Golden Rule

 “In order to perfectly live the Golden Rule, one in business, to begin with, would be compelled to buy his merchandise in such a way that he would be dealing with the seller on the basis of the Golden Rule, as well as buying for his customers on the basis of the Golden Rule. The thought I want to bring out, is that we have left most things religious and spiritual down in the swamps of sentimentalism. The efforts of the church in the past have not been directed as much as they may toward educating and equipping men and women to live large and full lives. Whatever has come to the A. Nash Company in living the Golden Rule has come because there has been enough business knowledge to enable us to live it to just that degree, and whenever we have failed in exercising that very highest and keenest business judgment on a truly ethical basis. It has been because we did not have sufficient insight to understand our obligation measured by the Golden Rule. . . . In other words, perfect and infallible living of the Golden Rule would require infallible mentality and undaunted courage.”

Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger (1919 – 1989), was an American social psychologist, responsible for the development of the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Social comparison theory, and the discovery of the role of propinquity in the formation of social ties as well as other contributions to the study of social networks. Festinger is perhaps best known for the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, which suggests that inconsistency among beliefs and behaviors will cause an uncomfortable psychological tension. This will lead people to change their beliefs to fit their actual behavior, rather than the other way around, as popular wisdom may suggest.

Cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger and associates, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen.

While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience", committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).


I found that fascinating. The date thing in 2000 was a fiasco that never happened. Anyone buy a portable generator they couldn't take back. Now the emphasis is on 2012 because of the Mayan Calendar. There's also a planetary alignment but one event has no bearing on the other.

I finished reading "Beneath The Pyramids" by Andrew Collins (ISBN-13 978-0-87604-571-8) . Excellent reading. Orion isn't the best match for aligning the pyramids to stars and no hidden chambers in the Sphinx, much to the chagrin of the New Agers. There are the remains of people from 10,500 BC (the Pyramids aren't that old) that have been found which I didn't know. No Fibonacci sequences in this book. It's a great book involving the mystery of ancient names, distant constellations and Edgar Cayce.