Religion

When we read the Gospels, we may be put off by the way Jesus Christ interprets the Hebrew Scriptures.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

What guarantees do we have that the texts from which modern translations of the Bible were made reflect the original?

The troubled centuries that followed the Great Schism of 1054 and the corresponding climate inside the Christian church gradually gave way to profound shifts in the thinking and spirituality of Europeans.

Louis Zamperini experienced the bizarre smell of death so many times that he came to the verge of losing his mind. However, he survived, and by choosing to forgive the unforgivable, he was able to breathe life into an entire world.

“Imagine there’s no heaven ...” sang John Lennon. “… and no religion too.” The implication is that the world would be a better place without religion. Wrong. Christianity has changed the world in dramatic and positive ways.

The relationship between religion and science is complicated, and occasional controversies over healing through prayer have not helped. The tragedy of stories in which refusing medical treatment in favour of prayer ends in death is often exploited in the press to portray religion as rudimentary and backward. That is why it is all the more interesting that a case study attesting to the...

The idea of hell takes up a dark corner in most of our minds, whether we think about it or not.

The Bible has 66 books written by different authors over about 1,500 years. Is there a common theme, a leitmotif? If so, which is it? Is there an Old Testament God and a New Testament God?

In the famous realist novel A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe blends the factual with the imaginary, describing the social context just before the great plague struck London in 1665. Among the reactions described, two straddle the line between religion and conspiracy.

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

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...

Every time I look through the lens of a microscope, I am struck by the realisation that beyond what the naked eye can see lies a universe far deeper and richer.

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.

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