Picture
It has been said as a rule that those selling the advice often profit more than those buying the advice. This can be applied to financial advisers but all you have to do is go to the televangelist church parking lots and see the preachers expensive cars versus the flocks vehicles. The poor giving to the rich for misleading advice is part of society. When it comes to prosperity tv preachers, get rich schemes and books, or those in positions of self proclaimed authority this is often the case and it is why the shield of skepticism and doubt combined with the sword of reason and free inquiry are the weapons to fight off this lazy numb servitude to the superfluous and sophomoric pushers of false status. Who benefits? The saying goes, “it all depends on whose ox is being gored.”

The advice of authority or those who claim authority usually benefits those in authority. Obey my law, pay me, give me, trust me, and somehow all this servitude will benefit you. The divine right of kings, the pope is always right, the teacher never makes mistakes and other platitudes based on titles are empty without the respect of reason and common sense. The shield of skepticism is of more value than the shield of faith because one gives you the protection against charlatans, con artists, demagogues and authoritarians of all stripes and the other makes you more likely to become a victim of the former and succumb to these vultures who feast on the naive and the gullible. In a world such as ours skepticism is a virtue and faith is a vice.