Cuba: A Visit from Jehovah’s Witnesses
Warhol P
HAVANA TIMES — Every Sunday, two Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my house. At first the visits weren’t welcomed because that’s the day I try to take care of a lot of my outstanding “stuff,” so I hardly have time to talk.
But one of the young women is nice, and it’s a pleasure to listen to her. In addition, I prefer being courteous and not behaving like many people in our neighborhood, those who refuse to let them come in and virtually slam the door in their faces.
I can’t deny the fact that I have no interest in becoming a Jehovah’s Witness, though I note that with their periodic visits they’re trying to make me believe that in this religion rests the happiness of all human beings.
Every Sunday they give me a copy of the magazine Despertad! (Awake!). In it appear interesting articles and questions such as: “Why are governments important for changing the world?” and “Will our world change someday.” There’s a list where they detail what they would like to change:
– Hunger
– War
– Diseases
– Crimes
– Prejudice
– Pollution
– Injustice
– Poverty
Personally, I would change everything on that list for the good of humanity. But I don’t have to be a Jehovah’s Witness or profess any religion in order to do that. One simply has to be a human being and realize what’s right and what’s wrong.
With the passage of time, I’ve come to the realization that if all of us were as descent, communicative and truly human as those two young women, our lives might change for the better.
But it’s evident that in this day and age there are few people here in Cuba interested in changing anything, so they prefer to close doors and bite their tongues.
I’ll ask one question: Has anything changed or is something really changing in today’s Cuba?
i have just come across this web site so my comments will no doubt seem late i would like to comment on those who bring up the”1975” date being the end. this all started when fredrick franz was still alive . he was the watchtower prime spokesman. in one of there books they were discussing how by the year ”1975′ would be according to bible math ,would be the passing of seven thousand years of mankind being on earth and wouldn’t it be great if jehovah would bring about the new order of things ,thats all ! just speculating, and then he said , now don’t all of you go out and say the end is ”coming” in 1975 ! sad to say they did not listen to him and started this fire storm. in the 1976 june addition of the watchtower they spoke out against this error but the enemies of the jeh. witnesses went wild with themselves to make the witnesses look nuts. so there.
among the risks of taking blood is getting aids ,or have you all forgetting this? with the new trend of gay marriage accepted by some, and made law by the ”supreme court of the u,s, what a wonderful life you all might have ,so go ahead ! you are right about my repeating this comment sorry. true there are scandals that have come to light, but sad to say these things seem to happen in all human organizations.the catholic church and there altar boy sex abuses or did you ignore it during your finger pointing???
You are correct in our view of the symbolic value of blood and its inherent importance, but there are two other highly significant aspects as well.
1) The high value placed on blood allows us to appreciate much more deeply the exceeding value of Christ’s own blood (allowing it to be commoditized as medicine or anything else would directly work against helping humans understand this). The Bible teaches that Christ’s ransom sacrifice is the basis for God’s forgiveness of sins (which allows us to have a personal relationship with God), buys back perfect, everlating life (Rom 3:24&25 (which Adam lost Ro 5:12) and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that perfect humans can remain faithful to God despite attacks and the threat of death (Job 2:4).
2) Jehovah God, as our Creator has the absolute unmitigated right to determine how we are to use the lives that he has blessed us with, including placing a prohibition on ingesting or infusing blood. (Rev 4:11) This prohibition is mentioned in 3 areas in the Bible: Pre- Mosaic Law at Gen 9:4, In the Mosaic Law at Lev 17:10 and Post Mosaic Law at Act 15:20. His position on this subject is clear.
1 John 5:3 says, “For this is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments; and yet his commandments are not burdensome.” If we profess to love God then obedience is how we show it. Yes, in some cases it may mean our lives in this system of things, but we have our hope of a resurrection that gives us comfort (Acts 24:15) and a loving Almighty God that gives us courage to face it all(Heb 13:6). We also have the marvels of modern medicine that proves bloodless patients have higher survival rates and get superior care than those who receive blood. I’ll take it! We love life and will do all we can within reason to preserves it drawing the line at anything that will harm our relationship with our God. I hope this helps you and others to have a better understanding of our Bible-based stand.
Blood transfusions are necessary to distribute oxygen throughout the body to prevent the cells from dying but only in times of severe blood loss. Unfortunately, blood loses most of its ability to do this within 24hrs of extraction and most blood donated is stored for longer than that before use making it effectively useless at serving the purpose it is claimed to be used for. Artificial (non-blood) carriers are much better at serving this function. Add to that that blood donated often causes liver failure (which results in death a few years or even months later due to the body rejecting the foreign genetic code in the alien blood).
This being so, was Jehovah wrong to advise his people to stay away from blood? Scientifically, it seems not. Strange that he should take that position when all others were glorifying its use – but then consider, were the others interested in promoting life or abusing it? Judging by their works, it seems certainly not.
No actually they do not allow any form of someone elses blood to enter their bodies. So your info is wrong. Get it straight or just kerp your non sense thoughts to yourself please n thx !!!!!
I just ran across this article written 2 years ago. Everything Jonathan Adabe wrote is incorrect. Looks like he expressed what is inside his own head. Lots of comments on ‘blood fractions’ written by disgruntled people. They need to go and read medical journals and learn about blood fractions – then come back and make intelligent comments.
It does say to pour it on the ground which means…dont use it at all.
You say that the word used about blood at Acts 15:28 is “abstain”. You say that this “means not using blood in any form”. You are aware, are you not, that JWs now allow almost all parts of blood to be transfused? You are aware that JWs allow what they call “fractions” of blood to be used? You are aware, are you not, that when blood is fractionated it is processed in basically a factory that separates it into components? Is that treating blood as though it’s sacred?
Blood is either sacred, or it’s not. You can’t have it both ways. If it’s sacred, then you can’t take fractions of it. And the term used by JWs, “fractions”, is deceptive. It gives the impression that only small parts of blood are used (which would still be wrong if blood truly is sacred). However, JWs are now allowed to take 97% of that complex mixture we call blood.
If I told you: “Don’t eat that pizza. It’s special. Granny bought it just for me.” Do you think I’d care if you ate “fractions” of it – if you picked off the pepperoni and ate it? If you scraped off the cheese and ate it? Etc.? OF COURSE I’D CARE!
You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s wrong to transfuse blood, or it’s not.
So back to what you said: “abstain” “means not using blood in any form”. JWs use blood all the time. They allow almost all of it to be transfused in their bodies.
Jehovah’s Witnesses love people and see how the bible promises better times ahead, Man cannot bring lasting happines or solutions to the worlds problems. Listen to them.
T
Jehovah’s witnesses have the truth! But are not living the truth 100% because the Governing Body joined us to the United Nations organizations to distribute “public information” (UN NGO DPI), which inadvertently or purposely also fulfilled Daniel 11:31b in 1990, and 1991 at Bethel where the Governing Body set up the “disgusting thing” as part of “they” in “they will certainly place the disgusting thing that is causing desolation”;
(Daniel 11:31) “And they will certainly put in place the disgusting thing that is causing desolation.
That actually happened in 1990, because when the USSR went down, that changed the entire context of Daniel 11:27-45, because Fred Franz and other anointed who interpreted that prophecy did so when the USSR was successful in operating:
(Daniel 11:36) And he will certainly prove successful until [the] denunciation will have come to a finish; because the thing decided upon must be done.
But as we know the USSR failed; And so the USSR cannot be “successful until the denunciation will have come to a finish” at Daniel 11:45, at Armageddon; The real King of the North MUST prove successful from Daniel 11:36 all the way to Daniel 11:45; The actual King of the North cannot be “on hold” at Daniel 11:43 as Jehovah’s Witnesses are currently teaching;
Instead of updating this truth to reveal the 3rd placement of the UN system as King of the North in 1990, the Governing Body instead joined the UN as a non-governmental organization and instead co-promoted the 3rd placement speeches of the UN by quoting those speeches of George Bush Sr. before the UN General Assembly in the Awake! 9/8/1991 UN New World Order issue;
Thus the Governing Body is also “throwing truth to the earth” as UN allied operations to fulfill Daniel 8:12b as the foretold “man of lawlessness” who must be revealed prior to the final temple judgment and cleansing of Jehovah’s Witnesses which leads from Revelation 8 to 11 when the “denunciation will have come to a finish”;
The temple judgment is a timed desolation of the JW organization, which the Governing Body is aiding at Daniel 8:11-14;
Find “templelijah” on-line for more information from the anointed prior to temple judgment and reformation of Jehovah’s Witnesses which will lead over years, to Armageddon as Revelation 8-11, parallels Revelation 16 replicating for Kingdom maturity proclamation and temple completion of prophecy repeating the 1914-1918 cycle to climax;
My father was a Jehovah’s Witness for many years in Cuba. He was even in prison for his beliefs and standing by this religion. We left when I was 2 years old to USA and my family continued to practice until I was 13 years old. I was sexually abused by a elder among 3 other children. The organization did a lousy job at trying to police this when I finally came forward and said what had happened. It was quickly put under the rug. This was not the only reason why I rebelled. I read the bible many times and did not agree with the contradictions and the literal interpretations from the Watch Tower. I was told many things like the devil was inside me and finally told I am not supposed to read the bible this way. I need to read it they way they tell me to read it.
I left the religion when I was 13 years old and would rather take a beating but I refused to go to Church.
I was the youngest of my siblings and my brothers and sisters also followed even if it meant to run away from home.
This is a cult. For those that believe in this I feel for you. I wish that you open your eyes and know the god can be reached on your own and without having to go through this church.
Mr Coates is obviously a dedicated Jehovah’s Witness having given 70 years to their teachings. My own connections with the Witnesses goes back to the late 1930’s, and was baptized in September 1941 at a convention in Leicester, UK. They were the years when I preached from door-to-door that Abraham, Isaac, David and all the old Testament prophets were expected to be resurrected at any time then. Also that Armageddon would occur within months. Armageddon would certainly occur before all the Annointed (those taking the bread and wine) would pass away in death. None of those teachings apply today. The Governing Body got it all wrong! When Mr Coates says “I don’t let anyone shove teachings down my throat” he would have believed those teachings in his early days, and now believes current-day teachings. I do my best to help others who are less fortunate than I am, but I do not give this help because of any religious context. What will be my reward as an ex-Jehovah’s Witness? According to their teachings I will be killed with 7 billion other non- Witnesses, simply because I do not accept their teachings. There is a wonderful life of freedom and independence outside of that Organization. You are of course free Mr Coates to hold your beliefs, but you do not have the freedom to doubt or disbelieve or question your Governing Body without risking being cast out of your Organization. My respects to you, Jonathan A
Hello!
Jehovah’s Witnesses use 90% of the bag unit of blood as Danny Haszard posted.How then do Watchtowerites ‘abstain’ from blood?
I have been a JW for 70 years. I have a BS degree in physics and math and an MBA. All the negatives that I read here, I have not seen. I don’t let anyone shove teachings down my throat. I have to read it in the Bible, then I believe it. In John, chapter six, is about people that did not believe in Jesus. They went their own way believing their own way. There is only one way of believing as indicated by that chapter. Paul also spoke against the “superfine apostles” who spoke against the Truth. In Acts 15:28 the word used about blood is “abstain.” That means not using blood in any form. Abstain means abstain not using it at all.
The Bible does not encourage getting together by all ways of thinking and getting a religion by agreement. The Bible is clear and ones that go against it are shunned so they do not spread their doctrine among others. The Bible never encourages free-thinking. It is our responsibility to make our selves over with a “New personality” Colossians 3:12-15. What a blessing to worship Jehovah as the True God forever.
If you are looking for mistakes, you will find them as we are imperfect men. Use the web site “jw.org” to get the full picture of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Many blessings to you in your search for the Truth.
In the main, JW’s are very nice people. But they are entrapped into that Organization by the simple word ‘SOON’, which for the last 130 years has been used by their Governing Body in every publication to indicate the onslaught of Armageddon to be followed by a Paradise Earth. Every prophecy fortelling Armageddon has failed, 1914, 1925, 1940, 1975, but members cling on to the hope. How sad! And woe betide any member who questions any of the teachings (which are always changing according to the latest ‘new light’ ). Those questioners will be disfellowshipped and cast aside by family members and friends. A happy people?? They live in fear of upsetting their leaders. Jonathan
Jehovahs Witnesses DO take blood products now in 2012.
They take all fractions of blood.This includes hemoglobin, albumin, clotting factors, cryosupernatant and cryo-poor too, and many, many, others.
If one adds up all the blood fractions the JWs takes, it equals a whole unit of blood. Any, many of these fractions are made from thousands upon thousands of units of donated blood.
Jehovah’s Witnesses now accept every fraction of blood except the membrane of the red blood cell. JWs now accept blood transfusions.
The fact that the JW blood issue is so unclear is downright dangerous in the emergency room.
More than 50,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses dead from Watchtowers deadly arbitrary blood ban,some estimates run as high as 100,000 dead
—
Danny Haszard
Bravo Micheal! I would like to thank the paper for printing an uplifting article including Jehovah’s Witnesses. The facts are clear and they are an undercurrent to the articles points, that if everyone were a Jehovah’s Witness the world would be and exceedingly different and better place. No one should listen to the vitriol that is spewed out by biased Jehovah’s Witness haters. They always have an evil agenda. Again, thank you.
Quality Alternatives to Transfusion
If the loss is rapid and great, a person’s blood pressure drops, and he may go into shock. What is primarily needed is that the bleeding be stopped and the volume in his system be restored. That will serve to prevent shock and keep the remaining red cells and other components in circulation.
Volume replacement can be accomplished without using whole blood or blood plasma.* Various nonblood fluids are effective volume expanders. The simplest is saline (salt) solution, which is both inexpensive and compatible with our blood. There are also fluids with special properties, such as dextran, Haemaccel, and lactated Ringer’s solution. Hetastarch (HES) is a newer volume expander, and “it can be safely recommended for those [burn] patients who object to blood products.” (Journal of Burn Care & Rehabilitation, January/February 1989) Such fluids have definite advantages. “Crystalloid solutions [such as normal saline and lactated Ringer’s solution], Dextran and HES are relatively nontoxic and inexpensive, readily available, can be stored at room temperature, require no compatibility testing and are free of the risk of transfusion-transmitted disease.” —Blood Transfusion Therapy —A Physician’s Handbook, 1989.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are the religious telemarketers spammers of the world.
They complain about how bad the world is doing but do very little to nothing in charitable works.
The Watchtower has been a source of hate Literature for over 100 years. Watchtower and other Jehovahs Witness publications have been full of slanderous, half-truth, deceiving, misleading hate-filled articles and lies.
The Jehovahs Witnesses on one hand fill their books and lectures with details about how evil and corrupt every other religion is, but then when theirs is exposed as corrupt they fall back on how it’s *voluntary* to be a member, and how its not nice to say nasty things about them, and how they are being *persecuted*.
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It’s Jehovah’s Witnesses who hurl the ‘hate word’.
Ever notice that Watchtower defenders always use the same labels for people?
Their rants are always a cluster of generalities without presenting concrete facts. Yet their own group is a band of haters who enjoy Watchtower publications of churches and other religious building falling into earthquakes are being hit by bolts of lightening.
The reality is the Watchtower and Jehovah’s Witness are a hate group who will not physically harm you but will use every other means available to spread their poison.
Contradiction is not ‘persecution’
Jehovah’s Witnesses are truly unique among religions today.
1. They operate exactly ZERO charitable organizations
2. They operate soley as a corporate entity (legal dept runs everything)
3. Any love they show each other is fake and flimsy and will be turned off in a instant if you question
4. Allow their members to die because of wilfull misinterpretation of scripture concerning Blood transfusions
5. Hold the record for the largest Lawsuit award against them for child sex abuse (google it)
Yes a very special group
The deadly blood transfusion ban was started by a psychopath JW by the name of Frederick Franz.
Blood transfusion to a Jehovahs Witnesses is like psychiatry to a Scientologist.
The Bible has nothing to say about whether a Christian should accept a blood transfusion,only that blood should not be eaten. Jehovah’s Witnesses take this literal interpretation and then dogmatically apply it to a medical procedure.
If a Witness decides that their conscience will allow them to receive blood, then they are shunned and excommunicated from every friend, family member, and JW church in the whole world, until they die.
Something’s not right with a religion that does that!
Jehovah’s Witness is a high control fairly recent American born religious sect.
Charles Taze Russel was the first so called ‘Jehovah’s Witness’ (then called International Bible Students) or Russelites.
The first lie from the trained members is that they want to offer you a ‘free bible study’ which in reality turns out to be only a lifetime of studying the Watchtower, Awake and multiple WTBS publications.
This is very important because only then will this group survive. Things not so important are exchanged for the main focus and teachings of the scriptures. Nuances or shades of meanings are exchanged for the truth.
This group will gloss over the extreme shunning that keeps worn out and discouraged members from leaving. New recruits will be encouraged to shed so labeled ‘worldly’ friends. If one disagree’s after being baptized into the religion with even one small detail then this ‘organization’ will threaten them with family and new Watchtower friends that will not speak, eat or show any love to their former associates. Grandparents never see grandchildren, parents cut off from children, brothers and sister never speaking again.
Yet the Watchtower has been wrong on every time tested prediction.
Truely this is a scary group.
In conclusion one must have to wonder why members instruct outsiders to get so called ‘accurate information’ only from the Watchtower yet the Watchtower printing press churns out endless comments and reviews of every other religion on this earth.
Can anyone say hypocrites?
What makes confusion (is truth confused?) is the ‘official’ statements issued by the Watchtower compared with the true ‘attitude’ of Witnesses themselves on the ground; few many times the attitudes of ‘members’ is not coherent with direction itself. For example if suspected of ‘sin’ the management should investigate the case and see if indeed the case is. There are maybe cases of witnesses accountable of ‘half-sin’ (not fully accomplished ) who are been keep apart in ‘silence’ waiting for the person to maybe confess and provoking a huge psychological damage not only to the ‘sinner’ but also his family since all of them are now alienated.
In other hands is true, as the Bible teaches, their main activity is Preaching…..
I am observing them since almost 50 years and my conclusion is ‘Do what they teach…don’t do what they act… (Part of them) ‘
They are an evil cult.
Those of us with Google alerts with Jehovah’s name in them see the spewing venom of DH
on the regular. Define his doing the same thing and expecting a different result!
Why even go there with a person who obviously has issues, the main of which is he’s not
against “US”, he’s against Jehovah! I say, “Let Jehovah deal with him and his venom”…
If there’s a molecule of 1% of good in him, DH may repent and change his ways. Instead of
trying to vindicate anything we stand for TO HIM, let’s vindicate our God by standing firm,
educating and loving others, and following the Christ…
~A (HOPEFULLY) Heavenbound Sister who is just sayin’…. 😉
They’re sure, Moses.
What are the odds of the previous three reply’s being made by the same person.
Instead of getting your info from a biased former member that has personal issues with this organization and actually got in trouble for pepper spraying two elderly Jw’s that came to his door. I recommend going to the source and asking any questions.
Please go to http://www.jw.org or ask any Jehovah’s Witness.
Danny Haszard needs to get a job and stop spending his days trawling websites for a mention of Jehovah’s Witnesses to berate them. If you have found happiness and want to share it with people then share it, otherwise cheer up or take some Prozac…. your constant ‘JW’s are evil, they brainwash you and rob your money’ bashing is really getting old!
Haters ‘gonna hate….You guys spend a lot of time trolling.
Just sayin’
I like Jehovah’s Witnesses too. It is not easy to really live up to what the bible shows us we need to do in this largely faithless world. Also it must be noted that in all the politically hot spots in the earth where others resort to violence and revenge, pouring out blood to run the engines of war, congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses are havens of peace and stability.
In the Cuban context what interests me is how the authorities deal with a key pillar of the principles of Jehovah’s Witness, ie the refusal to serves in an army that does not have God as its commander in chief. In other words, how does Cuba deal with conscientious objectors?
High-control, misrepresentation of history, disacciation with non-believers…Are you sure you are not talking about the Castros and the Cuban Communist Party?
What a balanced article. As one of Jehovah’s Witnesses here in the United States I call on many people. The vast majority are courteous. Quite a few take time to talk to me. A goodly number tell me they enjoy my visits, feeling they bring a perspective on the world that they do not get anywhere else.
I have been one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for over 35 years. I am a member of a local community group called Sustainable Connections. I am also a trained emergency first responder. Just last week I attended a community town meeting to discuss local land use issues. I am completely invested in my local community.
I also promote the the idea that we human beings are limited in our ability to govern ourselves. History seems to prove the point, don’t you think?
You don’t have to become a Jehovah’s Witness in order to believe God wants Earth to be a paradise. You can believe that in the Kingdom Christians arrangement for fellowship at http://www.christianwitnesses.com ….. No es necesario hacerse Testigo de Jehova para creer que Dios quiere que la Tierra sera paraiso. Pueden creerlo en el arreglamiento Cristianos del Reino para companarismo a http://www.christianwitnesses.com.
Jehovah’s Witnesses for most part don’t support any public ‘worldy’ charities because Watchtower teaches them that the only way people will get help is through God’s kingdom so helping poor is a waste of time.
Watchtower also teaches that the way to help people is for JWs to preach to others their message which for most part includes much misrepresentation of the group’s history, misrepresentation of many sources they quote in their magazines and basically being negligent when it comes to human life when in need of blood transfusions.
The origin of all Watchtower teachings that makes them unique over all other religions is their creed of Jesus second coming ‘invisibly’ in the year 1914.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a high control group (cult) because of the way they ostracize members who dissent.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have the highest turnover rate of any religion in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of those who become members will leave.
There is something deeply wrong with an organization that claims to be Christian and breaks apart families, shunning even their own children. This form of shunning called “Disfellowshipping” is nothing more than psychological brutality meted out to keep the rank and file in line with fear and has led some to commit suicide.
Jehovah’s Witnesses will only treat you with love and respect if you go along 100% with their distortions. If you persist in asking questions or challenging their doctrine, you are expelled, losing all friends and family members, never able to speak to them again, not even to say “hello.”
Even minor children have been forced to leave home and live on the streets because they no longer agreed with the convoluted and highly extrapolated teachings of their faith.
Blood Transfusion confusion.
Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine allows a liver transplant but not the blood that is in it.
Reasonable points are raised about bloodless alternatives during ELECTIVE scheduled surgery. However, bloodless alternatives are no substitute for blood transfusions when there has already been massive loss of blood volume, as occurs in accidents and trauma leading to sudden blood loss.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that life is sacred to God therefore blood is sacred because it represents and symbolizes life. Jehovah’s Witnesses put a higher value on blood than they do life.
Which is more sacred? The symbol or that which it symbolizes?
No blood dogma does get people killed!
Since 1945 year, 50-100 times as many men,women,children have been killed by the Watchtower society ban on *whole* blood transfusions than at Jonestown kool-aid mass murders.
Please think about that!
–Danny Haszard