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People of this square:

After the Turkey meals, I felt some of us must be interested in this
article. Religion!- It is Religion!! Religion!!!
Greetings all.

Iyi-Eweka


>From: "NOK" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "Naijanews" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: [edo-community] The Jehovah Witness
>Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 17:51:46 +0100
>
>The Jehovah Witness
>By Reuben Abati
>
>ROTIMI Omokunle is one of us. Our compatriot. He and his wife were
>travelling to a certain destination on Saturday, November 6, when they ran
>into an armed robbery operation. It was the couple's day of misfortune. The
>robbers dragged Omokunle and his wife out of their Datsun van. They shot
>repeatedly into his eyes and pumped bullets into his wife's arms. They then
>left husband and wife by the roadside, obviously thinking that they were
>dead. But miraculously, the couple survived and they were soon rescued by
>the Kwara State Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps.
>
>Many Nigerians who have read their story have been filled with sheer pain
>and horror. They are alarmed at the extent of the bestiality of the
>criminals in our midst. Why shoot a man in the eyes and maim his wife after
>dispossessing them of their hard-earned belongings? What is it that drives
>some human beings to such evil? Mr and Mrs Omokunle are victims of a
>society on its way to perdition where men have lost their senses, values
>have been thrown overboard and the highways have become dangerous. The
>danger is that human life, that precious commodity, is losing its value in
>our environment; be it in the warring villages of Plateau, Rivers or Delta
>or the dangerous highways of Kwara State, or the killing fields of Anambra.
>One woman, Mrs. Mfon Ekong Usoro was so touched that she sent a cheque of
>N160, 000 as her own contribution to the cost of the couple's treatment at
>the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital where they are on admission.
>
>But the news is that Mr Omokunle has added a twist to the tale of his own
>treatment. A member of the Jehovah Witness, a Christian religious group,
>Omokunle is insisting that he should not be given any blood transfusion in
>the course of his treatment. His reason is that his faith forbids this. The
>hospital is now in a dilemma. The doctors had managed to remove one of
>Omokunle's damaged eyes successfully without going against his instruction.
>But they still have to carry out a neurological operation to remove ten
>pellets lodged in his brain. To do this surgery, the doctors would need to
>administer blood transfusion. They have tried to explain the nature of the
>operation to Omokunle, and the risks of the choice that he is making. They
>have offered advice. They have tried to persuade him. But Omokunle who is
>said to have recovered from the initial shock of his ordeal is adamant. He
>is a child of faith, and a worthy Jehovah Witness.
>
>In the face of tribulation, he would neither waver nor forsake his faith.
>And so he says: "Help me thank Nigerians for their concern for my continued
>existence. They have been wonderful people. However, they should help me
>appeal to my doctors here not to transfuse me during the proposed
>operation. I am a Jehovah's Witness and my religion forbids that." It is
>most unlikely that Omokunle would change his mind. He wants us to appeal to
>his doctors. What do we say to his doctors who are bound by the Hippocratic
>Oath, and whose main job is to save lives? How do we tell the scientists to
>suspend science and accept the faith of religion?
>The conflict between science and religion, between faith and reason,
>between dogma and fact is one of the major dilemmas of the 20th century,
>and a big challenge in the Age of Reason. Jehovah Witnesses are especially
>popular for their unwavering commitment to the traditions of their faith.
>They do not celebrate birthdays, funerals or Christmas. They do not salute
>national flags or recite national pledges. When they are ill, they do not
>take blood transfusion. Their position on blood is usually defended on the
>grounds that blood itself is life, it is the source of energy, to transfuse
>blood is to play God, to attempt to recreate man, and this violates the
>sanctity of the human person. The counter-argument that if life is so
>scared, then it must be saved, and that science is one of the wondrous
>creations of the Almighty is pushed away with the dogmatic insistence on
>the limitations of science.
>
>During World War II, and the Korean war, Jehovah Witnesses were targeted
>and victimised for refusing to bear arms and kill, for refusing to worship
>man and country. Thousands of them willingly surrendered their lives in the
>face of persecution. Others went underground but they stuck by their faith.
>Pages of Awake!, the celebrated Jehovah Witness publication, and easily one
>of the best written magazines in the English language, is regularly
>decorated with tales about the heroism and courage of the group's
>adherents. Here in Nigeria, there have been cases involving Jehovah
>Witnesses in schools and other establishments. The strongest defence for
>the members is their right to the freedoms of belief, worship and
>association, and their right not to be discriminated against on all of
>these accounts.
>
>A faith-based argument is difficult to win. No amount of logic can make a
>man who constructs his life in spiritual and extra-terrestial terms change
>his mind. In the Middle East, suicide bombers and terrorists sign up in the
>game of death because they believe that they are fighting a worthy cause,
>to be rewarded with a rousing reception by 21 virgins in the world beyond!
>Nobody has ever seen these virgins. Nobody has ever returned to confirm
>that the myth is true. But many lives have been lost to this powerful myth.
>And as long as this survives, the likes of Osama bin Laden would always
>find new recruits. Religious fundamentalism has been responsible for as
>many deaths in the world as hunger and disease. It is not for nothing that
>it shares the same properties with both. Religious fundamentalists are
>forever hungry for something that they themselves cannot exactly define.
>Their faith is like a disease in need of treatment.
>
>To cite one or two more examples, there are religious groups in Nigeria
>whose members are vegetarians. There are others whose members do not wear
>shoes, or jewellery, and believe this, there are persons who do not watch
>television, because they insist it is the devil's box, and they will all
>willingly quote passages from the Holy Books to defend their position. Pope
>Xystus 1 once wrote that "the man without faith is a walking corpse". But
>what of when faith amounts to a form of suicide? Was Benjamin Franklin not
>saying the exact truth when he commented that "in the affairs of this
>world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the want of it" (1758). Omokunle
>would not agree. His position in this circumstance can be traced to II
>Corinthians 5:7 where we are told that "we walk by faith, not by sight."
>Omokunle has lost his sight, he is in danger of losing his life, but his
>faith is strong and he stands by it. His kind of faith is what William
>Wordsworth defines in Intimations of Immortality as "the faith that looks
>through death" (1807). Omokunle is looking through death, armed with his
>faith.
>
>But I suppose we cannot advise Omokunle to change his mind. We may call on
>members of his family to intervene, but that may not force him to accept
>blood transfusion. We cannot even advise his doctors to go against his
>wish, and find a way of doing their job. If he were to discover the truth
>later, the objective would still be defeated. Thomas Hobbes understood this
>dilemma perfectly well when he wrote in Leviathan that "faith is a gift of
>God which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or
>menaces of torture." (1651). Is it not surprising that there are even
>persons in this society today who do not use any form of hospital
>medication when they are ill?
>They claim that they are children of God who cannot come to any harm, and
>so instead of using properly prescribed drugs, they invest their faith in
>holy water and anointing oil which I am told can cure anything! There are
>all kinds of persons driving on our highways today who drive dangerously,
>inside vehicles that are a threat to human civilisation, and yet they
>announce to whoever cares to listen: "I am covered by the blood of Jesus".
>Faith can be blind and dangerous. A few years ago, a fellow at the
>University of Ibadan zoo wanted to re-enact the story of Daniel and the
>Lion's Den. He walked into the lion's cage, waving his Holy Book, speaking
>in tongues and pretending to be having a conversation with a lion. He did
>not live to tell the story.
>
>The threat of dogma should be of interest to institutions of society. The
>Omokunle case deserves our attention. His fellow Jehovah Witnesses would be
>glad that a man of faith is standing up like the biblical Job in the hour
>of tribulation; they will praise his courage, admire his example. The Chief
>Matron of the Opthalmic ward of the Ilorin Teaching Hospital has asked us
>to pray for Mr and Mrs Omokunle. They deserve not only our prayers, but
>support. They remind us forcefully of the dilemma of our lives, of the pain
>of living in the midst of danger and uncertainty. If the couple survive
>(and we are praying for them), their lives have already been altered
>forever. This is why their plight is a test of faith for all of us as
>Nigerians.
>
>But can hospitals go to court to obtain a restraining order against a
>patient who, in their consideration is attempting suicide? Can government
>intervene and insist that a man must be given the best treatment that will
>save his life, in spite of his religion? In certain countries, Sweden for
>example, a man or woman is allowed to die if he so wishes. Can our own
>doctors here also function occasionally as Doctors of death? In the case of
>blood transfusion, are there options that can be explored and do our
>hospitals have the capacity to carry out surgical operations without a drop
>of blood? Is there laser surgery in Nigeria or such other advanced medical
>technologies that are less intrusive of an individual's privacy?
>Is there a way in which a balance can be sought in the Omokunle case? Can
>he be taken abroad, and the bullets removed, without a drop of blood? These
>are issues and challenges that should be tested: every experience must lead
>society to think more forcefully about the complexities of contemporary
>living. In Mark v: 34, the Lord Jesus Christ told a woman of infirmity:
>"daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy
>plague". Is this the miracle that Omokunle seeks? May be not. J. A. Froude
>had written in his A Plea for the Free Discussion of Theological
>Difficulties (1863), and I have no reason to disagree, that "we cannot live
>on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace
>must be a certainty so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is
>nothing."
>
>
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