This thread is so bizarre and surreal. I guess I expected more from a community that should be about love and truth. Instead the community comes to the defense of a plagiarizer that is incredibly insulting towards anyone who disagrees with him and pretends to be a spiritual giant at the same time. I have seen such arrogance before as to suggest that his profession (working at a computer) is far superior to mine (teaching). The logic is flawed, the morality is flawed, the response has been pathetic, and I guess I no longer want to be a part of a community like this. It has become a place where people are not willing to ferret out ideas that don't hold water and look for truth, rather one that wants to hear from people that parrot new age ideas.
For the record, I never used caps in my letters to Alan, and I never called him a thief. I simply posted that I didn't believe he wrote that material (which he has since admitted to me and in this thread), and the outrageous negativity escalated at me from that point. Also for the record, I do have 4 degrees, including two masters degrees, and a bilingual credential in physics and biology. I am a graduate of UCLA, and the only reason I'm not teaching at a community college level is because one of my degrees was in Interdisciplinary Studies in Philosophy and Religious Studies, rather than simply Philosophy (which was my mistake at the time). I will start my 3rd master's degree in the Spring.
Quote: I have held considerable "considerably" higher more difficult and responsible work positions in my life than a schoolteacher. I again stress "considerably". He must keep his schoolmaster attitude off the forum.
I find the anti teaching vibe particularly insulting because my wife is a 2nd grade teacher, and I think that her job is far more important than mine because of the impact that she has on the education of children. Its also ironic, because I had a job working in a cubicle right after I graduated from college, and I thought to myself, what kind of impact on the world am I going to have sitting behind a computer most of my working life? I ended up becoming a teacher mostly because of these issues. In addition, this is all an ad hominem attack that is combined with a good dose of arrogance; even granting Alan's premise - that he is more successful, important, and educated than I - why should that make any difference in whether or not plagiarism and incendiary insults are correct? People used to do this kind of thing in the 60's in the US - 'Don't believe what he says, he's a communist". Since when did an IT career make one independent of criticism about plagiarism and immunize someone from criticism about parading themselves as some sort of spiritual guru while at the same time being incredibly insulting and arrogant? What kind of degrees did Jesus hold, and did he ever criticize anyone?
As for the community, the response has been much more pathetic than I ever expected:
Quote: well goodness..lets all keep our shirts on...
Quote: Alan, remember: darkness cannot penetrate the light, but light can penetrate the darkness...there is no darkness in the presence of enough light.
love, blink Smiley
Quote: Hi Alan-
I have no idea who is on your case, Alan, but I'm interested in what you have to say, so please stick around and say it.
You arrived with a lot of input and evidently you have a lot of unique personal experiences to share. Between the two, you evidently made an impression. Seems like a good thing to me. It's a bit overwhelming trying to integrate everything at once, but that's my issue, not yours.
Everyone gets flamed a bit from time to time. No big deal. Consider the source and move along - not all of us are mature adults 100% of the time - myself included.
Did you even read what I wrote Dave? Consider the source and move along? You're writing this to Alan in this situation - seriously? This person just insulted me repeatedly, totally validated what I had been saying about his personal messages, plagiarized, demonstrated some pretty significant arrogance and pretty much all the community can do is encourage him? You've got to be kidding.
I'm not writing this because I want people to come to my defense at this point. I wasn't going to respond to Alan's last post at all because I thought that surely critically thinking people can see that he is demonstrating exactly what I was concerned about. I was wrong. Oh well, cya... never. This group's response is far more pathetic than I ever expected.