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.

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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:

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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.

pratekya wrote on Dec 20^th, 2007 at 5:11pm:


Pratekya,

I would like to clarify briefly for you that my comment was not meant to "defend" anyone or even to reply particularly to anything except Alan's sense of "justice." Basically, I could repeat the same comment to you, but I don't think you would "get" what I was saying in the same way, so I would not say it to you in those same words.

In fact, I am curious about his understanding of "the light," and my comment has multiple layers of inquiry imbedded in it, and is related to another thread of mine, in which he posted a poem. Of course, there is no way for you to know that, except by me telling you this right now.

But, it is clear that a lot of time is being consumed by each of you continuing to "call out" the other regarding supposedly harmful actions.

Why, I wonder? There must be a greater purpose to it all, hmmmn? Or no?

That is also your call.

I will simply say that peace is where it's at, baby. So, I guess, let it all hang out, right? We'll get there.

love, blink