Religion: pros & cons pt1 (Religion)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 22:33 (3683 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: The two passages in Acts tell us to abstain from things polluted by/sacrificed to idols, from fornication, from things strangled and from blood, the last two of which presumably refer to the “kosher” way of slaughtering animals before eating them. -So perhaps if it were just pure blood and in a cup and you drank it, which is not "eating" you would be ok. Maybe if you put it in a enema, and shot it up your rear end you would be ok too. Abstaining from things strangled does indeed refer to a kosher diet. So what about that second tag? Why include it if the first tag covered the same topic?-->DHW: If a patient's life can be saved by a blood transfusion, but the patient doesn't have one and dies, what part does medical safety play in your argument? I would still very much like to know how many patients have died as a result of this highly debatable interpretation of an ancient text.-Well, that is pretty hard to say for certain, particularly seeing as how accepting blood does not guarantee your survival if you were already in a situation that caused a Dr to suggest a transfusion. I've looked, but I have not been able to find hard numbers. Out of curiosity, how many deaths are required to condemn us for our beliefs? 1? 10? 100? Maybe 1000? -My guess is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if we are right or wrong. It doesn't matter if none of us died or a hundred thousand of us died. We reject what is the social norm, and that, in and of itself, is enough to condemn us. Of course, no one mentions how our teachings and practices SAVE lives. No one mentions the drug addicts, alcoholics, smokers, or other reckless life threatening practices that Witnesses actively work to stop. No one mentions the fact that right now, Witnesses are doing more than local governments to PREVENT people in Africa from catching and/or spreading Ebola by providing basic sanitation solutions to the people there, free of charge. No one mentions the fact that through our faith, we have spurred a branch of science that is saving lives, saving money, and improving health. -We hold life as sacred, but we hold that Jehovah's sovereignty, love, mercy, and justice is worth more than our own lives. It's called faith. I know you respect faith, but your answers over the course of this discussion make me wonder if you really understand it. So I pose a question. Do you have faith, and if so, in what?- 
 
> DHW: In my view, stoning someone to death because they worship a different God, or because they are drunkards or gluttons (regardless of how often they've been told to mend their ways) is vicious. -What if the God they worshiped burned their children alive on the alter? Would you kill them then? Would it be considered "vicious" to eradicate those people? -
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> TONY: And on the topic of marriage, check out Deut 21:10-14. That seems to be another scripture that is often ignored. 
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> Let me summarize: if you've captured a beautiful woman (forget the ugly ones) from your enemies, you must let her grieve for the rest of the family you have killed, and then you can marry her (no mention of what she might want), and when/if you've had enough of her, you can send her away with her agreement, but you mustn't sell her. “You must not deal tyrannically with her after you have humiliated her.” OK to humiliate her first, then. But you are right: it doesn't forbid inter-faith marriage, in contrast to 7: 1-4, which says that when God enables you to capture a country, you must kill all the inhabitants and you must not intermarry with them. You just don't know where you stand with these laws. I guess it's all a matter of interpretation. Which is the subject we are discussing.-
Oh the cherry picking knows no bounds. You do realize that there are specific nations mentioned in Chapter 7, right? These were Baal worshiping nations. (Burning their kids in the fire and all that.) Those nations were indeed committed to complete and utter annihilation. Chapter 20 & 21 
are not talking about those nations. --“If you approach a city to fight against it, you should also announce to it terms of peace.+ 11 If it gives a peaceful answer to you and opens up to you, all the people found there will become yours for forced labor, and they will serve you.+ 12 But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead goes to war with you, you should besiege it, 13 and Jehovah your God will certainly give it into your hand, and you must strike down every male in it with the sword. 14 However, the women, the children, the livestock, and everything that is in the city, all its spoil, you may plunder for yourself,+ and you will eat the spoil of your enemies, which Jehovah your God has given to you.+
15 “That is what you will do to all the cities very far away from you that are not of the cities of these nearby nations. 16 But in the cities of these peoples, which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not allow any breathing thing to live.+ 17 Instead, you should devote them completely to destruction, the Hit?tites, the Am?or·ites, the Ca?naan·ites, the Per?iz·zites, the Hi?vites, and the Jeb?u·sites,+ just as Jehovah your God has commanded you; 18 so that they may not teach you to follow all their detestable practices that they have done for their gods, causing you to sin against Jehovah your God.+

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.