Is faith reasonable?

Science and faith, as important tools in the knowledge process, are often perceived to be in a tense relationship with each other, because of the fundamentally different worldviews that characterize them. The implications for life’s big questions are obvious—and sufficient to rob someone of the comfort of indifference towards such high-stakes conclusions.

What about the failures that haunt us?

A smooth sea never gave a skilled sailor, said Franklin D. Roosevelt, suggesting that without hardship, challenges and even failures, we cannot become our best selves.

The culture of blasphemy

According to its creators, "JC" was to be a 30-minute-per-episode animated series about Jesus Christ who wanted to escape the overwhelming shadow of his father and live as an ordinary man in New York. The project was developed by comedian and writer John Michaelson. However, due to the controversial nature of the subject matter, only the pilot was produced and filmed, and it...

COVID-19 vaccines safety: Does it take decades to get the answer?

Do we need to wait for the results of longitudinal scientific studies, extending to decades, to know if vaccines are safe?

“Courting controversy”: When taking a stand can risk it all

Naomi Osaka has forever tarnished the sanctity of the great game of tennis... at least, according to the media.

Broken dreams: The lessons we learn through failure

We often say God is good, especially when, after threatening to go dangerously off track, life resumes its regular course. But what is left to say when all that remains of our dearest dreams is a handful of shards that can no longer be glued together?

The soul and its meaning according to the Bible

“Soul” is a very special term. Due to lack of space, I shall not approach it here philosophically or scientifically, but exclusively in the context of biblical theology, narrowing it even further, to a linguistic point of view.

How to be a good listener

The portrait of a good listener contains skills that are formed over time, through an honest interaction with others, motivated by the desire to understand and help them.

My search for the real Dracula

The train departs Bucharest, Romania’s “little Paris”—the old city section with beautiful architecture and impressive monuments, giving way to Communist-era apartment blocks. The plain outside the city is flat and featureless, broken now and again by a grove of trees—mysterious and impenetrable to the gaze. Decrepit houses, tattooed with graffiti, a splash of colour to contrast the uniform grey buildings, marching aimlessly past...

Good luck, bad luck…and cancer

Many had not yet finished clearing away the leftovers from the New Year's Eve table, almost no one had returned to work, politics was still numb and journalists yawned with boredom because almost nothing of interest had happened on 2 January 2015.

Religion is what’s in my heart: true or false?

"Religion is what is in my soul. No one can take away what is there. But in public we have to comply..."

The Akathist: Who do we stand up for?

According to Google’s online search trends, the most popular religious topic among Romanian internet users in 2019 was prayer. [1]

A mind at war in peacetime

When you discover that the only thing you have left is faith in God, you fervently wish that your faith doesn't end up poisoning your soul.

COVID-19: How do you recognise a conspiracy theory in a pandemic?

The Colorado beetle that threatened the potato crop of the former GDR in 1950 might have been an American method of sabotage against the Eastern bloc. A sinister German plot might have been the cause of the Spanish flu. Perhaps AIDS emerged as a biological weapon developed by the United States and has been tested on prisoners and minorities. Every crisis humanity has...

Tangible happiness

It's intuitively inappropriate to talk about happiness when the subject is depression. But it is even more inappropriate to talk about abnormality, inadequacy or maladjustment in the same context.