Analysis

There are times when life sets before us an opportunity for radical change. Such a moment led Narayanan Krishnan to dedicate his life to feeding the poor and the mentally disabled on the streets of India.

Besides carefree days, Christmas carols and traditional sweet breads, any respectable December also includes an evaluation of the achievements of the previous year and making plans for the future.

Some psychologists fear that religion erodes self-esteem. Some believers fear that self-esteem endangers salvation. Who is right?

When we think about the many tasks of a new day, each morning can be a challenge to mobilise our resources—a combined test of speed and endurance, or a race against the clock with not only known obstacles but also surprising challenges that sometimes overwhelm us.

According to the international standard ISO 8601, Sunday is the seventh day of the week. However, many countries, including the US, Canada, and Japan, consider Sunday as the first day. Where does this contradiction come from and why does it matter if Sunday is the first or the seventh day of the week?

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.

Well, yes, we are, according to Rutger Bregman, author of Human Kind. Early in his book he introduces us to Tom Postmes, professor of social psychology at the University of Groningen who, every year, asks students the same question. “Imagine an aeroplane makes an emergency landing and breaks into three parts. As the cabin fills with smoke, everybody inside realises: We’ve got to...

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.

The Jewish people walked on dry land in the middle of the water, not in the Red Sea, but somewhere in the Nile Delta. This conclusion by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado (USA) made headlines on Reuters and the BBC in September 2010.

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

New Year’s resolutions are beneficial, according to experts at the Sacramento State University, who found that this method is 10 times more effective for successfully meeting goals over a longer period of time than the method chosen by those who decide to change certain aspects of their lives at another time of the year.

The spontaneous generation of life on Earth is as likely as a whirlwind putting a Boeing 747 together using scattered spare parts in a junkyard.

On the basis of ancient, hidden non-canonical gospels, some commercial and half-learned scholars propagate sensational discoveries, which are in fact both old and novel speculations arising from the Bible’s silence on some aspects of Jesus’s life.

In order to communicate effectively, our speech must be clear and unambiguous. That is why believers tend to view the language of the Bible as a report: black and white, exact, without embellishments; just a dry sequence of facts.

A common source of jokes and stories with subtext, the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law appears to be characterised by particular sensitivities.