Dr. Melanie Joy (https://sentientism.info/sentientist-...) is a Harvard-educated psychologist specializing in relationships, communication, and social transformation. She is the award-winning author of six books, including the new How to End Injustice Everywhere (https://endinjusticeeverywhere.org/) and the bestselling Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Melanie is an internationally recognized speaker and trainer who’s presented her work in fifty countries across six continents.

Melanie is best known for her groundbreaking theories on the psychology of violence and nonviolence and building healthy relationships. Her work has been featured by media outlets around the world, including the New York Times, BBC, NPR, and ABC Australia. She is the eighth recipient of the Ahimsa Award—previously given to the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela—for her work on global nonviolence; and she also received both the Peter Singer Prize and the Empty Cages Prize for her work developing strategies to reduce the suffering of non-human animals. Melanie is the founding president of the international organization, Beyond Carnism.

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 audio is on our Podcast: https://apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.

We discuss:
00:00 Clips!
01:04 Welcome
02:51 Melanie's Intro
- The psychology of violence and #nonviolence , oppression and social transformation
- The psychology of eating animals and the work of ‪@BeyondCarnism‬

04:05 What's Real?
- #catholic father, #protestant mother, neither particularly religious
- Attending #presbyterian #Christian church (occasionally) and nursery school
- Later, father re-discovered Catholic roots and became very religious. Jewish step-mother converted to catholicism
- Mother joined #unitarianuniversalism church
- "I was never religious myself but I was very interested in religion... my first major was comparative religious ethics... fascinated by all things spiritual... the occult..."
- Very interested in #Judaism for a while
- "Always asking about meaning and what's true and what's real... sort of the way my brain was wired"
- Partially raised by #Quaker uncle and aunt "very progressive and socially engaged... very strong #socialjustice orientation" while father and step-mother were increasingly conservative
- "Everybody else in my family... is very progressive... my grandfather was even a #communist or at very least a #socialist "
- Quakerism and UU: "Integrating this sort of spiritual orientation which wasn't believing in a god, but believing in something more... that has to be very socially engaged... that was very attractive to me."
- "I'm not a Buddhist... but I have been guided by the principles of #buddhism "
- "My understanding of the world has been very much informed by witnessing and observing my family and the way they understood their own traditions and practices"
- "Liking to be in churches and liking to be in synagogues and wanting to be in temples... I felt very drawn"
- "I've been deeply influenced by ‪@samharrisorg‬ ... 'the only thing that we can know for sure is consciousness'" and his book #wakingup
- "I have a fairly robust #meditation practice"
- #Nondual awareness teaching: ‪@stephanbodian9913‬ , ‪@LochKelly‬ , ‪@Adyashanti‬
- "#descartes I don't think was expressing consciousness he was expressing thinking"
- "Consciousness... it's the experience of being aware but it's not the experience of thinking"
- "I don't know what's true supernaturally - I don't follow supernatural phenomena"
- "Buddhism... not religious Buddhism but pure Buddhism... without the religious bells and whistles and rituals and supernatural beliefs... it is very rational... it's probably the most rational practice I've ever experienced"
- "My own practice is not one that's engaged with supernatural phenomena. My practice is one that's engaged with deepening my experience of consciousness... and working to support the end of suffering for all conscious beings and sentient beings"
- Rejecting #solipsism
- "One of the key aims of justice movements is to de-bunk myths"
- JW: #rfkjr and #mariannewilliamson

26:43 What Matters?
38:46 Who Matters?
44:34 A Better World?
55:45 Follow Melanie
- https://www.melaniejoy.org/
- https://infighting.org/
- https://carnism.org/
- https://endinjusticeeverywhere.org/
-   / drmelaniejoy  
-   / drmelaniejoy  
-   / melaniejoyphd  

& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)#sentientism
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