight to accommodate any skill level and to break any task into doable steps—and always with the safety and overall well-being of participants placed even ahead of the job itself. First of all, they are shepherds, I am told—that is incorporated into their training. In short, I’ve never seen anything like it—even if the chariot was not on visible display.

False equivalencies. Bogus premises. 
 

I'm kind of split in half......I can't make my mind up. The thought of having someone's blood pumped into my veins, that dark red bag hanging from the IV stand, makes me feel physically sick. But that may be because of years of "indoctrination". (I don't mean that in a bad way....just that this is what we have been taught and believe).
The main thing is how does Jehovah feel about it of course. The admonition to abstain from blood seems pretty clear, I don't know how else one could interpret that....I mean I know this whole thread has attempted that, but then some of the arguments get too ridiculous and again, remind me of the cat parody....

Stop judging others ,,,,Miles and you are the biggest Judges here….if you have made your mind up to take blood or transplants then go ahead..do it..none of it is my business …nor what I do..is yours…..what I’m seeing here is self righteousness in the extreme…..

There are many on line who will gloat over the fall of us as a people….let them..they forget they may be getting sifted as well.

Many this kind of nonsense has to be hashed out before another leg of influx can begin. Sort of like the hundredth year anniversary of hauling out the nonsense that was trinity and hellfire. After all, Pudgy has pointed out that, given that this is the truth—that is, the collection of teachings so that the Bible makes sense, you would people would be beating down our doors to get it, rather than the reverse.
Somewhere on social media there is the list, counting time—crossed out, no-beards—crossed out, and next on the list is ‘ties.’ I can’t see these ever being crossed out, but maybe we can reach the point of not insisting upon wearing them in the jungle (rain forest).

I agree with him as well…all this thread does is make me stronger in my personal stand 

2 Samuel 23:13-17,In this passage, David's mighty warriors risked their lives to fetch him water from the well near Bethlehem because David expressed a longing for it. However, when they presented the water to him, David considered it as if it were the blood of his men who had risked their lives to obtain it, and he refused to drink it, instead pouring it out as an offering to Jehovah.

Some of these posts are as dumb as I’ve ever seen….