All Matters of Life and Death articles – Page 7
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Archie Battersbee 2: Doubts over the brain scans, the end of ‘doctor knows best’, sucked into the culture wars and protective power of attorney
Archie’s case underlines the growing crisis over the lack of trust many ordinary people have in medical professionals.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Archie Battersbee 1: The invention of ‘brain death’, a breakdown in trust, the child’s best interests, and how to turn off life support
Twelve-year-old Archie Battersbee died on 7 August, after months of legal wrangling between doctors who believed he was brain dead and wished to end life support, and his family who resisted this.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Genetics 2: Whole genome sequencing, Gattaca, de-identification versus anonymity, and Big Data Towers of Babel
In this episode we pick up our conversation with clinical geneticist Melody Redman to talk about a new NHS programme in England which is piloting whole genome sequencing of newborn babies.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Genetics 1: Rare diseases, libraries of recipe books, BRCA1, and precision medicine
Each of us carries around in our cells about 20,000 different genes – a unique set of biological code which shapes how our bodies develop.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Suffering 2: Rediscovering lament, reciting psalms in bomb shelters, the Gethsemane prayer, and the realism of Christian hope
Resuming our conversation about suffering, we think through some faithful Christian responses to evil and loss.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Suffering 1: ’Adamah’, mystery and presence, the ever-smiling Buddha, and the lamb slain from the creation of the world
The problem of suffering has been one of the most intractable and painful theological debates for centuries.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Space 2: Astrobiology, 16 billion billion Earth-like planets, LUCA and the non-competitive Imago Dei
In the second half of our conversation with theologian Andrew Davison, we ask what the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would mean for Christian faith and teaching.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Space 1: The James Webb telescope, extra-terrestrial life, hobbits of the universe and the doctrine of creation
In the week the first images from the new James Webb Space Telescope were beamed back to Earth, we are joined by theologian Andrew Davison to consider the spiritual value of cosmology and astrophysics.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Simulation 2: Zoom’s face-smoothing, chatbot therapists, Trinitarianism, and evil as counterfeit
Today we’re going back to our conversation about simulation for part two of this re-broadcast.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Simulation 1: Deep fakes, David Beckham speaking Mandarin, Jean Baudrillard’s four phases, and image as sacrament
For the next two weeks we’re dipping back into the Matters of Life and Death archive to bring you an episode we first broadcast last year. It’s all about simulation.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Prenatal screening 2: The prohibition on soothsaying, transcending genetic determinism, a client-technician relationship and Heidi Crowter’s joyful self-advocacy
Could it be that some knowledge – including whether your unborn child has a serious genetic condition – is actually not helpful, and even harmful to us?
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Prenatal screening 1: Peering into the unknown, less than 1/150, blood tests over the internet, and disability doublethink
Pregnant women today are offered a battery of tests and screening for their unborn child, looking for an ever-increasing range of conditions and risks.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Old people 2: Aging congregations, transcendence at the Arsenal, understanding life backwards, and honouring prayer warriors
Demographic trends reveal clearly the next century will be one increasingly dominated by older people. If God is giving us a lot more folk in their later years, what are they for in church life?
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Old people 1: The demographic transition, Reverend Thomas Malthus, Hasidic Jewish outliers, and the grey vote
The world’s population is rapidly becoming older and older, with many developed nations seeing unprecedented proportions of their citizens in retirement age.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Robot rights 2: Rejecting self-definition, the citadel of human uniqueness, rehashing ‘God of the gaps’, and evangelising at androids
In the second part of our conversation on robot rights, we explore three Christian responses to calls for robot personhood, spanning the spectrum of hostility to optimism about the development.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Robot rights 1: Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws, fauxbots, whimpering miniature dinosaurs, and inherent or conferred personhood
If and when autonomous and intelligent robots come into existence, should they be granted rights, or even personhood?
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Pregnancy crisis 2: Paternalistic gynaecologists, holding truth with grace, ambiguity in the ultrasound clinic, and refusing the culture war
Abortion is a flashpoint issue in both the church and wider culture, with the very language you choose used as a cudgel for either side.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: John Stott 2: Christians in the public square, an untried ideal, talking and living like Jesus, and the challenge of evangelical hagiography
This is part two of our re-broadcast of last year’s John Stott episode, to mark what would have been his centenary.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: John Stott 1: Double listening, a conservative radical, redefining ‘the ministry’ and salt as preservative
This month marks 101 years since the late John Stott was born, and his centenary last year prompted a flurry of events to mark the centenary of this highly influential vicar, Bible teacher and evangelical leader.
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ShowsMatters of Life & Death: Palliative care 2: Resisting assisted dying, the ‘superskill’ of listening, DNAR discussions, and euthanasia-free-zones
In Britain as in many countries there is a growing campaign to legalise assisted suicide and to make doctors prescribe on request lethal drugs to terminally ill patients.
