Corina Matei
Deadly ideas
“To them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever” (Isaiah 56:5).
How to think outside the box
"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US President)
The Christian citizen
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).
God’s children… and “grandchildren”
I once heard a Christian warn his community: "God only has children, He does not have grandchildren!" In the postmodern context of relativising values and truths, diverse, strange or syncretic religious forms have emerged and continue to emerge. This is happening to a large extent within Christianity.
Deal with the devil
Among the many perplexing phenomena the internet offers, recent public statements by certain American artists stand out. These individuals, popular in various circles, openly admit to having made a deal with the devil—selling their souls and becoming his servants in exchange for career success, wealth, and fame.
From cold season’s greetings to the Good News
Holiday greetings are a nice custom, but they are also an opportunity to assess how much we care about each other, how much we have grown closer or, on the contrary, how much we have grown apart over the past year.
The illusion of equality and other failures of reason
"Cultural trends now fashionable in the West favour an egalitarian approach to life. People like to think of human beings as the output of a perfectly engineered mass production machine. Geneticists and sociologists especially go out of their way to prove, with an impressive apparatus of scientific data and formulations, that all men are naturally equal and if some are more equal than...
The balancing act of public morality
We sometimes find ourselves surprised by how other people think about moral issues—how they distinguish right from wrong and choose to do what they think is right.
The neighbour and the farthest
Could it be that, beyond economic, political or geostrategic difficulties, there are obstacles to the ideal of the common good that are inherent in human nature? And if something specific to human nature stood in the way of achieving this ideal, would it not lead to failure, regardless of overcoming all other difficulties?
Is God with me?
"When I was little, I felt that God was with me, but now I feel so lonely! I wonder if God really was with me back then".
Boredom: how many ways can you scratch an itch?
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" (Blaise Pascal).
What is the use of general knowledge?
"No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books." (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, British poet)
How much are we worth as human beings?
Each day we are confronted with situations that make us wonder how human life can have such a low value in the eyes of some of our contemporaries—those contemporaries who live in freedom and (at least feigned) democracy, who are educated and socialised in the same civilisation as ours, often even in the same community or under similar civil laws and with broadly...
Why be moral?
“No doubt equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men have made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might; so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good....” (Blaise Pascal, Thoughts)
The conditions for courage (I)
Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)