Religion

The idea of the end of the world refers to the end of the social order and humanity; the end of the planet as we know it. But according to the Bible, these will not all come at once.

This seemingly innocent question has probably caused more unrest in the last 2000 years than any other. It is, in fact, an echo of the concern of the ancient Jews to determine whether or not Israel was God's only people on earth. It also represents the echo of history that has witnessed wars born of the desire to legitimise a supreme deity.

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.

Edinburgh Castle sits proudly on the hill overlooking the city. Buildings and tourist shops crowd its feet, right up to the gate, where the square is being prepared for the famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Globally there are 19 major religions, divided in turn into 10,000 religious groups. Each group claims to be the holder of the Truth. If one of them really holds the Truth, that means there are about 9,999 false religious groups.

In the turbulent times of the first crusades to reclaim Palestine and Jerusalem from the Muslims, a Jew was born in 1135 AD in Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Andalusia. His influence would leave a strong mark not only on Jewish thought but also on Christian and Islamic thought. His name was Moses Maimonides, or Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon. 

On May 19th, 1780, a strange phenomenon turned a sunny morning into an unexpected night. The event, known as the Dark Day, was seen as a sign of divine judgment by contemporaries and as a means of ridiculing apocalyptic expectations by sceptics.

Thousands of street names changed because they referred to Christian saints, Catholic priests forced to marry, Jesus Christ described as a revolutionary—these are some of the stupefying details of the French Revolution.

I’m walking along a remote beach in Hermanus, South Africa. There’s not a single other footprint in the sand. I take off my shoes and let my feet sink deep into the warm, fine powder. Bliss. My friend, a local who drove me here, takes one look at my face and asks with undeniable pride, “What do you think?” But I can’t answer....

Any religion’s popularity depends on the rewards it promises. While people are interested in the immediate benefits of this life, they are mostly interested in the future, the hope their religion brings, and how solid it is.

Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)

"God has guided my steps in life, saved me from some wrong decisions, and when I have made mistakes, He has helped me to admit my mistakes and learn from them." (Dumitru Borţun)

Jesus’s unpredictability is one of His most memorable traits—one that was, however, not born out of an extraordinary speculative intelligence, but out of such a different perspective on reality that even the most trained and educated thinkers could not foresee it. Therefore, Jesus’s unpredictability says more about us than about Him.

"Is it not too sadly true that we can recollect anything but Christ, and forget nothing so easy as Him whom we ought to remember?"—Charles Spurgeon

I am captivated and deeply impressed by Jesus's perspective on life and the world. He did not seek popularity, did not pursue power, and did not promote revolution. He did not rely on strategies and did not do politics. He did not come to criticize, He did not build His authority on the backs of other people's weaknesses, and He did not come...