Isn't refusing life-saving medical treatment a form of suicide?

Question

Jehovah's Witnesses abhor suicide, viewing it as a sin. If you commit suicide they will not give you a funeral service in their church/Kingdom Hall because they feel that would be highly improper. I know this because when I was a JW I saw what happened when a fellow JW killed herself.
Yet if you kill yourself by refusing a blood transfusion, you are seen as a martyr. They pray about you, they put pictures of you in their magazines.
And if you want to know why I'm angry, its because I can still remember the faces of the little children in the magazines - the little children whose parents had refused to allow them blood transfusions. I was told that these little children 'made Jehovah proud' and he loved them for dying to keep his commandments.
Where's the logic in this?

Answer 1

Suicide more the actual act that you self-inflict. By denying some treatment, you aren't committing suicide, you are just accepting your inevitable death. Many religions view suicide as a sin. Most religion is non-progressive, so the ideals of years past are still in use today. It's best not to look for logic, but to decide whether or not you agree with the belief system.

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

LOGIC FROM SATAN???

How is it possible to get logic from cultic (ie Satanic) teachings?? What darkness they have, they flaunt as light.

Let us look at even the very basic:

Psa 23:1 The LORD (Jehovah) is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

If you actually analyse the first verse in Psalm 23 (a well known which is written by King David), the LORD Jehovah is the Shepherd.

Who is this LORD, ie Jehovah? Is He God the Father or is He God the Son? A well versed five year old may already able to identify who Jehovah and the Shepherd is. Any adult with an ounce of uprightness and a modicum of evangelical integrity arising from a evangelically converted heart would have acknowledge that Jehovah (ie the LORD) is NONE OTHER THAN JESUS CHRIST, the blessed Second Person of the Godhead - is the Shepherd.

Perhaps, some in this forum may want further proof, which is amply furnished here, who the Shepherd is, who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ:

Joh 10:11
I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.

Joh 10:14
I am the good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine.

Heb 13:20
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,

1Pe 2:21-25
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: ….but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.



Thus if any JW hath an ounce of uprightness and a modicum of evangelical integrity arising from a evangelically converted heart may want to repent to understand Psalm 23 correctly;



Jehovah is my Shepherd (ie Jesus Christ) ………
and so, Jehovah is the Shepherd and the concluion is VERY CLEAR (ie the Lord Jesus Christ is Jehovah, co equal, co-eternal with the Father).



If the JW cannot see this, how then can they see their deviant heretical and Satanic practice of refusal of blood transfusion?? Thus, there will be more orphans, more heart aches, and the only persons who rejoice is the evil trinity (Rev 16:13) that energise these heresies (Guess unto whose domain doth CT Russell fall, namely the dragon, the beast or the false prophet?).


A more detailed dealing of who Jehovah, the origin of the use of Jehovah Witness (ie from the book of Isaiah) may be seen here:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071105052320AA8wf36&cp=2

If you really care, and really want to save your former JW friends, you need to be grounded and rooted in the doctrines of Christ and Biblical exposition.



.

Answer 4

Jehovah's Witnesses eat chicken soup, don't they? Isn't that a violation of the injunction to abstain from blood? Isn't there blood in the broth, whether it is 'cooked' or not? Or do they 'kosher' the chickens before they boil them? C'mon, get real! If they're going to follow one rule religiously, why not follow ALL of them...

Abstain from things 'strangled'...blood deprivation would certainly seem to be a form of 'strangulation'. It operates the same: oxygen deprivation!

The original blood abstention law is found in Genesis, and it forbids the eating of live animals, and the eating of living blood. Blood transfusions are not involved in the eating process, nor in digestion. The OT defines 'blood' for us very clearly: LIFE! The bible speaks about the eating of living creatures, while they're ALIVE, not the eating of flesh. We are simply given an injunction to humanely KILL whatever we eat, before we eat it.
Gen 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Gen 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

The blood is shed for the atonement of the soul, and this can be interpreted as a medicinal procedure. Chicken soup is well-known for it's healing effect on flu and colds, although just how it operates is unknown. And soup is not the only thing. How much blood is shed killing innocent sheep, to manufacture insulin just to keep a person alive another day?
And liver, a blood-organ: in older times, eating liver was a LIFE-SAVER!

Lev 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

Upon the altar? Where the animals were cooked? Of course!

Today, we know about iron, B vitamins, A vitamins, K vitamins, etc.... and we know what horrrible diseases result from NOT getting adequate quantities of these nutrients.
Why is a transfusion any different, when today's blood is tested extensively and monitored scrupulously???

While were on the subject of James, there is such a thing called the 'sin of omission':
Jas 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

I don't know about you, but I have donated blood, if, for no other reason, that I would be really glad if I ever needed any, and someone had done the same for me. I have never needed any, but I would not hesitate to recieve 'LIFE'!

Answer 5

What you have got to understand is that Jehovah's Witnesses (who were never asked by Him to witness) have got the idea that they are really Jews and are the chosen people and that 144,000 of them are going to take over earth when He, as one JW put it to me, scrubs and hoses down planet earth ready for them to take over. In fact the 144,000 consist of 12,000 real Jews from each of the 12 tribes.
The other thing you mention is blood transfusion. Again this is a Jewish thing taken out of context. They, the JWs,again think that by having a blood transfusion, they are eating, or drinking blood, which is forbidden to Jews in the Old Testament and to Christians in the New Testament.
Sorry no black pudding for breakfast, or Coq Au Vin for dinner.

Answer 6

We do not refuse life saving treatment. We refuse blood transfusions as it is forbidden by God in the Bible.

There is also no guarantee of accepting blood would preserve life nor would it prevent other diseases transmitted by transfusion.

Even open heart surgery has been done without blood transfusions. Surgeons just have to be good to do it. The skill level frightens some.

While you are angry, how about thinking of the power of Jehovah to restore life to anyone He wishes. Certainly those little children will be among that number.

Answer 7

I think that people have a right to decide when to die. If someone has a terminal illness and they don't have a chance to get better, I view forcing them to stay alive (via denying them the right to medical refusal) as a form of torture.

Also, I can't stand parents that deny their kids cancer treatment because "God can decide"...how wrong is it to hurt your child when he has a curable disease?

Torture is wrong...those suicide and blood transfusion rules seem a bit wrong as well. To each their own...but I can say I'm glad my beliefs give me power over treatment.

Answer 8

You are obviously very angry.
I commend you.
You have a sense of justice.
I wish I could say your sense of justice is balanced, but I can't.
It is incorrect that a suicide victim cannot have a funeral in their kingdom halls.
It is a decision made by the responsible ones (responsible for what happens in the hall).
You experienced a case wherein they said no.
Can we assume they did, indeed, know all the details, more than you do?
There are other cases wherein the answer is yes.
Its a local decision, made case by case.
Refusing blood is not refusing 'life-saving' medical treatment.
If you know the subject then you know such is the case.
It is not fair to equate the 2.
BTW Is there nothing YOU would die for?

Answer 9

There is a difference in refusing medical treatment that will save your life and refusing medical treatment that is the only thing that would merely keep you alive (life support).

Answer 10

I'm glad my friend survived a childhood snake bite and escaped the JWs. Her parents would not allow her to have anti-venin.

Child abuse.

In my family, even if I had been a very bad boy that day, my parents would have done all they could to save my life and ease my pain. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for being rational Methodists.