The casino inside your phone
In the February 2023 issue of Signs of the Times, I wrote an article titled Gambling’s Dark Underbelly. Here in Australia, gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a few very rich winners and millions of losers. In the article I concluded that “Gambling in any form is designed to bleed you for as long as you’re willing to bleed, with no regard for...
The light of the eyes and mind
In Mexico, diabetic retinopathy is a significant challenge. Professor Pedro Gomez is the director of the Ophthalmology Institute of the University Hospital of Montemorelos in Mexico, renowned for the highest number of eye surgeries in Latin America.
Beauty in brokenness
Amy Ainsworth is the mother of 5-year-old twin girls, whose appearance is both surprising and fascinating – how could it be any other way when you see a pair of big green eyes showing off from behind the brown curls of one of the girls, contrasting strikingly with the coffee-coloured eyes and black, straight hair of her twin sister?
Pollution in our own homes is as dangerous as outdoor pollution
Air pollution is the greatest risk factor for both the environment and human health, according to the World Health Organization.
Living with fewer regrets
No one can live life without gathering regrets. An opportunity missed. A situation handled poorly. A conversation you wished you’d had before things got out of control. All of us have done more than enough to cringe in the dark about. But there are ways to have fewer regrets. Here are seven.
The sprouts of genomics
Although the results do not seem spectacular yet, at least to the majority of the population, probably the most remarkable advances in the field of healthcare in the last 30 years relate to the mapping of the human genome (completed in 2003), the genome of other animal and plant species, and the development of bioinformatics.
How much are we worth as humans?
Every day is an opportunity to ask ourselves how it is that human life has such little value in the eyes of some of our contemporaries—those contemporaries living in freedom and democracy (on paper, at least), who are educated and socialised within the same civilization as we are, often even in the same community, or under similar civil laws and generally having the...
In the footsteps of the historical Jesus: benefits and perils
Christianity is either historical or not. It claims that “God acted decisively in history, revealing Himself in external, specific events attested in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”[1] The most important of these events was the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, the saving Christ.
Escaping from the deadly family
Letting go of the environment and education you received at home is difficult as it is, but can there be liberation if you grew up in a family of mobsters?
Mentors for change
In addition to my family of origin, as a child, I had the privilege of knowing valuable people in my life, mostly pastors and musicians, who would pay attention to me, teach me what they knew best, guide me towards a strong value system, and act as role models.
The disaster that changed everything without changing anything
Years of prosperity swallowed up in a few months of recession—that's how you could sum up the global economic crisis that began in 2007. At its core, the worst recession since the interwar period turned out to be a mirror into which none of us want to look.
The darker side of our world
The world of the homeless is the darker side of our world. It is inhabited by vagrants, drug addicts, and the powerless. This world has its own rules, customs, pleasures, and pains, but lacks meaning and peace. And those who enter this world struggle to leave it.
Jesus was born today… But why?
Sometimes we are so absorbed in our beautiful Christmas traditions that we don't even realize that our love for them makes them ugly.
COVID-19: Those who “would have died anyway”. How much is a human life worth?
Discussions about the reasonable number of deaths in a pandemic, about whether or not the price for saving people is killing the economy and, ultimately, debates on a life’s value were brought to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic.
What we lost when we gave up the land
In the early 1900s, the average American farmer could produce enough food to feed a family of five. Today, an American farmer can feed his own family, and roughly another 100 people. Despite this, we are at risk of encountering the impossibility of feeding a growing population on a global scale. How has it come to this, and what should we do to...


























