We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined.
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Jordi is an ethical vegan, a zoologist and a veganism content writer and consultant. He has been involved in different aspects of animal protection for many years. He became well-known for securing ethical veganism as a protected characteristic under the UK Equality Act 2010 in a landmark Employment Tribunal case. He has worked doing campaigning, lobbying, scientific research, undercover investigations and consultancy. He has authored several books, including “Ethical Vegan: A Personal and Political Journey to Change the World”.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Welcome
01:14 Jordi’s Intro
– Adding new identities: Zoology, ethical vegan, activist, writer.
– Legal case re: ethical veganism becoming a protected philosophical belief in the UK
– Writing “The Ethical Vegan”
03:26 What’s Real?
– Growing up in Catalonia as a Roman Catholic (like 99.9% of people there)
– Becoming atheist as a child despite “I never met one… I assumed that everybody else believed in the Catholic god”
– Other cultures seemed to be “pre-Catholic”
– Living under the oppression of Franco’s fascist dictatorship “Catalan culture survived underground.” “As a child… the message you get is ‘this reality is not the real one'” “I have to maintain a reality against the reality around me” That led to questioning Catholicism
– Being bullied “The world was a completely hostile place to me… the country… the streets”
– Discovering the welcome of the animal world & nature “I could see there was something better”
– Catalan Catholicism was softer. More open to doubt than the fascist-friendly, Spanish version
– Internal struggle at 12 yrs “What happens if I don’t believe”
– “Protestants tend to become agnostics. Catholics tend to become atheists.”
– “I prayed to god to make me an atheist… so I can discover you by myself”
– Being anti-religious at first, but softening with age
– Secular Buddhism
– Formal institutional religions vs. more personal/flexible religions & spirituality
– “I built my philosophy from instinct”
– Naturalistic & mystical/spiritual connections with nature
– “That bark seems more important than what you were just saying” 🙂
– The same feeling of awe can be interpreted in spiritual or naturalistic ways
– Jordi’s 13 hour lecture on “From Nothing to Everything – a Natural History of the Universe”
– “Reality is a subjective thing but also shared”… “Find the points in common”
…and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our “I’m a Sentientist” wall via this simple form.
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Thanks Graham.
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