Financial Times, Mon 8 March 2010
Tired of being alone in a cold, impersonal cosmos? Imagine instead that the universe is filled with benevolent spirits, and that one of them is looking out just for you. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Fri 18 December 2009
It’s not yet dark; it’s not even very cold but all around the masses are downing hot wine as if they were knee-deep in snow. In between tipples they fill their bags with Germany’s most famous cake, the stollen. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Sat 28 November 2009 
Noon on a broad and barren plain; a single pillar stands erect. An arm-span away the broken base of a companion column sits squat on its limestone pedestal. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Fri 20 November 2009
There is a story of Christian missionaries attempting to use their most trusted tools – the threat of hell and the promise of heaven – to convert a group of Eskimos. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Sat 12 September 2009
Who is afraid of the reaper? Not the logicians – they have long relished in tearing off Death’s robes, mocking his fabled sting and pointing and laughing at his bony behind. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Mon 25 May 2009 
Terry Eagleton is that rare thing, a God-fearing Marxist. Given what Karl Marx had to say about religion, this is a little like being a Freudian who’s indifferent about his mother. ... Read original article

Financial Times, Mon 25 May 2009 
Contrary to what Margaret Thatcher said, there is such a thing as society – and you are one. You are a society of cells; a collective enterprise of some 10 trillion individual living beings. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Mon 13 April 2009 
A good life, writes the journalist and presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme John Humphrys, is one crowned by a good death. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Mon 6 April 2009 
“Darwin’s idea,” writes the artist Damien Hirst on the back of Penguin Classic’s 150th Anniversary edition of On the Origin of Species, “actually explains the meaning of life.” Just like art, he believes. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Sat 7 March 2009 
Trooper Talon doesn’t get tired or hungry. He doesn’t get scared and he doesn’t panic under fire. He fights on even when, all around him, his comrades are falling. ...Read original article

Financial Times, Fri 23 January 2009 
Fame is not what it used to be. Once it was granted to those who did something useful, like discover gravity or win a world war. ...Read original article