J/W’s are a 19th century pyramid scheme.
So about 25 years ago, my mother remarried. Her new husband was a Jehovah Witness, or at least he had been before his previous divorce made him no longer welcome. Well, with their marriage he’s suddenly welcome again, and so both he and my mother were JW.
Fast forward five years, and my mother has a condition in which she had to undergo surgery. During surgery, her red blood cell count dropped dangerously and thus required a blood transfusion. No medical issues with the transfusion, it all went well.
A few weeks later she has to return for further surgery. My siblings and I are visiting with her in the pre-op room, and we’re suddenly joined with elders from her church. They’d heard about the earlier transfusion, and were there with pre-filled out paperwork for her to sign to decline any further should the medical need arise this time. I interrupted, and as the oldest of her children, I told her that under no circumstances would she be signing that. Ultimately, she did not sign and they left the church because of it.
If someone has a deeply held belief, who am I to tell them they’re wrong. But my mother had no belief in the “sin” of blood transfusions. She’d only been part of the church for a handful of years. And even those “deeply held beliefs” of the church, they were subject to change themselves. Organ donation was once viewed within the church the same way they’d been viewing blood transfusion, but at some point the benefits of organ donation were clear enough to alter the “rules.” I’m glad they’re finally changing their views on this, but they could have killed my family member if I hadn’t insisted they leave, and I won’t forget that.
This is how you know it’s all made up bullshit.
I believe!!! That Satan has a hold of you. I believe! That the Lord God has sent me here! And I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people!!
It’s kind of interesting how religions handle change in their theology. The Catholics have very few teachings that have been designated “infallible” - almost everything is potentially up for grabs (https://uscatholic.org/articles/201105/is-there-a-list-of-infallible-teachings/). Judaism has a whole thing about “since God gave the Torah to us at Sinai, it is now ours to interpret, and God himself said that we should rule on legal matters by majority vote (Exodus 23:2)” (https://www.mayimachronim.com/not-in-heaven-the-snake-oven-of-akhnai/) I am sure other religions have their own get out of jail cards, too.
God sends emails now. Very modern.
In the US there is more control die to waivers and health insurance etc,but in Ireland my JW Friends have orders to obey the law of the land when it comes to doctrine conflicting with health matters,therefore they will grudgingly accept emergency blood transfusions.
Is this another of Satan’s temptations?
I wonder if they are using AI for their revisions now.
Which high up in their church needed a transfusion?
Oh, don’t be so cynical. Maybe one of their elders bought a blood bank.
Yeah, but then they would come up with some internal blessing requirement for donated blood to ensure it stays in network.
Whenever I see stupid shit like JW refusing blood, i’m reminded of the parable of the man in the flood, who keeps getting rescuers coming to him time and time again, only to refuse it all with the declaration that god would save them… and then they finally die in the flood, and they angerly accost got about why god didnt save him, and god is all like “Fuck you, You fucking idiot. You refused every rescue that came your way. This is your fault for being stupid”
Well, sadly most user manuals for religions, are filled with stupid shit, with the odd exception like “Love thy neighbor” (which apparently has the corollary “but fuck anyone far away enough to not be your neighbor”).
Christians don’t even make themselves eunuchs any more!
What next? Women having the authority to teach? Madness! I miss traditional Christian values.
All religions are a form of mental illness. Religion is the greatest threat facing humanity BY FAR.
Because even after our little temporary oil-powered blip of 8 billion people lobbing planes full of bombs at each other collapses, we’ll still keep inventing gods to disagree over.
It definitely is not the political system of capitalism. Trump is such a devout Christian.
The faith people have in capitalism is the same as their faith in their religion. Trump is the leader to his own religion.
Much deeper faith. I mean the faith people have in capitalism is to the point where they can’t even imagine other economic systems existing.
tbf it’s all that we ever knew, even the “communist” ones are/were state capitalists
As explained, the economics don’t matter. We seem wired to invent nonsense and hack each other to pieces because of myths.
This is your brain on Reddit Atheism
Historical fact. Religion is a mental illness. The end.
I’m not even a Christian and this is a genuinely rubbish take, go and look up William Wilberforce for example.
Edit: I feel that I really have to stress what I thought was obvious, the notion that every human being from behavioural modernity to the Enlightenment was mentally ill is so foolish on the face of it that it isn’t worth even entertaining even for the sake of argument.
Yes, they were. I am mentally ill too, I am depressed, I am anxious, we all have some degree of what one generation ago was a mental illness and now isn’t.
Mental illness doesn’t mean dysfunctional or crazy, but if you have a heart surgeon that’s also a Flat Earther, what do you call that?
Better a flat earther than a Capitalist heart surgeon who writes you a $500000 bill Because you did not have insurance.
As long as the surgeon is not in charge of my geographic or topographic needs, I’m golden.
It doesn’t take mental illness to believe untrue things.
This is your brain on Reddit Atheism
I’m sure your specific flavor of religion is the correct one. Hang in there!
Brains exist. Reddit exists.
Your god(s), not so much.
Capitalism does not exist.
Religion is the opiate of the masses
Some reddit atheist, I dunno
Karl “Religion is the root of all evil” Marx
But do they get christmas?
Imagine you just watched your child die because they needed a blood transfusion a week ago but it was against your religion.
This is like the story of Onan. His brother died so it was his job to marry his brother’s wife and give her a son. But he didn’t want to so he “spilled his seed.” So God killed him for failing to do his duty and provide her a son.
But later when God gave his laws for people to follow, the punishment was not death, it was to take him in front of the town elders and “remove a sandal from his foot and spit in his face.” Like c’mon. What are we even doing here, folks?
You do realize that the punishment of “remove a sandal from his foot and spit in his face” is close to the modern equivalent of receiving a felony on your legal record then having grandma kick you in the balls. Not death but not far off unless you wanted to fully exile yourself and could drop a man from middle/upper class to just above a slave in an instant.
Sounds like God has a foot fetish and a humiliation kink.
Christianity also updates its Ts&Cs on occasion, like in 2007 when Pope John Paul II had a document commisioned, the publication of which was also authorised by Pope Benedict XVI, that basically said unbaptised children now go to heaven instead of limbo.
The Mormon church ‘conveniently’ decided to change their rhetoric about non-white people being marked by god because of past sin, right around the time of the Civil Rights Movement.
