MaximusDementis

My neighbors across the street, good people mind you, are Jehovah's Witnesses. They buy eggs from us and we never discuss religion.

Recently, Ron the husband was involved in a serious car accident. He was unconscious at the scene and rushed by chopper to the local trauma unit. There he recieved the best in medical care, spent the night in Intensive Care and was sent home the next day. He had several painful days and thought he was gonna need surgery, but avoided it.

Apparently Ron and his wife have some kind of weird belief about blood and blood products. Anyway yesterday my wife was talking to Ron's wife and she was complaining that Ron had recieved some blood while in the ER. She complained that they should have looked in his wallet before they treated him. Also she was upset that they had cut completley through all his clothes, a $1500 suit and his underwear.

My wife pointed out that standard procedure for an unconscious victim is to cut off all the clothes and give the patient whatever they need to live. Quick action saves lives and they have no time to be delving through wallets or protecting fancy suits. My wife is a retired nurse.

When my wife told me the story, I laughed and said, Oh my god, suppose he got Baptist blood! He may become a Baptist now!

I am an Atheist and the wife is a non-practicing presbyterian. My very religious ( at least on a social level) presbyterian mother-in-law lives with us.

AspenMama

Hmm-- this seems more of a Miscellaneous topic. Off you go.

AspenMama, SL&S Moderator

Dark Jedi

The JW's beleive that eating of blood is a heinous sin. (ref: Gen 9-4: But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.) Transfusuions have been ruled as applicable.

A smart JW will wear a med-alert bracelet or necklace. They look for those, and respect them.

Side note: The JW ruling board of elders have approved the medical use of *EVERY* component of blood, but still will not allow the use of blood itself.

Secular Pinoy

They're missing a lot. I love pig's blood soup (locally called as dinuguan). Yummy!

MJones

So do they have to be vegitarians?? Seems to me that eating any kind of meat is going to involve eating at least a little bit of blood along with it, even though it's cooked.

Dirty Dog

KoopaFanatic

Shh! Don't expose their beliefs to the harsh light of logic. It's rude. Kinda like pointing out to Christian Science-types that they shouldn't be popping Benadryl.

Derec

I don't know about JWs but the kosher way to butcher animals is to slice their throats and let them bleed out completely. So at least the Jews have some procedure to get rid of the blood although it won't get rid of trace amounts of course.

UMoC

KoopaFanatic

Yeah, but if eating blood is contrary to God's will, even trace amounts would leave ya hellbound. (I mean, ask your typical fundy what trace amounts of Catholicism or gay sex will do to your eternal reward...)

Badfish

Yep, this is what they do. I work with 8 of them, I am the only non JW at work.

Transfusions are forbidden.

Dark Jedi

Nope. They will not eat rare or medium cooked meats, though. Cooking with fire removes the taint, if done completely.

One of the main reasons I left. If I can't have my steak medium-rare, what's the point?