Can we do anything in the name of Religion? Even kill?

Question

I'm tired of people being hypocrites. They complain about parents abusing their children or neglecting them. Yet when Jehovah's Witnesses deny their children blood in the name of the Watchtower, and the child dies, it isn't abuse. When does religion impede on the law and morality? The terrorist killed 'heathens' in the name of their God. When elderly patients are neglected and die from lack of proper care, the caretakers can be charged with manslaughter. But what if one claimed her religion was against medical care? The caretaker could have guardianship over the elderly person. Just because you have ownership over a child, does that mean you can do anything to it you please? Even if it leads to it's death?

Kjelstad, that is the cutest thing I've ever seen!!! Is that your real pet kitty?

Answer 1

Since religion is just re-interpretations of old superstitions, you can use it as a basis to do anything.

It is only when you separate morality from religion that you actually have to think of the real consequences of your actions.

Religion makes people morally lazy.

Answer 2

You can get all the medical treatment you want, youre still going to die someday. If I want to avoid an expensive procedure that is just going to drain my life savings and only keep me alive for another year, why should I do such a thing? Would you buy a new engine for a car that you knew was going to be in the junkyard in a year anyway? No of coarse not.

Refusing medical treatment is NOT the same as murder. Murder involves the action of harm. Refusing medical treatment is the denial of care that may or may not be ethical, moral, viable, or even street smart isnt dealing with the issue of harm. The harm has already occured. The Q is, where do people go from there and where do you draw the line.

I think in actual terms of the number of people that adopt that crazy belief, that the Q is irrelevent. Most believers DONT believe such things so its kind of pointless to try to use

Answer 3

It's a matter of whether you want to live for the now or for the letter. If you don't care about the later, don't believe, or have no true faith, that there is any promise of everlasting life later, than you live for the now. You teach your child that this is all they have and there is nothing beyond this. There is no chance at everlasting life on a Paradise Earth.

Or you could tell them that they are really not worth living on a Paradise Earth later, as they likely will not contribute anything significant to life than, so they may as well live for the now.

Also, if you own child has ever needed medical treatment in which your authorization was need to determine if it was the right treatment, you should thank the JWs, because they got you that right.

You see a lot of inflated number about children dying for lack of a blood transfusion, but when you look at the AMA web site, there are very few.

UCLA now performs bloodless transplants. Google “Bloodless Surgery” and you will find 150 hospitals now offer bloodless options to all their patients.

There is so much in the Bible that they could not have understood the science behind why something should or should not be done. In our modern times, we are learning just how the science fits. A good example was when God instructed his people to no longer allow marriages between close relatives. They didn’t understand what genetics was, or why for 2000 years it was okay, and than it wasn’t. Now, we know why.

There is no safe blood transfusion, even if there is no infectious agent present in it. Every transfusion lowers the body's immunal response in the exact same manner as AIDS does. There may or may not be any connection, but the fact is it leaves you open very RARE, not regular diseases, just like AIDS. It still requires coming into contact with the disease for it to become a problem.

That aside, there is the growing problems with contamination of the blood supply.

I'm a taxi cab driver in Kansas City. Ask most any cab driver or taxi passenger in the area who Papa Bear is and they will tell you.

In the Spring of 2006, there was a conference here of reps of Blood Services, from all over the world. They were here to learn a new labeling system. Up until this year, there was no uniform labeling system for blood, causing mismatches and other problems.

I had some passengers from London and I asked them about an article I read that England was importing thousands of pinks of blood a year from the U.S. because of contamination of their local supply by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow). They said they were, but the practice has been discontinued, as the U.S. supply was no longer considered safe within the parameters they set, in other words, what is an allowable percentage of contamination.

They now get it from Australia. Apparently, Canadian is also not considered safe. She said we are fooling ourselves if we think our supply was anywhere near being safe. There are no tests for Mad Cow that can be done on blood. It can only be confirmed after death. There has also been an increasing rate of viral zoonotic (Rabies).

The sale of blood and blood products is big money, to where there is a growing problem with over bleeding of those who donate or sell their blood. When you over bleed, the immune system gets activated, causing a production of chemicals to create clots. That can be a problem for those receiving the blood, to suddenly get a blockage in a vein.

It should also be noted that strict Judaism also believes the blood is the soul, which is why when there is terrorist bombing, they clean up every last bit of blood to be buried, even chipping up the roads.

The fact is that what the Jws have done for over 50 years has made the care of patients safer. It is why you must give permission to have your child treated. There is also one benefit of their work for those who do take transfusions. It had driven down the cost of blood as corporations compete to get hospitals to buy from them.

So, if people want to hide their heads and think their safe, go right ahead, but I'll stay with the 90% of non-JWs who are also refusing blood.


Quality Alternatives to Transfusion
http://www.watchtower.org/e/hb/index.htm?article=article_03.htm

Answer 4

"Yet when Jehovah's Witnesses deny their children blood in the name of the Watchtower, and the child dies, it isn't abuse."

1. Jehovah's Witnesses do not refuse blood "in the name of the Watchtower." Our stand is based on Acts 15:28, 29 and other pertinent Scriptures.

2. If one does not wish to believe and follow that, that is between them and their god. However, if one is going to be a Christian, one cannot pick and choose which passages they like and which they do not. I am accountable to my God above all humans for my actions, both as regards me and as regards my children. I answer to Jehovah first; every one else second.

3. We love our children and try to get them the best care possible in every way and treatment except for the one option of blood transfusions and so forth, so it is not right to say we "let our children die." We do all we can without going against that one prohibition to save their lives.

Answer 5

Killed, there is not any such undertaking as being killed. Little do you already know, which you reside perpetually. Oh particular the physique dies. even with the undeniable fact that your innovations and emotions bypass on perpetually. what's extra considerable, your physique or your innovations ? quite once you're floating away in entire darkness, freezing chilly, completely on my own and no longer able to talk with each and every physique or any undertaking. you will only hear the screams of your person. Is it well worth it being atheist? Telling Messiah Jesus you do no longer choose His salvation. and you ask your self why G-d is indignant ? once you spit on and throw away His priceless present of Salvation. bypass on, bypass faraway from me. You disgust Me in all of you way's. you only have a little while left, to charm to Messiah Jesus. people who persist with Him would be taken away, people who do no longer would be left in the back of to fend off their doom. Cry out now, mutually as there is time ticking . . . . . . .......

Answer 6

That's an absolute NO. Nothing like that should be done in the name of religion. I hate that too. I would never kill, abuse, or neglect someone in the name of God. That's wrong and it's evil.

Answer 7

Why can't you get off of this blood thing?

IT is not the Watchtower's. It is what the individuals choose.

There is no neglect there.

There is no need for the child to die from refusing blood? Why is that your only option? Why can't a child refuse blood and live?

Answer 8

Parents who neglect their children entirely, or who seem motivated by some fascination with "martyrdom" should not be surprised when doctors and governmental administrators feel compelled to step in.

...But is that the case with Jehovah's Witness parents?


What is to prevent the government (in its infinite wisdom) from deciding that a child with nausea must be given marijuana cigarettes to smoke? What if a cancer patient's parents preferred chemotherapy but the government insisted on radiation therapy?

It is arrogant and totalitarian when government or a handful of doctors insists that THEY should have the only right to choose a course of treatment, especially when responsible parents are thoughtfully requesting a different course of treatment. It would seem that when parents give clear evidence of studiously working to protect and prolong their child's life and best interests, the parents should be given the deference and respect befitting any other serious family decision.


Ironically, the fact remains undisputed that many MULTIPLES more have died as a direct or indirect result of a blood transfusion than have died from a conscientious decision to pursue other medical treatments.

Fair-minded healthcare experts admit that the medical technologies exist to treat literally every illness and injury without resorting to the old-fashioned infusion of whole blood, plasma, platelets, or red/white blood cells. Perhaps pro-blood activists (and/or anti-Witness critics) ignore the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses accept all minor blood fractions, so if there is some targeted need then a Witness will accept a targeted treatment (the only objections are to those four components which approximate actual blood).





It is not Jehovah's Witnesses who decide that blood is sacred; it is Almighty God who declares it so, as the Divine Author of the Holy Bible!

Jehovah's Witnesses are not anti-medicine or anti-technology, and they do not have superstitious ideas about some immortal "soul" literally encapsulated in blood. Instead, as Christians, the Witnesses seek to obey the very plain language of the bible regarding blood.

Jesus Christ, as God's spokesman and as Head of the Christian congregation, made certain that the early congregation reiterated, recorded, and communicated renewed Christian restrictions against the misuse of blood (it would hardly have been necessary to remind Christians to abstain from murderous bloodguilt).

It would seem that all conscientious Christians would feel bound by the bible's words in "the Apostolic Decree". Ironically, this decree was the first official decision communicated to the various congregations by the twelve faithful apostles (and a handful of other "older men" which the apostles had chosen to add to the first century Christian governing body in Jerusalem). God and Christ apparently felt (and feel) that respect for blood is quite important.

Here is what the "Apostolic Decree" said, which few self-described Christians obey or even respect:

(Acts 15:20) Write them [the various Christian congregations] to abstain from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled [the meat of which would contain blood] and from blood.

(Acts 15:28-29) For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, 29 to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled [the meat of which would contain blood] and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper.


Quite explicitly, the Apostolic Decree plainly forbids the misuse of blood by Christians (despite the fact that nearly every other provision of former Jewish Mosaic Law was recognized as unnecessary). It seems odd therefore, that literally one Christian religion continues to teach that humans must not use blood for any purpose other than honoring Almighty God.

A better question would ask: How can other self-described Christian religions justify the fact that they don't even care if their adherents drink blood and eat blood products?


Jehovah's Witnesses recognize the repeated bible teaching that blood is specially "owned" by God, and must not be used for any human purpose. Witnesses do not have any superstitious aversion to testing or respectfully handling blood, and Witnesses believe these Scriptures apply to blood and the four primary components which approximate "blood". An individual Jehovah's Witness is likely to accept a targeted treatment for a targeted need, including a treatment which includes a minor fraction derived from plasma, platelets, and/or red/white blood cells.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/hb/
http://watchtower.org/library/vcnb/article_01.htm

Answer 9

If you think religion is from God, you are mistaken. Religion, God hates. He desires relationship and this only takes place when people come to Christ Jesus and turn from their sin of unbelief and follow after the Lord. If people do otherwise, they are false will will stand in divine judgement for proclaiming error and falsehood...

Answer 10

Well, actually, the state often steps in on such events. I think the point is that you can't do anything in the name of religion. That is exactly where people mess religion up. Instead of listening to God and following his will, they do whatever they want to do and use God to justify it.