Welcome

Welcome to my blog http://www.skegley.blogspot.com/ . CAVEAT LECTOR- Let the reader beware. This is a Christian Conservative blog. It is not meant to offend anyone. Please feel free to ignore this blog, but also feel free to browse and comment on my posts! You may also scroll down to respond to any post.

For Christian American readers of this blog:


I wish to incite all Christians to rise up and take back the United States of America with all of God's manifold blessings. We want the free allowance of the Bible and prayers allowed again in schools, halls of justice, and all governing bodies. We don't seek a theocracy until Jesus returns to earth because all men are weak and power corrupts the very best of them.
We want to be a kinder and gentler people without slavery or condescension to any.

The world seems to be in a time of discontent among the populace. Christians should not fear. God is Love, shown best through Jesus Christ. God is still in control. All Glory to our Creator and to our God!


A favorite quote from my good friend, Jack Plymale, which I appreciate:

"Wars are planned by old men,in council rooms apart. They plan for greater armament, they map the battle chart, but: where sightless eyes stare out, beyond life's vanished joys, I've noticed,somehow, all the dead and mamed are hardly more than boys(Grantland Rice per our mutual friend, Sarah Rapp)."

Thanks Jack!

I must admit that I do not check authenticity of my posts. If anyone can tell me of a non-biased arbitrator, I will attempt to do so more regularly. I know of no such arbitrator for the internet.











Saturday, July 27, 2013

What is culture? ... Google search ... SamKat

The World Transformation Movement Blog

What is culture?

28 April 2013
By Susan
Category: Life Questions
Culture describes the cumulative influences on a group of people or societytheir collective knowledge, characteristics and learned behaviours. This knowledge is passed on from generation to generation and accounts for the different cultures that we can see around the world, for example Western culture, Eastern culture, Middle Eastern culture, African and Latin culture. Each of these cultures is defined by the values, traditions, social habits and behaviours, language, belief systems, concepts of the universe, dress, food, music and arts that they encompass.
What is culture?
‘Cultural diversity’ is the term that we have traditionally used to refer to differences between cultures. Terms such as ‘ethnic inclusiveness’ or ‘cross culturalism’ also relate to the issue of cultural differences. What is immensely significant about the whole issue of culture is that through the advances made in science we are now, at last, able to have a real discussion about not just ‘what culture is’ but also about why cultures around the world are so different from one another. In truth, the important question needing to be answered is not ‘What is culture?’, but ‘why are there cultural differences?
The truth is that questions, like ‘what is culture?’, and more importantly, why are there cultural differences, have until now been impossible to answer truthfully. We humans all live under the duress of the human condition, a state of insecurity brought about by our inability to explain why we humans are the way we arewhy, when all the ideals are to be loving, cooperative and selfless are we humans seemingly divisive, destructive and selfish? And until we could explain our human condition we could never hope to explain any of the fundamental questions about our nature with any great insight. However, the situation has now greatly changed. We can now easily explain all kinds of previously unanswerable questions, like ‘what is culture?’, and why cultures vary so much, because we can finally explain the human condition.
Yes, most wonderfully, biology is now able to provide the full, compassionate explanation of the human species’ non-ideal, contradictory behaviour. This comprehensive explanation of the origin of humans’ psychologically upset state, is available in this Introductory Video Series and Part 3 of Freedom Book 1, by Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith. It is this fundamental explanation that unlocks all of the seemingly unanswerable and off-limits questions about human behaviour.
In Freedom Book 1, Griffith explains that a society’s behaviour and its culture is actually based on how that society has learnt to cope with the human condition. As Griffith explains, ‘On the whole, culture essentially encompassed the various ways people passed on, from one generation to the next, the knowledge they had learnt about living under the duress of the human condition’ (Freedom Book 1: The Biology). And differences in cultures really relates to the intensity at which the human condition has impacted the lives of people in that particular society. The longer and more intense the battle that the human condition has given rise to becomes, the more psychological upset and alienation are present in a particular culture, as Griffith writes: ‘Just as an individual person’s lifestyle was inevitably going to largely be a response to that person’s particular level of upset, so too a race’s culture was inevitably going to largely be a response to that race’s particular level of upset’ (Freedom Book 1: The Biology).
A race’s culture was inevitably going to largely be a response to that race’s particular level of upset
Griffith also explains that without explanation of the human condition, any deeper acknowledgement and analysis of differences in levels of upset, alienation or innocence amongst individuals, races and cultures has not been possible. This is because it immediately leads to the erroneous view that some individuals, races and cultures are superior to others, or some are ‘good’ and some ‘bad’, and hence direct confrontation with the issue of the human condition, when in fact all humans are equally ‘good’. So, to avoid confrontation with the human condition, any differences in individuals, races and cultures were explained as ‘cultural diversity’ or as adding ‘colour’ to our lives, and we celebrated and lived off the excitement and distraction this colour provided. However as Jeremy Griffith articulates in Freedom Book 1; ‘If we wanted to understand human behaviour, we had to look at how upset we humans have been, specifically how alienated we have been’. And this is exactly what Griffith has done.
With the human condition now solved and the full defence of humans’ psychologically upset state understood we can explain exactly what culture is and safely acknowledge differences in cultures and the real reasons for those differences. But very importantly, as Griffith explains, while humans do vary in their degree of psychological upset, ‘all humans are equally good because upset was a result of an unavoidable and necessary battle humanity has had to wage to find knowledge. The equality of goodness of all people is a first-principle-established, fundamental and universal truth now. Humanity no longer has to rely on dogmatic assertions that ‘all men are created equal’, purely on the basis that it is a ‘self-evident’ truth, as the United States’ Declaration of Independence asserts, because we can now explain, understand and know that the equality of all humans is a fundamental truth. We can now understand why everyone is equally worthy, and that no one is superior or inferior, and that everyone deserves the ‘rights’ of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ (ibid). Prejudice, the view that some individuals, races, genders, generations, countries, civilisations or cultures are either superior or inferior to others, is eliminated by understanding of the human condition. In fact, with understanding of the human condition the concepts of good and bad, superior and inferior, worthy or unworthy, disappear from our conceptualisation of ourselves’ (Freedom Book 1: The Biology). So culture, rather than just being explained as adding some diversity and colour to our lives can be honestly recognised as an expression of these different levels of upset, alienation and innocence, and how humans have variously adapted to life under the duress of the human condition.
We can now explain, understand and know that the equality of all humans is a fundamental truth

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Posted by Frank B on
Brilliant blog as culture is something that has been vaguely described and all you could do was ask yourself the question but why? Why are so many people from around the world so different what is going on. Such honest answers have been stifled by political correctness and so forth however it does clear a lot up for me as I’m sure it would for most people as we are in such a desperate need for understanding at the moment.
Posted by Emma on
thanks for the great post. This subject takes me back to anthropology at university, debating whether we ‘live to work’ or ‘work to live’. I can now appreciate that it was a futile debate, that each and every human copes the best way possible in a world where we know so much, yet so little when it comes to how we view ourselves and one another.
Posted by Stirling on
That was a great article Sus.
Posted by Aggie Harpham on
This is just so relevant to my current work up in the Kimberley’s where I am faced with such extraordinary differences in culture and the devastation of Aboriginal Australians from this area coming into contact with White fella culture. There is almost no acknowledgement of it in any discussions up here as until now there has been no capacity for an honest dialogue about it. It is so precious that we can now talk about it honestly. One day soon there will be so much relief.
Posted by Jimmy on
Thanks for a great article Susan
Posted by Connor on
Great article. So refreshing to finally get some tangible responses to questions that traditionally just get “covered over” with ambiguous and confusing explanations!! Thanks Sus.
Posted by Ali on
enjoyed reading that thanks Susan.
Posted by Steven Collins on
Thanks for this great blog Sus. I am teaching a year 12 ‘Society and Culture’ class. This will be a very handy resource.
Posted by Gavin Braithwaite on
An interesting Article but I can’t quite see how understanding the differences can repair them. Take for example Fiji where on a recent holiday I observed the tension that exists between the native Fijians and Indians, or indeed any of the many more cultural and ideological clashes that have resulted in horrendous persecution like the so-called “Indian Removal Act”of 1830 in the US which saw the forced removal of the Cherokee native American Indians from the state of Georgia or the ‘stolen generation’ of Australian Aboriginals that occurred under a ‘White Australia policy in Australia. Culture not only defines but also divides us so it seems the healing can only begin if the more “innocent” as you put it can be magnanimous enough to forgive the more “alienated”.
Posted by Susan on
Thanks for your comment Gavin. What we are suggesting is that Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the human condition does now give us the ability to repair the cultural divide that you talk about because it allows us to compassionately admit and reconcile (forgive) all the differences that exist in humans and our paradoxical behaviour. To quote Jeremy Griffith: “Science has made it possible for all humans to win the freedom they have fought so valiantly for two million years to achieve. We can at last understand that there was a sound (that is, integrative) biological reason for why humans became divisively behaved and soul-corrupted. Sir Laurens van der Post made the essential point about our predicament when he said, ‘how can there ever be any real beginning without forgiveness?’ (Venture to the Interior, 1952, p.16 of 241). Forgiveness was the key but it had to be forgiveness at the most profound, deepest level of our psychosis; forgiveness found through understanding of the dilemma of our human condition–understanding that would allow all humans to know that while we are all variously upset we are all fundamentally good and not bad or evil” ( Freedom Book 1: The Biology).

So until we had the biological reason for our divisive behaviour we couldn’t admit that there were any differences in alienation levels because that would have led to even greater prejudice and divisiveness. Even now that our upset is defended and we can admit these differences it is still an extremely confronting aspect of this new understanding of ourselves. This is all incredibly explained by Jeremy in Freedom Book 1: The Biology where he reveals the six unconfrontable truths that have blocked our access to understanding the human condition and the differences in alienation is dealt with in “Part 4:4E Fifthly, the upset human race has had to deny the differences in alienation between human individuals, races, genders, generations, civilisations and cultures” (see http://www.worldtransformation.com/freedom-book1-fifthly-we-couldnt-confront-differences-in-alienat/ ) which you might like to read as it looks at the historical situation regarding the Fijian and Indian cultures.
Posted by Nicholas J on
Thanks for posting that Susan. Understanding a person is very important. Sometimes a person moving into different society may act the way he/she normally does back home and so that idea still linkers in mind. The important thing is that we all must understand each others culture so that we can get along well wtih those we come into contact with.
Posted by Mathome Kgalema on
A very enriching article about understanding culture. What is more important to me is the analytic tool used unpack origin and manifestations of culture. How culture is used in South Africa is mostly associated with biological identity more than any physical adaptability. often, culture is assumed not to be flux or dynamic. Thanks for the analysis.
Posted by tanveer hussain on
enjoyed reading & i complete my task from ur article thanks

Y Chromosome from Wikipedia ... SamKat

From: Y chromosome Wikipedia:

Shrinking theory

By one estimate, the human Y chromosome has lost 1,393 of its 1,438 original genes over the course of its existence, and linear extrapolation of this 1,393 gene loss over 300 million years gives a rate of genetic loss of 4.6 genes per million years.[14] Continued loss of genes at the 4.6 genes per million year rate would result in a Y chromosome with no functional genes --- that is the Y chromosome would lose complete function --- within the next 10 million years. Comparative genomic analysis, however, reveals that many mammalian species are experiencing a similar loss of function in their heterozygous sex chromosome. Degeneration may simply be the fate of all nonrecombining sex chromosomes due to three common evolutionary forces: high mutation rate, inefficient selection and genetic drift.[10] Furthermore, comparisons of the human and chimpanzee Y chromosomes (first published in 2005) show that the human Y chromosome has not lost any genes since the divergence of humans and chimpanzees between 6–7 million years ago,[15] and a scientific report in 2012 stated that only one gene had been lost since humans diverged from the rhesus macaque 25 million years ago.[16] These facts provide direct evidence that the linear extrapolation model is flawed and suggest that the current human Y chromosome is either no longer shrinking or is shrinking at a much slower rate than 4.6 genes per million years estimated by the linear extrapolation model.

The Y chromosome makes the male and double X chromosomes make the female.  

Body Fat Calculator... Maybe you just do not want to know

skegley.blogspot.com
How much Body Fat are you carrying? Find out if you are in the healthy range. This Body Fat calculator is based on a formula developed by the US Navy.
First, your body fat percentage is simply the percentage of fat your body contains. If you weigh 140 pounds and are 10% fat, it means that your body consists of 14 pounds fat and 126 pounds lean body mass (bone, muscle, organ tissue, blood,...).
A certain amount of fat is essential to bodily functions. Fat regulates body temperature, cushions and insulates organs and tissues and is the main form of the body's energy storage. Check out this Body Fat Chart which describes fat ranges and their associated categories.
Body Fat Calculator Metric Body Fat Calculator
Weight pounds
Waist inches
Wrist inches *
Hips inches *
Forearm inches *
Female Male
* only required by females

Amazing illusion ... Thx Marge R!


I don't care how it's done  - - it's amazing. 
 

The cross in our bodies ... Thanks Marge R! Thius is a wondereful repeat! Laminen

The Cross in Our Bodies


From a Doctor
A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio…and I was BLOWN AWAY!
I want to share what I learned….but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want.
I will share anyway.
He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is…how He spoke the universe into being…how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire…etc. etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) …..and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God’s handiwork. I remember so many times thinking….”How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???”
Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart…how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.
And then I lost my breath.
And it wasn’t because I was running my treadmill, either!!!
It was because he started talking about laminin.
I knew about laminin. Here is how wikipedia describes them :”Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.” You see….laminins are what hold us together….LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn’t know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE.
But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)….
Here is what the structure of laminin looks like…AND THIS IS NOT a “Christian portrayal” of it….if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see…
http://onemoresoul.com/files/2011/04/laminin.jpg
Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!!
Amazing.
The glue that holds us together….ALL of us….is in the shape of the cross.
Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things were created by him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. ”
Colossians 1:15-17
Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool.
Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together…one cell to another….by the cross.
You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin “glue” would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!
Praise the Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Lee County Sheriff's letter to NAACP ... Thanks Ralph H!

Subject: Lee County Sheriff's Letter to NAACP


   

Local Sheriff's letter is dead on.
This is the letter from Sheriff Mike Scott of Lee County, FL to the local head of the NAACP. It is a masterpiece of reasoned common sense and articulate diplomacy.
It would be hard to add (or delete) even one word to this masterpiece of communication that would make it any better. It is stated absolutely perfectly.
  skegley.blogspot.com

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