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

While browsing through a folder of old documents, I rediscovered some poems written during my student years. One of them drew my attention because of a verse that resonated with me from the beginning: Only childhood makes us whole.

In front of the camera, the woman smiles calmly. The dimple on her right cheek, among the wrinkles, shows that Annie has repeated this smile many times in her 81 years of life. Today, however, only her lips are smiling. A strange tension weighs on her eyebrows. Today is the day Annie has decided to die.

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

No scene depicting the birth of Jesus is complete without angels.

For ten years Luther read the Bible twice a year. His first Bible was so thoroughly read that he "knew what was on every page and where every passage was found." Martin Luther is the most prominent name among those who brought about the Reformation and took Bible study to a new level.

We have introduced so much carbon dioxide into nature's operating system that we no longer know "what is an act of God and what is an act of man" when it comes to natural disasters striking with increasing frequency and overwhelming power, says Nathan Lewis, a chemistry and energy specialist at the California Institute of Technology.

He married a pregnant woman and accepted the responsibility of raising and educating a Son who was, because of His divine power, his Father. This was a mission full of risks and challenges for a humble carpenter from Nazareth, who has come to attract the attention and respect of generations.

The end of the last century created the perfect context for postmodernism to exercise its veto over all the ethical dilemmas of the day. As a result, today, as in vitro fertilisation, abortion, euthanasia or homosexual marriage enter the legislative agendas of more and more countries, we see political correctness taking precedence over religious morality.

The end of the world has been an enduring human preoccupation and, paradoxically, has existed since the dawn of civilisation.

There is a saying that describes one’s life partner as being most appreciated during two life stages: before marriage and after the funeral. Unfortunately, proverbs and sayings hint at a reality which is also faithfully rendered by statistics showing that love wears off pretty soon in many marriages. But maybe this is part of the problem—the fact that we overburden love, treating it...

The possibility of completely rewriting the rules by which we organise our lives has always captured people's imagination. However, such a reorganisation has materialised, at best, in the pages of a philosophical book and has remained, for the most part, a utopia. But there are exceptions, of course.

The controversy surrounding organic foods is far from being resolved. Some argue it’s merely a marketing tool aimed at emptying consumers’ pockets, while others believe they’ve found the path to better health, provided they can afford the luxury.

From Europe to Asia and from Africa to the Americas and Australia, none of the culinary traditions, not even those acclaimed by scientists, generate an optimal supply of nutrients. Moreover, the food we eat daily kills 11 million of us prematurely every year. So then, what should we eat?

I stand in the same spot where it happened 26 years ago. There’s an eerie quietness in the air; even the birds are silent. On the ground lies a small bouquet of withered flowers. The sharp Tasmanian sun pierces through the trees, partially illuminating the grounds of what once was the bustling Broad Arrow café in Port Arthur, south of Hobart.