Prayer and nothing else

[Menotu]

Your kid's sick. Really sick. Do you take him to the doctor or just pray?

Prayer is, it's said, the most powerful thing you can do for/against someone.
Medicine, while imperfect, is also powerful. It saves lives, makes lives better, etc.

Is there anyone here that would not take their child/spouse to the doctors and use only prayer instead?

"Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them."

Is it your faith that's weak or God's ability?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 1 by Menotu]

I don't know any Christians that wouldn't seek the best medical help for their children. Most I know don't see medical treatment and prayer as being mutually exclusive, I certainly dont.


JEHOVAHS WITNESS

[2timothy316]

Luke was both an apostle and a physician. Paul told Timothy to take some wine with his meal so as to settle his stomach. Ancient Israel quarantined the sick to stop the spread of disease.

All of these not only prayed but also acted in accordance with their prayers. I don't know who is spreading the rumor that prayer is the singularly the most powerful thing one can do but they are wrong. Prayer along with acting in harmony with your prayer is the most powerful thing one can do. “The eyes of Jehovah are roving about through all the earth to show his strength in behalf of those whose heart is complete toward him.� (2 Chron. 16:9) A complete heart not only wants what God wants but also acts in harmony with what God wants.

[Difflugia]

I don't know any Christians that wouldn't seek the best medical help for their children.

Would that include a blood transfusion?

If you define "best medical help" such that it precludes anything to which you have a religious objection, then a Christian Scientist can honestly make exactly the same statement you did.

Let's now define "best medical help" such that it always means the care with the best medical prognosis, irrespective of religious concerns. A Christian Scientist can no longer honestly make that statement. I can. Can you?

Let's imagine a car accident in which your child has lost enough blood to result in a critically low blood pressure. A paramedic has arrived and is holding a bag of Type O- whole blood, looking at you expectantly. Jehovah has miraculously spared you any injury, perhaps just so that the paramedic can now ask you if you authorize the transfusion. Do you allow her to begin putting the blood into your child, or do you refuse and pray your child will recover, anyway?

[2timothy316]

I don't know any Christians that wouldn't seek the best medical help for their children.

Would that include a blood transfusion?

If you define "best medical help" such that it precludes anything to which you have a religious objection, then a Christian Scientist can honestly make exactly the same statement you did.

Let's now define "best medical help" such that it always means the care with the best medical prognosis, irrespective of religious concerns. A Christian Scientist can no longer honestly make that statement. I can. Can you?

Let's imagine a car accident in which your child has lost enough blood to result in a critically low blood pressure. A paramedic has arrived and is holding a bag of Type O- whole blood, looking at you expectantly. Jehovah has miraculously spared you any injury, perhaps just so that the paramedic can now ask you if you authorize the transfusion. Do you allow her to begin putting the blood into your child, or do you refuse and pray your child will recover, anyway?

While there might be a temporary health benefit if one doesn't die from complications of the transfusion, according to the Bible a blood transfusion could end ones life for eternity. (Lev 7:27)

That is not the "best medical help". It's the worst. The media has made blood to be some sort of miracle cure. It's not, it can do harm to both the donor and the recipient. There are studies out now that are showing that a person that gives blood many times in their life might be shortening their life. A person is not supposed to be losing their blood in big quantities. In short, while you might feel better taking some else's blood, the person that is giving the blood is more than likely shortening their own life. Blood doesn't come from thin air or produced in some lab. If it did then JWs would certainly use it as it's not real blood and it puts no person at risk to save our lives. People shouldn't be giving as much as they do but blood donors aren't always tracking blood donors as they should.

[Difflugia]

While there might be a temporary health benefit if one doesn't die from complications of the transfusion, according to the Bible a blood transfusion could end ones life for eternity. (Lev 7:27)

That is not the "best medical help". It's the worst.

That's exactly the argument that Christian Scientists use.

The media has made blood to be some sort of miracle cure. It's not, it can do harm to both the donor and the recipient.

That's a straw man, at best. The only thing blood is a miracle cure for is loss of blood. And of course it "can do harm;" all invasive medical procedures "can do harm." The prognosis is, however, better if it's done than if it's not.

[2timothy316]

While there might be a temporary health benefit if one doesn't die from complications of the transfusion, according to the Bible a blood transfusion could end ones life for eternity. (Lev 7:27)

That is not the "best medical help". It's the worst.

That's exactly the argument that Christian Scientists use.

You're in the Theology, Doctrine and Dogma forum. So yes you're going to get a Biblical answer. You think in the short term of your life, I think in the long term of my life.

The media has made blood to be some sort of miracle cure. It's not, it can do harm to both the donor and the recipient.

That's a straw man, at best. The only thing blood is a miracle cure for is loss of blood. And of course it "can do harm;" all invasive medical procedures "can do harm." The prognosis is, however, better if it's done than if it's not.

You said it was the 'best medical help' did you not mean that? Are you not convinced that it is? Who convinced you of that? What you say about blood lets me know that you've done very little study on the subject.

[2timothy316]

While there might be a temporary health benefit if one doesn't die from complications of the transfusion, according to the Bible a blood transfusion could end ones life for eternity. (Lev 7:27)

That is not the "best medical help". It's the worst.

That's exactly the argument that Christian Scientists use.

I don't know about Christian Scientists but I know why I don't take blood. It's because I don't bleed other people so that I can live.

2 Samuel 23 is an of account of David. He mentioned that he would have loved a drink from the cistern by the gate of Bethlehem. One problem, that cistern was under the control of the Philistines. None the less, three of David's men forced their way to the gate putting their lives at great risk to get a drink of water.

Now, do you think David was grateful? No, he said, "It is unthinkable on my part, O Jehovah, that I should do this! Should I drink the blood of the men going at the risk of their lives?� So he refused to drink it. These are the things that his three mighty warriors did."

Now a person might say, "It was just water". Or "It's just blood". But it's much more than that.

Here is the Bible principle why I would not accept what you say is, "the best medical" help. Like David, I do not accept people putting themselves at risk for me when it is not necessary. There are no guarantees that blood will save my life. I do have a guarantee that if I follow God's commandments though my life will not end even if I die. This is what many do not understand. Many think this life is all there is and once it ends, that's it. Yet death nothing to Almighty God.

[JehovahsWitness]

I don't know any Christians that wouldn't seek the best medical help for their children.

Would that include a blood transfusion?

That would certainly include seeking non-blood treatments. Anyone that has done any research on the subject knows that blood transfusions are harmful and slow recovery. It is a medical fact that non-blood treatment is superior to blood based treatment.

FIRST DO NO HARM!

[YouTube][/youtube]


source https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... rch.health

**“The risks of blood transfusion are the advantages of plasma substitutes: avoidance of bacterial or viral infection, transfusion reactions and Rh sensitization.� -- The Canadian Anaesthetists’ Society Journal

**“Blood transfusions are basically no good, and we are very aggressive in avoiding them for everybody,� -- Dr. Alex Zapolanski, San Francisco, California.

**One study of almost 9,000 patients, led by cardiac surgeon Gavin Murphy at the Bristol Heart Institute, found that patients who had heart surgery between 1996 and 2003 were three times more likely to die a year after their operation if they had a blood transfusion. In the month after surgery they were six times more likely to die than patients who did not receive donated blood." Guardian uk, 2008

**"There is virtually no high-quality study in surgery, or intensive care or acute care, outside of when you are bleeding to death, that shows that blood transfusion is beneficial, and many that show it is bad for you," -- Gavin Murphy, cardiac surgeon, Bristol Heart Institute

** “Jehovah’s Witnesses were given better treatment by doctors trying to preserve their [the Witness patients’] blood. As a result they had better survival rates, and shorter hospital and intensive care stays than people who received blood transfusions during surgery,� - Clinical Professor James Isbister from the Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney (October 2, 2012, The Sydney Morning Herald)

** “Witnesses had fewer acute complications and shorter length of stay than matched patients who received transfusions.� - Archives of Internal Medicine, August 13-27, 2012


"The bloodletting of yore has been superseded by blood transfusion. Of all the ridiculous medical practices of the past and present times, this present blood craze is the worst." - -Dr. G. Boni and Dr. P.Lafarge

"If blood was a new drug it wouldn't receive a product licence."-- Tom Lennard, Royal Victoria Infirmary

"Probably 40%-60% of blood transfusions are not good for the patients." -- Bruce Spiess, a cardiac anaesthetist, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond

FURTHER

References (see Medical section Official Jehovah's Witness website)
https://www.jw.org/en/medical-library/b ... -medicine/

From the New Yorker - Should Anyone Be Given a Blood Transfusion?
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk ... ransfusion




RELATED POSTS

Do blood transfusions save lives?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 487#844487

[Tcg]

Anyone that has done any research on the subject knows that blood transfusions are harmful and slow recovery. It is a medical fact that non-blood treatment is superior to blood based treatment.

The Mayo Clinic disagrees with your conclusions:

• Blood Transfusions
  
  Overview
  
  A blood transfusion is a routine medical procedure in which donated blood is provided to you through a narrow tube placed within a vein in your arm.
  
  This potentially life-saving procedure can help replace blood lost due to surgery or injury. A blood transfusion also can help if an illness prevents your body from making blood or some of your blood's components correctly.
  
  Blood transfusions usually occur without complications. When complications do occur, they're typically mild.
  
  https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-proced ... c-20385168

Tcg