Analysis

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

Amid the carnage of World War II, a film was released that The New York Times called “perhaps the most significant film ever produced”.

I am visiting two sick people who share the same terminal illness. Their suffering is increased by the fact that they are brothers and that a mother’s broken heart lies at the core of it all. One of them is a businessman. The other, a servant of the altar. Their mother’s greatest frustration is that her wish to take some of the suffering...

Problem gambling in Australia and New Zealand is an issue seldom talked about, but we ignore it at our peril.

Without ever looking for doubt I often welcomed it with interest and gratitude. I did not run away from it, nor did I treat it with indifference. I rather sought to tone it down.

#vanlife . . . it’s the aesthetic trend we’ve seen sprawled across the internet in the past decade. The reservoir of photographs framed by flung-open doors or windows onto a glorious, unpeopled view has stirred many an individual’s curiosity.

How far is too far? Is there a point of no return?

"Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” (Dr John Trainer) Sometimes I pass my grandparents' house, which...

It is said that the intelligent and cynical Talleyrand, a French diplomat and Catholic priest who was later secularised, said to Napoleon when asked to devise a political message: "Sir, give me the idea and I'll find the arguments myself..." If such an intellectual attitude is cynical and unscrupulous in politics, let's imagine the consequences in the religious sphere.

Where there's fear, there's shame, says a Romanian proverb. What the proverb doesn't say (and what many of us don't know) is that the folds of shame hide a multitude of emotional problems and dysfunctional relationships that are passed down from one generation to the next.

The diversity and divergence of religious beliefs clearly indicate that not all religious doctrines and perspectives can be true. Throughout history, there have been vastly different universal religions, each with multiple interpretations and denominations. We have religions, not just “religion.” However, if there is one true religion that respects truth, freedom, and intelligence, the myth of myths collapses.

They say self-esteem is a vital ingredient for success in life. But what if everything we were taught about self-esteem is wrong?

It is no coincidence that the first Baptist church in the United States, the first synagogue, and the first Quaker assembly house are all located in the small American state of Rhode Island. Their existence is due to the influence of Roger Williams, who resolutely upheld the principle of freedom of conscience more than 100 years before it was invoked in the First...

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards" (Job 5:7).