Julie is an author, artist and animal activist.

In these 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 (with Luna barking in the background):

- Growing up reading the Children's Encyclopaedia

- Julie's life in public service & social work

- Studying Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism

- Spirituality & inter-connectedness & diversity

- Naturalistic and mystical versions of awe, wonder and inter-connectedness

- "There's some spirit in everything"

- Being comfortable not knowing. Humility and open-mindedness

- "I've always had more questions than answers"

- Starting every day in prayer and meditation to god, but not a god defined by any established religion

- "god" as an energy in the universe

- "Humans are like ants in a big machine" Our perceptions are limited

- Being a freethinker. Interested in all cultures and all religions

- Shifting from being focused on human issues to becoming a non-human animal advocate

- Albert Schweitzer's reverence for life

- Having ancestors that profited from animal exploitation

- Hating injustice, oppression and abuse

- Bertrand Russell's analytic philosophy

- Being a teacher and educator. The importance of a holistic education about all aspects of life

- An experience with a stray dog. Being talked into looking after it

- Seeing a council worker take the perspective of non-humans seriously

- Visiting an egg farm and seeing the hens crammed in to cages

- Reporting the egg farm to the RSPCA and being told "it's legal"

- The danger of a reverence for nature leading to excuses about animal product consumption "life consumes life..."

- Experiencing unconditional love as a child

- Patterns of abuse

- The importance of animal law and regulations

- The range of ways individuals can drive change, both personally and through our roles influencing and driving institutions

- Are we at the beginning of a huge movement for non-human animals?

- The power of social media to help us drive change

- The influence of education and indoctrination

- The influence of films and fiction. Dominion, Gunda, Seaspiracy, books

- "Within one generation - everything will be very different"

- Millions of animals are exploited, tortured and killed in research & testing

- "If it was ethically justified they would't need to hide it." "Most people don't want to needlessly cause suffering & death".

- Tapping in to latent decent human ethics?

- Fighting indifference.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.

Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our groups. Our main one is on FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.

Thanks, Graham for the post-production: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.