Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
So in other words, you are saying that:
-- If abstaining from X in such and such way is against the Apostolic Decree, and Witnesses use Y in such and such way, then the Witnesses have not abstained from X.
That doesn’t make a lick of sense Mr. Shilmer.
Marvin replied:
It is called a tautology.
Tears of Oberon responds:
It is called “bovine scatology.”
Marvin wrote:
A tautology presents a logical truth; a statement that is necessarily true by virtue of its form. Here is an example of a tautology: If neither “Tears nor Marvin is here, then Tears is not here.”
If, as a concept,“use from” communicates “not abstain from” then the proposition “use from is contrary to abstain from” is a tautology.
Tears of Oberon responds:
But as has already been demonstrated, “use from” DOES NOT communicate “not abstain from.” “use” is what communicates “not abstain from,” while “use from” communicates “not abstain from from.” You have been ignoring this for what, close to 400 posts now? What will it take to get it through your head, 4000?
Marvin wrote:
Conversely, if the concept “abstain from” communicates “do not use from” then the proposition “use from is contrary to abstain from” is a tautology.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Conversely, if the concept “abstain from” DOES NOT communicate “do not use from,” then the proposition “use from is contrary to abstain from” is NOT a tautology.
Marvin wrote:
When Watchtower announces to the general public that “Witnesses abstain from blood,” do you think this is intended to convey the notion “Witnesses use from blood” or to convey the notion “Witnesses do not use from blood”?
Tears of Oberon responds:
It coveys neither of your strawmen Mr. Shilmer. When Witnesses say that they “abstain from blood,” it means just what any non-quibbling person with half a lick of sense thinks it means: Witnesses do not use blood. What they do choose to use is not blood in their eyes.
ThirdWitness has pointed this deception of yours out repeatedly (which you have ignored repeatedly). You are imputing to the Witnesses an understanding that they do not actually hold! It is a strawman!
Marvin wrote:
If it is meant to convey one and not the other, then which one is it intended to convey?
Tears of Oberon responds:
Witnesses do not use blood [=X], therefore Witnesses abstain from blood [=X].
Not that difficult to understand. Perhaps it will sink in for you after about 4000 more times.
Marvin wrote:
When we speak of whether a statement is honest or dishonest the thing at issue is WHAT is the statement intended to communicate to the audience it is addressed to, and DOES that communicated piece of information lead hearers to think something contrary to reality.
Tears of Oberon responds:
The only thing “contrary to reality” around here is Marvin’s absurd and deceptive strawmen.
What was that saying again?
“Hocus pocus. Wave a wand. What comes out is way beyond!”
The more that you write, the more that you come to embody that phrase Marvin.
MARVIN 350
Marvin wrote:
Earlier I wrote to Tears of Oberon,
“If the Apostolic Decree to abstain from blood [and things strangled] is a requirement to abstain from using blood as a food source, and if transfusing constituents from blood provides nutritional benefit as food, then it is false to say Witnesses abstain from blood. This is my perspective, too.”
Tears of Oberon responded saying:
You have a lot of “perspectives” don’t you? Too bad none of them make any sense. Once again, you are obfuscating on exactly what is being used for nutritional purposes. You have said repeatedly that,“no component of blood is by itself blood.” So you are really going to sit there and tell me that using something that eating something which is clearly not blood (according to you) violates the command to not eat blood? To me, that is the equivalent of saying that eating mangos violates the command to not eat apples. It is lunacy!(admit it, you missed that word).
The constituents I have in mind are constituents taken FROM blood as the source material that are transfused with a nutritional benefit, but NONE of those constituents are in the form of whole blood, red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma.
With that in mind, I restate the perspective above, and this time with a question for you:
-- If the Apostolic Decree to abstain from blood [and things strangled] is a requirement to abstain from using blood as a food source, and if transfusing constituents from blood provides nutritional benefit as food, then it is false to say Witnesses abstain from blood. This is my perspective, too.
Agree or disagree?
Tears of Oberon responds:
The propositon is invalid, because you are comparing the grapes watermelons.
If the Apostolic Decree to abstain from blood [and things strangled] is a requirement to abstain from using blood as a food source, and if transfusing constituents from blood provides nutritional benefit as food, then it is false to say Witnesses abstain from blood.
Here is the abstract of Marvin’s above lunatic argument, in alls its elegant glory (that was irony):
If “abstain from X” is a requirement to abstain from eating Y from [X as source for constiuent Y], and if performing action Q on constituent Y from [X as source for constituent Y] means that Y has been eaten, then it is false to say that X has been abstained from.
Elogance? Simplicity? Understandability? PFFFT! Who needs that stuff when you are Marvin Shilmer?! All you have to do is add as much extra crap in as you can and make it as incomprehensible as humanly possible, then the opponent will have no choice but to concede defeat out of sheer flabbergastation!
In appeal to Occam’s Razor, how about the following instead?
If X is used, then X is not abstained from.
If Y is used, then Y is not abstained from.
If X is used, then Y is not abstained from if and only if Y = X.
Is that not much easier to follow, and valid to boot?
MARVIN 351
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
This is really a failure of a parallel (even by Marvin’s standards). It has been made well known that Witnesses hold that the Apostolic Decree means:
-- Do not eat blood.
So are you honestly saying that
-- Do not eat a supermarket
Is a parallel example?!
Sure, we might fail to abstain if we walk in and start gnawing on the walls or something, but I hardly see how eating an apple could constitute a violation of the command to not eat supermarkets.
If “ABSTAIN from blood” means “DO NOT EAT from blood” then what you write above is alogism.
Tears of Oberon responds:
If Marvin Shilmer has already agreed that “abstain from” is to be treated as a compound term, and then proceeds to use “abstain” and “from” as if they were separate terms, then Marvin Shilmer is a straight up liar and takes us all for imbeceles. Using “abstain from” as a compound term in the way that Marvin himself admitted that it should be used in post 326 shows his argument for what it really is:
If “ABSTAIN FROM blood means “DO NOT EAT from blood”
When we simply use what Marvin himself has admitted to, then it becomes obvious that “ABSTAIN FROM” is equivalent to “DO NOT EAT,” and that the term “from” is unnecessarily tacked on extra. This is precisely what I have been saying for the past 400 posts.
Marvin wrote:
If in respect to blood the term “abstain” in the Apostolic Decree means “do not eat” then the Apostolic Decree in relation to blood can be equally stated as “do not eat FROM blood”.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Marvin wrote way back in post 326:
“I agree that “abstain from” is a compound term. So what?”—Marvin Shilmer
The “so what” is that Marvin is admitting that I am right, but is simply in denial over the fact. You agreed with me that you cannot “abstain meat”—you can only “[abstain from] meat.” Abstain naturally pairs with the word “from.” Therefore, to have Marvin try to isolate “abstain” from the word “from” in his above comments shows either desperation or deception on his part. If we simply turn “abstain” into the compound term that Marvin has already admitted that it is, then we end up with exactly what I have been saying the entire time:
If in respect to blood the term “[abstain from]” in the Apostolic Decree means “do not eat”…
On this I agree with Marvin. You see, we really can agree on things Mr. Shilmer!
Marvin wrote:
So my question for Tears of Oberon on this point is:
In respect to blood, in the Apostolic Decree does the term “abstain” mean “do not eat”?
Tears of Oberon responds:
Absolutely it does. The only problem with the way you state it is that you forget to apply your own rule to abstain and include the “from” in the compound term. When you do so, you end up with the same thing that I have been using the entire time.
[Abstain from] means “do not eat.”
So my question to you is:
Do you now wish to retract the statement you made in post 326?
“I agree that “abstain from” is a compound term. So what?”—Marvin Shilmer post 326
Along with the question:
Is [abstain] equivalent to [abstain from] to Marvin Shilmer?
These I will be expecting answers to.
MARVIN 353
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
This is really a failure of a parallel (even by Marvin’s standards). It has been made well known that Witnesses hold that the Apostolic Decree means:
-- Do not eat blood.
So are you honestly saying that
-- Do not eat a supermarket
Is a parallel example?!
Sure, we might fail to abstain if we walk in and start gnawing on the walls or something, but I hardly see how eating an apple could constitute a violation of the command to not eat supermarkets.
If “abstain from the supermarket” means “do not eat from the supermarket” then taking and using anything from the supermarket as food to eat would be contrary to the notion of “abstain from the supermarket”.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Marvin is confused, and he is using incomplete phrases again.
If he wishes to maintain balance, with “do not eat X from” taking priority, then the left side must of necessity become: “abstain from using X from the supermarket” where X is assigned the value of “anything.”
“do not eat anything [=X] from the supermarket” means “[abstain from] anything [=X] from the supermarket.”
That would be a valid tautology.
MARVIN 355
Marvin wrote:
I have not responded to any of your comments of my post number 295 because I believe that post of mine contains a fundamental error that distracts from the notion I was trying to address, and in at least one respect wrongly addressed.
If there is something specific in your reply to that post that you think any of my argumentation is dependent on, please point it out for my review and comment. I don’t see anything and I already expressed the mistake for your sake.
By the way, if it makes you feel better, I knew something was gnawing my gut as I keyboarded the 295 entry, but I just trucked along. It was stupid of me not to be more reflective. When I took time to reflect, I too was banging my head say "That is just plain backwards!"
Tears of Oberon responds:
Some of the examples and statements that I created from your argument in 295 with respects to sources are still very damaging to your case. Specifically, the following statements are still there, standing in opposition to your preferential “tautology”:
Tears of Oberon responded to post 295 with:
you are still using the exact same thing that I have been grilling you on for about 20 posts now.
use blood as a source from which to eat
Is the same as saying:
eat from blood as a source
Which is the same as:
eat SOMETHING from blood as a source.
And as we have discussed, that “something” needs to be equal to blood, or else the eater has not eaten blood.
eat [MEAT] from [VEGETATION] as a source
is a parallel statement, and yet no rational person would accept that eating meat is violating a prohibition on vegetation. If I eat meat, then I have failed to abstain from meat, not vegetation (even though the vegetation was the ultimate source of the meat).
Please respond to the above Mr. Shilmer.
MARVIN 358
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon writes earlier on his blog:
To eat a product that begins as material X [=vegetation] that has been sufficiently fractionated and converted to a new material Y [=meat] is not to eat material X [=vegetation] but to eat of material Y [=meat]. Hence a person could say that they had abstained from X [=vegetation] even though Y [=meat] was made from X [=vegetation] and they eat Y [=meat].
That sounds reasonable to me. What isn’t it reasonable about it to you?
What you write above repeats what I wrote myself, and I agree with it.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Wow Marvin, this is like, the second time in about a year that we have actually agreed on something. :)
Marvin wrote:
The problem is that Watchtower doctrine does not limit what can be accepted from blood to what has been fractionated AND converted to something else. Based on the argument above, which I agree with, conversion to a new material is essential before what is fractionated from X looses its identity as X.
Tear of Oberon wrote:
You see, this is why you need to examine 295 a bit closer, instead of simply ignoring it. I stated in my response to post 295:
Tears of Oberon wrote earlier:
Who said anything about “new products” being a criteria for a substance losing its identity? You don’t have to decompose and then recompose to lose your identity. Every compound structure in the Universe is subject to losing enough of its parts so that, in the event, it has lost its identity as the distinguishable entity it was prior to its decomposition. The only requirement is losing, not losing then gaining back again.
Hypothetically, if blood was the only substance in the entire universe, and if that blood decomposed and broke apart to such a degree that there were nothing but isolated protons, neutrons and electrons left, then can we say that those isolated protons, neutrons and electrons still maintain their identity as blood, even though they never reformed as anything else?
MARVIN 359
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
Could I really say that these two leaf halves are not really vegetation?
No. To say such a thing would be absurd at face value.
You could physically slice and dice that leaf all day long until you have a million bits of leaf, and you would still have vegetable matter. Until you were able to convert that vegetable matter into something that is not identifiable as vegetable matter, you still have vegetable matter.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Absurd. You are confining the slicing and dicing to mere human limitations; but what if we were able to slice and dice the leaf clear down to a molecular level? Would the individual sliced molecules still be considered “leaf”?
Marvin wrote: Conversion to form of matter that is no longer identifiable as vegetable matter could be accomplished by exposure to things like heat, acids or bases, or a combination of any of these.
Tears of Oberon responds:
How about this proposition then Mr. Shilmer?
For an entity to lose its identity as that distinguishable entity, it must decompose sufficiently enough so that none of the isolated constituents of the entity, on their own, retain their identity as the original entity.
The above involves nothing but decomposition, and not “recomposition.”
Marvin wrote:
Water, for example, can be converted to hydrogen and oxygen under sufficient heat. This is why firefighters do not use water on extremely hot fires. To pour water onto an extremely hot fire would create a massive fireball of an explosion and rather than quenching the heat you would add to the heat to an extraordinary extent. It would be like pouring petro onto a fire! Because neither oxygen nor hydrogen is identifiable as water then neither is water even if the particular oxygen or hydrogen we have is from water and despite each being major components of water. Because the oxygen is no longer identifiable as water then oxygen is not the matter we know as water. The same is true of hydrogen.
Tears of Oberon responds:
What you write about water, hydrogen and oxygen seems to correspond to the proposition that I gave immediately preceding. It also allows for an interesting new test scenario.
The command is given: Abstain from water.
Tears of Oberon uses oxygen and nothing else.
That oxygen was at one time in the distance past a part of a “water” molecule, but was later separated.
Has Tears of Oberon abstained from water?
Your answer is? _________
MARVIN 362
Marvin wrote:
My attempt in this discussion is to take up the cause of finding an objective and consistent threshold value for the said “ness” in respect to blood. I preferred the suffix “etable”(as in bloodetable matter) because it rhymes with and is consistent with vegETABLE (as in vegetable matter). After all, if words don’t rhyme then they can’t be used a premises in an logical argument. Right?
Tears of Oberon responds:
Oh ok, so you were only intended to be “cute” and create a clever rhyme then?
MARVIN 363
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
Additionally, where exactly in the Bible does it make the distinction between “dead pieces of blood” and “living pieces of blood”? How can blood be “dead” in the first place? You are really reaching for straws here Mr. Shilmer.
Additionally Additionally, what level of fractionation do you refer too? If were take a unit of whole blood and remove, say, nothing but the platelets (a very small fraction of whole blood), then according to you we would be able to use the 99% of blood left over? Is that 99% original volume substance minus the platelets (~1%) no longer blood according to you? You said it yourself:
“Fractions from blood are constituents that are dead in terms of being blood”
[Whole blood minus nothing but the platelets] is a fraction of whole blood
[Whole blood minus only the platelets] is acceptable to Marvin Shilmer.
Does that seem reasonable? I don’t know about you, but it sounds pretty goofy to me.
Marvin continued:
This part of my discussion was exploring known entities of dead vegetable matter and/or dead animal matter to look for any relevant and useful perspectives in relation to the substance we know as blood. That is to say, if it possible to eat vegetable matter knowing perfectly well that is the result of fractionated and converted dead animal matter, and THEN honestly say we had abstained from animal matter [which is commonly held to be true, by the way, and I do not disagree], then perhaps that offers a perspective worthy of examination having to do with dead bloodetable matter that has been fractionated and converted with a result that eating the new matter is honestly “abstaining from blood.”
Tears of Oberon responds:
I would agree with you on this point, with a slight addition. It is also worth examining whether or not bloodetable matter can lose its identity through fractionation alone, i.e., pure decomposition, without recomposition. If it is possible for bloodetable matter to decompose to a stage where the remaining constituents do not retain their identity as blood, then it would be entirely possible to eat those specific constituents (even if ultimately from blood) and still abstain from blood.
MARVIN 366
Earlier I wrote the following proposition:
-- Taking from an approved food and converting it into something new does not make the new thing approved.
Tears of Oberon responded by writing:
I believe that, based on the arguments you gave, the statement should be:-- Taking from an approved food [=vegetation] and converting it into a new food [=meat] means that the new food [=meat] now falls under any pre-existing prohibitions on Ys in general [=meat in general].
Based on the assumptions of the argument I leveraged, yes. I agree with that restatement.
Earlier I wrote the following proposition:
“-- Taking from a disapproved food and converting it into something new does not make the new thing disapproved”
Tears of Oberon responded by writing:
I would rewrite this second statement as follows:
-- Taking from a disapproved food [=meat] and allowing it to be converted into something new [=vegetation] does not mean that the new thing [=vegetation] falls under the same pre-existing prohibition as the original disapproved food [=meat].
Based on the assumptions of the argument I leveraged, yes. I agree with that restatement.
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
Would Marvin accept my two rewrites?
I wholeheartedly embrace both of your restatements as though they came from my own mouth.
Agreement is a beautiful thing when it is achieved as the result of an open-minded discussion of pros and cons, and asking and answering questions all in an honest effort to diligently search out a matter. Ironically, this is precisely the sort of discussion that resulted in the Apostolic Decree!—(Acts 15:7)
Tears of Oberon responds:
Lol wow, what are we up to now on our agreement count, three times?
MARVIN 367
Marvin wrote:
--Blood is a composition. Watchtower teaches this.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Science and common knowledge says this, Watchtower reiterates it.
Marvin wrote:
--Blood is sacred. Watchtower teaches this.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
The Bible teaches this, Watchtower reiterates it.
Marvin wrote:
Incense: The Mosaic Law prescribed a particular incense for use in the wilderness tabernacle.
--That incense was a composition. Watchtower teaches this.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Science and common knowledge teaches this, Watchtower reiterates it.
Marvin wrote:
--That incense was sacred. Watchtower teaches this.
Tears of Oberon responds:
The Bible teaches this, Watchtower reiterates it.
Marvin wrote:
Questions:
Is any single major constituent from blood the composition known as blood?
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Counter Question:
Does any single major constituent from pig hold conceptual equality with the composition known as pig?
Apparently so, because three of us have already agreed that eating bacon violates the command to not eat pig.
Marvin wrote:
Was any single major constituent from the incense the composition known as the incense?
Tears of Oberon wrote:
I do not know about the chemical known as incense, and I hated CHEM I with a passion; therefore, I must refrain from answering the question about the chemical known as “incense.”
MARVIN 368
Marvin wrote:
Of the tree of knowledge God told Adam he must “not eat from it.”—(Genesis 2:17)
If “eating” is presumed as the act of abstention and the tree of knowledge is the subject of abstention, then it seems to me the expression “not eat” is the equivalent of “abstain” and “from it” is equivalent to saying “from the tree of knowledge”. Hence we have:
“Abstain from it”
Or,
“Abstain from the tree of knowledge”
Tears of Oberon responds:
Again, Mr. Shilmer is confused on this point. I will clarify for him.
“you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Gen. 2:17 NIV)
The constituent that Adam was not supposed to eat, with the tree of knowledge as the source of that constituent, is elaborated on for us by Eve:
“but God did say, 'You must not eat FRUIT from the tree that is in the middle of the garden…” (Gen. 3:3 NIV, emphasis mine).
I must truly thank Marvin for pointing out this example to me, as it proves everything that I have been saying about your tautology. The two Scriptures are discussing exactly the same thing, and thus carry the same fundamental meaning.
“must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”
Is equivalent to
“must not eat FRUIT from the tree that is in the middle of the garden [=tree of knowledge of good and Evil]…” (Gen. 3:3 NIV, emphasis mine).
As I have been saying for some 350 odd posts, the phrase “eat from” necessitates two questions: use what and from what? Genesis 2:17 provides us with the answer to the question “from what,” but leaves the answer to the question “use what” blank. However, that blank did not go away or lose significance, because Eve actually acknowledged and filled in that blank for us. The answer to the question, “use what” is given by Eve as “FRUIT.” Both Scriptures, being equivalent, reduce to the exact same abstract form:
Must not eat X [fruit] from Y [=tree of knowledge of good and bad]
Must not eat X from Y
Adam simply left the X term as a blank, but that does not mean that it could simply be forgotten about. And since Adam was the most likely person to have informed Eve about the tree, then it follows that Adam did indeed understand what the “X” term was himself: FRUIT from the tree.
Will Marvin agree with the above statements from Tears of Oberon?
Marvin wrote:
Question:
Would Adam and Eve have “not eaten from” the tree of knowledge were portions of it intentionally lopped off, decomposed into something other than “primary components” and then Adam and Eve ate what they wanted from those non-major component constituents?
Tears of Oberon wrote:
From my understanding of the two Scriptures, the prohibition was primarily on the fruit. If they had used, say, bark or leaves from the tree instead of fruit, then the most that I could say is: I do not know what would have happened. You would have to take that up with God now wouldn’t you?
MARVIN 369
Marvin wrote:
Adam had technology to convert matter from the tree of knowledge into vegetable matter that was not forbidden to eat.
Tears of Oberon responds:
It is good to note and remember as you (the reader) goes though this post, that Eve further clarified for us that what was forbidden from the tree was specifically the fruit. The term “vegetable matter” seems to go beyond simple “fruit.”
Marvin wrote:
The tree of knowledge had fruit that was digestible, which means it was possible to convert matter from the tree into new and different material. When, whether or what the converted material was later formed into could be just about anything.
When animals ate and digested matter from the tree, or fungi digested matter from the tree, the vegetable matter of that tree remained as such until it was converted. The converted matter would then have been used to form tissue to maintain the life of that animal or fungi.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Again, why is “reconversion into something else” necessary for the vegetable matter to lose its identity as that distinguishable entity? Cannot a certain level of pure decomposition (possibly through digestion) accomplish the same identity destruction?
Marvin responds:
Adam knew precisely which tree was the tree of knowledge. His technology was agriculture. All Adam had to do was place animals around the tree of knowledge and then plant and cultivate vegetation he liked to eat the fruit of around the tree of knowledge. Converting matter of the tree of knowledge into something Adam could eat and that Adam liked to eat was then only a matter of time.
In this way Adam could use from the tree of knowledge in a manner of speaking yet abstain from the tree of knowledge.
Though that would have been intentionally making use of the tree of knowledge as an indirect food source, it would not have been eating of the vegetable matter known as the tree of life, and it would not have been eating or otherwise directly using from the tree of knowledge. The conversion though intentional made indirect use of the vegetable matter known as the tree of knowledge.
I don’t know a single person, pro, con or neutral in relation to Watchtower that would disagree with the argument above.
The thing that makes the scenario work is conversion of matter.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Again, why does it have to be “conversion”? Why can pure decomposition not accomplish the same destruction or change of identity, i.e., pure decomposition of H2O into hydrogen and oxygen?
Marvin wrote:
But this conversion would be one that rendered identifiable matter of the tree of knowledge into something that was no longer identifiable as vegetable matter. Until that conversion took place the vegetable matter known as the tree of knowledge remained identifiable as vegetable matter of the tree of knowledge.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Same issue with conversion vs pure decomposition.
Marvin wrote:
The objective threshold is: conversion to the point of being unidentifiable as the original matter.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Cannot the objective threshold be: decomposition to the point of being unidentifiable as the original matter?
That is pretty much what ThirdWitness and myself have been working towards in this debate.
Marvin wrote:
The above scenario does make one assumption, and it may be an assumption that is important for this discussion. Though Adam would have been making use of animals et al as his agents to convert matter of the tree of knowledge, my argument assumes that God did not consider it an infringement of any decree or fundamental ethical norm for animals to eat of the tree of knowledge.
That is actually an interesting assumption. Who really knows whether or not animals could have eaten from the tree of knowledge? As I mentioned in the previous debate (a year ago), it would have been entirely possible for God to give that prohibition to the animals, but it would have likely been in a manner outside of normal forms of human communication, because animals don’t talk like humans or understand commands the same as humans do. Therefore, if such a prohibition was placed on the animals, it is possible that it wouldn’t, or couldn’t understandably, be conveyed to humans reading the text penned by Moses. Or, it might have simply not been important enough to include (as Watchtower said, the Bible is not a treatise on zoology—it is focused primarily on humans).
But of course, that is all nothing but musing on my part.
MARVIN 371
Marvin wrote:
Noah was prohibited from eating blood. Using blood as plant fertilizer was not eating blood. Noah was not prohibited from using blood as fertilizer for plants.
Tears of Oberon responds:
It would have still been disrespectful to the basic principle behind the command to abstain from blood; although, a hyper-literalist quibbler such as yourself is not capable of understanding a concept such as an “underlying principle.” You cannot see the forest through the trees.
Marvin wrote:
The difference
Though using blood as fertilizer for plants is not eating blood it is making use of blood, and ultimately the matter that was blood is eaten by eating the vegetable matter of the fertilized plants.
This difference is the conversion that takes place from being matter identifiable as blood to matter that is unidentifiable as blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Again, “conversion” isn’t necessary for matter to lose its basic identity—only decomposition is necessary.
Marvin wrote:
In folk terms: blood is et and pooped by critters. The poop is et by plants. Plants is et by us folks.
Here is my question:
Would this be more correctly termed as “use from blood” of “use of blood,” or is either phrase appropriate?
Tears of Oberon responds:
If the term “blood” is being used in this chain as the ultimate source[1] for plants which are eaten by humans, then the answer to your question would be:
Humans use ____ from the source blood.
When we fill in our necessitated blank with a placeholder, we end up with
Humans use X [=plants] from the source blood
Footnote:
[1] “ultimate” in this context only points back to the beginning of the chain that we have specifically laid out, i.e., blood.
Marvin wrote:
If this is correctly termed “use from blood” then my premise of “to use from is contrary to abstain from” is refuted as a tautologous statement.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I agree—your premise is refuted as stands.
MARVIN 373
Marvin wrote:
My entry titled “Converting – Identifiability” discusses Adam using agents to convert matter of the tree of knowledge into matter for his consumption without him eating from the tree of knowledge.—(Ref. http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-...
The agency employed in my discussion was one that was ordained by creative act of God. What I mean by this is that the conversion of matter that is part of a healthy environment is understood by Christians as the way God made things to happen; hence conversion of matter is a God ordained method of changing the character and nature of a thing to something unidentifiable to what it was prior.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Maybe someday Marvin will got off of this “conversion” bandwagon and start addressing decomposition instead…
Marvin wrote:
The tree of knowledge is particularly interesting in this examination because as Watchtower teaches that blood is owned by God and we must abstain from it, so too Watchtower teaches that the tree of knowledge was owned by God and Adam had to abstain from it.
Tears of Oberon responds:
You are half right. If you want to be technical and literal (which I know you love), then what was specifically forbidden to Adam was eating the fruit from the tree. Would using or touching the leaves have violated the command also? Who knows—you would have to ask either God or Adam about that one.
Marvin wrote:
Yet it was possible for Adam to convert matter of the tree of knowledge into matter that he could use himself, including eating. Would that have been theft by conversion?
I raise the question because often I have presented the problem of theft by conversion in relation to Watchtower’s blood doctrine. Had Adam intentionally used the technology of simple agriculture to grow vegetable matter with converted matter from the tree of knowledge, would he have been guilty of theft by conversion? I doubt it.
Tears of Oberon muses in response:
For instance, if a fruit had fallen off of the tree, was picked up by an animal, carried far away from the tree, and then allowed to rot and decompose. So then, if Adam later came along and decided to plant a small garden over the patch of ground where the fruit had earlier decomposed, would he have been guilty of eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge? My answer would be: if the fruit had decomposed enough (no “coversion” required) to lose its identifiability with the entity known as “fruit,” then Adam would not have been guilty of eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. However, if the fruit had NOT decomposed sufficiently enough to for it to lose its identifiability as the entity known as “fruit,” then yes Adam would have been guilty of eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Marvin wrote:
Adam did not have technology to artificially convert vegetable matter into plant food from which to grow other vegetable matter. So maybe in the case of Adam we are unable to construct an analogy that is completely parallel to examine the question from that perspective. But hypothetically, had Adam had means to artificially convert matter of the tree of knowledge into plant food, and then grow and eat from other plants as a result, would that have been theft by conversion?
Tears of Oberon responds:
All that would be required is the perfectly natural process of decomposition.
Marvin wrote:
My question on that point is:
-- Would an artificial conversion by Adam been closer to Adam converting the matter by eating it himself, or would it have been closer to Adam using non-Adam agents to convert the matter for him?
Tears of Oberon responds:
Considering that Adam was also not allowed to even “touch” the fruit of the tree, then the only method available to him would have been indirect, non-Adam agents, e.g., the animal carrying the fruit away to decompose example.
Marvin wrote:
If the former then my answer to the hypothetical question would tend to be, yes, Adam would be committing theft by conversion.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
The word “theft” is being introduced as if that were actually the offense involved. You make this mistake quite often Marvin—remember you trying to convince people that the act of “handling” or “removing blood” from the body was an offense in of itself?
It is an assumption on your part to label the actual offense as “theft.” Occam’s Razor is more closely adhered to if we use only the explicit statements from the text. If that is the case, then we should only say that the offenses were “eating” and “touching” the fruit of the tree.
Marvin wrote::
If the latter then my answer would be, I doubt Adam would be committing theft by conversion.
Tears of Oberon responds:
If your latter corresponds to my “animal carrying off a fruit, dropping it and allowing to decompose on the site of a future garden” example, then I would agree with you here.
Marvin wrote:
One of the complicating factors of the threshold value of conversion is that eating is a process of converting matter, and it is a natural method of converting matter. It seems to me that though Adam was free to convert matter of the tree of knowledge and eat the result, he was not allowed to directly perform that conversion of matter. I say this because eating matter of the tree of knowledge would have been a direct method of Adam converting matter. I admit, though, that this argument depends on equating “eating” with “converting” when these are not necessarily the same. That makes the argument weak, and maybe indefensible.
Tears of Oberon responds:
The argument does not work, because there is more than one “offense” at work here. You must remember that Adam was also not allowed to “touch” the fruit of the tree, so the “conversion by eating” line of reasoning fails.
Marvin wrote:
It also seems to be the case that whatever agency was used for conversion the agency had to be one that did not infringe a law of God. Otherwise no matter the agency of conversion, theft by conversion would be the result.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Again, the prohibition of our modern society known as “theft” is not necessarily the same prohibition as “do not eat,” and “do not touch.” You are reading too much into the statements.
MARVIN 388
Marvin wrote:
My entry number 371 titled “Conversion – Blood – Refutation?” talks about making use of blood and using the result of that use of blood.—([link])
Specifically, in that post I postulated the idea of Noah using blood as fertilizer for his crops with an end result that Noah ate the fruit of those crops.
Tears of Oberon responds:
And again, I wrote earlier that directly using the blood of (even slaughtered) animals would have been disrespectful to the principle that the laws on blood were given to uphold in the first place. You give blood, the soul, back to the one to whom it belongs—you do not use it for yourself.
Marvin wrote:
In such an instance Noah would place the blood. Once blood is taken from circulation and exposed to the atmosphere it begins to fractionate. Critters eat whatever form of this matter they encounter and convert it into new material that is no longer identifiable as animal matter or plant matter, except that it may still be identifiable as animal waste. Plants take up this new matter and to different degrees metabolize it for its own maintenance and growth.
I had asked the question:
Would this be more correctly termed as “use from blood” of “use of blood,” or is either
phrase appropriate?
Tears of Oberon responds:
And I had answered the question with the obvious answer: You would NOT be using blood, but you would be using from an ultimate source blood.
Marvin wrote:
I thought about this question for several hours, with this result:
Tears of Oberon wrote:
*heats up new bag of popcorn, pulls up beanbag chair*
Marvin wrote:
1. It seems to me it would be absurd to say “Noah did not use blood.” Noah did use blood. Noah took the blood by killing an animal.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Well duh. This is the problem of you and your cronies using the terms “abstain” and “use” in these ridiculous, universal senses—even though Noah had to “use” blood by killing the animal, killing the animal and pouring out the blood didn’t violate any prohibition. He was supposed to take (use) the blood (the soul) by pouring it out, i.e., giving it back to God.
Marvin wrote:
He made use of the blood he took from killing by intentionally constructing a method and means of using the blood as fertilizer. Noah would have used blood. But using this blood in this way was not eating blood. So we can say “Noah used blood but Noah abstained from eating blood.”
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Or in other words: Noah could have used blood in the legal, prescribed way by “giving it back” to God, but that legal method did not equate with “eating” blood, and thus Noah broke no commands. The only questions I would have left are:
1. Is directly and intentionally using the blood on your personal garden for the purpose of profiting yourself actually “giving back” the blood, the soul, to God?
2. A man “gave back” the blood, the soul, to God with no intent of personal gain or personal use, i.e., fertilizing his garden. Years later, after the man had died, a different man coincidentally plants a garden over the place where the original man had “poured out” the blood to God. Does the new man fail to not eat blood?
Marvin wrote:
It seems to me it would be absurd to say “Noah used from blood.” Noah took blood by killing an animal. Noah then used that blood by placing it as fertilizer. But Noah took nothing whatsoever from the blood, and Noah paid no third-party to take anything from blood. Of blood as a “source,” we can say Noah used the source of blood as fertilizer, but Noah did not use blood as a source by taking anything from blood, and Noah did not pay a third-party to taking anything from blood for his use.
Tears of Oberon responds:
In harmony with my tautology, Noah would have taken Y [=X] from X [=blood]. He took blood FROM blood.
Additionally, how on earth can you say that Noah used the “source” of the blood itself? What is the “source” of the blood? “Source” points to where the blood itself originated from does it not? But that is not relevant to the issue at all.
Marvin wrote:
In relation to the act of eating, ordinary vernacular would hardly recognize a distinction between the terms “Noah used blood” and “Noah used from blood”.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Marvin’s “ordinary vernacular” is apparently unique to him alone. In the former, blood is the item which is directly used. In the latter, some other entity is used and blood is an indirect source of that used entity. How exactly are these the same thing to Marvin?
Marvin wrote:
This is because when a person eats a particular substance its nearest identifiable point of origin is deemed the source; that is, the item eaten or eaten from.
Tears of Oberon responds:
My “bovine scatology” sense is tingling again.
A peach seed is created in a garden in Oklahoma. That peach seed is transferred to a farm in Georgia. The seed becomes a tree, and the tree bares peaches. One of those peaches is sold to a factory in Kansas that makes peach jam. That factory sells the peach jam to a supermarket in Texas.
Now then Mr. Shilmer, what is the source of the peach jam? Is it the garden in Oklahoma? Is it the farm in Georgia? Is it the factory in Kansas? Is it the supermarket in Texas? Is only one of these the “source” according to you, while all of the others are not sources?
Additionally, if you say that supermarket is the source of the peach jam, then how on earth can you say that the “supermarket” is the item eaten? If you wanted to eat a supermarket, you would have to go in and start gnawing on the walls.
Marvin wrote:
Hence to eat from blood would be, in colloquial terms, the equivalent to eating blood; just like taking a bite of apple, or eating the peel from an apple is eating apple.
Tears of Oberon responds:
When you take a “bite from an apple,” what are you eating?
Take a bite of X from an apple.
Take a bite of apple [=X] from an apple.
You would be eating apple from an apple. X = Y in this case. I’ve always allowed for the possibility that X might equal Y. However, you are bifurcating, because you are ignoring the possibility that X =/= Y.
Adtionally, it seems to me that Mr. Shilmer is actually using the same type of neologism that I use, just in a slightly different way, i.e., “apple = having apple-ness about it.”
Eating a peel is not eating an apple, because Marvin has already stated that no single constituent of any compound can ever equal the constituent itself. However, Marvin does say that eating a peel is eating “apple.”
The terms “an apple” and “apple” are not the same to Marvin. In a sense, the term “apple” as used by Marvin is a neologism meaning, “not being equivalent with an apple, but retaining enough of the distinguishing characteristics of an apple to maintain conceptual equality with an apple.”
In the same manner that a eating a single major constituent [=peel] violates the command to not eat “apple,” eating a single major constituent [=red blood cells] violates the command to not eat “blood.”
Do you agree with this premise as stated Mr. Shilmer?
Marvin wrote:
In the scenario above, in terms of eating blood or eating from blood, Noah has done neither.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I disagree with Marvin here. While I do not think that Noah would have been eating blood in the above, I do think that it could validly be asserted that he would have been using FROM blood as a source.
Marvin wrote:
So Noah has used blood, and Noah has made use of blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
But of course, “using” blood in the sense of touching it to pour it out in obedience to the law and in obedience to the principle of “giving back the soul to the one who made it” does not violate anything.
Marvin wrote:
But Noah has taken nothing from blood nor has he had any human (paid or not) take anything from blood for him. Noah has not used from blood matter.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Even if a new object is formed (coverted), Noah could still be said to have used FROM blood so long as the blood was a source for that new object. When matter is converted into new matter, the source of that new matter does not change—only the identity of the new matter itself changes.
MARVIN 389
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
As I will be addressing soon, the answer for your question would be:
"using from blood."
That phrase allows for an infinite degree of indirectness of use.
Critters eat blood
Critters' poop contains blood
Plants eat poop
Humans eat plants
Therefore, humans have ultimately used FROM blood
or to fill in the grammatically necessitated placeholder before "from":
Therefore, humans have ultimately used [plants] FROM blood.
The "from" points to an ultimate source, but not necessarily the object which has actually been used.
On the other hand, the phrase:
"use blood"
is perfectly direct, and is focused only on the entity known as blood and nothing else. There are no "ultimate sources" involved.
*continues working on responses to earlier posts*
Tears of Oberon
What Tears of Oberon writes above is of my entry number 371 titled “Conversion – Blood – Refutation?”—(link)
-- It is true that critters eat blood.
-- It is true that critters sometimes poop blood. But it is false that critters poop blood that they ate. Any blood passed by a critter is an unhealthy thing, and it is the critters own blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
That is an unusual statement for you to make Marvin. Are you really saying that a “critter” that eats a large volume of blood, will have none of that ingested blood pass through its digestive system and end up within “poop”? [I feel rather awkward using these terms by the way…]
Marvin wrote:
-- It is true that plants eat poop. But plants I had in mind that Noah would have used blood as a fertilizer for do not eat blood that is pooped because such plants are not carnivorous. Blood that is pooped must be converted to new material before a typical plant can “eat” it. It is true, though, that some plants can and do digest blood. These plants are carnivorous. They trap their food and excrete enzymes to convert blood or else they depend on bacteria to do the conversion for them. I did not have this sort of plant life in mind as I thought through the hypothetical circumstance of Noah using blood as fertilizer, but I suppose it is possible. Since this is a possibility, it deserves attention in this aspect of our discussion.
Tears of Oberon responds:
As I have already pointed out: the source of any particular matter does not change, even if the identity of the matter itself changes. If plants “et” blood in the form of taking it in converting it into matter used for growth and sustenance, the plants have used FROM blood.
Marvin wrote:
-- It is true that humans eat plants.
I believe it is incorrect to say humans have “ultimately” used from blood. It is true that blood is in the cycle of life where matter is constantly being converted and reused, and humans use from the matter in this cycle. But the “ultimate” source of matter is God, not blood. Blood just happens to be made of matter that is part of the cycle of using and converting matter from one form to another. To say we have used from blood would require an act of using from the matter known as blood. Eating vegetation is not such an act.
Tears of Oberon responds:
First of all, the word “ultimate” in this context only points back to the beginning of the chain that has been given to us, i.e., to blood. It does not go back ad infinitum beyond the confines of the premises currently under discussion (unless specificially stated to do so within the argument).
Noah would have used plants FROM blood with blood acting as a “second tier” source of a portion of those plants which grew using the nutrients from the blood. You may have to start denoting exactly what type of source your are referring to Marvin—either a first tier (primary) source or a non-first tier/indirect source.
MARVIN 392
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
Adding onto my thoughts on post 380:
1. The phrase, "abstain from X" (as a single compound term), is perfectly direct and does not involve anything other than X. If it is X, then do not use it.
Marvin wrote:
I agree with that statement.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I will note this.
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
2. The phrase, "use X" is perfectly direct and does not involve anything other than X. If it is X, then you have used it.
Marvin replied:
I agree with that statement.
Tears of Oberon responds:
If you agree with both statements, and both statements are contrary to each other, then shouldn’t you also agree that
[Abstain from X] is contrary to [use X]?
Since that is exactly what I have been saying for almost 400 posts now?
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
3. The phrase, "use from" is made indirect by virtue of the word "from." The "from" points to some additional source from which something else is used. Or in other words:
Use [something] from [some ultimate source].
Use Y from X
Marvin replied:
I disagree with that statement. In fact your address of this concept impresses me as bizarre.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Oh Lord, here we go again…
Marvin wrote:
What you write is a fallacious bifurcation. Your assertion is that “use from” is:
Either,
-- Use Y from X
Or,
-- No use from X
The above bifurcation is false because there is an alternate of:
-- Use from X
Because you ignore this alternative CONCEPT then what you postulate is a fallacy.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
What on earth are you even talking about?! It is like you pulled all of this stuff out of thin air! What the heck does “no use from X” mean anyway? You sound like a caveman with that horrible grammar.
Me Tears of Oberon. Me no like Marvin. Marvin use from fallacies. Tears no use from fallacies.
Your absurd phrase:
No use from X
Actually means
Do not use Y from X
That phrase is the exact opposite of the premise that I put forward.
Additionally, the entire point of my argument, and what I have been saying for the past 400 odd posts, is that
Use ___ from X = Use Y from X
How can I ignore an alternative when the alternative is the exact same thing that I stated, except without a place-holding syntactic substituend in the place of the grammatically necessitated blank?!
Marvin wrote:
You construct your fallacy with sentences such as the one above saying, “The ‘from’ points to some additional source from which something else is used.”
Though what you write is a possible way of “using from” it is at least equally true to say ““The ‘from’ points to some source from which something is used.”
Tears of Oberon responds:
And the difference between the two is what exactly?
Marvin wrote:
Hence the statement “use from blood” does not require any mental gymnastics in that simple form. It says no more and no less than the source used from is the material known as blood. And, of course, there are multiple ways of “using from” blood as a source material.
Tears of Oberon responds:
*galactic sigh*…
For a phrase not requiring any mental gymnastics, you sure are flying and twirling through the air a lot. Yes Marvin, I agree that the term “from” points to a source, but the source is NOT what is necessarily USED, e.g., vegetable matter can be a source of meat, but using meat does not mean that we have used vegetable matter! There are TWO variables in the phrase: What is USED and the source that it is USED FROM. You blatantly ignore and try to cover up the second variable, and you have been for the past 400 posts. You have even admitted the necessity of the second variable in your own examples, but then went back and pretended that you never said a thing. Are you really this blind, or are you doing it on purpose Marvin?
Marvin wrote:
We can say we have used from blood by drinking a bit of whole blood as we would say we have used from an apple by taking a bite from an apple.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Hmm…I seem to recall Marvin already refuting this point (his own point) back in 359…
Tears of Oberon earlier wrote:
Could I really say that these two leaf halves are not really vegetation?
Marvin replied in 359
No. To say such a thing would be absurd at face value.
You could physically slice and dice that leaf all day long until you have a million bits of leaf, and you would still have vegetable matter. Until you were able to convert that vegetable matter into something that is not identifiable as vegetable matter, you still have vegetable matter.
What Marvin writes about leaves and about apples and about blood actually conforms to my argument perfect (he has just not understood it yet). I never said that Y can never = X. I said that Y may equal X, or that it may come from the source X but have lost its identity as X. I gave two possibilities for my argument, but Marvin has ignored the former. My argument was:
[Abstain from] (X) means [do not use] (Y from X), if and only if Y = X.
Now let us look at the arguments Marvin gave above. In said argument, Marvin tells us that Y = “a bit” and the source of the “bit” is blood [=X].
Abstain from blood [=X] means [do not use] “a bit” [=Y] from blood [=X].
For this to become a true statement, it must be shown that Y = X.
Now what exactly is “a bit” to Marvin? “A bit” to me seems to mean a percentage of whole blood. For example, if we start with a full unit of whole blood, using a forth of that whole blood equals using “a bit.” The problem is, that Marvin has already said that you cannot just slice a compound, e.g., a leaf, in two and then eat one half while saying that it is no longer a leaf. Similarly, the “bit” is nothing but a portion of whole blood, and is thus still blood itself. The argument then becomes:
Abstain from blood [=X] means [do not use] blood [=Y] from blood [=X], where Y = X.
With this statement I agree. Using blood from source blood violates the command to not use blood, because blood is the entity directly stated to have been used. That is easy to understand isn’t it?
His apple example follows the same pattern:
Abstain from apple [=X] means [do not use] apple [=Y] from apple [=X], where Y = X.
With this statement I agree. Using apple from source apple violates the command to not use apple, because apple is the entity directly stated to have been used.
The problem is though, that we are not talking about using blood from blood. We are talking about using items that do not have the identity of blood from blood, i.e., cases where Y =/= X.
Marvin wrote:
We can ALSO say we have used from blood by eating fractions from blood as we would say have used from apples by extracting flavoring from an apple and eating that flavoring from the apple it along with other material we have mixed it with.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I would agree with that. However, you CANNOT say that you have actually used blood (and thus not abstained from blood), unless you prove that Y [=fractions] are equal to X [=blood]. The same goes for your flavoring from apples.
Marvin wrote:
“Using from” apples does not require eating an apple any more than “using from” blood requires eating blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I agree. And if you do not actually use blood (even if the ultimate source of what you used was blood), then you have successfully abstained from blood. It is that simple.
Marvin wrote:
Likewise,“eating from” apples does not require eating an apple any more than “eating from” blood requires eating blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I agree. And if you do not actually eat blood (even if the ultimate source of what you ate was blood), then you have successfully abstained from eating blood. It is that simple.
MARVIN 399
Marvin wrote:
…
Food for thought: Watchtower recognizes non-cellular plasma matter as “blood” yet the Bible depicts this distinguishable matter as “water”. Though the biblical observation is not made sub-cellular, it is nevertheless a finite depiction of a distinguishable form of matter known as plasma, and it is depicted as “water” in contradistinction to “blood”
Tears of Oberon responds:
So are you actually going to now make the argument that the entity hydrogen oxide is the same entity as plasma? This is descending into “perch are not fish” territory again Marvin.
MARVIN 408
Marvin wrote:
Agency – Use Y from X – Use from X to get Y
Today I am thinking more of Tears of Oberon’s equation “Use Y from X.”
Tears of Oberon responds:
I am glad that you are finally starting to give it more thought.
Marvin wrote:
Here is my question followed by a conclusion:
Are all the following statements true:
-- Witnesses use fractions from blood.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
True.
Marvin continued:
-- Witnesses use blood to get fractions.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
Partially true. Witnesses do not “use” the blood themselves. As you have stated numerous times, the blood is “used” by those who are specifically trained and employed to extract minor fractions. The Witnesses get these minor, non-blood fractions from these professionals. Additionally, please remember that the basic act of “using” (which could theoretically include simple touching) is not at issue. Even if a Witness “used” blood in the sense of touching, it could not be stated that they ate blood unless you prove that the particular fraction consumed actually held conceptual equality with blood, i.e., Y = X.
Marvin wrote:
-- Witnesses use from blood to get fractions.
Tears of Oberon responds:
It is exactly the same statement as
Witnesses use [fractions] from blood
Or in the abstract:
Witnesses use Y from X.
Marvin wrote:
First, I agree it is a true statement to say “Witnesses use fractions from blood. The assertion is true because Witnesses are consumers of fractions from blood.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
I agree also, and have never disputed this.
Marvin wrote:
Second, I know Tears of Oberon has previously expressed disagreement with the latter two statements.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I do not with the third statement, and the second statement I only caution you about due to non-parallelism.
Marvin wrote:
But today I express my question from a somewhat different perspective having to do with agency. Watchtower recognizes the actions of an agent on behalf of someone else as the act of the someone else who initiated the act by agency.
Tears of Oberon responds:
You are imputing positions to people that have never been claimed Marvin. Watchtower states that in ANCIENT JEWISH CULTURE, there were laws of agency. Where exactly do they state that those laws of agency continued on past Jewish culture and into our day?
Marvin wrote:
From the perspective of agency…
Tears of Oberon responds:
Which you have not bothered to prove that Watchtower actually adheres to.
Marvin continues:
…it seems to me Witnesses do more than “use fractions from blood”. Because Witnesses “consume” fractions from blood, and because accomplishing that consumption requires someone to “use blood to get fractions,” which means blood is being “used from,” then consumption of blood fractions is more than a simple act of injecting blood fractions.
Tears of Oberon responds:
This is quite the mangled up statement—I will try my best to sort it out for you.
You are treating the terms “consume” and “use” as if they are totally separate from each other (which I agree that they are). One can pick up a unit of whole blood and move it to a different freezer and have technically “used it.” But just moving that unit of whole blood and “using it” in that manner does not mean that you have violated the command specific to “consuming” that blood. So even if you show that Witnesses “use” from blood indirectly (though an agent), you have not and will not be able to show that Witnesses “consume” blood until you prove that the particular fraction which they consume actually equals blood, i.e., Y = X.
Marvin wrote:
Witnesses accomplish the task of “using from blood” remotely by paying others to collect, store, fractionate and deliver the goods they consume.
Tears of Oberon responds:
But that is not the question Marvin. The question is: are the “goods” actually blood? If the “goods” are not blood, then the Witnesses have not consumed blood.
Marvin wrote:
This use from [and of] blood to deliver a product to Witnesses for consumption is an act of agency, and it is initiated each time a Witness accepts and/or pays for this act of agency performed on their behalf.
Tears of Oberon responds:
You may say that Witnesses you “from” blood, but only the one who directly works with the blood can be said to have used “of” blood. And regardless, simply using “from” blood does not mean that you have failed to abstain from blood. As my tautology states:
You fail to abstain from X [=blood] by using Y [=product] from X [=blood] if and only if Y = X.
Marvin wrote:
Consumers of automobiles are not steelworkers who extract metal alloys from ore and construct steel. But automobiles contain lots of steel, and this steel is being “used” by the consumer. Hence consumers of automobiles are not directly “using ore” they are directly using alloys from ore, they are “using steel”. But to consume the steel that is being used ore had to be “used from”. If consumers of automobiles do not “use from ore” on their own to construct their own automobile [or portions of it] then they must pay someone else [an agent] to “use from ore” on their behalf. Hence by agency consumers of automobiles “use from ore”.
Tears of Oberon wrote:
And here in lies the crux of the problem with Marvin’s whole argument. The automobile driver is NOT USING ore when they drive their car around. Or in other words, if they were to rip off the bolts from their vehicle and eat them, they would not be consuming “ore.” They would thus be successfully abstaining from ore, even though ore was a distance original source of their vehicle.
Ore has a specific meaning: unrefined rock containing minerals. One “ore” has been refined, the meaning is violated and it no longer may be called “ore.”
Marvin wrote:
At the very least it is indisputable that by agency Witnesses “use from blood” whenever they “use fractions from blood”.
Does Tears of Oberon agree or disagree with that conclusion?
I’ve never disagreed with the statement that “Witnesses use [minor fractions] from blood.” What I have disagreed with, is that using [minor fractions] from blood as a source equals not abstaining from blood.
What I have also disagreed with is the absurd statement that “the simple act of fractionation violates the command to abstain from eating blood.” You are trying to put the offence into the act of merely handling, or fractionating, blood rather than into the act of actually consuming the blood. You are using a fallacious strawman.
Tears of Oberon
MARVIN 417
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon writes on his blog:
I also agree with you that “abstain from” is a compound term, because the word “abstain” naturally pairs with “from” just as the letter “q” naturally pairs with the letter “u.”
Marvin replied:
What? I fail to see anything substantive in that statement by Tears of Oberon, let alone that it carries any meaning or relevance to this discussion.“From” is no more than a predicate that can be used in conjunction with many words to form a compound statement. The terms “use,”“used,” and “using” come to mind.
Tears of Oberon responds:
You are doing this on purpose aren’t you? You are only doing this to annoy me and make me ruin more desks by banging my head on them! I know, let’s play a game Marvin. It is called: Proper or Improper.
Proper or Improper:
1. Abstain meat.
2. Abstained grass.
3. Abstaining moose.
4. Use meat.
5. Used grass.
6. Using moose.
For numbers 1-3, is the predicate “from” grammatically necessitated after the word “abstain”? Yes or No? Your answer is? _______
For numbers 4-6, is the predicate “from” grammatically necessitated after the word “use”? Yes or No? Your answer is? _______
MARVIN 419
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon writes on his blog:
Then you surely should be able to back up that claim Mr. Shilmer. I said, and you agreed, that “abstain from” is a compound term because the two words naturally pair together, and that it would be unusual to not see them together in a sentence. Now then, it is on you to show that the words “use” and “from” naturally pair together in the same manner that “abstain” and “from” pair together. If you cannot even do that, then why are you insisting that “use from” is a compound term, especially when I have already shown that it is not?
Marvin replied:
No.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I should have expected an answer like that…
Marvin wrote:
I have agreed with you that “abstain from” should be treated as a compound term.
I have not agree with you that “abstain from” is a compound term “BECAUSE the two words naturally pair together” as though it would be unusual to not see them together in a sentence. That notion is absurd. There is lots of sentence structures making use of “abstain” that do not have the compound term “abstain from”.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Oh ok then! Let’s find some of those sentences that are similar to the sentences used in our argument then, since they are just “so abundant” in your world.
Abstain _____ shoes?
Abstain _____ beer?
Abstain _____ pizza?
Abstain _____ cats?
Abstain _____ dogs?
Abstain _____ trains?
Abstain _____ fruit?
Abstain _____ baseball?
Abstain _____ Dance Dance Revolution?
Hmm…you are absolutely right Marvin! There are lots of phrases where “from” isn’t a necessary companion of “abstain”—we just have to make believe that the “from” isn’t really there while keeping our hands over our eyes singing lalalalalalalala and poof, perfect examples!
Flick of the wrist, wave of the wand, what comes out is way beyond!
Marvin wrote:
What makes “abstain from” a compound term is the FUNCTION of the two words when they are together. Together “Abstain” says “refrain” and “from” points to the source of which to refrain.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Do you really believe this stuff yourself Marvin? What the heck are you talking about with “sources”?!
[Abstain from] X means do not use X.
It says NOTHING about where X comes from or the “source” of X—it is focused directly on X and X alone! It isn’t that difficult a concept to get Marvin!
Marvin wrote:
We see the exact same construction and function with the compound term “use from,”“using from,” and “used from.”“Use” says ‘employ’ and “from” points to the source of which is employed.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Unlike with the word “abstain,” the “from” is not necessitated after the word use. The word “use” on its own is capable of conveying the opposite of the two words “abstain from” together. Tacking on an unnecessitated “from” after the word “use” adds extra meaning that is not present with the phrase “abstain from.” Tacking on an unnecessitated “from” bring into the argument a source [=X] for the entity that is actually being used [=Y]. Again, it is not that hard to grasp.
MARVIN 420
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon writes on his blog:
“Abstain from blood” is a complete statement, and necessitates no further questions. What are we to do? We are to [abstain from] something. What are we to abstain from? We abstain from blood. It is that simple. All of the extra stuff you tack on is irrelevant.
Marvin replied:
No. This is why:
1. The statement does not tell anyone WHAT abstention is required. Is it thinking about blood, looking at blood, touching blood, dreaming of blood, smelling blood, talking of blood, eating blood, transplanting blood? Which is it?
The statement “abstain from blood” does not tell you; hence “abstain from blood” is incomplete in terms of communicating the abstention or abstentions required.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Saying what type of abstention is required is not NECESSITATED by the structure of the phrase! If you don’t bother to define what type of abstention is required, and if there is no context, then you fall back on the natural reading and the natural, unrestricted connotations of the word!
Marvin wrote:
2. The statement does not tell anyone WHAT blood we are to abstain from. Is it blood obtained by killing? Is it xenogeneic blood? Is it allogeneic blood? Is it autogeneic blood? Is it the blood in my veins? Is it the blood in your veins? Is it blood that is donated? Is it all of these? Is it none of these? Which is it?
Tears of Oberon responds:
Saying what type of blood is to be abstained from is not NECESSITATED by the structure of the phrase! If you don’t bother to define what type of blood is required, and if there is no context, then you fall back on the natural reading and the natural, unrestricted connotations of the word! Again, not that difficult Marvin.
Marvin wrote:
The statement “abstain from blood” does not tell you; hence “abstain from blood” is incomplete in terms of communicating the blood or bloods we must abstain from.
Tears of Oberon responds:
It is perfectly complete grammatically, and says simply what it says. “Abstain from blood” means to not use the entity known as blood. If “what type of blood” or “what type” of abstention is not specified, then the natural meanings of the words are understood to apply.
Marvin wrote:
If we do not determine the abstention [or abstentions] required and we do not determine the blood [or bloods] we are to abstain from, then we are left with a very absolute and very broad statement that has a face value of death.
Tears of Oberon responds:
And what exactly is improper grammatically or structurally about a statement simply being broad? We are talking in general and broad terms anyways, outside the context of the Apostolic Decree; however, once we do enter the context of the Apostolic Decree, the context restricts the naturally broad connotations of the term “abstain.”
Marvin wrote:
Unless you are asserting such an absolute and broad meaning of "abstain from blood" then you have no choice but to acknowledge "abstain from blood" is incomplete in terms of communicating precisely what it required
Tears of Oberon responds:
I am asserting an absolute and broad meaning Marvin! YOU are the one trying to make a tautology out of this! Tautologies have to be absolute and broad by nature, and yet you are attacking me for discussing your tautology in the manner that it has to be discussed!
MARVIN 421
Marvin wrote:
Tears of Oberon writes on his blog:
I recognize a distinction between the separate terms “use” and “from,” and the compound single term “abstain from” because they are not the same thing.
Marvin continued:
Conceptually, what does “use from” mean?
Tears of Oberon responds:
“use from” in the abstract means:
[Use X] [from Y]
Where the term “use” points directly to what is being employed, and the “from” points to the source or origin of what is being employed. That is why they are two separate terms Marvin, because each word points to something different! On the other hand, the two words in the phrase “abstain from” both point to exactly the same thing: what is directly being employed.
Marvin wrote:
Answer that question and you will have your meaning of the compound term [phrase] as a concept. So far your response is only to say something to the effect that “use from” does not present anything conceptually.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I’ve been answering that question cogently and elegantly for the past 400 posts Marvin—it is simply you who refuses to listen.
Marvin wrote:
If that is where you are at, and you are unable to see it, then ask someone that has no dog in the fight for advice. It is there to be had. When we put words together it has meaning. Stringing “use” and “from” together side-by-side has meaning just as stringing “abstain” and “from” together side-by-side has meaning.
Tears of Oberon responds:
I think that you need to take your own advice Marvin, you are delusional and are in denial.
MARVIN 422
Marvin wrote:
Earlier I wrote:
“‘Abstain from blood’ and ‘use from blood’ are equal in conceptual terms.
Tears of Oberon responds on his blog by writing:
No they are not.
--“Abstain from X” is NOT equal in conceptual terms to “use Y from X”
Marvin continued:
Strawman.
Tears of Oberon responds:
In denial.
Marvin wrote:
The CONCEPTS you are responding to DO NOT EXPRESS a similarity between,
--“Abstain from X” and “Use Y from X”
That is your strawman.
Tears of Oberon responds:
That is YOUR argument! It is not my fault that your argument is imbalanced and invalid! Get over it!
Marvin wrote:
The CONCEPTS you are responding to EXPRESS a similarity between,
--“Abstain from X” and “Use from X”
Tears of Oberon responds:
“Use from X” is equivalent to “Use ____ from X” is equivalent to “Use Y from X” where the Y term is a place-holding syntactic substiuend for the answer to the grammatically necessitated question: use what! You cannot just wave your wand and make that blank go away Marvin.
Marvin wrote:
Note that because YOU ASSERT that “use from X” does not express a concept with meaning does not make your assertion true. It only makes it your assertion.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Note that because YOU DENY that “use from X” does not contain any grammatically necessitated question on the basis that you are Marvin Shilmer and we are not, does not make your denial true. It remains nothing but denial.
Marvin wrote:
Go ask someone who has no dog in the fight whether “use from X” carries meaning as a concept. Then ask the same person whether the concept of “abstain from X” carries meaning as a concept. THEN ask the same person whether those two concepts are in any way contrary to one another. Go. Ask.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Why do I need the opinion of someone else? Their opinion doesn’t change the FACT that the Y term is grammatically and structurally necessitated.
MARVIN 423
Marvin wrote:
Earlier I wrote:
“Abstain from blood”… Does not convey WHAT blood it is speaking to and it does not convey WHAT abstention it is speaking of.
Tears of Oberon responds on his blog by writing:
I never said anything about what type of blood or what type of abstention. What you are going on about is completely irrelevant.
Marvin continued:
I know you didn’t. That is why I pointed it out to you.
As “use from blood” requires more information so too does “abstain from blood” require more information.
Tears of Oberon responds:
No, it doesn’t REQUIRE/NECESSITATE anything! If you don’t confine the terms with context or additional details, then you assume that they are intended to be used with their full and natural connotations!
Marvin wrote:
“Use from blood” requires us to know WHAT use and WHAT blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Again, it doesn’t “require” a thing.
Marvin wrote:
“Abstain from blood” requires us to know “WHAT abstention and WHAT blood.
Tears of Oberon responds:
Again, it doesn’t “require” a thing.
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