God Forbid

ABC Australia

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Religion und Spiritualität
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Religion: it’s at the centre of world affairs, but profound questions still remain. Why are you here? What happens when you die? Does God matter? God Forbid seeks the answers.

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Why do animals matter?

Do to a dog what we do to a factory-farmed pig, and you’d be arrested. Do it to ten thousand pigs in a shed, and it’s breakfast. Most of us say cruelty to animals is wrong. And then most of us are happy to have them killed and eat them. Both our panellists think the way we treat animals is a moral catastrophe. But they get there by opposite roads. One says animals matter because they suffer. The other says they matter because they’re God’s creatures. GUESTS: Peter Singer Emeritus Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University. Host of the podcast Lives Well Lived. 50 years ago exactly, his book Animal Liberation launched the modern animal liberation movement as we know it. David Clough Professor of Theology and Applied Sciences, University of Aberdeen. Author of the two-volume work On Animals. He’s a Methodist Preacher and Co-founder of CreatureKind which aims to transform Christian attitudes and practices toward animals.

55 Min.
26. Juni

How old do you feel?

We are, it turns out, a species that refuses to believe its own birth certificate. Australia is ageing, fast. This is not new here, or in Europe and North America where the trend has existed for decades. But even in China and now India, the fertility rate has dropped below replacement levels – even the two most populous nations on earth are getting older. Yet we’ve built a world — our economies, our cities, our pension systems, our cultures — around the young and the productive. So, what happens when that's no longer who we are? GUESTS: Prof Paul Komesaroff is a philosopher at Monash University. And a practising endocrinologist. And Director of the Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society. Dr Lee-Fay Low is Professor in Ageing and Health at University of Sydney. She’s also a registered psychologist and chairs the Sydney Dementia Network.

54 Min.
19. Juni

The pleasure we take in others' misfortune and what it says about us

You heard that someone had come unstuck. A rival. A bully. Someone overconfident, or two-faced, or just a bit too pleased with themselves. And something in you was glad. You won't say it out loud. You might barely admit it to yourself. But the Germans have a word for it. And it turns out, so did the ancient Greeks. Schadenfreude. The pleasure we take in others' misfortune. Is it a moral failing? A sign of deficient character? Or is it a window into what we actually believe about justice, equality — and each other? GUESTS: Tiffany Watt-Smith is a cultural historian and author of Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another's Misfortune. She joins us from London. Nick Haslam is Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne, and the man who's been thinking hard about Australia's national variant — tall poppy syndrome.

55 Min.
12. Juni

The ideas that inspired American Christian Zionism

Whether or not you believe in - or even know about "the Rapture", "the Tribulation", "the End Times", and "Armageddon", your life is influenced by the idea that Jesus Christ will not only return, he’ll go to Jerusalem, and from there, for exactly one thousand years, he’ll rule the world. Yet, this concept is not in the Bible...at least not directly. But a bible, published in America in 1909, and written by an American made it the most influential concepts in American Christian fundamentalism. The story of the Scofield Reference Bible is an extraordinary one. Not least because it lies at the heart of Christian Zionism which is more consequential today than ever. GUESTS: Professor Donald Akenson is from Queen's University in Ontario, his latest book The Americanization of the Apocalypse: Creating America's Own Bible.Dr Robyn Whitaker is Associate Professor of New Testament at Melbourne’s University of Divinity – among her titles Revelation for Normal People.

55 Min.
4. Juni

How should we view our relationship to work?

Most of us spend most of our waking hours working, paid and unpaid. From housework to paid work, most of our lives are dominated by work. It's so ingrained that losing our true selves in work can feel unavoidable. Yet, many also find purpose, value, and joy in work – even if it's not their dream job. Work is less a place and more a concept, the line between work and home can be blurred. And younger Gen-Z workers are repelled by the hustle culture and burnout that comes from increased casualisation, unpaid overtime and labour shortages. It’s why for Millennials, nearly 2 in 3 say work is a part of who they are. But for Gen Z, half say their job is not even a central part of their identity. So how, when and why do we work? GUESTS: Valerie Ling founded The Centre for Effective Serving, a psychology practice dedicated to alleviating burnout and other workplace problems. Kara Martin is Adjunct Professor at Boston's Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She's also the author of Workship: How to Use your Work to Worship God.Rabbi Zalman Kastel is founder of Together For Humanity which teaches intercultural understanding in schools and the community.

54 Min.
29. Mai

The seen and unseen: Belief in Jinns, Marian apparitions and Japanese yokai

Halloween, in the western Christian tradition, remembers the dead – saints, martyrs, and all the faithful departed. But why do so many believe the departed return? Regardless of the place on earth, or time in history, people say they see strange apparitions and ghostly figures. And as for things unseen, even more profess a belief in genies, spirits, angels and supernatural entities. All these ideas and feelings are traditionally laid bare in this realm of the supernatural, the boundaries of dark and light, good and evil, in our human imagination. That’s why God Forbid panellist Ali A. Olomi studies genies – or jinn as they’re known in the Muslim world. He's a popular podcaster and Assistant Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Kristy Nabhan-Warren is Professor and Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Iowa. She is an expert on Marian apparitions – the supernatural appearance of Mary, mother of Jesus. And in Seattle Washington, Zack Davisson is an award winning author, lecturer, and Japanese language translator – and expert in yokai, the supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore.

54 Min.
22. Mai

Home economics: waking up from the Australian dream

The government has removed favourable tax settings for investors to make home ownership just a bit more achievable for Millennials and Gen Z’s priced out of the market. The Prime Minister has spoken about the importance of giving young people access to housing so they have “a stake in the economy” Is tinkering with, or even an overhaul, of the housing market really the only answer to growing wealth gaps in Australia? What if we can move towards a totally different economic structure that serves everyone? And what do some of Australia's faith communities say about what that model might look like? GUESTS: Dr Julie Macken Research and Project Officer of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney’s Justice and Peace Office, and author of Australia’s Schism in the soul: colonization, asylum seekers, and a nation’s failure to mourn Asad Ansari, a specialist in Islamic finance, with 25 years of experience across Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, and Co-founder of Amanah Islamic Finance Dr Jonathon Cornford runs Manna Gum, an independent Christian non-profit thinktank, and podcast host of Mannacast

55 Min.
14. Mai

Doomsday or just good planning? The ethics of prepping

From climate disasters to economic collapse, pandemics to political unrest — some people prepare for the worst long before it happens. But is prepping a sign of prudent foresight or a loss of faith in society? And how do ethics and religion shape ideas of survival? In this episode we explore the growing culture of preppers and survivalists, from community resilience to billionaire bunkers. Are preppers visionaries, doomsayers, or just realists? And in a crisis, what do we owe each other? GUESTS: Dr. Bradley Garrett – Social geographer and author of Bunker: What It Takes to Survive the Apocalypse.Dr. Tom Doig – Journalist and author of the upcoming book We Are All Preppers Now.John Scarinci – Secretary General of the Australian Peoples Survival League.Tracy Simmons – Journalist, religion reporter, and executive director of FāVS News, a religion news website in the Pacific Northwest.This episode of God Forbid was made on Gadigal land and in Meanjin. And was first broadcast March 2025.

54 Min.

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Religion: it’s at the centre of world affairs, but profound questions still remain. Why are you here? What happens when you die? Does God matter? God Forbid seeks the answers.