Prayers for those who died of blood loss 2 hours before God pushed the “allow transfusions” hotfix ☹️ 🙏
Hospitals in areas with large JW populations have opaque IV bags available, and at patient’s request will lie to visitors about what is in it. Members have been “following their conscience” for decades, and I suspect this change is more about not ostrasizing those members than actually changing behavior.
Sounds like an Answerman skit: https://www.youtube.com/@TheOriginalAnswerman
This is how you know it’s all made up bullshit.
I believe!!! That Satan has a hold of you. I believe! That the Lord God has sent me here! And I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people!!
It’s kind of interesting how religions handle change in their theology. The Catholics have very few teachings that have been designated “infallible” - almost everything is potentially up for grabs (https://uscatholic.org/articles/201105/is-there-a-list-of-infallible-teachings/). Judaism has a whole thing about “since God gave the Torah to us at Sinai, it is now ours to interpret, and God himself said that we should rule on legal matters by majority vote (Exodus 23:2)” (https://www.mayimachronim.com/not-in-heaven-the-snake-oven-of-akhnai/) I am sure other religions have their own get out of jail cards, too.
So about 25 years ago, my mother remarried. Her new husband was a Jehovah Witness, or at least he had been before his previous divorce made him no longer welcome. Well, with their marriage he’s suddenly welcome again, and so both he and my mother were JW.
Fast forward five years, and my mother has a condition in which she had to undergo surgery. During surgery, her red blood cell count dropped dangerously and thus required a blood transfusion. No medical issues with the transfusion, it all went well.
A few weeks later she has to return for further surgery. My siblings and I are visiting with her in the pre-op room, and we’re suddenly joined with elders from her church. They’d heard about the earlier transfusion, and were there with pre-filled out paperwork for her to sign to decline any further should the medical need arise this time. I interrupted, and as the oldest of her children, I told her that under no circumstances would she be signing that. Ultimately, she did not sign and they left the church because of it.
If someone has a deeply held belief, who am I to tell them they’re wrong. But my mother had no belief in the “sin” of blood transfusions. She’d only been part of the church for a handful of years. And even those “deeply held beliefs” of the church, they were subject to change themselves. Organ donation was once viewed within the church the same way they’d been viewing blood transfusion, but at some point the benefits of organ donation were clear enough to alter the “rules.” I’m glad they’re finally changing their views on this, but they could have killed my family member if I hadn’t insisted they leave, and I won’t forget that.
Ah yes, the god that never changes.
oh so this is why they went out of their way to get my explicit consent for blood transfusions in the hospital
thought that was fucking weird
In the US there is more control die to waivers and health insurance etc,but in Ireland my JW Friends have orders to obey the law of the land when it comes to doctrine conflicting with health matters,therefore they will grudgingly accept emergency blood transfusions.
J/W’s are a 19th century pyramid scheme.
I wonder if they are using AI for their revisions now.
Is this another of Satan’s temptations?
God sends emails now. Very modern.
Which high up in their church needed a transfusion?
Oh, don’t be so cynical. Maybe one of their elders bought a blood bank.
Yeah, but then they would come up with some internal blessing requirement for donated blood to ensure it stays in network.
An old JW boss of mine almost lost his wife during the birth of his first child when she was badly haemorrhaging at home.
I tried asking him about it (a few years after the event) and he was obviously defensive, but the gist was that they wouldn’t have taken a transfusion, and that he would have accepted losing her.
I’m not convinced - I think the decision was more dictated by her than him - but that would have been the end result.
Absolute madness
Did you tell him his religion is made up dogshit and there is no god?
Controlling men like that need to have a life changing surgery of their own before they harm more women like that.
I prescribe a sharp metal pick and a hammer personally.
I think you missed the point of this. I believe it was her influence more than his, based on other factors I’m aware of.
Unless you’re referring to the writers of the church doctrine as the controlling men.
I’m not convinced - I think the decision was more dictated by her than him - but that would have been the end result.
I missed the point as well, I took this to mean, “he wanted her to give birth without a transfusion, but I’m not convinced [it would’ve actually happened] - I think the decision [to have a transfusion or not] was more dictated by her [and she would’ve got one]”
The controlling men in this scenario are the 8 bastards in Brooklyn known as The Governing Body who make up these rules and dictate whether a person will lose their entire family and or social/support network for failing to obey them.
Worse than the old white Mormon bastards.
I think the decision was more dictated by her than him
I think the point is that he was never part of the decision.
You’re correct
Despite the adjustment, the organisation was firm that its longstanding prohibition on whole-blood transfusions has not changed. It anchored the continued ban on its reading of biblical instructions to “abstain from blood,” signalling that the shift applies only to the four major components, not to transfusions in their entirety.
People died because of this and now they just go “we looked at the rules again and we think they actually mean something else”. What the fuck is this? The Supreme Court?
and “abstain from blood” in biblical times for sure meant “transfusions” too *head -> desk"
You forget that God knows all and can see future technology. We’re still waiting for the passage “Thou shalt not step into thy transporter, for it causeth loss of thy soul” to become relevant.
I thought it was weird it even had passages about NVidia’s DLSS5, but now we know.
It’s probably because they had issues with blood types.
Similar to many of the kosher rules, it was about food safety and knowledge at the time.
I’d say the only “blood types” around where those people drinking blood.
It’s stupid. All they had to do was prohibit eating of blood 70 years ago and nobody would have blinked an eye, because that’s exactly what the verse meant in its entirety. The whole blood loophole they’ve done here to save face is meaningless, since whole blood is almost never used except in severe trauma and even then you can use fractions and have a pretty good chance of recovering. A whole lot of people had to die to get here. It sucks.
So… which higher up at the JW organization needed a life saving transfusion? No way they changed their minds on this unprompted.
The hierarchical structure of this organisation is absolutely vile.
Also,the ones out witnessing at the train Station or going door to door are usually at the bottom of the hierarchy,so I for one am always politenl to them,even if i dont engage. It’s not nice to mess with them or slam the door or whatever.
