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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Seb Alex is an animal and human rights activist, as well as a lecturer, photojournalist and author. He is Founder of the Middle East Vegan Society. Seb has run animal rights advocacy workshops for over 1300+ activists across Europe, the Middle East and Australia. He has given lectures in over 2/3 of universities in The Netherlands and more than 55 universities and schools in Canada, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Portugal, reaching more than 6000 students. In 2020 and 2021, Seb collaborated with Lebanese Vegans in opening the world’s first animal rights and Vegan support centre that still operates today in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how can we make a better world?”
Sentientism answers those questions with “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.
00:00 Clips
01:23 Welcome
03:00 Seb’s Intro
– Born and raised in Lebanon, originally Armenian
– Activism (for human and non-human animal rights) since 15-16 years old
– “There’s a very important moral urgency”
– Addressing a regional gap re: animal advocacy in the Middle East “Maybe I shouldn’t complain and I should start doing something”
– “There are grass roots groups within the Middle East”
05:01 What’s Real
– Armenian community and the role of Christianity
– “I was not really raised religious”
– Attending an Armenian school founded by an atheist”but we had some historical religious courses”
– Praying and church “I did feel Christian up until 12-13 years old”
– Asking for a sign “I was really disappointed that no one showed up… you’re a kid and you really believe in these things… then you get slapped in the face”
– Becoming more agnostic over time “leaning more to I believe in what I see… no faith whatsoever”
– Attending 3 Vipassana Buddhist meditation retreats”for 10 days you don’t talk to anyone… you have to meditate for at least 10 hours a day… gives you a lot of back pain… at least my back pain is true!”
– “It wasn’t religious… it was a scientific way of meditating which I really enjoyed”
– Finding a big interest in religion again recently… religious history… watching the Christspiracy Film documentary
– Launching the Vegan Islam initiative “This is quite powerful… I didn’t expect this from Islam… I straight away bought a Quran”
– “You can make a very strong case for animal rightsusing religion”
– “How people can go through so much pain and still believe in god…”
– “I’m very well educated in it but I still don’t find any faith in me”
32:08What Matters?
37:27 Who Matters?
58:10 A Better World?
01:28:50 Follow Seb:
– Sebalex.org (reach out for lectures!)
And more… full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our ”I’m a Sentientist” wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
I recently gave this presentation to a network of Religious Education (RE) teachers from Northumberland in the UK. It’s aimed at helping teachers bring the Sentientism worldview and its themes into their classrooms. Feedback and ideas are always welcome. Of …continue
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