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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

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 2: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Mona Siddiqui

Religion & Ethics

Episode 2

Episode 2: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Mona Siddiqui

Desperately Seeking Eternity

Desperately Seeking Eternity: Mona Siddiqui

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Desperately Seeking Eternity, Desperately Seeking Eternity: Mona SiddiquiClose menu

Muslim theologian Mona Siddiqui speaks on the prospect of immortality.

Muslim theologian Mona Siddiqui argues that the prospect of immortality, for all it grandeur, is too abstract to offer much tangible consolation to the living.

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? 

Muslim theologian Mona Siddiqui writes that the prospect of immortality, for all its theological grandeur, is too abstract to offer much tangible consolation to the living. So why do so many of us continue to invest our hopes in it?

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 2: Desperately Seeking Eternity: Mona Siddiqui

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