Religion: pros & cons pt1 (Religion)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 18:38 (3686 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

I have argued that the bible is open to different interpretations, and is therefore an unreliable moral guide, and we have focused on the example of the Jehovah's Witnesses' rejection of blood transfusions. As our posts are getting very long, I hope you won't mind my “cherry picking” the points that are relevant to this subject. -TONY: Virtually every other branch of Christianity fully acknowledges the prohibition against blood, they just choose to say that one form of ingesting is forbidden while the other is not. Yes, I view that as a form of ignorance as well.

You choose to say that transfusions - unknown in those times - were included in the ban, whereas presumably the rest of the Christian Church points to the word “eat”, and takes that as an indication that the ban was on blood ingested as food. They could just as easily describe your views as a form of ignorance. The bible is open to different interpretations.
 
TONY: As for mistakes being made, I have never denied that, nor would I.-It was indeed you who drew attention to mistakes made in the past by Jehovah's Witnesses. That was why I suggested that there must be reason for doubting their present consensus on a highly debatable point of interpretation.-TONY: Further, you have completely sidestepped all of the medical data that fully supports the biblical view that abstaining from blood is healthier for the patient, poses fewer complications, and leads to faster recovery times.-I have no problem with efficient substitutes being used, but the dilemma arises/arose when no efficient substitute is/was available. I shudder to think of the JWs that may have died in the last 50 years or so, since the process became as safe as any medical procedures, drugs and operations can be. The issue between us is not whether there are better alternatives, but whether the text has to be interpreted your way.
 
Dhw: Do you really believe, then, that the Jesus who cured on the Sabbath would have refused to allow the child to have a transfusion?-TONY: To answer the first question last, Christ would have not needed to allow a transfusion, as he demonstrated many times in front of numerous witnesses. Your so-called provisio also completely ignores all of the other scriptural evidence presented. I am not sure if you are actually reading the scriptures I post, but I have shown you several that explicitly say that saving your life is not grounds for breaking God's law.-I do indeed read them, but I sometimes wonder if you read my replies. The dispute is not over whether one should break the law, but over whether your interpretation of the law - in stark contrast to the rest of the Christian world - is correct, which leads to the obvious conclusion that the bible is open to different interpretations, and hence is not a reliable guide. You actually answered my last question first (ah, the last shall be first!) but didn't answer my first question, which was: “Would you allow a child to die because a tiny minority of biblical scholars believe eating and ingesting are synonymous with transfusing?”-TONY: The two prime components of the Old Law Covenant are stated at Mathew 22:34-40, "‘You must love Jehovah* your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul* and with your whole mind.'+ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 The second, like it, is this: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.'" You look at the Law and see it as cruel and vicious.-You know that these were not the laws I was referring to as vicious. When you told us that the new covenant invalidated the old laws, I even pointed out that it wouldn't have excluded the Ten Commandments. My reference was to laws in Deuteronomy such as those that forbid inter-faith marriages, and demand the stoning to death of anyone in the captured cities who worships other gods, or of any rebellious son who drinks and eats too much. 
 
Dhw: The “I am right and they are wrong” approach certainly does not mean that the text itself is clear.
TONY: Not at all. The bible is right, God is right. Everyone, including myself, could certainly be very wrong in deed. Fortunately, there is a provision for our ignorance. Prov 16:2 Tells us that God judges the motives of a man, not just the actions. Indeed, all of our ways 'seem pure to us', that is, we'd like to think we are doing the right thing, even when that thing causes unknown harm. [...] As for me and mine, we will be obedient to the best of our abilities.-The sceptic in me can't help thinking of all those throughout history, right up to the present, who have slaughtered the “infidels”, believing they are “doing the right thing”. However, your acknowledgement that you could be wrong is a gracious and for me a very important one, and I have nothing but admiration for the steadfastness of your faith, which I have no doubt would lead you only to doing unto others what you would have them do unto you. I'm also grateful to you for debating this subject with me, as I'm aware that at times it must be very frustrating!