Matters of Life and Death

May 01 2024 148
Matters of Life and Death Podcast artwork

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 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.

For more resources to help you explore faith and the big questions, visit: http://www.premierunbelievable.com

If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, find more resources to read, listen to and watch at John’s website: http://www.johnwyatt.com

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Assisted dying in Scotland: A bad law but also an inevitable one?

May 01 2024 71 mins  
A new law has been proposed in the Scottish Parliament which would allow terminally ill people to request doctors assist them in committing suicide. This is the latest push in a growing campaign across the UK and more widely in the Western world to legislate for assisted dying and euthanasia. In this episode we look through the bill to discuss its myriad flaws and how it would very

Abusive relationships and coercive control in church

Apr 24 2024 64 mins  
Society has been on a long and slow journey in recent decades into a richer and more sympathetic understanding of how abuse and coercion work within relationships. We are much better at both identifying and prosecuting this kind of abuse, and at being more attuned to the needs of victims and understanding why they find it difficult to just walk away. But domestic violence and contr

Q&A: Did ending Roe v Wade actually save unborn children’s lives?

Apr 17 2024 38 mins  
Our first topic in this Q&A episode is a recent study which found that in 2023, the first full calendar year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion, total abortions actually increased. Despite 21 states enacting full or partial abortion bans, more women not fewer are ending their pregnancies. How can this have happened, and what mi

ADHD, over-diagnosis and should Christians try to enhance our brains with stimulants?

Apr 10 2024 51 mins  
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the faster growing mental health diagnoses of our age. More and more people, including those well into adulthood, are seeking out and being diagnosed with ADHD. And the typical treatment plan involves taking powerful amphetamine-based stimulant medication, effectively turbocharging parts of the brain’s cognitive capacity.

Tim Farron, toxic social media, and how to navigate the ‘mucky business’ of politics

Apr 03 2024 45 mins  
We’re both away for our Easter breaks, so this week we’re bringing you a classic episode from the MOLAD archive, when we were joined by the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron to discuss social media and politics. Research suggests UK members of parliament like Tim get sent thousands of offensive tweets every single day. Why have social networks become such toxic,

New obesity drugs, the morality of food, and has neuroscience killed off free will?

Mar 27 2024 54 mins  
A new wave of anti-obesity drugs led by Wegovy (also known as Ozempic) are causing huge ripples in the medical world and popular culture. Astonishingly successful at helping people lose weight, these drugs both offer a tantalising solution to the obesity epidemic and its associated public health crisis, and have also made the pharma companies which own them staggeringly rich as dem

Tech hype: Should Christians resist or lean into AI?

Mar 20 2024 57 mins  
As is probably obvious from previous episodes, John is extremely interested in generative AI and thinks it will be the next transformative technology to entirely up-end how society works. Tim, however, is much more sceptical and thinks a lot of the rhetoric around AI is overblown. So, prompted by Tim sharing an AI-sceptical blog, in this episode we talk through the anatomy of a tec

Q&A: Why have anti-abortion activists accidentally banned fertility treatment in Alabama?

Mar 13 2024 42 mins  
Alabama’s Supreme Court has ruled that embryos in deep freeze, stored as part of IVF treatment, can be considered as legally children. This unexpected judgement has prompted many clinics to shut their doors, fearing lawsuits, as the storage and eventual destruction of surplus embryos is standard practice in IVF. In this episode we reflect on how anti-abortion language written int

How can Christian doctors approach medical-assisted dying (euthanasia)?

Mar 06 2024 64 mins  
This week we’re bringing you a classic episode from the MOLAD vault. Medical Assistance in Dying is Canada’s euthanasia programme. It started in 2016 with a Supreme Court decision but has since rapidly expanded and liberalised. The latest battleground is over mental health. The government has committed to changing its laws so that people suffering solely from mental health cond

Psychedelics, spirits and the philosophy of Harry Potter

Feb 28 2024 54 mins  
Culture is increasingly interested in psychedelic drugs. Whether it’s Silicon Valley execs micro-dosing LSD to turbocharge their meetings, Americans doing ayahuasca weekends in Mexico, or rafts of studies suggesting ketamine can really help in treating depression, we’re all taking drugs much more seriously than any time since the 1960s counterculture. But what does this all mea