Living with the Gods

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Factual: History

Neil MacGregor explores the role and expression of shared beliefs around the world.

Neil MacGregor explores the role and expression of shared beliefs in communities around the world. Produced in partnership with the British Museum.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Living With The Gods

Living with the Gods: Living with No Gods

Living with No Gods

BBC Radio 4 - Living with the Gods, Living with No Gods

Neil MacGregor on societies who banished religion, from revolutionary France to the USSR.

Neil MacGregor considers the attempts of post-revolutionary France and the USSR to exist without religion - and asks if one set of shared beliefs needs to be replaced by another.

Neil MacGregor focuses on societies which aimed to live without religious beliefs. 

Neil examines a revolutionary clock, from around 1795, created in the wake of the French Revolution, and designed to mark a new way of living: in an age of reason, there would no longer be royalism or religion in France. 

A poster from the Soviet Union celebrates the apparent triumph of scientific progress: the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin floats in space, looks out and proclaims 'There is no God!'. It seems that the heavens are empty of divine beings, but full, instead, of starry promise. 

Producer Paul Kobrak 

Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Living with the Gods

Living with No Gods

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4