What Makes People Tick?

Reading a newspaper article about an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan that recently broke off the Petermann Glacier in Northern Greenland, the phrase “It’s been a summer of near Biblical climatic havoc” jumped off the page at me. The recent forest fires in Russia and the flooding in Asia are cited as examples. What I find interesting about that phrase is that it could refer to several different things. My first thought was that it referred to the Book of Revelation (the final book of the Christian New Testament) in which the end of the world is described. Thinking on it some more, I realised it could also refer to the Flood or perhaps even the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (both from the Book of Genesis ). Interesting how an article from a New Zealand newspaper referring to something being “biblical” straight away makes me think that it refers to the New Testament. The article continues and mentions climate change and global warming, and how the breaking off of this i...

I saw this photo on the page of a Facebook group I visited. The group is called World Without HATE , and from the quick browse of their page it looks like an interesting group. The caption is: Underneath every skin that you hate, there might be a big heart hidden... Discover it by tearing the hate.

According to USA Today, novelist Anne Rice, famous for her books on vampires ( Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned ), creator of the ever-interesting Lestat and sister of noted novelist Alice Borchardt, is rejecting Christianity while sticking with Christ. On her Facebook page, the author said the following: For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. - Anne Rice's Facebook page Anne Rice grew up a Catholic, married Stan Rice (an atheist) in 1961 and started writing her vampire books while living in San Francisco after the death of her daughter Michele to leukemia i...

UNESCO is the "United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation". It was established in 1945 with the stated purpose of "contribut[ing] to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law and the human rights, along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the UN charter." UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information. Projects sponsored by UNESCO include literacy, technical, and teacher-training programmes; international science programmes; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the press; regional and cultural history projects; the promotion of cultural diversity; international cooperation agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage (World Heritage Sites) and to preserve human rights, and att...