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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Desperately Seeking Eternity

The Essay: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Episode 1: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Peter Owen-Jones

Religion & Ethics

Peter Owen-Jones

Episode 1

Episode 1: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Peter Owen-Jones

Desperately Seeking Eternity

Desperately Seeking Eternity: Peter Owen-Jones

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How eternity should be reclaimed from those who have tried to place it out of our reach.

Anglican priest, writer and broadcaster Peter Owen-Jones calls for the notion of eternity to be reclaimed from those who have tried to place it out of our reach.

All the established religions teach some form of existence after life, from concepts of heaven and hell to theories of reincarnation. Common to all is the principle that good or bad actions in this life will have repercussions after death. 

But how relevant are these theories of the afterlife to the world we live in now? New developments in science, philosophy and technology threaten to undermine our traditional ideas of eternity - and even threaten to render them obsolete. In this series, five writers set out to explore ideas of eternity, infinity and the afterlife from fresh viewpoints. Does our insistence on measuring and categorising time serve to make eternity even more unknowable? What can the principles of mathematics tell us about the tricky subject of infinity? How would people feel about eternity if they could live to be 200 years old? 

Anglican priest, writer and broadcaster Peter Owen-Jones begins the series with a passionate call for eternity to be reclaimed from those - among them both atheist rationalists and dogma-serving priests - who have tried to place it out of our reach. 

Producer: Hugh Costello
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 3.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Writers explore concepts of eternity within and beyond religious and cultural traditions

Series in which writers explore concepts of eternity within - and beyond - religious and cultural traditions

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The Essay

Desperately Seeking Eternity

Episode 1: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Peter Owen-Jones

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