Conscience individual and collective

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, xero said:

Musing - Conscience only seems troubled by the acceptance or rejection of thoughts or ideas which have consequences to us which we'd rather not experience.

I liked your KH building experience. We've all had that experience when we would have made different decisions if we were in charge, and then we are glad we weren't.

But I can't seem to fit your musing on conscience into what I thought was the most common use of the term "conscience" in the Bible. Of course, it might be right anyway, depending on what you mean by consequences. For example:

Let's say that you would love the experience of eating roast beef a couple times a week, but depending on your location (and your time in history) the only viable source is the meat shop just outside the local pagan temple where they sacrifice animals and then sell the meat. In this case, the consequence of eating meat is something you would want to experience, but perhaps you'd rather not experience the consequence of spiritual brothers and sisters who react to your attitude by:

• their own revulsion that you would dare be associated with idolatry.
• talking behind your back and gossiping that you are not a serious Christian because you would dare go against the counsel of the Jerusalem body of elders who declared that you should not eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol.
• their being shaken in their faith or even stumbled that you would do this openly in front of them and even defend it as no big deal (because idols are no big deal).

Or perhaps you are not truly convinced in your own mind that eating meat sacrificed to an idol is OK. Therefore you think it might be a sin, and are therefore going to suffer the future consequences of judgment against yourself for continuing in sin.

This is probably the way most Witnesses look at blood-sourced medical therapies. Most Witnesses will accept the full range of "allowed" blood products (smaller fractions) that the WTS has identified as OK "if your conscience allows it." What the WTS has currently identified as "not allowed" (whole and larger fractions) are not considered to be a matter of conscience. They are simply not allowed without the potential consequences of disfellowshipping.

But as regards the "conscience" matter of those allowable fractions, the Witness wants the consequences of the therapeutic medical advantages including longer and healthier physical life in this system. You will not be gossiped about behind your back nor will brothers and sisters be shaken in their faith by your decision to take these blood products, because there is trust in the WTS decision that you have made a decision that properly falls under the range of decisions that are allowed by your own conscience. One could argue that this really has nothing to do with conscience, and comments from HLC elders (including one of my cousins) would appear to bear this out.

There have been several comments in this thread where the subtext, at least, shows that we might be confusing conscience at times with guilt or "reasonable" choices regarding sin, or just "reasonable" choices regarding not wishing to offend people.

It occurs to me that the apostle Paul would rather eat vegetables (instead of meat) in front of brothers who might be offended/stumbled. Yet he was willing to write a letter that publicly declared that it was OK to eat meat sacrificed to an idol. Which is worse, eating in front of one who might be stumbled, or writing a letter that offends 10,000 brothers who might be stumbled at hearing your flippant attitude about meat sacrificed to idols.

[TrueTomHarley]

5 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Which is worse, eating in front of one who might be stumbled, or writing a letter that offends 10,000 brothers who might be stumbled at hearing your flippant attitude about meat sacrificed to idols.

This final sentence should have ended with a question mark but did not. 

I’m stumbled.

[xero]

JWI - The connection w/conscience is the business of going along with a brother or a group. I always ask myself, "What's the harm in going along w/what appears to be a wrong idea? If it's just me "being annoyed" and everyone appears to be amenable, then I go along. Yes, I make a bit of noise w/regard to my objections, but I figure that if it's really important, Jehovah will correct it.

Even at work sometimes you have to let people screw up when you really do know better. This way they actually learn. You can't be constantly "steadying the ark", like uzzah.

[JW Insider]

38 minutes ago, xero said:

JWI - The connection w/conscience is the business of going along with a brother or a group. I always ask myself, "What's the harm in going along w/what appears to be a wrong idea?

It sounds like you are applying "conscience" to very mundane matters of getting along with others. You are then generalizing these mundane things so that they might apply loosely to matters of spirituality and "sin." Nothing wrong with that of course. It's also what many of Jesus' illustrations and parables do.

But the mundane matters in themselves are not about conscience. If a brother wants a grey carpet in the new Kingdom Hall, and you want a beige carpet, it is not a matter of "conscience" for you to say OK to the grey. It's just a mundane decision. There are no grey areas of right and wrong -- unless it's a very cheap carpet.

Our KH once had wallpaper in the bathrooms with a light fleur-de-lis pattern. Someone mentioned the political, religious, even possible Trinitarian associations, but he was not in the least personally offended; he just wanted to show off his knowledge of history. Since no one else really cared, the COBE decided that when it came time to change it someday, they'd remember not to repeat the pattern.

[xero]

2 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

It sounds like you are applying "conscience" to very mundane matters of getting along with others. You are then generalizing these mundane things so that they might apply loosely to matters of spirituality and "sin." Nothing wrong with that of course. It's also what many of Jesus' illustrations and parables do.

But the mundane matters in themselves are not about conscience. If a brother wants a grey carpet in the new Kingdom Hall, and you want a beige carpet, it is not a matter of "conscience" for you to say OK to the grey. It's just a mundane decision. There are no grey areas of right and wrong -- unless it's a very cheap carpet.

Our KH once had wallpaper in the bathrooms with a light fleur-de-lis pattern. Someone mentioned the political, religious, even possible Trinitarian associations, but he was not in the least personally offended; he just wanted to show off his knowledge of history. Since no one else really cared, the COBE decided that when it came time to change it someday, they'd remember not to repeat the pattern.

I had to point out that a painting of the oracle of delphi wasn't appropriate at a kingdom hall.

[JW Insider]

12 minutes ago, xero said:

I had to point out that a painting of the oracle of delphi wasn't appropriate at a kingdom hall.

But it was OK for the WTS to use Oracle and Delphi when they set up their accounting systems using an IDE with Object Pascal?

[JW Insider]

I started a thread about physical meeting attendance and zoom, and moved it here: https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/88710-physical-attendance-at-meetingsassemblies-and-zoom-attendance/?tab=comments#comment-156799

 

[xero]

Well there are certainly mundane things pertaining to conscience. Like minor blood fractions. Quite mundane as the term applies to the earthly realm. One could imagine all manner of things there. Suppose one were to imagine that it would be possible like a Ted Talk I saw, where they were able to manufacture or culture meat, that they were also able to manufacture all that blood is. Would this be allowable, if it were completely indistinguishable from actual blood?

Also, it would seem that IQ and conscience are also related. I would imagine that certain nuance in the exercise of one's conscience might get a jaundiced look from low IQ brothers and sisters. Let's face it, some of our most faithful brothers and sisters have IQ's about the level of a hamster.

I was thinking that once when my wife and I were giving a ride to the circuit assembly for a sister and her daughter. They sat happily in the back eating chips offering nothing in the way of conversation or adding anything to the discussion until they ran out of chips and fell asleep until we got to the assembly hall.

I can't imagine these could ever get stumbled out of the truth by some fancy-pants discussions surrounding relative vs absolute dates in the Hebrew scriptures.

[Srecko Sostar]

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

If a brother wants a grey carpet in the new Kingdom Hall, and you want a beige carpet, it is not a matter of "conscience"

I completely agree with what was said .... 

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

This is probably the way most Witnesses look at blood-sourced medical therapies. Most Witnesses will accept the full range of "allowed" blood products (smaller fractions) that the WTS has identified as OK "if your conscience allows it." What the WTS has currently identified as "not allowed" (whole and larger fractions) are not considered to be a matter of conscience. They are simply not allowed without the potential consequences of disfellowshipping.

... also, I am of the opinion that “blood fractions” cannot enter the realm of conscience. Because of the "do not eat blood" itself, as a commandment, it is essentially set as a prohibition, not as a moral dilemma. "Blood transfusion" has become a dilemma (religious, doctrinal, moral dilemma, etc.), because the question arises whether receiving blood for the purpose of a medical procedure can be reduced to just "eating" something that is prohibited in Bible .

“Blood fractions” are not a matter of conscience because there is currently no religious dilemma about it in the WTJWorg official position. (Same is with blood transfusion. This is not matter for conscience of JW member, but only matter of obeying WTJWorg doctrine)  The question of "blood fractions" is a question of the desired choice, similar to the example of "what color of carpet" do you want, or do you not want a carpet in general, but you want ceramic tiles.

The question of conscience is not just a question of whether we will be guilty of something or not. Or, will the social environment accept or reject us. It is also a question of how we will feel ourselves if we do or do not do something.

[Anna]

5 hours ago, xero said:

would imagine that certain nuance in the exercise of one's conscience might get a jaundiced look from low IQ brothers and sisters. Let's face it, some of our most faithful brothers and sisters have IQ's about the level of a hamster.

You are a little condescending here, but I know what you mean

[TrueTomHarley]

10 hours ago, xero said:

Even at work sometimes you have to let people screw up when you really do know better. This way they actually learn

I am told of a certain brother in a developing land who has had great responsibility and is always smiling. “Yes, brother,” he says to this with the local friends, and “Yes,  brother,” he says to that. It is only if you ask him if he thinks the course you are about to embark on is a good idea that he will say, “No, brother,” still smiling, and not offering a better course. unless specifically drawn out.

[TrueTomHarley]

6 hours ago, xero said:

Let's face it, some of our most faithful brothers and sisters have IQ's about the level of a hamster.

 

I know where you’re coming from, but I agree with Anna. I think it is not good to describe the brotherhood this way. I think it because the scriptures lay no emphasis at all on this “deficiency,” if it is one. Instead, they goes out of their way to show favor to such ones. They pay no attention to the head. They only pay attention to the heart. 

“Wisdom cries aloud from the street,” the Bible says. “Hogwash,” comes the answer from the learned ones. “It cries aloud from the quadrangles. Only ignoramuses are to be found in the street.”

It is their bad, for it cries aloud from the street. 

I like the counsel to Philippians to keep regarding the other as superior. If it seems to me that I truly am superior towards another with regard to smarts, I look for another way in which he truly is superior to me. I usually don’t have to look too hard.