What is our scriptural basis for refusing transfusion of products rendered from blood?

[Many Miles]

1 hour ago, Pudgy said:

Premise three:  If I was Noah, and I was given permission to (technically) take any sort of food aboard the Ark, as a practical matter I would NEVER consider Carrion in any way, shape, or form … BECAUSE  is not a dependable food source ad to availability, or to packaging or storage …

Your response is like chattering teeth. You make noise, but don't convey anything sensical.

1) As a premise, it's not "technical" whether an item is this or that. It's either this or that.

2) It's patently false to suggest flesh of animals dead of natural cause that is fit to eat is not a practical edible. Humans and animals consume this sort of food all the time. (This how I've expressly used the term "carrion" here and elsewhere on this forum and to assert otherwise is equivocation. Not that you'd care.) From a practical nutritional standpoint there is no difference between flesh of animals dead of natural cause compared to the flesh of animals dead by slaughter.

3) Availability and dependability are questions of opportunity. If the opportunity of harvesting edible flesh of an animal dead of natural cause is present then it is available, and how dependable is that availability is likewise a question of continued opportunity, just like it is with any other food source. Animals are dying of natural cause all the time. It can be harvested and stored according to availability and need.

4) Storage by the ancients of harvested flesh of an animal dead of natural cause was as possible as it was for vegetation.

5) I'm wasting my time responding to you because you don't care about the subject or persons who might read what's here. You want to clap out nonsense and share cartoons and memes, apparently to entertain yourself.

 

[Pudgy]

There is a way to test your last post to see if my cartoons are as frivilous as you see them.….. not that I care.

Walk out your front door and find some wholesome roadkill to have for dinner.

Make a note of how long it takes, and if you had to be hospitalized for food poisoning.

[Pudgy]

… some things are “possible” …. but so improbable that only the clueless and the inexperienced, and the “slow” would consider them.

They will usually defend their screwball agendas until their last angry breath.

[Many Miles]

1 hour ago, Pudgy said:

Walk out your front door and find some wholesome roadkill to have for dinner.

Here: 

 

[Many Miles]

56 minutes ago, George88 said:

It is not enough to assert something as true without demonstrating evidence to support it.

I agree with that.

Here:

 

[Many Miles]

1 minute ago, George88 said:

Speculation is not a valid form of evidence. It is too vague and unreliable to be taken seriously.
 

So...

Is it speculative, vague or unreliable to say:

"Animal flesh dead of natural cause is, by Divine act of earth's created ecosystem, ONE SORT OF FOOD EATEN and metabolized by other living creatures."

If yes, why?

If no, why?

Is it speculative, vague or unreliable to say:

"Genesis 6:21 expressly states that Noah was to gather EVERY SORT OF FOOD EATEN for it to serve as food for himself and animals on the ark."

If yes, why?

If no, why?

 

Here:

 

[Many Miles]

13 hours ago, Many Miles said:

If we have no rational scriptural basis for refusing transfusion of products rendered from donor blood (and I've not seen any offered), then 1) why did the society initially ban transfusion of any products rendered from donor blood and 2) why has it maintained that position despite lack of rational scriptural basis for it? We could also ask 3) why has the society done this though admitting throughout the entire episode there has been consistent objection from within its own ranks and on bases which the society has ludicrously talked fallacies around?

 

Answering "why" is always difficult, and we may never have a definitively solid answer to the questions posed above.

However, in Journal of Contemporary Religion (Vol. 12, No. 2, 1997, pp. 133-157) professors Rodney Stark and Laurence Iannaccone co-authored an article titled Why the Jehovah’s Witnesses Grow so Rapidly: A Theoretical Application. Therein they posit a theoretical model of why religious movements succeed to see how well it explains growth amongst JWs. A proposition within this model may offer insight into the "why" question above.

That proposition is:

New religious movements are likely to succeed to the extent that they maintain a medium level of tension with their surrounding environment—are strict, but not too strict.

According to Stark and Iannaccone,

Applied to the Witnesses, the issue is not whether they are sufficiently strict, but whether they aren’t too strict. Their stormy relations with outsiders, especially governments, make it clear that they are in considerable tension with their environment. The very high expectations concerning religious and missionary activity, their unbending pacifism, rejection of flag-saluting and anthem-singing, and their refusal to have blood transfusions all demonstrate considerable “strictness”. On the other hand, the Witnesses are comfortable with much of the general culture. Although they prohibit smoking, they do not prohibit drinking—and most of them do. They have no distinctive dress requirements and female Witnesses do not stint on cosmetics—publishers are expected to be nicely dressed and well-groomed, when they go calling. They do not prohibit going to sporting events, movies, plays, or watching television--although many believe this is a waste of precious time better devoted to missionary work. Consequently, it is impossible to identify a Witness, unless he or she volunteers the information. Visibility may, in fact, be the crucial factor for identifying when groups impose too much tension or strictness. [Underline added for emphasis]

If this is true, there is reason to believe the answer to the "why" question has more to do with growing a religious movement than being rational. If true, this would explain a great deal. It would, for example, explain why, to this day, not a single member of the governing body is willing to openly and publicly engage in a critical analysis of the blood doctrine they stubbornly hold to despite overwhelming evidence the doctrine is not only unsound but outright refuted. It would also explain all the society's demonstrably fallacious responses it offers in its literature addressing the subject. Then we have all the society's online die-hards, who, to the person, fail over and over again to offer any rational reasons supporting their leaders' position. They don't have this rationale because the ones they entrust with their decision-making have not offered them suitable material.

It may end up being the case that the society is running a religion business rather than a moral compass anchored on rational biblical foundation. It pains me to say it, but there it is. I've said it out loud. Of course, those of us like me know we were taught from infancy that the society's religious positions are [soundly] reasoned from the scriptures. Yet, as older, more experienced and educated adults we've learned we do not have sound reasoning that support the society's current religious position on blood. We also learned that insiders tasked to answer for this doctrine (like Fred Rusk) have utterly failed in their attempts. Over and over again they've offered false premises to underpin the doctrine.

This finding may be confirmed by the society's own publications and doctrinal evolution:

The society's own literature demonstrates that since 1945 the JW community consistently objected on sound bases to the notion that it was wrong to teach the scriptures forbid transfusion of donor blood to save life and/or health. Regardless, the society just turned up the heat on this doctrine to the point where it became a matter that could lead to a JW being disfellowshipped (excommunicated).

The doctrinal evolution of this religious position also shows a dial feature related to "personal conscience matters" and what it terms "minor fractions" that have the effect of mitigating harm to JWs whilst maintaining the overall doctrine. Over the years the society has used these doctrinal features to dial up or dial down the tension caused by its blood doctrine, again whilst still maintaining the overall doctrinal position.

The whole thing smacks of business building strategy rather than offering a sound scriptually based moral compass.

[JW Insider]

14 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Is it speculative, vague or unreliable to say:

"Genesis 6:21 expressly states that Noah was to gather EVERY SORT OF FOOD EATEN for it to serve as food for himself and animals on the ark."

If yes, why?

If no, why?

So many topics in this thread (and so many threads in this topic). 

I'd like to tackle just this one piece of your otherwise logical argument. I think you are giving way too much attention to an English translation of this verse rather than the more probable intent of it. But I also think people often give way too much attention to the original meanings of Greek and Hebrew words because it's usually done to support an interpretation based on the least likely possible meanings of the word from its context.

Anyway, I said all that to say that the Bible NEVER says EVERY SORT of food eaten. And even if it had, it need not be interpreted to include food that died accidentally or "of itself." If we needed to focus on the words "every sort" we'd probably have to include, every kind, every species, every cooking method, every uncooked method, salted, unsalted, washed, unwashed, deboned, un-deboned, descaled, scaled, bloody, un-bled. The list would be endless. 

But we don't need that because the Hebrew just says [of] EVERY FOOD not "all KINDS of food" or "all SORTS of food."

And I don't think we should make too much of the word "ALL" here. The Hebrew word is "kol," pronounced "coal" and just means ALL or EVERYTHING. 

-------This next part is interesting to me, but TLDR; -----------

I took several semesters of Hebrew in school, but that doesn't make me an expert. What it did do is help me appreciate that Biblical Hebrew is not usually written in the way people naturally speak. At times, it's too simple --resulting in either understatements or exaggerations-- and we therefore MUST read into it what is only implied.  And at other times, especially Genesis, for example, it's more repetitive than it needs to be, and translations usually ignore this because, for example, our English-hearing ears are not trained to listen like that. The Hebrew is often (unnecessarily) alliterative and poetic even in historical accounts. 

There is a Hebrew professor/archaeologist named Dr. James Tabor who actually has tried to make an English translation that imitates the alliterative and poetic "sound" and "rhythm" of Hebrew through some of these parts.

If you look up Genesis 6:21 with the above in mind, you might even get the impression that the word ALL is actually not really literal but just a poetic way to make a statement with repetition, rhythm, and alliteration. Notice here: https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/gen/6/21/t_conc_6021

 וְאַתָּה קַח־לְךָ מִכָּל־מַֽאֲכָל אֲשֶׁר יֵֽאָכֵל

v-atah kaht-l-khah m-kol maakhal asher y-ah-khel

There are other ways to say the same thing wthout all the variations of kaht, khah, kol, khal, khel in the same short phrase. So I don't think ALL foods is necessarily literal.

 

 

[Many Miles]

22 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

But we don't need that because the Hebrew just says [of] EVERY FOOD not "all KINDS of food" or "all SORTS of food."

We are working on an English language platform; hence my deference to English translation (actually a consistent English rendering).

Regardless, I must say, finally, I was waiting for a response such as you raise, should it come (and it has due to you).

My response is this:

- Genesis 6:21 expressly states that Noah was to gather EVERY SORT OF FOOD EATEN for it to serve as food for himself and animals on the ark."

OR

- Genesis 6:21 expressly states that Noah was to gather EVERY FOOD EATEN for it to serve as food for himself and animals on the ark." 

Both have the same impact within the argument I've offered. If you see otherwise I'm all ears. Please do refute if refutation exists.

[Many Miles]

36 minutes ago, Many Miles said:

Both have the same impact within the argument I've offered. If you see otherwise I'm all ears. Please do refute if refutation exists.

Just for clarification, "every food eaten" would include animal carcasses dead of natural cause.

[JW Insider]

9 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Just for clarification, "every food eaten" would include animal carcasses dead of natural cause.

Yes, it would, if it were meant to be taken literally AND if we had evidence that animals were eating carcasses that died of natural causes. But it would also mean an unending list of all the foods eaten. Noah, in his 600 years of life, may have personally eaten hundreds of foods in his 219,000 days of life. And he could have asked Methuselah, who apparently died in the same year as the Flood, about all the foods that he had eaten for the past 969 years. And maybe those jollly good fellers, the Nephilim, had specialized food favorites that Noah needed to bring on board because that, too, would be included in ALL the foods eaten. I am only being ridiculous because it really is ridiculous to think this literally meant that Noah brought ALL foods eaten. 

The likely meaning in context would be that he needed all the foods to fit the diets of all the different animals and whatever the fateful eight ate. And that might mean "dust" for the snakes (Gen 3:14, just kidding) and a year's supply of honey for the two ants, a years supply of leaves for two of the caterpillars/butterflies, dung for the two dung beetles, some blood for the two mosquitoes, eucalyptus for the two koalas, and a Diet of Worms for the two large-mouth bass, and for the two robins, etc., plus two more worms (or 7 of them if worms were considered clean). 

And then again, if we take it literally, "all the foods eaten" could be of a verb tense to mean all the foods that were ultimately eaten while on the ark. Otherwise, not to beat a dead horse, but we're back to an unending variety of foods eaten that might even mean Noah fought off a couple of sword-bearing cherubs guarding some trees in the Garden of Eden, from every sort of tree.

[JW Insider]

9 hours ago, George88 said:

Carrion could have diseases, parasites, or blood that was not drained properly.

That's true that it could and often does, but carrion COULD also be fresher than some of the meats found in my local meat market. It's still carrion even if it is only one hour old, and the animal died and freeze-dried itself in a blizzard. But I agree with you that there is no evidence that Noah ate such things. I don't think anyone here ever hinted, however, that Noah must have eaten such food before or after the Flood, only that fresh edible carrion might have been in animal diets. Even if animals died and were tempting food for other animals, for all we know, animals avoided carrion, and went for fresh kills. Maybe carrion birds and carrion insects and worms got that way after the flood. Although that could imply a fairly quick form of evolution.