Skeptic-D: "I beg to differ. We just happen to live in a society that has a real issue with literacy. When it comes to language and linguistics society as a whole comes up rather short. When seven out of ten can't name the vice president and half can't name the capitol city of the state they live in it gives some indication of the state of interest people have of the world around them."

Angust; **Skeptic-D has no need to beg. Do his observations contradict the hypothesis in my comment? That someone does not know the name of a public official whose name most people do know does not contradict the hypothesis that we now have far more knowledge "in the world" than we can find helpful to living.**

WoW!, Angust, You are real piece of work! Is your bottom side been plugged up so long that it is ‘that’ backed up to your top side?

Yes, my observations completely contradict your ‘hypothesis’. Your attempt to ‘weasel’ your way around your erroneous ways are quite obvious.

Angust; **That someone does not know the name of a public official whose name most people do know does not contradict the hypothesis that we now have far more knowledge "in the world" than we can find helpful to living**

MAKE A REAL CLEAR NOTE! “You” inserted the word ‘MOST’! That is YOUR word, and your attempt to ‘weasel’. I SAID “seven out of ten” cannot name the vice president. This is CERTAINLY NOT ‘most’ as you are attempting to ‘infer’!

Angust; **Does Skeptic-D have an issue with the value of personal respect?**

ABSOUTLY not! Unequivocally NOT! I do have a serious PROBLEM with your HYPOCRICY!

YOU! Claim to be “authentic”, Yet at the same time YOU seem drawn to eliciting third party support through the back door and under the rug to gain traction to ‘establish’ your credibility.

Clearly YOU seem not to have the balls to stand for what you preach!

Angust; **Apparently he thinks so little of his own name that he finds need to hide under the name Skeptic-D.**

This is nothing more than a passive/aggressive attempt to slander for the perceived hope of gain. Interesting that you will go so far as to prostitute your self and your image while seeking gain.

Angust; **Debbie Ford has written a book entitled "The Secret of the Shadow. Its subtitle is "The Power of Owning Your Whole Story". An extract:

Our specialties are often birthed out of our pain. ... There is no right specialty and no two are the same. Our specialty is what enables us to use our stories instead of having our stories use us. It is our unique way to contribute to the world, to know that we make a difference and that our trials and tribulations have not been in vain. The process of finding our specialty causes us to re-interpret our life's events, to assign new meanings that will lift us up and propel us outside the limitations of our stories. ... Unconcealing your unique specialty is the most vital step you can take in transforming your life and living outside your story. Using your specialty will allow you to stand tall and feel empowered and proud about yourself and your life.**

Let me ask you this, WHY? Do feel the ‘need’ to make your self to be larger than you are?

Why can you not ‘answer’ in an accountable way that reflects your true character? Why use the innuendo? Why do you keep attempting to weasel your way to credibility?

Grandiosity??

Selfish??

Narcissism??

Arrogance??

Cowardice??

Albert Ellis describes it this way,

Quote; I take the rather heretical view that the very first principle of ‘morality’ is: To Thine own self be true; or Be, primarily, kind to your self. This principle, I insist, should be closely----in fact, very closely---followed by the second principle of morality: namely, Do not commit any deed that needlessly, definitely, deliberately, or knowingly harms others. Or, as Immanuel Kant stated in his famous categorical imperative, Do not commit any act that you would not want to become a universally performed activity. Let me strongly insist, however, that this second law of morality is only a corollary of, and is in fact a logical deduction from, the first principle, which still is: To Thine Own Self be True.

Why is this so? Because I cannot imagine any reason why you should be consistently kind to others, and do your very best to refrain needlessly harming them other than the fact that you would like to insure, thereby, that they will be reasonably kind to you and will rarely do you in. You can, of course, sometimes be nice to others even at your own expense, because you just happen to like or love these others, and take genuine pleasure in pleasing them. But this is sometimes true, and therefore hardly be stated as a general law of morality. Besides, being kind to others because you just happen to like or enjoy these others, is hardly involved with any law of morality whatever, but merely depends on your personal whims and prejudices. If you treat a child or adult well because you love him, you may indeed be a loving person, ‘but’ you are not necessarily either a moral or an immoral individual.

The main point is that morality has to do with the principles or standards of right social conduct, and not with personal like or dislike: and that we should normally treat other people properly, or at least refrain from needlessly harming them, whether we personally like them or not. And we should do so, primarily, because we do not want to be, in our turn, treated properly by them: WE want to help create, by our right conduct, the kind of world that is safe and beneficial for us to live in; and we want to avoid reprisals, in case we do treat others badly, from them, , their friends or relatives, or from the police and the courts of law that society establishes to protect them and us from obvious and blatant wrongdoing. In the final analysis, then, morality is based, when it is sensible, on the golden rule: we try to do unto others as we as we would like them to do unto us. Morality, consequently, is far from being self-sacrificing or purely altruistic; it is derived from highly rational, quite self-interested motives.

Would it not be more sensible, you may ask, to put the second rule of morality first? Would we not, im other words, have a better, more loving, finer society if we FIRST did well by others, and lovingly sacrificed ourselves for them, and thereby ensured that they, gratefully and humanly , would then do very well by us? No we would not—unless we happened to live, as exceptionally few of us actually seem to do, among a group of angels. For angels, clearly, WOULD be the kind of creatures who, when one loved and made sacrifices for them first, would invariably return love with love and kindness with kindness. So that in SUCH an angelic 1

Society, morality would surely beget return morality, and all would be lovey—dovey in this kingdom come.

Angels, alas, are exceptionally scarce in this present day society. Consequently all that would most assuredly happen if any of you did decide to be a self-sacrificer to others first, and an intended reaper of rewards from those others second, would be that some of those others would certainly, in their
turn, love you and sacrifice themselves for your interests—but many would probably not. Indeed, a good many of the people to whom you were most kind, and for whom you went out of your way to stay on virtues path, would almost surely be nasty to you, knife you in the back, and exploit your kindness in various and nefarious ways. For whether we like it or not, literally millions of people in our culture are stupid, ignorant, or emotionally disturbed, and consequently can NOT be relied on to behave charmingly and morally to their fellows. To the contrary, they can be counted upon to act in precisely the opposite, or pretty thoroughly immoral, manner.

When self-sacrificism, therefore, is made the first law of morality, it is put in this position on the ASUMPTION that those whom you sacrifice your own interests will almost invariably sacrifice their interests for you when a suitable occasion arises. This assumption, however, is hogwash, since there is no empirical evidence to confirm it. Self-sacrificism, in point of fact, usually encourages others to keep exploiting you and to look upon you as a ninny. Instead of true transactional morality among human beings, it leads to dependency, emotional illness, and an increase in man’s inhumanity to man. Finally, in most instances, the self-sacrificer senses that he is a self-defeating patsy, and begins to hate himself for his weakness, and also usually ends up hating the person or person to whom he is being unduly ingratiating. The net result is personal and social holocaust.

Moral sanity and sane morality, then, still consist of the primary axiom: To Thine Own Self Be True. For only in this way, obviously, can you be utterly sure that at least ONE person in the whole wide world will be truly looking after your OWN interests. And also, by employing the immediate corollary and transparent deduction from this first principle—namely, do not commit any deed that needlessly, definitely, deliberately, or knowingly harms others-you will then be ensuring, as much as any human being can realistically ensure in this competitive and often dog-eat-dog world, that you will obtain MINIMAL reprisals from others on whose toes you might otherwise step and that you will help build a world in which there exists LITTLE (though of course not zero) wrongdoing.”

The above is a quote from Ellis's book "Suppressed"

Now my dear friend, WHY do YOU have such an issue with being AUTHENTIC??

Why do you feel the need to HIDE behind yourself and slither around attempting extol that you are noble and gifted?

Where do you get that your word is “authentic” and that the rest of the world should stand at attention following your whims?