Analysis

She donated a kidney to a stranger without expecting anything in return. This is the story of a graphic artist whose sole motivation was altruism. Such cases have led researchers to question whether altruism might be an inherent trait in the human brain.

“Influencers pay double.” With this message, Joe Nichhi, the owner of a small ice cream business, tried to deter self-proclaimed celebrities who would ask him to give them free ice cream in exchange for “exposure” on their social media platforms. But he succeeded more than that. Nicchi has become an international symbol of disgust with “insta-begging.”

I was a young student looking for a good paying job to support my family and my studies. On that day, I found myself in the head nurse’s office at the nearby nursing home for the elderly.

What we think about ourselves, over time, becomes our reality. This is a good enough reason to identify thinking errors left running in the background and to seek out strategies for healthier thinking.

Atheists frequently invoke the theory that in the Middle Ages, Christians (not just lay people, but even church leaders) believed in the myth of the flat Earth.

"Once upon a time, there was a princess as beautiful and kind as a fairy. She was an only child and her parents loved her dearly and did everything for her. When she grew up, they gave her a magnificent wedding to the brave man she had chosen, a handsome and virtuous fellow. After a while, misfortune struck: not a day would pass...

Over the last few decades, the picture of family life has undergone dramatic changes. The pervasiveness and normalization of divorce are just two of these changes.

Self-sacrifice—the ability of some people to put the lives of others above their own—is not at all easy to understand.

For some people, suffering is temporary. For others, life itself can be a long series of painful blows. However, experience shows that recovery is possible even when people seem to be at the end of their tether.

I once invited the cashier at my local 7-Eleven petrol station to join me and my friends on a beach couch made of sand to eat hotdogs after his shift. To our surprise, he not only came but continued to join us for months after.

Virtually every civilization has been characterised by religious beliefs about the end of all things, not least about the timing and the conditions that precede the end, and signs of its imminence. There are many differences between these beliefs across civilisations, but many similarities too.

Studies indicate that most people experience at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, whether physical or psychological.

Richard Dawkins is arguably the world’s best-known atheist. His 2006 book The God Delusion was a runaway success and widely influential. That’s why theologian Alister McGrath was surprised when a young man told him he became a Christian after reading The God Delusion.

Born into a family of surfers, one could say the love of the salty ocean air courses through the veins of his body. Named after legendary surfer Derek Ho, even his name embodies the hopes and expectations of what he was to become.

The wind is blowing and it is snowing at the Siret Customs Point. Refugee groups stream by, women with children clinging to them, and the words of a little girl from another war, concluded almost eight decades ago, keep running through my mind: “And this was imprinted in my mind, that when my father is not home, it is war.”