[jluetjen]

A couple of thoughts prompted by situations that I've run into...

1) My Dad is 85, and constantly reminds me of George Burns's quote..."At my age, I don't buy green bananas." It's a pretty normal thing for many people to have a living will concerning under what conditions, and by what means they want to be revived if something were to suddenly happen to them. I don't see how this is much different then a JW who says that (s)he doesn't want a blood transfusion. At 85 it's pretty clear cut from his living will that my Dad doesn't want to revived only to exist on a ventilator. A JW doesn't want to be revived to learn that they have someone else's blood in their system.

2) Living near Boston, Christian Scientists are not unknown around here. I had a neighbor who was one many years ago. They would rather be read over rather then treated with medicine. It's not my choice, but if that's what they want, that's OK with me. I do expect though that they will respect a non-Christian Scientist, let's say me who might need medical treatment in front of them and call a doctor before they start reading over me. I would expect the same between JW's and non-JW's.

I like Varmint's joke. Many Christians believe that God will only work by a hand appearing through the clouds. I'm not aware of any scriptural support for this. In fact Jesus's parable of "The Good Sumaritan" strongly suggests that help might very well come from a person that you least expect it to come from.

Finally as a counterpoint to the joke -- none of us gets out of life alive. I don't think that there is anything in Christian theology that says being saved means being able to live another day. Whether you believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead or not, I think that we can all agree that Lazarus is now dead. So nothing that Jesus said or did implied that Lazarus or anyone else is going to live forever in our current existence. So when our time comes to die, that's it. If you're atheist or Christian, the immediate results will be the same. You're body will be dead.