God Forbid

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.

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.

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

Falling in love with a machine is supposed to be the stuff of science-fiction. About a decade ago, Spike Jonze made the film Her, about a lonely man Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, falling in love with his operating system, Samantha. And the world renowned psychoanalyst Esther Perel recently counselled a man and his romantic partner, a chat bot! Is romantic love just in our hearts and heads, or does it require another human to be real? If an AI lover is always patient, understanding, never challenges you, and you never have to pick up after them, how could a human ever compete? Is AI the ultimate cure for human loneliness? Can AI fill the God-shaped hole in us? GUESTS:Professor Meghan Sullivan, Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Also, the Founding Director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common GoodCaragh OBrien, author of AnnieBot (written under the pen name Sierra Greer) a novel told from the perspective of a robot girlfriend for a man called Doug. AnnieBot won the 2025 Arthur C. Clarke award for UK science fiction book of the year. Professor Uri Gal, Professor of Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School, whose research focuses on the organisational and ethical aspects of digital technologies - his recent article for the ABC is here.

Pope Leo XIV has recently slammed the use of God's name to justify what he terms as the "absurd" pursuit of war, specifically challenging military leaders who describe operations in Iran as a holy war "in the name of Jesus Christ". Is a "holy war" antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ? Sister Brigid Arthur, Rev Tim Costello and Rev Michael Woolf certainly think so. All of them have been at the forefront of contemporary societal battles about some of the most pressing issues of our day: asylum seekers and refugees, gambling reform and homelessness. So, what can Christian leaders offer us in this context? Can they be holy warriors for our most pressing concerns? GUESTS:Rev Tim Costello is Chief Advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, Member of the Order of Australia, Executive Director of Micah Australia.Rev Dr Michael Woolf is Senior Minister of Lake Street Church of Evanston in the US state of Illinois and Co-Associate Regional Minister with the American Baptist Church, and author of Sanctuary and Subjectivity: Thinking Theologically about Whiteness and Sanctuary Movements Sister Brigid Arthur is a Brigidine sister who coordinates the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project, which advocates for asylum seekers, and helps them out with practical needs like housing, rent and utilities, friendship.

It’s Eastern Orthodox Easter this weekend, where the faithful will announce to each other Christos Anesti. Christ is Risen.Also risen? The fortunes of Eastern Orthodoxy among men – though this is contested. Over the last 50 years, the numbers of people around the world identifying as religious have dropped. But the numbers of Christians seem to have stabilised, just in the last few years. Why?

Evolving digital technologies have supercharged our anxieties about privacy and surveillance. These concerns may feel new, but they have always existed. Access to privacy is central to human dignity and intimacy - but it is also conditional in a society which values openness and accountability. So what should remain seen and unseen? When does surveillance become intrusive? And can privacy survive the digital age? Guests: Anita Allen, Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania Hugh Breakey, Professor of Philosophy, Griffith University David Vincent, Professor Emeritus, Open Universities UK, author of Privacy: A Short History

These days, we want Rights, not religion. Choice, not Church. Pleasure, over prayer. In Australia, and the world increasingly, the market is the Messiah, and the self is the saviour. But, if we’re the freest people who’ve ever lived, to choose our partners, careers, genders, and Gods or no God, free to buy anything, stream anything, be anything...why then do we seem to be unravelling? In a world of loneliness, anxiety, extremism, polarisation, the more we chase freedom, the more it seems to slip away. Are we in a freedom trap?GUESTS:Priyan Max Jeganathan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity, author of The Freedom Trap.Alexander Lefebvre is Professor of Politics and Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He's the author of Liberalism as a Way of Life.

Why would you trade the visible for the invisible? And experts believe in the census later this year – for the first time ever - those ticking “no religion” will surpass Christians. And it’s happening across the global north - even the US – where 95% believed in something 30 years ago – today, nearly 1-in-3 American’s say they’re atheist or agnostic or no religion in particular. So why in this sea of secularism would some swim against the current? People raised without faith, who find themselves drawn to prayer, or ritual, or surrender to the unseen? To the disbeliever it can look madness. Or maybe in a world of clicks and content the hunger for sacred silence makes more sense than we think. GUESTS:​Tanya Luhrmann, Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University and author of “How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others” Kelsey Osgood, a journalist, a convert to orthodox Judaism, and the author of “Godstruck - Seven Women's Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion”Abdullah Kunde is a medical doctor a convert to Islam, and Founder and President of the Muslim Debate Initiative Australia.

Imagine losing the only person who never judged you, never walked away, always made you feel safe. Our culture, and our religions, can make us believe human loss is different to animals dying. But tell that to someone who believes one of the most important relationships in their life is with their pet. GUESTS:Dr Millie Cordaro, Professor of Psychology at Texas State UniversityDr Daniela Rizzo is a theologian at Alphacrucis University College and author of Animal PneumatologyDavid Michie is an author, known around the world for his series of books about Buddhism and animals

Of course, you believe you WOULD save a drowning child. But that doesn’t make you a saint – in fact, depending on how you live the rest of your life, it could well make you a sinner. For 50 years, PETER SINGER has been making uncomfortable observations like that.Peter is perhaps the world’s most influential philosopher - he’s shaped the way we think about animals and bioethics, abortion and euthanasia. And he's the philosophical father of the Effective Altruism movement - a quiet revolution that's transformed doing good from sentiment into science. GUEST:Professor Peter Singer is Emeritus Professor of Bioethics at Princeton and National University of Singapore His Bold Reasoning substack is hereHis book The Life You Can Save is free to download

What does living simply mean in 2025? With an increasingly complex world, it is becoming harder and harder to detach from Earthly possessions. But what if we don't need to, in order to live an awakened and spiritual life?The monks of today don't look like the ones you might picture from your childhood. They carry iPhones, have social media, and catch planes across the world. From Hare Krishna to Humanistic Buddhism, modern followers of mindful traditions grapple with maintaining a connection to the world while not falling prey to its modern trappings of selfishness, consumerism, and greed. How do they do it? And what can we learn from them?GUESTS: His Holiness S.B. Keshava Swami, a Hare Krishna monk, author, and teacher of the Vaishnava Hindu traditionTosana Krsna Dasa, also know as Tilak, a Hare Krishna teacher, pastor and disciple, also a student in both law and religion at the University of SydneyVenerable Dr JueWei Shi, a member of the Fo Guang Shan order of Buddhists and Director of the Nan Tien Institute’s Humanistic Buddhism Centre.This episode of God Forbid was recorded on Dharawal and Gadigal land and produced on Gadigal land. It was first broadcast in January 2025

If God says that man is fallible, and man wrote the Bible, then how can we know that the Bible is the true word of God?