Matters of Life and Death

By Premier Unbelievable?

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Category: Religion & Spirituality

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Subscribers: 32
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Episodes: 134

Description

In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.

Episode Date
New obesity drugs, the morality of food, and has neuroscience killed off free will?
Mar 27, 2024
Tech hype: Should Christians resist or lean into AI?
Mar 20, 2024
Q&A: Why have anti-abortion activists accidentally banned fertility treatment in Alabama?
Mar 13, 2024
How can Christian doctors approach medical-assisted dying (euthanasia)?
Mar 06, 2024
Psychedelics, spirits and the philosophy of Harry Potter
Feb 28, 2024
Q&A: Should single Christians use dating apps if they strike out at church?
Feb 21, 2024
New Creation: Reading the Bible backwards, the ‘opiate of the masses’, Physics 2.0, and the resurrected yet scarred body
Feb 14, 2024
Egg freezing revisited: What about the ‘surplus’ eggs, and is better contraception part of the solution?
Feb 07, 2024
Gender gap in church: Onward Christian Soldiers, the only man in a room full of women, Bonhoeffer’s ‘cheap grace’ and Christian dating apps
Jan 31, 2024
Q&A: The contradictions which underpin anti-suicide efforts in an era of euthanasia, and are there any honest and unbiased journalists left these days?
Jan 24, 2024
Egg freezing: The ticking biological clock, prosecco and cheese evenings, the culture war over maternal age, and living with wisdom and contentment
Jan 17, 2024
Genetics: Libraries of recipe books, BRCA1, Gattaca, and Big Data Towers of Babel
Jan 10, 2024
Pregnancy crisis: A constructive Christian response, heads versus hearts, paternalistic gynaecologists, and ambiguity in the ultrasound clinic
Jan 03, 2024
Climate anxiety: ’Delay means death’, Extinction Rebellion, throwing pebbles into God’s river, and rediscovering lament
Dec 27, 2023
Q&A: Should we welcome the coming wave of anti-obesity drugs, and what’s at stake in the argument over the 14-day limit on embryo research?
Dec 20, 2023
Redemption: Always Plan A, sharing in Christ’s sufferings, a Disney fairy story, and the offensive incarnation
Dec 13, 2023
Palliative care: Dogs and Guinness on the wards, complicated grief, DNAR discussions, and resisting assisted dying
Dec 06, 2023
Q&A: Why are we ignoring rising death rates among poorer ethnic minority children, and will the flesh-and-blood girlfriend become a thing of the past?
Nov 28, 2023
Science and religion 1: The myth of conflict, Charles Darwin’s beetle research, epistemic humility, and English country churchyard or Californian fridge?
Nov 22, 2023
Q&A: The ‘myths’ leading women to choose abortion, and is digital slavery underpinning breakthroughs in AI?
Nov 15, 2023
Friendship 3: Ruth and Naomi, ‘chesed’, trips to the theatre with John Stott, and an unorthodox rabbi
Nov 08, 2023
The Fall: Bad actor theory, a malevolent voice in the Garden, Total Depravity and Original Sin, and the ‘Christian heresy’ of liberal humanism
Nov 01, 2023
Baby loss 2: Rising abortion numbers, pills by post, ‘the pregnancy remains’, and Schrodinger’s fetus
Oct 25, 2023
Baby loss 1: Elsie’s story, one in five pregnancies, names missing from the family tree, and the power of ultrasound
Oct 18, 2023
Women and Christianity: Purity culture, beyond complementarianism, baggy t-shirts over swimming costumes, and recovering Tamar’s voice
Oct 11, 2023
Origins of covid: Gain of function research, zoonosis, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and truth over tribe
Oct 04, 2023
Q&A: Should Christians use homeopathic medicine and why are climate scientists self-censoring in academic journal articles?
Sep 27, 2023
Creation: The Brethren’s suspicion of the ‘world’, an explosion of joy, Eric Liddell’s sprinting epiphany, and celebrating beauty
Sep 20, 2023
Q&A: The science of the billions-of-years-old Earth, has God deceived us, and are philosophers so useless after all?
Sep 13, 2023
Lucy Letby: Murder on the neonatal ward, Munchausen’s by proxy, doctors versus nurses, and the banality of evil
Sep 06, 2023
Q&A: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, psychosomatic disorders, AI acing exams, and the limitations of true creativity
Aug 30, 2023
Space: The James Webb Telescope, hobbits of the universe, astrobiology, and 16 billion billion Earth-like planets
Aug 23, 2023
Evolution: The cosmic watchmaker, a 6,000-year-old Earth, the immorality of mutation, and intelligent uncertainty
Aug 16, 2023
Abusive leadership: Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Sigmund Freud's chaise longue, and Paul-Timothy relationships
Aug 09, 2023
Suffering: Mystery and presence, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, rediscovering lament and the Gethsemane prayer
Aug 02, 2023
Q&A: Karl Barth’s complicated home life, and single Christians considering adoption
Jul 26, 2023
Covid reconsidered 2: Empty Nightingale hospitals, difficult triage decisions, a failure of Christian leadership, and reconsidering lockdown
Jul 19, 2023
Covid reconsidered 1: Pandemic amnesia, ‘Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save lives’, lingering Long Covid, and 13.47 billion vaccine doses
Jul 12, 2023
Dementia: Listening to our bodies, 72 unique behaviours, multi-dimensional personhood, and the sacramental ministry of touch
Jul 05, 2023
Surrogacy: The intended parents, altruistic versus commercial, ancient Christians saving abandoned babies, and a post-genetic community
Jun 28, 2023
Digital church: Worship on Zoom, pandemic revival, time-shifting and Gnosticism (Replay)
Jun 21, 2023
Trans children: Gender dysphoria, diagnostic overshadowing, boy Lego versus girl Lego, and the non-replicated Dutch Protocol
Jun 14, 2023
Q&A: Christian pacifism in times of war and the Tower of Babel reconsidered
Jun 07, 2023
Digital persecution: Deadly rumours on WhatsApp, a ‘Panopticon’ of censorship, the corrosion of trust, and China’s spreading surveillance state
May 31, 2023
Q&A: Helping unmarried couples have children and court-ordered blood transfusions
May 24, 2023
Generative AI: Second Contact, avoiding the fate of Nokia, hacking the human operating system, and the resilience of Western democracy
May 17, 2023
Q&A: Introverts versus extroverts, faith in the consultation room, and a moratorium on AI research
May 10, 2023
Contemporary spiritualities: Nominal atheism, New Age prayers for £25, moving on from Empty Tomb evangelism, and the church of social justice
May 03, 2023
Effective altruism 2: Tithing, second-hand stuffed toys in Turkey, the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and one-hundredth of a guide dog
Apr 26, 2023
Effective altruism 1: QALYs, longtermism, Jeremy Bentham’s embalmed corpse, and ethical elitism
Apr 19, 2023
Webinar 2: Totalitarian regimes, the tobacco regulation lag, eternal life for materialists, and ‘Don’t be afraid’
Apr 12, 2023
Webinar 1: Redefining human-ness, testing for consciousness, hoodwinked by ChatGPT, and a black box
Apr 05, 2023
Friendship 2: Walks in the Garden of Eden, David and Jonathan, covenantal clarity, and red flags
Mar 29, 2023
Friendship 1: The hermeneutic of suspicion, Classical ideals, scandalising middle-class Vienna, and the ‘mysticism of materialism’
Mar 22, 2023
Listener questions: Polarised culture wars, the challenge of elder care, and childlike sexbots
Mar 15, 2023
Public sector strikes 2: Taking patients hostage, employment as service, slaves and masters, and Christian peacemaking
Mar 08, 2023
Public sector strikes 1: The Winter of Discontent, austerity-era pay freezes, Christian socialist solidarity, and continuity of patient care
Mar 01, 2023
Surveillance capitalism 2: QR codes in China, privacy, the manipulation of desire, and a neo-Benedictine Rule of Life
Feb 22, 2023
Surveillance capitalism 1: Trillions of data points, clickbait, an advertising arms race, and BF Skinner’s pigeons
Feb 15, 2023
Cryptocurrency 2: Technicism, the Parable of the Talents, get-rich-quick schemes, and the wheat and the weeds
Feb 08, 2023
Cryptocurrency 1: Bitcoin, warehouses of computers solving maths puzzles, the dot.com bubble, and FOMO
Feb 01, 2023
Medical Assistance in Dying 2: Suicidal ideation, no crystal balls, conscientious objection, and Hippocrates’ successful medical practice
Jan 25, 2023
Medical Assistance in Dying 1: Judicial activism, a ‘reasonably foreseeable’ death, the unacceptability of suffering, and reasons to stay alive
Jan 18, 2023
Martin Rees 3: Pre-emptive science fiction, the morality-reality gap, adventurers on Mars, and the mind of the Creator
Jan 11, 2023
Martin Rees 2: Blurred humanity, re-dignifying care work, algorithms reading lung X-rays, and the risks of virtual life
Jan 04, 2023
Martin Rees 1: Advances in artificial intelligence, the Eliza effect, passing the Turing Test, and the problem of other minds
Dec 28, 2022
Social media and politics 2: A mucky business, the ultimate conspiracy theory, ‘showbiz for ugly people’, and and atomised individuals
Dec 21, 2022
Social media and politics 1: The judgemental society, 3,000 offensive tweets a day, freedom from vs freedom to, and Elon Musk’s Twitter
Dec 14, 2022
Mental health 2: Emotional resilience, the bio-psycho-social model, the power of story, and depression in the Psalms
Dec 07, 2022
Mental health 1: Power dynamics, the psychiatrist as brick wall, casualties of social media, and over-pathologising distress
Nov 30, 2022
Dependence 2: The Panopticon at home, evangelising to retirees, existential angst in the House of Lords, and rejecting self-sufficiency
Nov 23, 2022
Dependence 1: Isolated elderly people, altruistic suicide, a second childhood, and a crucified hero
Nov 16, 2022
Protestant Social Teaching 2: The ars moriendi, open casket funerals in Derry Girls, the end of Christendom and ethical quietism
Nov 09, 2022
Protestant Social Teaching 1: Overlap with Catholicism, chronological snobbery, rejecting one-size-fits-all ethics, and ‘worldly’ versus ‘spiritual’ matters
Nov 02, 2022
AI sentience 2: I-Thou relationships, talking to stuffed animals, thanking Alexa, and Turing red flag laws
Oct 26, 2022
AI sentience 1: Blake Lemoine and LaMDA, trillions of words, mute idols, and the God who speaks
Oct 19, 2022
Matters of Life and Death: The book reconsidered, the Moscow State University reading list, audiobooks, and the decline of the reading Christian
Oct 12, 2022
Embryology 2: Psalm 139, reconsidering ‘ensoulment’, the language of right and wrong, and co-operation with evil
Oct 05, 2022
Embryology 1: A stem cell ‘Mini Me’, CRISPR, Brave New World, and extending the 14-day limit
Sep 28, 2022
Evolution 2: Tracking coronavirus variants, the immorality of mutation, roughly one thousand hominids, and intelligent uncertainty
Sep 21, 2022
The Queen: Monarchy as service, astonishing the President of Ireland, the changing Christmas Speech, and a testimonial faith
Sep 14, 2022
Evolution 1: Finding common ground, the cosmic watchmaker, interpreting Genesis, and a 6,000-year-old Earth?
Sep 07, 2022
Archie Battersbee 2: Doubts over the brain scans, the end of ‘doctor knows best’, sucked into the culture wars and protective power of attorney
Aug 31, 2022
Archie Battersbee 1: The invention of ‘brain death’, a breakdown in trust, the child’s best interests, and how to turn off life support
Aug 24, 2022
Genetics 2: Whole genome sequencing, Gattaca, de-identification versus anonymity, and Big Data Towers of Babel
Aug 17, 2022
Genetics 1: Rare diseases, libraries of recipe books, BRCA1, and precision medicine
Aug 10, 2022
Suffering 2: Rediscovering lament, reciting psalms in bomb shelters, the Gethsemane prayer, and the realism of Christian hope
Aug 03, 2022
Suffering 1: ’Adamah’, mystery and presence, the ever-smiling Buddha, and the lamb slain from the creation of the world
Jul 27, 2022
Space 2: Astrobiology, 16 billion billion Earth-like planets, LUCA and the non-competitive Imago Dei
Jul 20, 2022
Space 1: The James Webb telescope, extra-terrestrial life, hobbits of the universe and the doctrine of creation
Jul 13, 2022
Simulation 2: Zoom’s face-smoothing, chatbot therapists, Trinitarianism, and evil as counterfeit
Jul 06, 2022
Simulation 1: Deep fakes, David Beckham speaking Mandarin, Jean Baudrillard’s four phases, and image as sacrament
Jun 29, 2022
Prenatal screening 2: The prohibition on soothsaying, transcending genetic determinism, a client-technician relationship and Heidi Crowter’s joyful self-advocacy
Jun 22, 2022
Prenatal screening 1: Peering into the unknown, less than 1/150, blood tests over the internet, and disability doublethink
Jun 15, 2022
Old people 2: Aging congregations, transcendence at the Arsenal, understanding life backwards, and honouring prayer warriors
Jun 08, 2022
Old people 1: The demographic transition, Reverend Thomas Malthus, Hasidic Jewish outliers, and the grey vote
Jun 01, 2022
Robot rights 2: Rejecting self-definition, the citadel of human uniqueness, rehashing ‘God of the gaps’, and evangelising at androids
May 25, 2022
Robot rights 1: Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws, fauxbots, whimpering miniature dinosaurs, and inherent or conferred personhood
May 18, 2022
Pregnancy crisis 2: Paternalistic gynaecologists, holding truth with grace, ambiguity in the ultrasound clinic, and refusing the culture war
May 11, 2022
Pregnancy crisis 1: A constructive Christian response, heads versus hearts, feeling like a ‘bad feminist’, and the three options
May 04, 2022
John Stott 2: Christians in the public square, an untried ideal, talking and living like Jesus, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography
Apr 27, 2022
John Stott 1: Double listening, a conservative radical, redefining ‘the ministry’ and salt as preservative
Apr 20, 2022
Palliative care 2: Resisting assisted dying, the ‘superskill’ of listening, DNAR discussions, and euthanasia-free-zones
Apr 13, 2022
Palliative care 1: Dogs and Guinness on the wards, ‘living until you die’, deathbed prayers, and complicated grief
Apr 06, 2022
Climate anxiety 2: Listening to the Global South, alienation from creation, throwing pebbles into God’s river, and rediscovering lament
Mar 28, 2022
Climate anxiety 1: ’Delay means death’, media apathy, Extinction Rebellion, and fatalism among the young
Mar 22, 2022
Human enhancement 2: Techno-optimism returns, the yuck factor, cultivating our bodies, and the divinisation of humanity
Mar 15, 2022
Human enhancement 1: Calico, the dragon tyrant, transhumanism, and monkeys playing Pong
Mar 09, 2022
Relaunch: How we started, baby boomers and millennials, the pandemic as catalyst, and the signal to noise ratio
Mar 02, 2022
Coronavirus: The Omicron variant, mandatory vaccination, pandemic solidarity, and memories of authoritarianism
Dec 17, 2021
Reproductive technologies: the ’Google baby’, Oliver O’Donovan, 14-day-old embryos, and techno-optimism
Dec 09, 2021
Infertility and IVF: Hidden wounds, premature quintuplets, embryo donation and the procreative-unitive bond
Nov 10, 2021
Assisted dying: The Meacher Bill, radicals in the Lords, Canada’s slippery slope and fragile conscience protections
Oct 08, 2021
Abusive leadership: Mark Driscoll, the hermeneutic of suspicion, Sigmund Freud’s chaise longue, and Paul-Timothy relationships
Aug 30, 2021
The Robot Will See You Now: Human uniqueness, AI musicians, surveillance capitalism and ditching Google
Jul 20, 2021
Coronavirus: Miscounting deaths, the Sun’s front page, key workers with long covid and vaccine generosity
May 26, 2021
John Stott: Double listening, salt as preservative, incarnational mission, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography
May 04, 2021
Simulation: Deep fakes, image as sacrament, David Beckham in Mandarin and therapy chatbots
Mar 15, 2021
Digital church: Worship on Zoom, pandemic revival, time-shifting and Gnosticism
Feb 24, 2021
Social media and free speech: Fake news, Facebook’s ’Supreme Court’, the Capitol riot and YouTube algorithms
Jan 22, 2021
Coronavirus: Misinformation
Dec 16, 2020
Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 3
Dec 11, 2020
Coronavirus: The second lockdown
Nov 11, 2020
Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 2
Nov 09, 2020
Coronavirus: Vaccines - part 1
Oct 08, 2020
Coronavirus: Mental health, anxiety and hope
Sep 10, 2020
Coronavirus: Technology - part 2
Jun 24, 2020
Coronavirus: Technology - part 1
Jun 19, 2020
Coronavirus: Death and spirituality during a pandemic
May 26, 2020
Coronavirus: Life in the NHS
May 16, 2020
Coronavirus: The ethics of triage
May 13, 2020
Coronavirus: Thinking as a Christian during Covid-19
Apr 29, 2020
Coronavirus: How this pandemic is unlike anything before
Apr 27, 2020
Coronavirus: Christians in times of plague
Apr 23, 2020