Madame Bovary’s Dreams

Cliff!

Season 4 Episode 488

Though written in the 1800s, Gustave Flaubert's novel 'Madame Bovary' has a powerful message for us today.

Season

Season 3

One of the biggest questions that people struggle with is where do we get our concepts of right and wrong? On what basis should we make moral choices?

371 - The Meaning of Life

What would you do if someone came and told you that they were suicidal; that they believed that life had no meaning, and was not worth living? What would you say was the meaning and purpose of life?

PGR

372 - Interpretations All the Way Down

How do we understand the world that we live in? How do we understand the things that happen to us, the things that are around us? Our interpretation is more complicated than most of us realise.

373 - Einmal ist Keinmal

There's an old saying that you only l;ive once. From a certain perspective that's not true, but suppose that you could live your life over and over and over again! Would that give your life meaning?

PGR

374 - The Superstitions of Science

For thousands of years people have asked the question, "What is truth?" And even now, thousands of years later, are we any closer to the answer? Is science the key to understanding truth?

375 - Guilty as Sin

Do you ever feel guilty about things? How about the kind of guilt that you just can't get rid of? Cliff wonders if the the guilt that we have can't teach us some important lessons about ourselves.

PGR

376 - Law and Freedom

What is Freedom? What does it mean to be free? Cliff makes a rather startling proposition, that true freedom, moral freedom is the concept of law!

377 - What Aristotle Got Wrong

In the ongoing creation-evolution debate, Cliff looks at some very startling implications of the common view that evolutionists are the Gallileos of today and the creationists are narrow minded.

378 - What Aristotle Got Right

Thousands of years ago, Aristotle came up with the concept of understanding the causes of things. One of those causes has today been pushed away by people; but at what cost?

379 - The Demarkation Problem

We live in a day and age where science is the epistemic king, as if science has proved everything. But Cliff wants to explore the possibility that things are just not as simple as that.

Season 4

480 - The Atheist Guide to Unreality

It's one thing to hold beliefs; it's another thing entirely to take those beliefs to their logical conclusions. Cliff looks at one man who took his beliefs to their logical and shocking conclusion.

PGR

481 - The Book of Beauty

Everyone loves beautiful things; art, faces, music, jewelry. But Cliff asks what is beauty? What can beauty do, and what can't beauty do?

482 - Glitter of the New Galaxies

As we all know, life can be pretty tough, and it's not always easy to find hope. But Cliff introduces us to a woman who found hope, in a very unlikely place.

483 - On Means and Ends

What is the one thing people do in life that they don't do for the sake of anything else? The answer has a very important meaning in terms of how we ultimately live our lives.

484 - Math Problem

For the longest time people thought that if they wanted absolute certainty they could find it in one place, namely mathematics. But if mathematics aren't absolute, what does it mean to live by faith?

485 - Satin Romeo

All of us use our imaginations to imagine things different from reality. But what are the reasons for these hopes and dreams, especially when we can have hope when all things seem hopeless?

486 - The Grand Inquisitor

Do we really have the freedom to make choices, or is fate to blame for the choices we make?

PGR

487 - Epistemological Tools

All the time we talk about things that we know, but what does it really mean to know something? How do you know that what you know is correct?

488 - Madame Bovary’s Dreams

Though written in the 1800s, Gustave Flaubert's novel 'Madame Bovary' has a powerful message for us today.

489 - The Darwin Dilemma

Believe in the Bible, or believe in evolution, but don't fool yourself into thinking that you can believe them both. Cliff looks at why.

490 - The Enormous Radio

The Bible teaches a very inconvenient truth, that human beings are wretched creatures. You might mot want to hear it, so sometimes it takes something shocking to make us realise that for ourselves.