My life, My culture, My politics, My Health

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:33:00 +0000

CULTURE OF COMMUNICATION: ACTIVE LISTENING cont.
Hearing and listening is not the same thing. Hearing is the act of perceiving sound. It is involuntary and simply refers to the reception of aural stimuli. Listening is a selective activity which involves the reception and the interpretation of aural stimuli. It involves decoding the sound into meaning.
Listening is divided into two main categories: passive and active. Passive listening is little more than hearing. It occurs when the receiver of the message has little motivation to listen carefully, such as when listening to music, storytelling, television, or when being polite.
People speak at 100 to175 words per minute (WMP), but they can listen intelligently at 600 to 800 WPM. Since only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy to go into mind drift- thinking about other things while listen to someone. The cure for this active listening- which involves listening with a purpose. It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, see how another person feels, show support, etc. it requires that the listener attends to the words and the feelings of the sender for understanding. It takes the same amount or more energy than speaking. It requires the receiver to hear the various messages, understand the meaning and then verify the meaning by offering feedback. The following are the few traits of active listeners:
· Spend more time listening than talking.
· Do not finish the sentence of others.
· Do not answer questions with questions.
· Are aware of biases. We all have them. We need to control them.
· Never daydreams or become preoccupied with their own thoughts when others talk.
· Let the other speakers talk. Do not dominate the conversations.
· Plan responses after the other s have finished speaking, NOT while they are speaking.
· Provide feedback, but do not interrupt incessantly.
· Analyze by looking at all the relevant factors and asking open-ended questions.
· Walk others through by summarizing.
· Keep conversation on what others say, NOT on what interests them.
· Take brief notes. This forces them to concentrate on what is being said.
Feedback
When you know something, say what you know. When you don’t know something, say that you don’t know. That is knowledge. –Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius)
The purpose of feedback is to filter messages so that the intention of the original communicator is understood by the second communicator. It includes verbal and nonverbal responses to another person’s message.
Providing feedback is accomplished by paraphrasing the words of the sender. Restate the sender’s feelings; or ideas in your own words, instead of repeating their words. Your word should be saying, “This is what I understand your feelings to be, am I correct?” It not only includes verbal responses, but also nonverbal ones. Nodding your head or squeezing their hand to show agreement, dipping your eyebrows shows you don’t really understand the meaning of their last phrase, or sucking air in deeply and blowing hard shows that you are also exasperated with the situation.

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noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:12:00 +0000

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THE CULTURE OF COMMUNICATION
Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information or feeling to a receiver (U.S Army, 1983).
Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intends to transmit. Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the either the direct result of people failing to communicate and/or processes which leads to confusion and can cause good plans to fail (Mistry, Jaggers, Lodge, Alton, Mericle, Frush, Meliones, 2008).
Studying the communication process is important because you coach, coordinate, counsel, evaluate and supervise throughout this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side.
THE COMMUNICATION PROCESSES
· Thought: first, information exists in the mind of the sender. This can be a concept, idea, information of feelings.
· Encoding: a message is sent to a receiver in words or other symbols.
· Decoding: lastly, the receiver translates the words or symbols into a concept that he or she can understand.
During the transmitting of the message, two elements will be received: content and context. Content is the actual words or symbols of the message that is known as language – the spoken and written words combine into phrases that make grammatical and semantic sense. We all use and interpret the meaning of words differently, so even simple messages can be misunderstood. And many words have different meanings to confuse the issue even more.
Context is the way the message is delivered and is known as paralanguage – it is the nonverbal elements in speech such as the tone of voice, the look in the sender’s eyes, body language, hand gestures, and state of emotions (anger, fear, uncertainty, confidence, etc.) that can be detected. Although, paralanguage or context often cause messages to be misunderstood as we believe what we see more than what we hear; they are powerful communicators that help us to understand each other. We often trust the accuracy of nonverbal behaviors more than verbal behaviors.
Some leaders think they have communicated once they told someone to do something, and it is not done. More than likely the receiver misunderstood the message. A message has not been communicated unless it is understood by the receiver.
How did you know it has been properly received? By two-way communication or feedback. The feedback tells the sender that the receiver understood the message, its level of importance, and what must be done with it. Communication is an exchange not just a give, as all parties must participate to complete the information exchange.
BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
Nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood. – Freeman Teague, Jr.
Anything that prevents understanding of the message is a barrier to communication. Many physical and psychological barriers exist:
Culture, background, and bias – we allow our past experiences to change the meaning of the message. Our culture, background, and bias can be good as they allow us to use our past experiences to understand something new. It is when they change the meaning of the message that they interfere with the communication process.
Noise – equipment or environmental noise impedes clear communication. The sender and the receiver must both be able to concentrate on the message being sent to each other.
Ourselves – focusing on ourselves rather than the other person can lead to confusion and conflict. The “Me Generation” is out when it comes to effective communication. Some of the factors that cause this are defensiveness (we feel someone is attacking us), superiority (we feel we know more than the other), and ego (we feel we are the centre of the activity).
Perception – if we feel the person is talking too fast, not fluently, does not articulate clearly, etc. we may dismiss the person. Also our preconceived attitudes affect our ability to listen. We listen uncritically to persons of high status and dismiss those of low status.
Message – distractions happen when we focus on the facts rather than the idea. Our educational institutions reinforce this with tests and questions. Semantic distraction occurs when a word is use differently than you prefer. For example, the word chairman instead of chairperson may cause you to focus on the word not the message.

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PEACEFUL LIVING

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:05:00 +0000

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LIFE: PEACEFUL LIVING

As human beings, it is extremely difficult to be normal and sane all the time. Everyone has his moment of “temporary madness.” Indeed almost everyone has within him a wild beast that needs to be controlled.

That is why once in a while, without any justifiable reason, we become moody, aggressive, violent and irritant. Have you not seen some people who, in self induced annoyance, would drive their own cars furiously and madly as if they wanted to commit suicide? Some will bang the table, door or car as if they are at war with everybody.

Anytime you observe that someone is exhibiting trace of temporary madness, it is better you clear yourself away from him until he regain his senses and becomes sober. In the alternative, you must learn to pet him and cool him down. It is not a period of further provocation from another person.

The ability to detect in others their moment of madness and calmly respond in the situation is the secret of peaceful co-existence in the home, office, neighborhood, clubs and church societies. Sometimes we find it difficult to control our temper and live at peace with others because daily, we are faced with series of pressures and crises.

Unless one is mature and disciplined, how can one be cherry and smiling when human needs remain scarce and not at variety. Africans live under the siege of fear and tension due to lack of health care, problem of education, fear of shelter, housing problem and fear of security from armed robbers, assassins, fraudsters and kidnappers. Other parts of the world are better skipped than mention.

Most people are tensed up and boiling over. Some have the ability to be resilence and capacity to be suffering and smiling. However, this should not be taking for granted. There is a limit to what degree of tension an individual or group can absorb. Beyond the tolerable level, the humble might burst and the dove might be turned into a hawk by circumstances.

All over the place, people are becoming generally irritated, overexcited, petulant, impatient and daring. Individuals should take caution and seek the welfare of the generality of the people by being fair, honest and considerate to all.

We find it difficult to control our temper and live wicked people (who are bound everywhere) continue to preach war when you preach love and peace. We should show love, kindness and mercy to lonely people. This is the essence of fellowship and peaceful living. After analyzing people who are epitome of love and peace, the following virtues were assembled.

· Appreciate the good in others

· Do not form the habits of finding faults in others

· Never believe in hear-says from gossips and blackmailers

· Do not poke nose into other people affairs. You may be dragged into a quarrel

· Think no evil against anybody, even to those who oppress, cheat or exploit you.

· Be righteous, humble, and honest as much as is humanly possible

· Put yourself in the positions of other people. If you do not want to be cheated, do not cheat

· Control your temper. Silence, sometimes is not only golden, but many times, the best answer for a fool

· Do not harbor grudge, or wickedness against anybody

· Always resolve all conflicts through dialogue; and

· Life is give and take; you cannot have it your own way all the time. Learn to compromise.

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EYE ACHE

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:56:00 +0000

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HEALTH: EYE ACHE BASED ON LONG SIGHTED PEOPLE
Technically, long sighted people may also have difficulty seeing distance and near clearly especially if well above the age of forty! This is not a mistake, isn’t it a known fact that long sighted people can see distance clearly and have problems only with near?
For an object at distance to be seen clearly, the rays of light from that object must fall on the retina (the inner photographic coat of the eye). In a short sighted person, the rays fall short of the retina (anterior) and behind the retina (posterior) in a long sighted person. So in both cases the image of a far object is blurred
A long sighted person can see clearly through what is called accommodation. This is an active process causing an alteration in the shape of the neural lens inside the eye thereby making it possible for rays of light falling behind the retina to be focused on the retina. A long sighted person employing his accommodation will bring the rays of light which is behind the retina to focus on the retina and the object is then seen clearly. Now imagine the same process happening to the rays of light in front of the eye in a short-sighted person. The rays of light will move farther away in front of the retina and the vision becomes more blurred. So the short-sighted person learns that using his accommodation makes his vision worse and as a rule avoids using it. The long-sighted person benefits from it and uses it regularly.
Young people have tremendous amount of accommodation in reserve and they use it successfully for clarity of distance vision. Their reserve may also provide the additional effort needed for reading and other tasks at near.
Unfortunately, the more above forty years you are the lower your ability to accommodate and therefore distance vision tends to be blurred in the long-sighted patients well above the age of forty. But accommodation is not supposed to be for distant vision. It is meant for near work such as reading, sewing etc.
Therefore, the long-sighted person gets tire using his accommodation for distance when he shouldn’t. When he has to do close work such as reading, the muscles or accommodation are already tired and they relax off and on to take a rest leading to intermittent blurring of near vision. It is like you are running when you are supposed to sit down. When you are now suppose to be running, you are already tired and out!
The constant and the unconscious attempts by the long-sighted person to see clearly at distance and near result in eye strain and subsequent eye ache. This eye ache may be quiet intense and tends to occur towards the close of the day. Usually there are no visible signs in the eye. It is persistent and will not go away until appropriate glasses are prescribed. Since accommodation diminishes with age, it is therefore obvious that there is need for a change of glasses to take care of the increasing loss of accommodation which occurs with age.
Eye aches are majorly due to fatigue caused tiredness, concentrated gaze (at a computer or television screen) in the near or intermediate distance even in those without any need for glasses. Excessive intake of alcohol and drinks containing stimulants such as caffeine can tend to impairment of accommodation and eye ache.
Eye ache is best resolve by discontinuing whatever activity you are engaged in and resting your eyes for 5-10 minutes every hour, looking away into the distance at non specific point, or by closing the eye for 5 minutes every hour to rest them. Sleep, no matter how short is also useful. Basically part of your body is tired, do what you would do normally if you were feeling tired.
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noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:14:00 +0000

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HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:59:00 +0000

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Christianity

INTRODUCTION

Christianity, the most widely distributed of the world religions, having substantial representation in all the populated continents of the globe. In the late 1990s, its total membership exceeded 1.9 billion people.

Like any system of belief and values—be it Platonism, Marxism, Freudianism, or democracy—Christianity is in many ways comprehensible only “from the inside,” to those who share the beliefs and strive to live by the values; and a description that would ignore these “inside” aspects of it would not be historically faithful. To a degree that those on the inside often fail to recognize, however, such a system of beliefs and values can also be described in a way that makes sense as well to an interested observer who does not, or even cannot, share their outlook.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE

A community, a way of life, a system of belief, a liturgical observance, a tradition—Christianity is all of these, and more. Each of these aspects of Christianity has affinities with other faiths, but each also bears unmistakable marks of its Christian origins. Thus, it is helpful, in fact unavoidable, to examine Christian ideas and institutions comparatively, by relating them to those of other religions, but equally important to look for those features that are uniquely Christian.

Central Teachings

Any phenomenon as complex and as vital as Christianity is easier to describe historically than to define logically, but such a description does yield some insights into its continuing elements and essential characteristics. One such element is the centrality of the person of Jesus Christ. That centrality is, in one way or another, a feature of all the historical varieties of Christian belief and practice. Christians have not agreed in their understanding and definition of what makes Christ distinctive or unique. Certainly they would all affirm that his life and example should be followed and that his teachings about love and fellowship should be the basis of human relations. Large parts of his teachings have their counterparts in the sayings of the rabbis—that is, after all, what he was—or in the wisdom of Socrates and Confucius. In Christian teaching, Jesus cannot be less than the supreme preacher and exemplar of the moral life, but for most Christians that, by itself, does not do full justice to the significance of his life and work.

What is known of Jesus, historically, is told in the Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible. Other portions of the New Testament summarize the beliefs of the early Christian church. Paul and the other writers of Scripture believed that Jesus was the revealer not only of human life in its perfection but of divine reality itself.

The ultimate mystery of the universe, called by many different names in various religions, was called “Father” in the sayings of Jesus, and Christians therefore call Jesus himself “Son of God.” At the very least, there was in his language and life an intimacy with God and an immediacy of access to God, as well as the promise that, through all that Christ was and did, his followers might share in the life of the Father in heaven and might themselves become children of God. Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, to which early Christians referred when they spoke about him as the one who had reconciled humanity to God, made the cross the chief focus of Christian faith and devotion and the principal symbol of the saving love of God the Father.

This love is, in the New Testament and in subsequent Christian doctrine, the most decisive among the attributes of God. Christians teach that God is almighty in dominion over all that is in heaven and on earth, righteous in judgment over good and evil, beyond time and space and change; but above all they teach that “God is love.” The creation of the world out of nothing and the creation of the human race were expressions of that love, and so was the coming of Christ. The classic statement of this trust in the love of God came in the words of Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26). Early Christianity found in such words evidence both of the special standing men and women have as children of such a heavenly Father and of the even more special position occupied by Christ. That special position led the first generations of believers to rank him together with the Father—and eventually “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father [sent] in [Christ’s] name”—in the formula used for the administration of baptism and in the several creeds of the first centuries. After controversy and reflection, that confession took the form of the doctrine of God as Trinity.

Baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” or sometimes perhaps more simply “in the name of Christ,” has been from the beginning the means of initiation into Christianity. At first it seems to have been administered chiefly to adults after they had professed their faith and promised to amend their lives, but this turned into a more inclusive practice with the baptism of infants. The other universally accepted ritual among Christians is the Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, in which Christians share in bread and wine and, through them, express and acknowledge the reality of the presence of Christ as they commemorate him in the communion of believers with one another. In the form it acquired as it developed, the Eucharist became an elaborate ceremony of consecration and adoration, the texts of which have been set to music by numerous composers of masses. The Eucharist has also become one of the chief points of conflict among the various Christian churches, which disagree about the “presence” of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine and about the effect of that presence upon those who receive.

Another fundamental component of Christian faith and practice is the Christian community itself—the church. Some scholars question the assumption that Jesus intended to found a church (the word church appears only twice in the Gospels), but his followers were always convinced that his promise to be with them “always, to the close of the age” found its fulfillment in his “mystical body on earth,” the holy catholic (universal) church. The relation of this holy Catholic Church to the various ecclesiastical organizations of worldwide Christendom is the source of major divisions among these organizations. Roman Catholicism has tended to equate its own institutional structure with the Catholic Church, as the common usage of the latter term suggests, and some extreme Protestant groups have been ready to claim that they, and they alone, represent the true visible church. Increasingly, however, Christians of all segments have begun to acknowledge that no one group has an exclusive right to call itself “the” church and they have begun to work toward the reunion of all Christians.

Worship

Whatever its institutional form, the community of faith in the church is the primary setting for Christian worship. Christians of all traditions have placed a strong emphasis on private devotion and individual prayer, as Jesus taught. But he also prescribed a form of praying, universally known as the Lord's Prayer, the opening words of which stress the communal nature of worship: “Our Father, who art in heaven.” Since New Testament times, the stated day for the communal worship of Christians has been the “first day of the week,” Sunday, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ. Like the Jewish Sabbath, Sunday is traditionally a day of rest. It is also the time when believers gather to hear the reading and preaching of the word of God in the Bible, to participate in the sacraments, and to pray, praise, and give thanks. The needs of corporate worship have been responsible for the composition of thousands of hymns, chorales, and chants, as well as instrumental music, especially for the organ. Since the 4th century, Christian communities have also been constructing special buildings for their worship, thereby helping to shape the history of architecture.

Christian Life

The instruction and exhortation of Christian preaching and teaching concern all the themes of doctrine and morals: the love of God and the love of neighbor, the two chief commandments in the ethical message of Jesus (see Matthew 22: 34-40). Application of these commandments to the concrete situations of human life, both personal and social, does not produce a uniformity of moral or political behavior. Many Christians, for example, regard all drinking of alcoholic beverages as sinful, whereas others do not. Christians can be found on both the far left and the far right of many contemporary questions, as well as in the middle. Still it is possible to speak of a Christian way of life, one that is informed by the call to discipleship and service. The inherent worth of every person as one who has been created in the image of God, the sanctity of human life and thus of marriage and the family, the imperative to strive for justice even in a fallen world—all of these are dynamic moral commitments that Christians would accept, however much their own conduct may fall short of these norms. It is evident already from the pages of the New Testament that the task of working out the implications of the ethic of love under the conditions of existence has always been difficult, and that there has, in fact, never been a “golden age” in which it was otherwise.

Eschatology

There is in Christian doctrine, however, the prospect of such a time, expressed in the Christian hope for everlasting life. Jesus spoke of this hope with such urgency that many of his followers clearly expected the end of the world and the coming of the eternal kingdom in their own lifetimes. Since the 1st century such expectations have tended to ebb and flow, sometimes reaching a fever of excitement and at other times receding to an apparent acceptance of the world as it is. The creeds of the church speak of this hope in the language of resurrection, a new life of participation in the glory of the resurrected Christ. Christianity may therefore be said to be an otherworldly religion, and sometimes it has been almost exclusively that. But the Christian hope has also, throughout the history of the church, served as a motivation to make life on earth conform more fully to the will of God as revealed in Christ.

III

HISTORY

Almost all the information about Jesus himself and about early Christianity comes from those who claimed to be his followers. Because they wrote to persuade believers rather than to satisfy historical curiosity, this information often raises more questions than it answers, and no one has ever succeeded in harmonizing all of it into a coherent and completely satisfying chronological account. Because of the nature of these sources, it is impossible, except in a highly tentative way, to distinguish between the original teachings of Jesus and the developing teachings about Jesus in early Christian communities.

What is known is that the person and message of Jesus of Nazareth early attracted a following of those who believed him to be a new prophet. Their recollections of his words and deeds, transmitted to posterity through those who eventually composed the Gospels, recall Jesus' days on earth in the light of experiences identified by early Christians with the miracle of his resurrection from the dead on the first Easter. They concluded that what he had shown himself to be by the resurrection, he must have been already when he walked among the inhabitants of Palestine—and, indeed, must have been even before he was born of Mary, in the very being of God from eternity. They drew upon the language of their Scriptures (the Hebrew Bible, which Christians came to call the Old Testament) to give an account of the reality, “ever ancient, ever new,” that they had learned to know as the apostles of Jesus Christ. Believing that it had been his will and command that they should band together in a new community, as the saving remnant of the people of Israel, these Jewish Christians became the first church, in Jerusalem. There it was that they believed themselves to be receiving his promised gift of the Holy Spirit and of a new power.

The Beginnings of the Church

Jerusalem was the center of the Christian movement, at least until its destruction by Roman armies in ad 70, but from this center Christianity radiated to other cities and towns in Palestine and beyond. At first, its appeal was largely, although not completely, confined to the adherents of Judaism, to whom it presented itself as “new,” not in the sense of novel and brand-new, but in the sense of continuing and fulfilling what God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Already in its very beginnings, therefore, Christianity manifested a dual relation to the Jewish faith, a relation of continuity and yet of fulfillment, of antithesis and yet of affirmation. The forced conversions of Jews in the Middle Ages and the history of anti-Semitism (despite official condemnations of both by church leaders) are evidence that the antithesis could easily overshadow the affirmation. The fateful loss of continuity with Judaism has, however, never been total. Above all, the presence of so many elements of Judaism in the Christian Bible has acted to remind Christians that he whom they worshiped as their Lord was himself a Jew, and that the New Testament did not stand on its own but was appended to the Old.

An important source of the alienation of Christianity from its Jewish roots was the change in the membership of the church that took place by the end of the 2nd century (just when, and how, is uncertain). At some point, Christians with Gentile backgrounds began to outnumber Jewish Christians. Clearly, the work of the apostle Paul was influential. Born a Jew, he was deeply involved in the destiny of Judaism, but as a result of his conversion, he believed that he was the “chosen instrument” to bring the message of Christ to the Gentiles. He was the one who formulated, in his Epistles (see Epistle) to several early Christian congregations, many of the ideas and terms that were to constitute the core of Christian belief. He deserves the title of the “first Christian theologian,” and most theologians who came after him based their concepts and systems on his Epistles, now collected and codified in the New Testament.

From these Epistles and from other sources in the first two centuries it is possible to gain some notion of how the early congregations were organized. The Epistles to Timothy and to Titus bearing the name of Paul (although many biblical scholars now find his authorship of these letters implausible) show the beginnings of an organization based on an orderly transmission of leadership from the generation of the first apostles (including Paul himself) to subsequent “bishops,” but the fluid use of such terms as bishop, presbyter, and deacon in the documents precludes identification of a single and uniform policy. By the 3rd century agreement was widespread about the authority of the bishop as the link with the apostles. He was such a link, however, only if in his life and teaching he adhered to the teaching of the apostles as this was laid down in the New Testament and in the “deposit of faith” transmitted by the apostolic churches.

Councils and Creeds

Saint Augustine

Saint Augustine, born in what is now Souk-Ahras, Algeria, in ad 354, brought a systematic method of philosophy to Christian theology. Augustine taught rhetoric in the ancient cities of Carthage, Rome, and Milan before his Christian baptism in 387. His discussions of the knowledge of truth and of the existence of God drew from the Bible and from the philosophers of ancient Greece. A vigorous advocate of Roman Catholicism, Augustine developed many of his doctrines while attempting to resolve theological conflicts with Donatism and Pelagianism, two heretical Christian movements.

THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE

Clarification of this deposit became necessary when interpretations of the Christian message arose that were deemed to be deviations from these norms. The most important deviations, or heresies (see Heresy), had to do with the person of Christ. Some theologians sought to protect his holiness by denying that his humanity was like that of other human beings; others sought to protect the monotheistic faith by making Christ a lesser divine being than God the Father.

In response to both of these tendencies, early creeds began the process of specifying the divine in Christ, both in relation to the divine in the Father and in relation to the human in Christ. The definitive formulations of these relations came in a series of official church councils during the 4th and 5th centuries—notably the one at Nicaea in 325 and the one at Chalcedon in 451—which stated the doctrines of the Trinity and of the two natures of Christ in the form still accepted by most Christians (see Chalcedon, Council of; Nicene Creed). To arrive at these formulations, Christianity had to refine its thought and language, creating in the process a philosophical theology, both in Greek and in Latin, that was to be the dominant intellectual system of Europe for more than a thousand years. The principal architect of Western theology was Saint Augustine of Hippo, whose literary output, including the classic Confessions and The City of God, did more than any other body of writings, except for the Bible itself, to shape that system.

Persecution

First, however, Christianity had to settle its relation to the political order. As a Jewish sect, the primitive Christian church shared the status of Judaism in the Roman Empire, but before the death of Emperor Nero in 68 it had already been singled out as an enemy. The grounds for hostility to the Christians were not always the same, and often opposition and persecution were localized. The loyalty of Christians to “Jesus as Lord,” however, was irreconcilable with the worship of the Roman emperor as “Lord,” and those emperors, such as Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, who were the most deeply committed to unity and reform were also the ones who recognized the Christians as a threat to those goals and who therefore undertook to eliminate the threat. As in the history of other religions, especially Islam, opposition produced the exact contrary of its intended purpose, and, in the epigram of the North African church father Tertullian, the “blood of the martyrs” became the “seed of the church.” By the beginning of the 4th century, Christianity had grown so much in size and in strength that it had to be either eradicated or accepted. Emperor Diocletian tried to do the first and failed; Constantine the Great did the second and created a Christian empire.

Official Acceptance

The conversion of Constantine the Great assured the church a privileged place in society, and it became easier to be a Christian than not to be one. As a result, Christians began to feel that standards of Christian conduct were being lowered and that the only way to obey the moral imperatives of Christ was to flee the world (and the church that was in the world, perhaps even of the world) and to follow the full-time profession of Christian discipline as a monk. From its early beginnings in the Egyptian desert, with the hermit Saint Anthony, Christian monasticism spread to many parts of the Christian empire during the 4th and 5th centuries. Not only in Greek and Latin portions of the empire, but even beyond its eastern borders, far into Asia, Christian monks devoted themselves to prayer, asceticism, and service. They were to become, during the Byzantine and medieval periods, the most powerful single force in the Christianization of nonbelievers, in the renewal of worship and preaching, and (despite the anti-intellectualism that repeatedly asserted itself in their midst) in theology and scholarship. Most Christians today owe their Christianity ultimately to the work of monks.

Eastern Christianity

One of the most influential acts of Constantine the Great was his decision in 330 to move the capital of the empire from Rome to “New Rome,” the city of Byzantium at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. The new capital, Constantinople (now İstanbul), also became the intellectual and religious focus of Eastern Christianity. While Western Christianity became increasingly centralized, a pyramid the apex of which was the pope of Rome (see Papacy), the principal centers of the East—Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria—developed autonomously. The emperor at Constantinople held a special place in the life of the church. It was he, for example, who convoked and presided over the general councils of the church, which were the supreme organ of ecclesiastical legislation in both faith and morals. This special relation between church and state, frequently (but with some oversimplification) called Caesaropapism, fostered a Christian culture in which (as the great Church of the Holy Wisdom at Constantinople, dedicated by Emperor Justinian in 538, attests) the noblest achievements of the entire society blended the elements of Christianity and of classical antiquity in a new synthesis.

At its worst, this culture could mean the subordination of the church to the tyranny of the state. The crisis of the 8th century over the legitimacy of the use of images in Christian churches was also a collision of the church and the imperial power. Emperor Leo III prohibited images, thus precipitating a struggle in which Eastern monks became the principal defenders of the icons. Eventually the icons were restored, and with them a measure of independence for the church (see Iconoclasm). During the 7th and 8th centuries three of the four Eastern centers were captured by the dynamic new faith of Islam, with only Constantinople remaining unconquered. It, too, was often besieged and finally fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The confrontation with the Muslims was not purely military, however. Eastern Christians and the followers of the Prophet Muhammad exerted influence on one another in intellectual, philosophical, scientific, and even theological matters.

The conflict over the images was so intense because it threatened the Eastern church at its most vital point—its liturgy. Eastern Christianity was, and still is, a way of worship and on that basis a way of life and a way of belief. The Greek word orthodoxy, together with its Slavic equivalent pravoslavie, refers to the correct form for giving praise to God, which is finally inseparable from the right way of confessing true doctrine about God and of living in accordance with the will of God. This emphasis gave to Eastern liturgy and theology a quality that Western observers, even in the Middle Ages, would characterize as mystical, a quality enhanced by the strongly Neoplatonic strain in Byzantine philosophy (see Neoplatonism). Eastern monasticism, although often hostile to these philosophical currents of thought, nonetheless practiced its devotional life under the influence of writings of church fathers and theologians, such as Saint Basil of Caesarea, who had absorbed a Christian Hellenism in which many of these emphases were at work.

All these distinctive features of the Christian East—the lack of a centralized authority, the close tie to the Byzantine Empire, the mystical and liturgical tradition, the continuity with Greek language and culture, and the isolation as a consequence of Muslim expansion—contributed also to its increasing alienation from the West, which finally produced the East-West schism. Historians have often dated the schism from 1054, when Rome and Constantinople exchanged excommunications, but much can be said for fixing the date at 1204. In that year, the Western Christian armies on their way to wrest the Holy Land from the hand of the Turks (see Crusades) attacked and ravaged the Christian city of Constantinople. Whatever the date, the separation of East and West has continued into modern times, despite repeated attempts at reconciliation.

Among the points of controversy between Constantinople and Rome was the evangelization of the Slavs, beginning in the 9th century. Although several Slavic tribes—Poles, Moravs, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, and Slovenes—did end up in the orbit of the Western church, the vast majority of Slavic peoples became Christians in the Eastern (Byzantine) church. From its early foundations in Kyiv, Ukraine, this Slavic Orthodoxy permeated Russia, where the features of Eastern Christianity outlined above took firm hold. The autocratic authority of the Muscovite tsar derived some of its sanctions from Byzantine Caesaropapism, and Russian monasticism took over the ascetic and devotional emphases cultivated by the Greek monasteries of Mount Athos. The stress on cultural and ethnic autonomy meant that from its beginnings Slavic Christianity had its own liturgical language (still known as Old Church Slavic, or Slavonic), while it adapted to its uses the architectural and artistic styles imported from the centers of Orthodoxy in Greek-speaking territory. Also in the Eastern church were some of the Balkan Slavs—Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosnians, and Slavic Macedonians; the Bulgars, a Turkic people; Albanians, descendants of the ancient Illyrians; and Romanians, a Romance people. During the centuries-long rule of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans some of the local Christian populations were forced or enticed to embrace Islam, as, for example, some of the Bosnians, some of the Bulgarians, and some of the Albanians.

Western Christianity

Although Eastern Christianity was in many ways the direct heir of the early church, some of the most dynamic development took place in the western part of the Roman Empire. Of the many reasons for this development, two closely related forces deserve particular mention: the growth of the papacy and the migration of the Germanic peoples. When the capital of the empire moved to Constantinople, the most powerful force remaining in Rome was its bishop. The old city, which could trace its Christian faith to the apostles Peter and Paul and which repeatedly acted as arbiter of orthodoxy when other centers, including Constantinople, fell into heresy or schism, was the capital of the Western church. It held this position when the succeeding waves of Germanic tribes, in what used to be called the “barbarian invasions,” swept into Europe. Conversion of the invaders to Catholic Christianity meant at the same time their incorporation into the institution of which the bishop of Rome was the head, as the conversion of the king of the Franks, Clovis I, illustrates. As the political power of Constantinople over its western provinces declined, separate Germanic kingdoms were created, and finally, in 800, an independent Western “Roman empire” was born when Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III.

Medieval Christianity in the West, unlike its Eastern counterpart, was therefore a single entity, or at any rate strove to be one. When a tribe became Christian in the West, it learned Latin and often (as in the case of France and Spain) lost its own language in the process. The language of ancient Rome thus became the liturgical, literary, and scholarly speech of western Europe. Archbishops and abbots, although wielding great power in their own regions, were subordinate to the pope, despite his frequent inability to enforce his claims. Theological controversies occurred during the early centuries of the Middle Ages in the West, but they never assumed the proportions that they did in the East. Nor did Western theology, at least until after the year 1000, acquire the measure of philosophical sophistication evident in the East. The long shadow of Saint Augustine continued to dominate Latin theology, and there was little independent access to the speculations of the ancients.

The image of cooperation between church and state, symbolized by the pope’s coronation of Charlemagne, must not be taken to mean that no conflict existed between the two in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, they clashed repeatedly over the delineation of their respective spheres of authority. The most persistent source of such clashes was the right of the sovereign to appoint bishops in his realm (lay investiture), which brought Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV to a deadlock in 1075. The pope excommunicated the emperor, and the emperor refused to acknowledge Gregory as pope. They were temporarily reconciled when Henry subjected himself in penance to the pope at Canossa in 1077, but the tension continued. A similar issue was at stake in the excommunication of King John of England by Pope Innocent III in 1209, which ended with the king’s submission four years later. The basis of these disputes was the complex involvement of the church in feudal society. Bishops and abbots administered great amounts of land and other wealth and were thus a major economic and political force, over which the king had to exercise some control if he was to assert his authority over his secular nobility. On the other hand, the papacy could not afford to let a national church become the puppet of a political regime.

Church and state did cooperate by closing ranks against a common foe in the Crusades. The Muslim conquest of Jerusalem meant that the holy places associated with the life of Jesus were under the control of a non-Christian power; and even though the reports of interference with Christian pilgrims were often highly exaggerated, the conviction grew that it was the will of God for Christian armies to liberate the Holy Land. Beginning with the First Crusade in 1095, the campaigns of liberation did manage to establish a Latin kingdom and patriarchate in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem returned to Muslim rule a century later and within 200 years the last Christian outpost had fallen. In this sense the Crusades were a failure, or even (in the case of the Fourth Crusade of 1202-1204, mentioned above) a disaster. They did not permanently restore Christian rule to the Holy Land, and they did not unify the West either ecclesiastically or politically.

A more impressive achievement of the medieval church during the period of the Crusades was the development of Scholastic philosophy and theology. Building as always on the foundations of the thought of Saint Augustine, Latin theologians turned their attention to the relation between the knowledge of God attainable by unaided human reason and the knowledge communicated by revelation. Saint Anselm took as his motto “I believe in order that I might understand” and constructed a proof for the existence of God based on the structure of human thought itself (the ontological argument). About the same time, Peter Abelard was examining the contradictions between various strains in the doctrinal tradition of the church, with a view toward developing methods of harmonization. These two tasks dominated the thinking of the 12th and 13th centuries, until the recovery of the lost works of Aristotle made available a set of definitions and distinctions that could be applied to both. The philosophical theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas sought to do justice to the natural knowledge of God while at the same time exalting the revealed knowledge in the gospel, and it wove the disparate parts of the tradition into a unified whole. Together with such contemporaries as Saint Bonaventure, Aquinas represents the intellectual ideal of medieval Christianity.

Even by the time Aquinas died, however, storms were beginning to gather over the Western church. In 1309 the papacy fled from Rome to Avignon, where it remained until 1377 in the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the church. This was followed by the Great Schism, during which there were two (and sometimes even three) claimants to the papal throne. That was not resolved until 1417, but the reunited papacy could not regain control or even respect.

Reformation and Counter Reformation

Reformers of different kinds—including John Wycliffe, Jan Hus (John Huss), and Girolamo Savonarola—denounced the moral laxity and financial corruption that had infected the church “in its members and in its head” and called for radical change. Profound social and political changes were taking place in the West, with the awakening of national consciousness and the increasing strength of the cities in which a new merchant class came into its own. The Protestant Reformation may be seen as the convergence of such forces as the call for reform in the church, the growth of nationalism, and the emergence of the “spirit of capitalism.”

Martin Luther was the catalyst that precipitated the new movement. His personal struggle for religious certainty led him, against his will, to question the medieval system of salvation and the very authority of the church, and his excommunication by Pope Leo X proved to be an irreversible step toward the division of Western Christendom. Nor was the movement confined to Luther’s Germany. Native reform movements in Switzerland found leadership in Huldreich Zwingli and especially in John Calvin, whose Institutes of the Christian Religion became the most influential summary of the new theology. The English Reformation, provoked by the troubles of King Henry VIII, reflected the influence of the Lutheran and then of the Calvinistic reforms, but went its own “middle way,” retaining Catholic elements such as the historic episcopate alongside Protestant elements such as the sole authority of the Bible. The thought of Calvin helped in his native France to create the Huguenot party (see Huguenots), which was fiercely opposed by both church and state, but finally achieved recognition with the Edict of Nantes in 1598 (ultimately revoked in 1685). The more radical Reformation groups, notably the Anabaptists, set themselves against other Protestants as well as against Rome, rejecting such long-established practices as infant baptism and sometimes even such dogmas as the Trinity and denouncing the alliance of church and state. See also Calvinism; Lutheranism; Presbyterianism.

That alliance helped to determine the outcome of the Reformation, which succeeded where it gained the support of the new national states. As a consequence of these ties to the rising national spirit, the Reformation helped to created the literary monuments—especially translations of the Bible—that decisively shaped the language and the spirit of the peoples. It also gave fresh stimulus to biblical preaching and to worship in the vernacular, for which a new hymnody came into being. Because of its emphasis on the participation of all believers in worship and confession, the Reformation developed systems for instruction in doctrine and ethics, especially in the form of catechisms, and an ethic of service in the world.

The Protestant Reformation did not exhaust the spirit of reform within the Roman Catholic Church. In response both to the Protestant challenge and to its own needs, the church summoned the Council of Trent, which continued over the years 1545-1563, giving definitive formulation to doctrines at issue and legislating practical reforms in liturgy, church administration, and education. Responsibility for carrying out the actions of the council fell in considerable measure on the Society of Jesus, formed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola (see Jesuits). The chronological coincidence of the discovery of the New World and the Reformation was seen as a providential opportunity to evangelize those who had never heard the gospel. Trent on the Roman Catholic side and the several confessions of faith on the Protestant side had the effect of making the divisions permanent.

In one respect the divisions were not permanent, for new divisions continued to appear. Historically, the most noteworthy of these were probably the ones that arose in the Church of England. The Puritans objected to the “remnants of popery” in the liturgical and institutional life of Anglicanism and pressed for a further reformation. Because of the Anglican union of throne and altar, this agitation had direct—and, as it turned out, violent—political consequences, climaxing in the English Revolution and the execution of King Charles I in 1649. Puritanism found its most complete expression, both politically and theologically, in North America. The Pietists of the Lutheran and Calvinist churches of Europe usually managed to remain within the establishment as a party instead of forming a separate church, but Pietism shaped the outlook of many among the Continental groups who came to North America. European Pietism also found an echo in England, where it was a significant force in the life and thought of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement (see Methodism).

The Modern Period

Already during the Renaissance and Reformation, but even more in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was evident that Christianity would be obliged to define and to defend itself in response to the rise of modern science and philosophy. That problem made its presence known in all the churches, albeit in different ways. The condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy was eventually to find its Protestant equivalent in the controversies over the implications of the theory of evolution for the biblical account of creation. Against other modern movements, too, Christianity frequently found itself on the defensive. The critical-historical method of studying the Bible, which began in the 17th century, seemed to threaten the authority of Scripture, and the rationalism of the Enlightenment was condemned as a source of religious indifference and anticlericalism (see Biblical Criticism; Enlightenment, Age of). Because of its emphasis on the human capacity to determine human destiny, even democracy could fall under condemnation. The increasing secularization of society removed the control of the church from areas of life, especially education, over which it had once been dominant.

Partly a cause and partly a result of this situation was the fundamental redefinition of the relation between Christianity and the civil order. The granting of religious toleration to minority faiths and then the gradual separation of church and state represented a departure from the system that had, with many variations, held sway since the conversion of Constantine the Great and is, in the opinion of many scholars, the most far-reaching change in the modern history of Christianity. Carried to its logical conclusion, it seemed to many to imply both a reconsideration of how the various groups and traditions calling themselves Christian were related to one another and a reexamination of how all of them taken together were related to other religious traditions. Both of these implications played an even larger role in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The ecumenical movement has been a major force for bringing together, at least toward better understanding and sometimes even toward reunion, Christian denominations that had long been separated. At the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church took important steps toward reconciliation both with the East and with Protestantism. That same council likewise expressed, for the first time in an official forum, a positive appreciation of the genuine spiritual power present in the world religions. A special case is the relation between Christianity and its parent, Judaism; after many centuries of hostility and even persecution, the two faiths have moved toward a closer degree of mutual understanding than at any time since the 1st century.

The reactions of the churches to their changed situation in the modern period have also included an unprecedented increase in theological interest. Such Protestant theologians as Jonathan Edwards and Friedrich Schleiermacher and such Roman Catholic thinkers as Blaise Pascal and John Henry Newman took up the reorientation of the traditional apologias for the faith, drawing upon religious experience as a validation of the reality of the divine. The 19th century was preeminently the time of historical research into the development of Christian ideas and institutions. This research indicated to many that no particular form of doctrine or church structure could claim to be absolute and final, but it also provided other theologians with new resources for reinterpreting the Christian message. Literary investigation of the biblical books, although regarded with suspicion by many conservatives, led to new insights into how the Bible had been composed and assembled. And the study of the liturgy, combined with a recognition that ancient forms did not always make sense to the modern era, stimulated the reform of worship.

The ambivalent relation of the Christian faith to modern culture, evident in all these trends, is discernible also in the role it has played in social and political history. Christians were found on both sides of the 19th-century debates over slavery, and both used biblical arguments. Much of the inspiration for revolutions, from the French to the Russian, was explicitly anti-Christian. Particularly under 20th-century Marxist regimes, Christians were oppressed for their faith, and their traditional beliefs were denounced as reactionary. Nevertheless, the revolutionary faith has frequently drawn from Christian sources. Mohandas K. Gandhi maintained that he was acting in the spirit of Jesus Christ, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the martyred leader of the world movement for civil rights, was a Protestant preacher who strove to make the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount the basis of his political program.

By the last quarter of the 20th century, the missionary movements of the church had carried the Christian faith throughout the world. A characteristic of modern times, however, was the change in leadership of the “daughter” or mission churches. Since World War II (1939-1945) national leaders have increasingly taken over from Westerners in Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant churches in the Third World. The adaptations of native customs pose problems of theology and tradition, as, for example, African polygamists attempt to live Christian family lives. The merger of denominations in churches such as the United Church of Canada may alter the nature of some of the component groups. Thus, change continues to challenge Christianity.

Among Protestants, evangelicalism gained strength during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Evangelicals, including Pentecostals and Fundamentalists, emphasized the authority of the Bible, personal commitment to Jesus, and salvation through faith. On the family and on other social issues, they tended to take a conservative stance. Some questioned the teaching of evolution in schools. Many American Catholics regretted what they saw as their church’s failure to remain relevant in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Concern about a dwindling clergy also grew as the church continued to exclude married priests and women.

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DYING CULTURE

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:27:00 +0000

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THE DYING READING CULTURE

The culture of reading is dying among the youths and this beginning to show even in academic work. Gone are the days young people read best sellers such As Hardly Chase, Mills and Boon, Charles Dickens and Pacesetters etc. today’s youths even find it difficult to read their school textbooks.

This explains why performance in the use of English has continued to slide. This development has dominated the yearly examiner’s report.

The latest examiner’s report on literature-in-English states:”the performance of student is generally poor. Their response expose their lack of understanding of the questions that were asked and this goes to show that many of them did not read the recommended texts. Those who respond to the questions reproduced poorly from short revision notes and key points.”

One of the things responsible for the decline in the last twenty years is the reading habits of students.

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NIGERIAN CULTURE

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:08:00 +0000

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NIGERIAN CULTURE: PATRIOTISM AND PRIDE

On 1st October 1960, the founding fathers of Nigeria looked forward to a great country we could all be proud of.

Nigeria, as a nation, has change drastically from the simple, comfortable and manageable entity it was to a more complex, sophisticated, and difficult polity to govern.

We can count our blessings in term of socio-political, economic and infrastructural developments and say that we have not done badly compared to many countries in Africa and other third world countries; after all, Rome was not built in a day.

While some Europeans countries can count the duration of time in which their countries developed in thousands of years, other developed countries can count theirs in century.

Nigeria, as a nation is just five decades, a short time in cosmic time scale to call it as failed nation or score as successful nation according to international standards.

There is nothing happening in Nigeria that does not happen in other countries in the world. It was Gustave Flaubert who once remarked that: “our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.”

Most grown up Nigerians today are very good at making uncomplementary and irresponsible remarks about the state of nation as if we have another country under the sun we can proudly call our own.

The younger generation of Nigerians have join the bandwagon, since they are heirs of a “narrative of the lie” that sees nothing good about Nigeria to commend but evil to condemn.

Matthew Kelly makes a timeless statement when he asserts that: “if you wish to poison a nation, poison the stories that nation listens to.” and we relish telling and re-telling our poisoned national stories.

A thief that has no opportunity to steal will count himself virtuous and most of those who cast aspersions on our political religious leaders will do worst things if entrusted with positions of leadership.

What we need more now than ever before is patriotism and authentic national pride. We must be patriotic by thinking positively and telling uncontaminated stories about our dear country, Nigeria.

One is not advocating blind patriotism that sees nothing wrong in Nigeria. It would be naïve and infertile to think all is well with our nation and people. On the other hand, it would be chronic amnesia to think we have nothing to be proud of as a nation.

As bad as those outside Nigeria think the country is, one is yet to see a Nigerian law graduate working as a security guard in court room. It is not common to find a graduate of geology working as a petrol station attendant. It is unthinkable to find a qualified medical doctor working as a public bus driver; we have enough hospital to absorb the work force. It is an oddity to find a catholic priest or an imam working as hotel bar attendant or dish washer in other to earn a living.

Notably, the same situation is obtainable in other countries in the world. No country will subject its crop of trained professionals to ridicule.

Regrettably, many Nigerian professionals are content to settle for anything outside the shores of Nigeria in other to earn a living which back home they cannot get involved in without suffering the loss of self esteem and deserved personal human dignity.

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ALCOHOL

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

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HEALTH: NEGATIVE EFFECT OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

The most common habits among people today is alcohol consumption. Many people and most especially, men, has even seen it as part of their social life. Though, we are all entitled to our privacy, social life, enjoyment or relaxation, but it is important to point out certain risks and hazards associated with some habits especially alcoholism in other to live a healthy life.

There are some habits which may not manifest any symptoms now, but which cumulative effects may pose serious danger to our health and longetivity as well as creating serious problems for us later in life. One of such habit is alcohol consumption.

Alcohol of any form, it should be noted, places an added strain on the kidneys and liver especially during pregnancy for women who take it. Even beer contains enough alcohol to affect both mother and baby.

The problem of alcohol consumption today among the youths today is becoming disturbing and a major threat to public health as many teenagers are already alcoholics because of modernization and loss of moral and cultural values being the major factor even before the time they reach adulthood.

Also parental influence, since many parents are alcoholics, thus directly or indirectly, they are influencing and encouraging their children to copy this unhealthy habit without having regard for the later years implication on their health. In fact, a very large number of traffic/road accidents are said to be due to alcohol. Some alcoholics drink now or less steadily, while others drink when under stress, tension or anxiety.

Some people drink excessively and destroy themselves rapidly. Others drink more moderately, but the fact is the process of self-destruction is still on course.

Many fatal accidents are traceable to alcohol consumption on the drivers/riders. However, unknown to others, alcohol exacts a heavy price on personal health, promotes high blood pressure and a toxic direct effect on heart muscles.

Alcohol is linked with virtually every negative aspect of the society. This include suicide, violence, crime, rape, birth defects, industrial accident, domestic and sexual abuse and even death. Children of alcoholic parents are often academically deficient or dull. Even the wise man in the bible summed it up long ago when he said,”wine is a mocker and beer a brawler, whoever is led astray by them is not wise.” Also in proverbs, it says, “do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will strange sights and your mind will imagine confusing things.”

Medically, alcohol is a social menace. On how it affects the body, medical practitioners explained that alcohol in small amount causes an irreplaceable damage in the brain cell. Some people may die if the condition is severe. Alcohol also increases the risk of hypertension, stroke and also does extensive damage to the heart muscles. It also depresses respiratory functions, thus affecting smooth breathing. An alcoholic also has a greater tendency to snore.

The effects of alcohol on reproductive system are better imagined than experienced. In men for instance, alcohol can damage the cells of the testes making such man to be impotent. Sterility and possibly enlarged breasts can also happen in alcoholics. Alcohol can cause irregular menstrual cycles in women and lead to malfunctioning of the ovaries.

The effects of alcohol on liver should be avoided. This is because liver is the main target of alcohol because this important organ filters alcohol from the blood. Excess calories in alcohol are stored as fat in the liver, therefore functioning liver cells are affected with many of them dying as a result of alcoholic poisoning. Liver cirrhosis hepatic cirrhosis is the peak of alcohol negative effect on the liver. This occurs when scar tissues replace dead cells thus causing liver cirrhosis.

The body immune system is not also spared from the attack of alcohol. It weakens the body defense mechanism against infection and opens the door for breast cancer. Alcohol also produces gastritis or inflammation of the stomach. Its effect in the brain is even more marked large quantities of alcohol in the body will produce a serious condition known as wet brain. This occurs when there is marked swelling and congestion in the tissues covering the brain so that the normal power of the coordination can no longer work well.

Alcohol also makes the heart to become weak and flabby, making it not to function properly. Alcohol also produces what is called marked paranoid reactions in some people. This makes such people to take revenge on others around them especially those that have offended them before. Some people may even attempt suicide to escape the accusing voices that may result from impaired functions of the brain.

People who drink alcohol may suffer from personality problems or inferiority complex. The person’s personality may deteriorate to the extent that he/she becomes shiftless, lazy, undependable, unreliable, disappointing and unintelligent.

Finally, from all the above negative effects and reasons, it is evident why you should avoid alcohol. If you want to increase your endurance, slow down the aging clock, lower cholesterol, reverse heart diseases, avoid diabetes, cancer, liver cirrhosis, avoid high blood pressure and live longer, then you indeed avoid ALCOHOL.

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Religion in Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:51:00 +0000

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CULTURE: RELIGION IN AFRICA→NIGERIA→YORUBA

One has live to understand life and know the real tradition of one’s ancestors. Yorubas traditional culture differs from other foreign religions such as Christianity and Islam. This foreign religions believe and branded Yorubas culture as satanic and fetish tradition.

In fact, Yoruba traditional religion has no uniformity of worship because they have many divine gods and each god has its own peculiar character. Some of these gods statue are placed in the boundary of the town or in houses and many on streets. Even a human being who has performed many miracles before is kept in the room and is worshipped as deity. They really had the belief that these gods have more powers than the beings. Some of these gods are offered sacrifices such as goats, palm wine, red palm oil, cola nut, some with roasted yams and some even with human beings, all according to the disparity in the methods of worship by their devotees.

The gods serve as a mediator between the humans and the Supreme Being, according to the indigenous believe of the Yorubas. They serve the will of Olodumare in the creation and in the government of the world, according to what “IFA” ordered.

In the ancient days in Africa, especially in Yoruba land, many miracles were performed with the knowledge Olodumare gave human beings. Before the Yorubas will go for any war, many sacrifices would be make to make sure they would win under the judgment of “EJI OGBE” who was the father of “IFA”. Many charms would be giving to the soldiers so that on getting there whenever they were shot the bullet won’t have any effect on them nor would it harm them, another head would grow to replace a head cut by the enemy.

More so, many sacrifices were made to these gods to bring peace to town and there will be peace. Ordinary word of the mouth prevented many evil happenings.

Yorubas also believe in life after death, i.e. they believe that if anyone died, he/she will soon come back to the world and he will be reborn in the formal family by his own son or daughter. Traditional religion plays important role in the life of the Yorubas, and with little reservation I say the same situation operates around all over the world.

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LIFE

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:42:00 +0000

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LIFE: ‘WE LIVE IN DEEDS’ NOT IN YEARS

What is better than living a useful and eventful life? The answer is, “everyday experience shows that a living person is either famous or notorious. When he dies nothing remains of him but his work.” Good reputation can never be earned by living an anti-social and inactive life, but you reputed either for gallantry in war or being a genius in certain fields.

It is not the number of years that one spends in one’s life that matters, but what one achieves. Life is not measured by the number of years spent but by the achievements made. Methuselah lived for over nine hundred years and he achieve nothing except that he begat somebody. Jesus Christ lived for only thirty-three years and rocked the whole world by his teachings and kindness to humanity. This is evidenced by Kinsley’s words which run thus “better to die in the flower of youths, on the chance of winning a noble name than live at ease like the sheep and died unloved and unrenowned.” Little beginnings lead to great ends. Please, start from now to aim high. If you are working assiduously, never shirking your duty, you are sure to achieve your aims. Always remember that “Rome was not built in a day”; Shakespeare did not all of a sudden rise to prominence. He started working doggedly and his name remains in decibel in the history of the world’s greatest men.

There is enough truth in Shakespeare, his word which run thus, “evils that men do live after them.” This clearly shows that whatever you do either good or bad, it would be said of after death. Let everyone of us try to do things that would not incur us bad reputation in the future. A good example of an African who aimed for himself a good reputation is Mr. Kwegyri J.K. Aggrey, a Ghanaian. He because of his love for Africa and by proving to be proud of his black colour had a title of “AGGREY OF AFRICA” conferred on him.

Live for good names so that after death good deeds would be encrypting on our graves.

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Christian festival

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:56:00 +0000

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THE MAJOR CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS

Christianity is one of the most common known types of religion. Christianity as worldly known is rich in different festival; in fact it holds one of the most common festivals of the year. Some of these festivals are:

CHRISTMAS DAY This festival engulfs the Celebration of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem; Christians meet for worship, often at midnight, when the events are retold through words, music, drama, and pictures. This event usually takes place on December 25.

EPIPHANY Celebrates the arrival of the three wise men from the east who came looking for a newborn king and were led by a bright star to Bethlehem; they brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It usually comes after Christmas, which means it holds on January 6.

ASH WEDNESDAY In many churches, most especially catholic, people come forward to be marked with ashes, an ancient symbol of sorrow and repentance; Lent is a time of reflection and fasting which recalls the 40 days Jesus spent fasting and praying in the desert. It usually celebrated at start of Lent (six weeks before Easter) (February/March)

PALM SUNDAY Christians recall Jesus' entry into Jerusalem during the last week of his life, when he was welcomed by people waving palm fronds; other important days of Holy Week are Maundy Thursday, when Jesus shared the last supper with his disciples, and Good Friday, when he was crucified. In some churches they hold palm fronds in their hands when they move around their surroundings to make people know what’s happening. It begins at start of Holy Week (one week before Easter) (March/April

EASTER SUNDAY

Time of rejoicing that recalls the disciples' discovery that Jesus was alive, and that he had been resurrected; many churches keep a vigil throughout Saturday night so that they can greet Easter Day with services, family meals, and the exchange of flowers and eggs. Between March 23 and April 24 in the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

ASCENTION DAY

This day commemorates the disciples witnessing Jesus being lifted up to heaven 40 days after Easter Day. 40 days after Easter (May/June).

PENTICOST OR WHITSUN

When Jesus left his disciples for the last time after his resurrection, he promised them a 'comforter' who would be with them forever; Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples seventh Sunday after Easter (May/June).

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noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:57:00 +0000

hostgator coupon code CULTURE is the way of LIFE, POLITICS formulate policies and HEALTH determines the overall condiction of LIFE.

POLITICAL THEORIES

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:25:00 +0000

hostgator coupon code Political Theory, subdivision of political science traditionally concerned with the body of ideas expressed by political philosophers who have asked not only how politics work but how they should work. These philosophers have been concerned with the nature and justification of political obligation and authority and the goals of political action. Although their prescriptions have varied, and some have been utopian in concept, they have shared the conviction that it is the political philosopher's duty to distinguish between what is and what ought to be, between existing political institutions and potentially more humane institutions. The term political theory, in the past century, has come to be used as well to denote descriptive, explanatory, and predictive generalizations about political behavior regardless of the morality involved. This approach is more concerned with mathematical, statistical, and quantifiable techniques than with normative concerns.

II. THE STATE

Plato

In The Republic Plato wrote that the ideal society should be comprised of three classes—philosopher kings, military men, and merchants. People's membership in a class would depend on their education: Those who had completed the highest level of education would make the wisest decisions and thus should be the rulers of society.

SEF/Art Resource, NY

The central concern of political theorists throughout history has been the theory of the state. Plato contributed to the founding of this theory in his discourse the Republic, which attempted to reconcile moral theory and political practice by projecting a community in which property was to be owned in common and which was to be governed by an aristocracy of philosopher-kings who would train the young. Such doctrines, in highly distorted form, have been used in modern times as the basis of the system of government known as totalitarianism, which, in contrast to democracy, asserts the supremacy of the state over the individual. A variant of this system, known as absolutism, vests the ruling power in a limited number of persons or in institutions, such as a priesthood, supporting certain fixed and generally immutable principles.

GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE

From Plato's Republic

What is the nature of knowledge? And of ignorance? The 4th-century-bc Greek philosopher Plato used the myth, or allegory, of the cave to illustrate the difference between genuine knowledge and opinion or belief. This distinction is at the heart of one of Plato’s most important works, The Republic. In the first part of the myth of the cave, excerpted here, Plato constructs a dialogue in which he considers the difficult transition from belief based on appearances to true understanding founded in reality.

Aristotle is generally regarded as the founder of the scientific approach to political theory. His Politics, which classified governments as monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies, according to their control by one person, a select few, or many persons, successfully combined an empirical investigation of the facts and a critical inquiry into their ideal possibilities, thus providing a challenging model of political studies.

III. CHURCH AND STATE

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian statesman and writer, is considered one of the most significant political thinkers of the Renaissance. His best-known work, The Prince, describes cunning and unscrupulous methods for rulers to gain and keep power.

Hulton Deutsch

Important shifts of emphasis have usually been related to the challenges of concrete historical and social problems. In the Middle Ages, for example, much political writing dealt with the outstanding political issue of the time, the protracted struggle for supremacy between the Roman Catholic church and the Holy Roman Empire. The Italian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas defended the role of the church in his Summa Theologica (1265-73), while Dante argued in De Monarchia (On Monarchy, c. 1313) for a united Christendom under emperor and pope, each supreme in his appropriate sphere. In The Prince (1532) the Italian statesman Niccolò Machiavelli transcended the traditional church-state debate by realistically evaluating the problems and possibilities of governments seeking to maintain power.

IV. THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

Sir Isaiah Berlin

Alexis de Tocqueville

Thomas Hobbes

British political philosopher Isaiah Berlin is best known as a proponent of secular liberalism. In his book Four Essays on Liberty, Berlin advocates “negative” liberty—that is, freedom from restrictions on the individual.

Alexis de Tocqueville

French historian, political theorist, and author Alexis de Tocqueville became famous for his compelling analysis of American democracy. While traveling through the United States in the early 1830s, Tocqueville recorded observations of American society, which he compiled in the book Democracy in America (1835-1840). A liberal, Tocqueville believed in the concept of democracy, but worried that the will of the masses might stifle individual freedoms.

Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

Thomas Hobbes

English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes is best known for his treatise Leviathan. Written during the mid-17th century amidst the tumult of the English Revolution, Leviathan outlines Hobbes’s theory of sovereignty (political authority

Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes also stressed governmental power. His major work, Leviathan (1651), argued that the sovereign's power should be unlimited, because the state originated in a so-called social contract, whereby individuals accept a common superior power to protect themselves from their own brutish instincts and to make possible the satisfaction of certain human desires. Another 17th-century English philosopher, John Locke, accepted much of Hobbes's social-contract theory but argued that sovereignty resided in the people for whom governments were trustees and that such governments could be legitimately overthrown if they failed to discharge their functions to the people.

GREAT WORKS OF LITERATURE

From Second Treatise on Government

English philosopher John Locke anonymously published his Treatises on Government (1690) the same year as his famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In the Second Treatise, Locke described his concept of a “civil government.” Locke excluded absolute monarchy from his definition of civil society, because he believed that the people must consent to be ruled. This argument later influenced the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The ideals and rhetoric of Locke later contributed to the establishment of the United States through their expression in the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist, two major documents of the American Revolution. Important contributions to republican and democratic ideals were also made by the French philosophers Jean Jacques Rousseau, who expressed ideas similar to those of Locke, and the Baron de Montesquieu, who proposed a separation of governmental powers in prerevolutionary 18th-century France similar to that later embodied in the U.S. Constitution. The political theories of Locke and the early Americans, constituting the attitude generally known as liberalism, were further refined by the 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill.

From Utilitarianism

English philosopher-economist John Stuart Mill was one of the most important thinkers of the 19th century. The son of English philosopher James Mill, he refined and elaborated on the work of his father and of English philosopher-economist Jeremy Bentham in his book Utilitarianism (1863). Utilitarian philosophers argued that all decisions could be made according to the principal of the greatest “utility,” or benefit, to the greatest number of people. In this section from the end of the work, Mill discussed the issue of criminal punishment and examined how it related to concepts of justice and fairness and to the doctrine of utility.

V. MARXISM AND OTHER FORMS OF TOTALITARIANISM

Karl Marx

Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, defined communism. Their most famous work was the Communist Manifesto (1848), in which they argued that the working class should rebel and build a Communist society.

Karl Marx was in many respects the most influential political theorist of the 19th century. He sought to combine factual analysis and political prescription in a thorough survey of the modern economic system. Arguing that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” and that liberal governments and ideology were merely agents of the exploiting owners of property, Marx advocated the abolition of private property and predicted the demise of capitalism after a series of recurring crises. The abolition of property, and therefore of class exploitation, would make possible a situation in which individuals would contribute according to their abilities and take according to their needs. The state, following a transitional period in which the working class would rule, would eventually wither away. In the 20th century, Marxism has been the subject of conflicting interpretations. It served as the official ideology of a number of totalitarian states, and it was also the inspirational credo of many revolutionary and nationalist movements throughout the world (see Communism; Socialism.

Louis Althusser

French philosopher Louis Althusser challenged prevailing interpretations of the works of German political philosopher Karl Marx. Althusser was the most influential Marxist theorist in the West during the 1970s.

Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

Another type of political theory, also constituting a form of totalitarianism, emerged after World War I in the political movements known as fascism and National Socialism. Both asserted, in varying degrees, the doctrine of the total supremacy of the state and justified the use of force to achieve political ends.

HEALTH

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:39:00 +0000

ANXIETY DISORDER

Anxiety and worry is part and parcel of human existence and that could be dated back to the creation of man in the bible. But anxiety would become a thing of concern when it begins to interfere with ones daily activities. Generalized Anxiety Disorder also known as GAD is associated with much worry and anxiety about our daily life event without any serious reason. People with such problems always expect disasters and also worry about health and other things about life. The type of worry of people with anxiety is mostly unrealistic and out of control compared to the problem at hand. For them everything is a sign of constant worry of fear and catastrophe and it interferes with their daily life situations such as work, school, social life and relationships.

SYMPTOMS OF ANXIETY

· Excess worry and tension

· Unrealistic view of problems

· Irritability

· Restlessness

· Muscle tension

· Headaches

· Sweating

· Problems with concentration or assimilation

· Feeling of vomiting

· Feeling of going to bathroom frequently

· Fatigue

· Difficulty falling asleep trembling

· Getting angry easily.

CAUSES OF ANXIETY

Genetic Makeup: research suggests that family history may play a very vital role in inheriting anxiety as it can be passed from generation to generation. Parents with serious anxiety problems could passed it on to generations yet unborn.

Brain Chemistry: anxiety has been associated with abnormal level of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. These are chemical messengers in the brain that help move information from nerve cell to nerve cell. If neurotransmitters are out of balance information cannot get through to the brain properly. This can alter the way the brain reacts in some situations and then leading to anxiety.

Environmental Factors: stressful and traumatic events such as death of a loved one, lost of job, school, and divorce may lead to anxiety.

Substance Abuse: the use of or sudden withdraw from addictive substance such as alcohol, caffeine, nicotine can worsen anxiety.

HOW ANXIETY IS TREATED

If there is no physical medical problem observed by the medical doctor, the persons concerned will have to be referred to a psychiatrist, psychologist or mental health expert who are trained in anxiety related issues and then treated accordingly. The treatment for anxiety is a combination of medication and psychotherapy that can also be called psycho-pharmacological treatment. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT is one of the most common psychotherapy widely acclaimed.

1. Medication is useful for those whose anxiety interferes with their daily activities. Otherwise psychotherapy would be sufficient. The medications that could be used in treating anxiety on the short term is from the group of medication called benzodiazepines and they are also called tranquilizers which makes people calm and relaxed. These medications work by decreasing the physical symptom of anxiety such as muscle tensions and restlessness. The common benzodiazepines are VALIUM, LIBRIUM, XANAK, ATIVAN etc. Antidepressant s like ZOLOFT, PAXIL, EFFEXOR, PROZAC, LEXAPRO and the other like. These antidepressants are more appropriate for long term treatment of anxiety.

2. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used for people suffering from any kind of anxiety disorder in which they learn to change and recognize thought patterns and behaviors that lead to anxiety. This therapy looks at distorted thinking that leads to worries and help them look at situations realistically.

3. Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and other exercises could be of help in reducing anxiety related problems.

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HISTORY OF YORUBAS

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:27:00 +0000

THE HISTORY OF THE YORUBAS FROM ODUDUWA

Part of the people that dwell in Nigeria and that have the most prominent cultures is the yorubas. The African peoples who lived in Yorubaland, at least by the seventh century BC, were not initially known as the Yoruba, although they shared a common ethnicity and language group. Both archeology and traditional Yoruba oral historians confirm the existence of people in this region for several millennia. Yoruba spiritual heritage maintains that the Yoruba ethnic groups are a unique people who originally settled at Ile-Ife. Legend holds that Oduduwa created the world at this place by delegation from the high god, Olodumare. The name "Yoruba" is an adaptation of "euroba" (arabism). Yoruba civilization remains one of the most technologically and artistically advanced in West Africa to this time.

Some contemporary historians contend that the leading Yoruba are not indigenous to Yorubaland, but are descendants of immigrants from the ancient Near East to the region. According to the dynastic tradition of Oyo, the people left Mecca, under whose leadership of Oduduwa and reached Yorubaland towards 600 BCE where they established the kingdom of Ife.^[1] Oduduwa's relatives established kingdoms in the rest of Yorubaland. One of Oduduwa's sons, Oranmiyan, took the throne of Benin and expanded the Oduduwa Dynasty eastwards. Further expansion led to the establishment of the Yoruba in what are now Southwest Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, with Yoruba city-states acknowledging the spiritual heritage primacy of the ancient city of Ile Ife. The southeastern Benin Empire, ruled by a dynasty that traced its ancestry to Ifẹ and Oduduwa but largely populated by the Edo and other related ethnicities, also held considerable sway in the election of nobles and kings in eastern Yorùbáland.

Yoruba origin mythology

The mythology of the origin of the Yoruba, who refer to themselves as "Omo O'odua" (Children of Oduduwa), revolves around the mythical figure of Oduduwa or Odudua . The meaning of the name may be translated as "the spiritual one ("O/Ohun") who created the knowledge ("odu") of character ("iwa")." Many Yoruba believe in one God, Olodumare, but also believe that the only way to reach Him is through the divinities.

Some say that the making of land is a symbolic reference to the founding of the Yoruba kingdoms and that this is why Oduduwa is credited with the achievement.^[2]

Recently, historians have attributed this cosmological mythology to a pre-existing civilization at Ilė-Ifę which was invaded by a militant immigrants from the east, led by a king named Oduduwa. Oduduwa and his group had been persecuted on the basis of religious differences and forced out of their homeland. They came to Ilé-Ifè where they came across Oreluere and his people. Other informants are convinced that Oduduwa and his followers were believed to have subjugated the pre-existing Igbo whom local informants relate to the present Igbo people, though this claim has not been supported by competent historians.

After Oduduwa

Main article: Oduduwa

Upon the "disapearing act" of Oduduwa, there was a dispersal of his children from Ilé-Ifè to found other kingdoms (Owu, Ketu, Benin, Ila, Sabe, Popo, Awori, (Ondo) and Oyo). Each making a mark in the subsequent urbanization and consolidation of Yoruba confederacy of kingdoms, with each kingdom tracing its origin to Ile-Ife.^[3]

Golden age

Between 1100 CE and 1700 CE, the Yoruba Kingdom of Ife experienced a golden age. It was then surpassed by the Oyo Empire as the dominant Yoruba military and political power between 1600 CE and 1800 CE. The nearby splinter Yoruba kingdom of Benin was also a powerful force between 1300 and 1850 CE.

Most of the city states were controlled by Obas (elected monarchs) and councils made up of Oloyes, recognised leaders of royal, noble and, often, even common descent, who joined them in ruling over the kingdoms through a series of guilds and cults. Different states saw differing ratios of power between the kingship and the chiefs' council. Some such as Oyo had powerful, autocratic monarchs with almost total control, while in others such as the Ijebu city-states, the senatorial councils were supreme and the Ọba served as something of a figurehead.

In all cases, however, Yoruba monarchs were subject to the continuing approval of their constituents as a matter of policy, and could be easily compelled to abdicate for demonstrating dictatorial tendencies or incompetence. The order to vacate the throne was usually communicated through an aroko or symbolic message, of parrots' eggs delivered in a covered calabash bowl by the senators.

Modern history

The Yoruba eventually established a federation of city-states under the political ascendancy of the city state of Oyo, located on the Northern fringes of Yorubaland in the savanna plains between the forests of present Southwest Nigeria and the Niger River.

Following a Jihad led by Uthman Dan Fodio and a rapid consolidation of the Hausa city states of contemporary northern Nigeria, the Fulani Sokoto Caliphate invaded and annexed the buffer Nupe Kingdom and began to advance southwards into Ọyọ lands. Shortly afterwards, they overran the Yoruba city of Ilorin and then sacked and destroyed Ọyọ-Ile, the capital city of the Ọyọ Empire.

Following this, Ọyọ-Ile was abandoned and the Ọyọ retreated south to the present city of Oyo (formerly "Ago d'Oyo", or "Oyo Atiba") in a forested region where the cavalry of the Sokoto Caliphate was less effective. Further attempts by the Sokoto Caliphate to expand southwards were checked by the Yoruba who had rallied in defence under the military leadership of the City State of Ibadan which rose from the old Oyo Empire, and of the Ijebu city-states. However, the Oyo hegemony had been dealt a mortal blow. The other Yoruba city-states broke free of Oyo dominance, and subsequently became embroiled in a series of internecine conflicts. These wars weakened the southern Yorubas in their resistance to British colonial and military invasions. In 1960, greater Yorubaland was subsumed into the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The historical records of the Yoruba, which became more accessible in the nineteenth century with the more permanent arrival of the Europeans, tell of heavy Jihad raids by the mounted Fulani warriors of the north as well as of endemic intercity warfare amongst the Yoruba themselves. Archaeological evidence of the greatness of their ancient civilization in the form of, amongst other things, extensive city fortifications that are centuries old, nevertheless abound.^[4]

ETYMOLOGY

During the 19th century, the term Yoruba or Yariba came into wider use, first confined to the Ọyọ. The term is often believed to be derived from a Hausa ethnonym for the populous people to their south, but this has not been substantiated by historians.

As an ethnic description, the word first appeared in a treatise written by the Songhai scholar Ahmed Baba (16th century) and is likely to derive from the indigenous ethnonyms Ọyọ (Oyo) or Yagba, two Yoruba-speaking groups along the northern borders of their territory. However, it is likely that the ethnonym was popularized by Hausa usage and ethnography written in Arabic and Ajami. Under the influence of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a Yoruba clergyman, subsequent missionaries extended the term to include all speakers of related dialects.

Before the abolition of the slave trade, some Yoruba groups were known among Europeans as Akú, a name derived from the first words of Yoruba greetings such as Ẹ kú àárọ? ‘good morning’and Ẹ kú alẹ? ‘good evening.

HURT, BITTERNESS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:16:00 +0000

HURT, BITTERNESS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS: RELATIVELY TO MENTAL HEALTH

HURT is one of the major problems that people face every day. Hurt is something or someone that causes mental or emotional pain or distress. Hurt can cause bitterness and bitterness can cause hurt as the case may be. Hurt causes bitterness and it can be traced from time immemorial even in the Bible as Cain felt hurt because his brother Abel’s offering was accepted and his was rejected in the book of GENESIS 4. Therefore it can be said that hurt can cause bitterness and lead to disappointments in whoever is responsible for the hurt. It is normal to be hurt, feel bitter and disappointed but the way an individual will handle the hurt is what really matters. According to Epictetus the philosopher who said, “what happen to us do not cause distress but it is how we take it that causes distress”.

Hurt, bitterness and disappointments can cause us distress if care is not taken it can affect our emotional and mental health stability negatively. Through our automatic thought or maladaptive thinking, we can translate hurt, bitterness and disappointment into some behavioral personality disorders. It can lead one to become collo-mental as it said; madness.

Bitterness could be called the seed of sadness and sorrow. Bitterness could be resentful and it is a state of intense hatred which is characterized by distress and lead to avoidance form of behavior. One of the bad things about bitterness is that it doesn’t stop… It keeps getting worse. It may only start as a little seed of hurt, but then it grows and festers into a very dangerous thing. “see to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many may be defiled. “(Heb. 12:15) Question: Does bitterness just hurt the person who is bitter? Answer: No. the Bible says many people can be hurt by one person’s bitterness.

Disappointments can be cause by person or persons who fail to fulfill certain hopes, then comes hurt as a result of failure and bitterness in the form of hatred comes in. hurt, bitterness and disappointments are actions that touch our emotions and they must be handled well when they are experienced at any point in time. And because all this three but complementary words are that which touches our emotion, we not dwell too much on them when it happens. We can show our grievances or anger when we are hurt but life must move on as they necessary distractions on our way. A hurt person is bitter and disappointed at whatever actions or decisions that makes him or her sad.

ness is that it doesn’t stop… It keeps getting worse. It may only start as a little seed of hurt, but then it grows and festers into a very dangerous thing. “see to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many may be defiled. “(Heb. 12:15) Question: Does bitterness just hurt the person who is bitter? Answer: No. the Bible says many people can be hurt by one person’s bitterness.

Part of people cultures is religion.

noreply@blogger.com (Omotoso Michael) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:01:00 +0000

One of the most popular religion in the world is christianity and the most knows church is catholic. LEARN MORE BY DOWNLOADING THIS STUFFS