How My Friend Refused Blood Transfusion and Died 5 Days Ago in Ghana Because Of RELIGION

I know of only one thing capable of making even the smartest person in the room stupid, and the benevolent defend cruelty—-and proceed to say a diabolical action ought not to be described as such because a merciful heavenly dictator was in charge or commanded it. And this human institution is, Religion.

For centuries, people who otherwise are smart have allowed religious doctrines, mostly dogma, instituted by wicked and sometimes complete lunatics to define their direction and way of life.

If it was not under the insane umbrella of religion, how would anyone proudly say and be able to rally thousands of supporters that a certain invincible God has commanded Islam to spread throughout the earth—-and those who protest must have their heads cut off. This is the notion that flourishes the operations of ISIS, and the many coordinated terrorism groups which have turned the world into a deranged sub-set of an already chaotic universe, which some people believe a perfect God designed.

It’s insane that various groups are out there to kill, in furtherance of their religious ideologies, and hold a strong conviction that this is in fact the command of their God. But it’s more chilling when ‘lovely parents’ kill or allow their children to die by denying them healthcare—-because, their God is a divine healer, and calling on Him when their children are even about dying is deemed prudent than calling the emergency services.

You may think your religion is peaceful and doesn’t teach anyone to go about bombing others. That’s true for today, however, remember this; “Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”

With over 4200 religions or belief systems out there in the world today, you can attempt to count the number of doctrines out there in the pockets of their followers—-most of which are vicious, absurd and warrant them to kill or discriminate against others.

One of these religious doctrines, a popular one among the Jehovah’s Witness sect has killed my friend, 31 years; an intelligent person who lived in United States until he traveled to Ghana a few weeks ago, where he died.

On every level, he was noble, intelligent and reasonable, but failed to approach religion with the intelligent tool of scrutiny and reason and has met his sudden death—-all because, a bunch of dim-wits who founded the religious group he was born into said, death is bad but not as bad as blood transfusion. And have for many years commanded and indoctrinated their followers to choose death, if blood transfusion was the only salvation on the table.

What’s more loony than a whole family watching a newly married young man who has lost so much blood during an accident come to a consensus, that the doctors recommendation: that too much blood has been lost and transfusion is the only necessary option capable of retaining his life should not be allowed, because it’s against the wish of a loving, merciful, kind and intelligent celestial father who didn’t care to prevent the accident.

If you loose a friend, a brother, a sister, a wife or husband this way, perhaps, you would begin to agree with Christopher Hitchens’ statement: religion poisons everything—-and it has no place in a 21st century conversation.

My friend was a doctrinaire person, despite his education and so are many other people—-even education is not enough to beat out the religious nonsense they’ve been served since childhood. The religious kool-aid is thick, mixed with delusions capable of making a perfectly reasonable person forfeit today for the benefits of a supposed after-life.

My friend would have been alive today if the blood transfusion was accepted; and the newsflash is, he himself rejected it too, because he has been taught God doesn’t approve of it.

From where you sit on the fence of faith, the denial of blood transfusion to please God may sound absolute bullocks but that’s because you are not part of the faith practicing it—-and equally, your faith or practice is clothed in the same rag of nonsense you regard this.

The truth this, it’s time we begin to evaluate religion and its teachings.

“One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell,” Hitchens beautifully captures it.

Why should we allow any organised group of people to teach and indoctrinate people that blood transfusion is somewhat evil and it’s the wish of their God to walk away from it, in all circumstance.

And this does not only apply to adults, people of this faith would not allow even their dying children to receive blood. A high court in UK had to step in a few years ago and another, a few weeks ago to rule that “the son of two devout Jehovah’s Witnesses can be given a blood transfusion despite religious objections from his parents.” These are two of many cases, mostly, the parents keep pulling the string such that before it gets to a court, the children are dead, to the glory of their God.

Until recently, the Catholic church, with about 1.2 billion members taught proudly and majorly in fast-HIV/Aids-spreading African countries that, Aids is bad but not as bad as the use of condoms. God won’t mind if you contract and die of HIV/AIDS but he will throw you into hell if you use a condom, capable of preventing diseases and unwanted pregnancy. If such a doctrine can’t be called evil, what else is the definition of evil?

The case of my friend and many other existing religious doctrines that lead to such deaths are plainly nefarious, absolutely ridiculous but who from the inside would rise and say, enough of the bronze age manual? Why any right thinking person would give credence to the words of deluded peasants of the bronze age can’t be understood by people who think like me. And how dare you call the widespread lunacy, being propagated on a back of a God conception its rightful name?

“As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population” Sam Harris once wrote.

And the plain truth here is; religion killed my friend, someone’s newly wedded husband—-and perhaps, a person who would have become a great asset to Ghana or several people around him.

If God wants us to choose death in a room where there’s a viable option for us to live, and this is truly His wish, then what’s the essence of life—-and also, the many who are religious but are flaunting this particular blood transfusion wish of God must note they are already heading to a deep hole of fire, called hell.