do you think the gb should limit contact with bethelites because of possible harm that could come to them right there at headquarters.
i mean think of how many bethelites have interent access and know the gb are tyrants, but are stuck there at bethel because they have no money and no place to turn because they have been there for many years.. i think many gbs purposely keeps to themselves now a days, they probably should even think seriously of a body guard even while at bethel.. have you notice the wt doesn't give any advance notice when a gb will be speaking at conventions anymore, could it be that they are worried that some father or other family member who lost a child through thier no blood policy, finds out throught the internet that the gb are phoneies and now blames the gb for the loss of life.
think of how dangerous it would be to give advanced notice when so and so gb member would be giving a convention talk.
Ah, good call, Euph. You're right.
So the long and short for our friends in need of anonymous browsing is:
1. Use a web proxy.
2. Be sure your connection to the proxy is secure.
If you do these two things (man, that sounds like the beginning of a scripture), network monitors should not be able to see where you are surfing, or what the contents of the pages are.
SNG
as some may know, richard singelenberg is a dutch anthropologist who studies jehovah's witnesses.
he has produced academic articles and reviews on issues ranging from the 1975 disappointment and child custody cases to jehovah's witnesses in nazi germany and the history of the blood doctrine.
sometimes he sides with apostates and sometimes he sides with the witnesses on controversial issues (though i personally suspect the former impulse is greater than the latter).
My argument was that it is historically inaccurate to assert that Witnesses in the 1940s 'warmed the faithful up' for new pronouncements. Such a strategy on the part of the Witness leadership is, in my view, a more recent development, and is symptomatic of the fact that current Witness leaders are somewhat less sure of themselves than in the heady days of the 1940s.
Without really knowing too much about this topic, I tend to agree with you just as a gut reaction. However, in any case, any assertion regarding motives is clearly a thesis statement that would require extensive evidence to prove convincingly. It is difficult to show what a person was thinking, based only on authoritarian tracts they wrote.
I thought your statement about Rutherford delighting in shocking the faithful with New Light was interesting. That certainly seems to have some merit. Of course, no one says that he couldn't have been careful on other matters at the same time. Surely no intelligent person limits himself to a single modus operandi.
But at any rate, with regard to the whole 1944/1945 debate, I don't think I understand what the big deal is. Aren't you picking at nits here? Why is the distinction so important to you?
SNG
do you think the gb should limit contact with bethelites because of possible harm that could come to them right there at headquarters.
i mean think of how many bethelites have interent access and know the gb are tyrants, but are stuck there at bethel because they have no money and no place to turn because they have been there for many years.. i think many gbs purposely keeps to themselves now a days, they probably should even think seriously of a body guard even while at bethel.. have you notice the wt doesn't give any advance notice when a gb will be speaking at conventions anymore, could it be that they are worried that some father or other family member who lost a child through thier no blood policy, finds out throught the internet that the gb are phoneies and now blames the gb for the loss of life.
think of how dangerous it would be to give advanced notice when so and so gb member would be giving a convention talk.
stilla,
Be careful with anonymizer. It looks like their free service shields your identity from the web sites you visit, but the URL and content would be visible to others as it passed through their networks. What you need is an SSL connection to the proxy. That way, anyone in between you and the proxy can see only one thing: The proxy's URL.
I didn't like how anonymizer made the destination URL a part of the URL you request. I believe in this implementation, a third party would be able to see the URL you are requesting.
This site appears to do it better:
https://webproxy.kaxy.com/index.php
This site appears pretty concerned with security, but they do the same thing as anonymizer in appending the destination URL to their own.
http://www.megaproxy.com/freesurf/
Fellow techies: I know that in an SSL connection, the domain is obviously visible in plaintext, but the query string is not. However, is the server path visible? For example, in the address https://vip.megaproxy.com/go/www.google.com is the path /go/www.google.com visible on the request header?
SNG
as some may know, richard singelenberg is a dutch anthropologist who studies jehovah's witnesses.
he has produced academic articles and reviews on issues ranging from the 1975 disappointment and child custody cases to jehovah's witnesses in nazi germany and the history of the blood doctrine.
sometimes he sides with apostates and sometimes he sides with the witnesses on controversial issues (though i personally suspect the former impulse is greater than the latter).
Hey, Spook picked up on the "ridicule" thing too! I swear I wrote that at the same time that Spook was writing his post. :-)
SNG
as some may know, richard singelenberg is a dutch anthropologist who studies jehovah's witnesses.
he has produced academic articles and reviews on issues ranging from the 1975 disappointment and child custody cases to jehovah's witnesses in nazi germany and the history of the blood doctrine.
sometimes he sides with apostates and sometimes he sides with the witnesses on controversial issues (though i personally suspect the former impulse is greater than the latter).
Hello SBF,
I don't see anything that I personally would be very offended at, but I do notice a general tendancy to use charged Watchtower-esque words and phrases in your writing, which can be tiresome in quantity. (Please don't take offense at this - I'm merely trying to give you my frank opinions.)
For example, at the beginning of this post, you observe that
Sometimes he sides with apostates and sometimes he sides with the Witnesses on controversial issues
which I find to be a rather absurd characterization. I think it would be more accurate to say that sometimes he agrees with the Witness version of history and sometimes he does not. Why introduce the Watchtower-loaded word "apostate" into the discussion?
In your actual correspondence, you say
I find it curious that you ridicule the suggestion that this reference indicates blood transfusion was 'banned' already in 1944
I used to write just like this, because it is a very Watchtowery way of writing. They love to say that people "ridicule" or "deride" or "decry" certain things, when in reality the person may simply disagree. I only bring this up because people often take offense when they feel that their position is being caricatured.
I think he might well have taken offense to this statement:
I would not like to believe that you persistently inhabit such a cynical attitude with respect to the history of Jehovah's Witnesses, while all on your lonesome.
Honestly, I don't understand the purpose of this sentence. My mind struggles to understand what you might mean, and the only plausible interpretation I come up with is that you are being protective of the Society and can't bear that others might not be as generous as you in their opinions of their motives, and that you are attempting to invoke shame over such a cynical attitude by suggesting that he is the only one that has it.
That's about it. All in all, I think it's a fairly tame letter. My comments were made without knowing the context, either, so apologies if I've gotten the whole thing wrong. Those are just my thoughts.
It is interesting to see you having this type of discussion. Hope my comments did not offend.
SNG
do you think the gb should limit contact with bethelites because of possible harm that could come to them right there at headquarters.
i mean think of how many bethelites have interent access and know the gb are tyrants, but are stuck there at bethel because they have no money and no place to turn because they have been there for many years.. i think many gbs purposely keeps to themselves now a days, they probably should even think seriously of a body guard even while at bethel.. have you notice the wt doesn't give any advance notice when a gb will be speaking at conventions anymore, could it be that they are worried that some father or other family member who lost a child through thier no blood policy, finds out throught the internet that the gb are phoneies and now blames the gb for the loss of life.
think of how dangerous it would be to give advanced notice when so and so gb member would be giving a convention talk.
^
^
^
^
The thing I love about information technology is that it's almost impossible to suppress. You cannot prevent access to information. Not anymore. If necessary, I will personally make the WTS understand that fact.
SNG
do you think the gb should limit contact with bethelites because of possible harm that could come to them right there at headquarters.
i mean think of how many bethelites have interent access and know the gb are tyrants, but are stuck there at bethel because they have no money and no place to turn because they have been there for many years.. i think many gbs purposely keeps to themselves now a days, they probably should even think seriously of a body guard even while at bethel.. have you notice the wt doesn't give any advance notice when a gb will be speaking at conventions anymore, could it be that they are worried that some father or other family member who lost a child through thier no blood policy, finds out throught the internet that the gb are phoneies and now blames the gb for the loss of life.
think of how dangerous it would be to give advanced notice when so and so gb member would be giving a convention talk.
Attention Bethelites:
Regarding internet access from Bethel, even if your access is routed through the HQ, you should be able to browse anonymously by using a proxy service such as www.anonymizer.com. This web site serves as a middleman: You ask it for a web URL and it grabs it for you and returns it from their servers. Your ISP (or network monitors) sees the information as coming from anonymizer.com, regardless of where the data ultimately came from.
To be really safe, though, you should buy a product that allows you to connect to the proxy over an SSL connection. That way, all your communication from your machine to the proxy is shielded from prying eyes. There are plenty of products that do this.
If Bethel mons have blocked access to the proxy site, anyone in possession of their own web server could set up a similar proxy without too much difficulty. If you are in Bethel and need help, PM me.
SNG
found a really cool service today for automatically backing up files.
it's called xdrive (www.xdrive.com).
like most people, i want to have my files backed up, but i find myself putting it off, so i only tend to do it every few months at best.
the_classicist,
It's not so much about disk space. I had my laptop stolen last year, and I can't begin to describe the terrible feeling that was. Unbelievably, I tracked the guy who stole it down and got it back intact, but I swore I would never allow something like that to happen to me again.
Ideally, the hardware is only hardware, and even total loss of the system should represent only a minor inconvenience. With Xdrive, I'm one big step closer to that ideal.
SNG
anyone heading to the opening session tomorrow?
anyone already been to an exclusive screening?
anyone going in full jedi gettup?!!
we all get a sample "64bit" Pentium
What the...?!
Yeah, well, shaw, you're so lame, I'm going to the one sponsored by BMW in Redmond. We all get sample Beamers.
SNG
LOL @ Frog...
In America, "flipping someone off" or "flipping the bird" means flashing the middle finger, which of course is crude sign language for "&%$# you!"
SNG
