Analysis

When we want to position ourselves for or against voluntary euthanasia, we must first be aware that, in addition to the subjective dimension of the issue, there are also important objective aspects to consider.

Poverty and laughter don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. People who are worried about where their next meal will come from or where their children will sleep that night find it hard to wear smiles.

Cremation has been part of the death rituals of various cultures since prehistoric times, but with the advent and spread of Christianity, cremation began to be used less and less. Most Christian denominations see it as a taboo. Let's discover why.

In a dilapidated shack in Nairobi, a young woman makes her confession to the BBC reporter eager to hear her story: “I don’t know why God allows some people to be poor while others are rich.”

Even if we have not been to Eden, the longing for innocence draws us back to a time when we had not yet tasted the forbidden fruit.

I just got back from the funeral of a fifty-four-year-old mother who left behind a grieving teenager. His father told how the boy wanted to ask his mother for forgiveness, on her deathbed, for all the stubbornness typical of a seventeen-year-old. He was already forgiven.

In the book Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg presents familiar and hidden nuances of a love that emerges revealingly from chapter to chapter, using lived out stories and biblical episodes, as well as familiar illustrations from literature.

For some people, being vegan is part of their lifestyle, but others cannot conceive of missing out on dairy products, meat or eggs. This could be explained by several myths that revolve around these diets.

It was terrifying. They kept trying to comfort me by telling me they had the best surgeons. But they also said that I needed a new liver and that my body might reject it. – Christopher Herrera

After 27 years of marriage, billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates publicly announced their divorce in May, sending shockwaves across the globe.

Women work an average of 68 hours per week, while men work 55 hours—a total that includes both professional commitments and household responsibilities. This was the conclusion of a 2007 study conducted by sociologists at the University of Cambridge across European Union countries.

For Carl Sagan, renowned astronomer and militant atheist, God's place in the universe was certain: "The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be." For Richard Dawkins, exponent of the "new wave" of atheism, true science is necessarily atheistic and materialistic. This paradigm dominates the scientific world today.

I generally don’t like going to funerals, but they come in many different forms and feels. Some seem sadder than others; some feel more hopeful. But often there’s an unexpected bittersweetness. We are all there because of something good—the life, love and relationship that we are there to remember and honour—that has come to a tragic end, always too soon.

A famine of biblical scale is already looming on the horizon, says David Beasley, director of the World Food Program. More than 30 developing countries could be affected by the scourge – 1 million people are already affected. It's not just people going to bed hungry, Beasley insists, explaining that it's a state of emergency where outside help is the only hope.

No one has ever seen a thought, not even a neurosurgeon. However, today we know more about the way we think than what we were able to visualise, yet still less than we would like to know.