Analysis

Many people know the Lord’s Prayer, having learned it from a parent or grandparent. But few know that it was given as a response to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray.

In the centuries since science has gained autonomy from religion, spokesmen on both sides have grown accustomed to looking at each other with suspicion, ignoring each other, and addressing their followers by preaching against the “others." There seemed to be little hope that scientists and people of faith would listen to each other and try to develop a common language, if not a...

Traditional communities are like rivers, while modern societies are like oceans, said Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Consider that a river—deeper or shallower, faster or slower—always has a direction, as traditional societies usually direct the lives of their members. The ocean is a different story.

This article addresses the two often conflicting aspects of the parousia: its imminence and its delay.

Let me paint you a picture of Esther Moo’s life, one of approximately 1959 Karen refugees who migrated to Australia between 2009 and 2010.

The perspectives we acquire as children about ourselves as individuals, about the world, and even about God, become beliefs that filter and guide the choices we make as adults. Some of these beliefs are helpful. Others are not. In fact, many of the obstacles we encounter in adult life are caused by these filters.

How do we recognise violations of dignity and their impact on daily life?

To believe is not to close one's eyes to questions or to abandon reason in favour of illusory spiritual comfort.

"What is this life if, full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare." — from the poem "Leisure" by William H. Davies.

One of the mind’s most pleasant and, at the same time, most tormenting occupations is to dream of a better life. How many times have we tried to generate a change for the better by means of a new purchase, new friends, new house, new job, new relationship or other ideas for a fresh start?

"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?

What if change is given to us to use only as long as we continue to work for it?

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.

"Rays of sunshine in the global economy we saw earlier in the year have been fading, and gray days likely lie ahead", says Ayhan Kose, deputy chief economist at the World Bank Group, summing up predictions for the global economy after several overlapping crises ended a nearly three-decade period of economic growth.

All COVID-19 statistics lead to the same conclusion: the young ones, our children, are at the lowest risk of getting ill or dying from the virus. That’s comforting. But the pandemic does pose a certain danger to them.