Analysis

Over the last 25 years, the relationship between theology and natural disasters has undergone intense scrutiny, with its consequences becoming increasingly apparent as disasters have remained a key public interest.

Dr Peter Landless presents a fascinating history of transformation within his native South Africa, a transformation which has impacted the world.

Pray! If not to God, then to a god. Admit that we are defeated, because this is the first step towards victory.

Both specialist research and common experience tell us how complicated it is when children reach adolescence. Dr Bryan Craig helps us to understand the reasons for this and how to turn the crisis into an opportunity for growth.

I like to look back. When I am climbing a mountain, it is an excuse to rest. But I also do it for another reason—to see how far I have climbed.

It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. It's folk wisdom acknowledging that the development of a person requires the contribution of the whole community. What value does the community add, especially when the community in question is the scientific one?

In a study published in the journal PLOS One, researchers came to the counterintuitive conclusion that people with higher intelligence have higher levels of generalised trust.

According to attachment theory, originally formulated by John Bowlby and later refined by Mary Ainsworth, adults’ relational patterns are formed according to the model of the close relationship they formed in early childhood with their primary caregiver, who is usually the mother.

Daily stress is a good excuse to avoid other people's needs, but this choice is a double loss. The kindness we display to make other people's days better is a very strong antidote to the high level of stress we experience daily.

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.

It is commonly assumed that at least 96% of the genome of a multicellular organism has no functional role. A junk-dominated genome is the ideal place for evolution to randomly explore new functions and characteristics of the species. After all, who would ever think that a wise and all-knowing Creator would use 96% informational junk to define a human being or a mollusc?

Christopher Hitchens was not merely an atheist but, as he described himself, a militant antitheist. It was in his home, at his invitation, that the group known as “The Four Horsemen of New Atheism” first convened. Born in 1949 in postwar England, Hitchens was shaped by the politics and intellectual currents of the 1960s.

There has been an increase in the number of so-called "experts" in an increasing number of so-called "fields". It seems that all of life has been divided into neatly-marketable industries. No wonder then that the arrival of a new expert in something familiar to mankind for ages, is met with caution. In the case of Julia Samuel's expertise in the field of grief...

It is often said that the choices we make repeatedly determine our destiny. Other people’s choices that touch our lives in an unfortunate way are seldom discussed. The changes that defy them both are among the most impressive, and Jesse Thistle’s story confirms this.