[Art]

).

Art - do you think ANYONE takes the decision lightly?  Babies cannot make decisions for themselves and are therefore dependent on their parents, its a very sensitive area.  I know parents who have faced that decision before and again it helps to know what alternatives there are. 

Johnathan, of course i don't think ANYONE takes these decisions lightly!

Are these alternatives available to everyone in every hospital in the UK?

[JM123]

Well every hospital has its own medical teams who may use different procedures/drugs etc, I could not honestly say whether every hospital has these provisions but my guess would be that they all have at least some of the substitutes.  Sorry if this is boring anyone else to tears by the way, but it is the most important thing in my life.

[Art]

Johnathan,

As i stated earlier about everyone had to believe in something and JW's weren't harming anyone, well sorry but you've changed my mind about all that, unless i've missed something, but your faith is beyond the realms of my understanding of realism.

Good luck Arthur

[Paul Coleman]

Propole - Jehovah is gods name, Exodus 6:3 Isiah 83:18, anyway, most people are not familiar with it because many of the churces have removed it from their bible.  By the way the references are from the Old King James bible (as used by CofE).

Art - do you think ANYONE takes the decision lightly?  Babies cannot make decisions for themselves and are therefore dependent on their parents, its a very sensitive area.  I know parents who have faced that decision before and again it helps to know what alternatives there are. 

Shiner, I just feel that sometimes the internet isn't the best forum for these sorts of things.  As for comparing JW's and beliefs to Unger??  I do feel very strongly though about people making assumptions about the blood issue when they obviously know very little about it - I lost a good friend not so long ago - he refused blood, it wouldn't have saved him anyway, the cancer had spread into 3 chambers of his heart and they couldn't see it on his scans, but low and behold some other people had a go at me because 'he'd still be here if he had taken blood' - nonsense, we want good health and value our bodies as much as if not more than most people - hence we don't smoke, drink excessively or do anything that puts our life in danger unnecessarily.  Now if we can please go back on topic, I think the original post was asking who on here is a JW?

Oh right.  Josephus made a comparison with Unger.  I can't speak for him but I assume he was using analogy rather than trying to demean your beliefs (although he seemed to do that in other posts).
Totally agree with you about looking after our bodies.  I don't drink or smoke either.  In fact, I don't even eat meat as I have doubts about that too.  However, I'm currently dieting as I have got sloppy with my weight management since the onset of middle age (and a little bit before if truth be told    ).
Also, it is very true what you say about the internet not always being the best medium for such discussions.  It is very easy to make assumptions about the emotions of someone else who is writing - often wrongly.  That is why I am often at pains to make it clear that I have no problems with the JWs on here (or the ones I occasionally meet in my non internet life).  Hopefully they have none with me either.  In discussions like this, I have always striven to be factually correct and have not let it get personal and I do understand that my father was exceptionally extreme with his interpretation of JW beliefs.  Rightly or wrongly, I call it the way I see it and have always done my best to be totally honest in threads like these.  I do try to have a sense of humour about such things but have realised that some may interpret this as me being mocking.  This is an unfortunate side effect of humour via written word inasmuch that it can be easily misunderstood.

Anyway, back to topic.  No I'm not one but I was brought up as one but left in 1973 without being baptised.

[darren_smart]

hi
 
dont want to get to involved in this interesting discussion... can sleep but must try...

 the alternatives are widley available  problem is people are not informed about them ,reasons being
cost ! how would people react ...stop giving blood.. this is crazy when most of the time for a small capital expenditure say on a cell saver machine...bear with me .. would reduce lose of blood during procedures,at a cost of about £15000 (for wich locally we have raised money for several hospitals to purchase) and in its life time would save millions on obtaining blood... but guess what no money for capital expenditure....and that was from a doctor !

interestingly so advanced are alternatives that many hospitals worldwide are going bloodless we have one right here in uk  in essex i think...

whilst jw's descision is purley a scriptual one , seeking and using alternatives is fast becoming
best practice for many hospitals,naturally jw's becouse of thier stand have to have a greater understanding of this,but in my opinion and that of an ever growing number in the medical all would do well to make an 'informed' descision before ever taking blood.

hop this helps art & goodnight....

[JM123]

No sweat shiner.

Art, to many it does seem illogical, you are entitled to have an opinion but I wouldn't be the best person to talk to about this. Anyway, goodnight, I need to sleep.

[darren_smart]

must be tierd just checked my spelling and grammer......can we av spellcheck on er ..

[josephus]

I agree this is an interesting discussion. and im trying to be fairly nice throughout it. if anyone is upset at me, well they should want to put me straight on the issues.

as far as blood transfusions are concerned, I can help. the bits of the bible the guys have mentioned that they use to say blood is wrong in medical settings were also used in the 50s to say organ transplants were wrong. and before that jws were told to, sorry ordered, not to take inoculations!! they were told by thier leaders in brooklyn that inoculations were "filthy animal pus" I know it sounds bizarre but its true guys and one final, final point I can make is this.

youl will see a good few guys here who are witnesses will no longer post on this thread or in future any I start. that’s fine I hear you say. except they will do it because they are commanded to ignore me, if they don’t and their leaders in thier local halls find out they will be punished.

now that’s just creepy.


jo

[Art]

Jo, you say punished? In what way?

[Mr.G]

by being sentenced to six months scraping birdpoop off leaded windows in the rain!

[DASERVICES]

Guys, you know who you are but lets stop now. It may be good talking about it but as many a time as mentioned in assemblies we never know who we are talking to.

So can we refrain from this subject as if like me I start beginning to wonder who I am talking to. There are many good chaps on this forum witness and non witness but we need to be weary.

Some good comments and good discussions but as many as you know this can get out of hand, as you know.

We are all window cleaners wether religion or race so the best thing we should talk about is how do we get this industry recognised to higher profile.

Work tomorrow so night, night.

[KarlJones]

The first ever window cleaner I ever chatted to about his job was my mate who was JW, he was doing OK I was about 20 ish and he was about 17, lots of unemployment around.  He gave me a quick explaination of what was inolved.  Told me to go and knock a few doors.

So I did, only it was much harder than he made out, I think (it was a long time ago) I got two customers but I decided to not bother. 

Now, this is why a lot of WCs are JWs I guess.  I guess by the time he started he had built into his mentality that you could knock, knock and knock some more, getting no where at all, then a result.  Keep it going over a period of time he could look back and say to himself "I remember when I first met all these people".  In other words, he knew the power of possetive thinking getting results if given enough time.

Me?  I had not got a clue,  to me I was doing something wrong.  I got 2, if I had done that every spare hour I had I would be very happy now.  But I was not used to getting rejection after rejection and did not understand that 1+1+1+1+1 continued for as long as you like = as many as you like.

My religion was Anglican, now I have none and still respect everyones.  (though I do enjoy offering vegeterians a sausage sandwich which probably offends a few religions)

PS.  As I was posting this I read D.A's post.  Deleted my friends name from this post.  Shame I did not realise their were those sorts of threats but I think I get ya.

[Ian_Giles]

Time to lock the topic, far too many replies are discussing aspects that need to be discussed on the other part of the forum!
This isn't the section for theological discussions or debates on religion!

I think we can all agree that window cleaning is a job that is most suitable to JW's.

Ian