From: jwindley%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Jay Windley)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: JWs vs. Christians
Date: 7 Apr 92 01:48:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: hellgate.1992Apr6.194852.28891
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept

>>Andreas, read my paragraph VERY carefully, and read your one-word
>>answer, and try to understand why I'm still not satisfied.  Frankly,
>>you have relied heavily in recent days on one-word answers which leave
>>everything to be desired.  Let me rephrase myself:

asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
>	Do you know the reason ? When I'm in the CS-class at 12.14 and the 
>	class begins at 12.15 and you've 40 mail entries in your mailbox, I'm
>	bit busy. I'M SORRY, BUT I'M ONLY HUMAN.

Well, that's nice to hear, but you might consider saving your
responses until you have time to do them right.  Apparently a lot of
your responses seem to be thought through in thirty seconds or less.
You'd be better to keep silent if you don't have the time to read and
answer the questions carefully.

>	Hmm. this is a difficult question. I skip it now and answer to the
>	original question instead: Why not reading the booklet about blood 
>	transfusions yourself?

I'm not interested in the Witness position on blood transfusions.  I
know what it is and I know the rationale for it.  What I have been
looking for (and still am) is a justification for YOUR statement that
the Witnesses' committee on blood transfusions is better equipped to
judge in the matter than those who actually practice medicine.

I don't want to know how the Witnesses support their objection to
blood transfusions, I want to know how YOU support YOUR opinion about
the expertise of the Witness committee.  YOU, not WTBTS, made a claim
I cannot accept at face value.  I think you owe us some legwork on
your assertion.

>       If you read (and surgeons read) as you boast
>	you do, you would be willing to order it

Go read the discussion again.  I never claimed at any point to have
any special interest or knowledge in surgery, hemotology, or any of
the related fields.  Nor do I read their journals.  I never "boasted"
of any such thing.

But I am competent to frame and hold an opinion in the matter.
Realizing that I have no special expertise in surgery or related
disciplines, I cannot judge the validity or acceptability of any claim
based on direct experience or knowledge.  Hence I must rely on the
expertise of others.  By examining the credentials, experience, and
prior track record of the claimants, and the discipline's acceptance
of the claim, I can get an idea of how robust that claim is.

I'm not asking for a study of blood transfusions, I'm asking for a
study of the people in the Witness community who study blood
transfusions.  This is not so that I can decide upon the legitimacy of
transfusions, but so that I can decide the legitimacy of a claim that
Witness committees are the consummate authority on the subject.

I have asked you repeatedly to provide more information that would
help me evaluate YOUR claim (not the Witness claim), but so far I have
been met with one-word brush-offs, and "so sorry, late for class."

Answer this question, please, directly:  Do you still maintain that
the various Witness committees who study the medical viability of
blood transfusions are more competent to judge in that question that
any medical expert or profession I might name?

If so, why should I believe that?

I say this because I have already read a great deal of what the
Witnesses have written on the subject of blood transfusions.  I find
it to fall into two distinct categories:  Biblical exegesis and
pseudo-medical tripe.

I don't mind the exegesis so much.  I don't feel I need to step on the
toes of people who honestly try to extract God's will from the Bible.
I may disagree, but I'm comfortable with that because the issue is
fairly subjective.

But in the medical arena the arguments are largely baloney.  Isolated
case studies take the place of direct, applicable research.  I am not
convinced by the medical reasons Witnesses give that blood
transfusions in all their forms are inherently bad.  So when someone
says that Witnesses are the experts on blood transfusion, I have to
ask how this can be so, and where are the compelling arguments in the
literature?  Why isn't the medical community flocking to
transfusionless surgery?  Why aren't they beating down the doors in
New York to gain access to this wealth of knowledge?

Not to say that the Witness researchers are ignorant, but why should
we consider them experts?
--------------------------------+---------------------------------------
Jay Windley                     | jwindley@asylum.utah.edu
Department of Computer Science  +---------------------------------------
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City   | "I have detailed files."  -- T2
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc