Jimmy Videle (https://sentientism.info/sentientist-...) is a farmer, naturalist, and researcher. He is the author of The Veganic Grower’s Handbook: Cultivating Fruits, Vegetables, and Herbs from Urban Backyard to Rural Farmyard and the co-founder of NAVCS-Certified Veganic. His writing has appeared in many publications including CounterPunch, Countercurrents, and LA Progressive.

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.

00:00 Clips!
01:01 Welcome
03:08 Jimmy's Intro
- 20 years in farming
- A naturalist... observes and scientifically tries to understand nature "my passion". Over 10,000 hours of field research "a lot of time outside"
- Author of The Veganic Grower's Handbook "how to grow... without the products of animals or having any animals on the farm"
04:50 What's Real?
- German Roman Catholic mother, Italian Catholic father
- Church every Sunday, communion at 5-6 yrs old
- 12 yrs old heading toward confirmation
- Only child, parents divorcing, a tough patch at high school "It's probably a little easier if you have siblings... I went into my own little bubble... I always felt very comfortable alone"
- Attending weekly catechism, dad asks if Jimmy still wants to go... "Dad... I really wanna just play baseball... this was our religion!"
- "When you're really worried about what people are thinking about you you spend less time delving into the bigger questions... at that time it was the purpose of... 'I want people to like me'"
- Music scholarship to college in California... meeting lifelong friends... hippy influence... "this idea that love could rule all... the biggest moment - flash of my life... wow love"
- "The idea of god... I was never totally comfortable"
- Having to confess sins "I didn't have any... I'd have to make something up... in #Catholocism you're always sinning... only being alive means you're sinning... it's really bizarre... If I didn't say something then there was this silence... impending, doomful silence"
- "I always believed that there was god... but I always had a tough time with this god... always judging us... always making us feel bad... like victims... and we're only going to be saved when we die... when we have a chance... to go to heaven"
- In my 19-20''s "I realised that wasn't going to be my path"
- Exploring eastern religions & #daoism "we choose our path... but guiding supernatural principles..."
- "Moments where I could predict something that would happen tomorrow... maybe it has something to do with this stream of consciousness that exists which daoism talks a lot about"... #buddhism, first nations religions
- The #iching & "Animal Spirit Guides" by Steven Farmer "Maybe nature is also telling me something... nature has a message and all I have to do is listen and learn"
- "I have my hands actually in the earth... I'm feeling something that most people don't"
- "Every living thing that has died is part of that life consciousness that then exists"
- Living on top of some of the earth's oldest rocks "I also want to believe that that rock has knowledge from 4 billion years ago"
- "For me... a bacterium is as sentient as I am"
- "Maybe all of that knowledge is there for the taking"
- "Maybe it is all natural... maybe there's nothing mystical about it at all... start thinking about what it is to be a wolf or a deer or a hemlock tree... how can we see the world then?"
- "To even believe that we are the only sentient being on the planet... it's as arrogant as we can get"
- Gods as personalities vs. god as nature
- Epistemic and ethical risks of supernatural worldviews
- "What I believe now... #animism... the original religion... maybe it's the way nature looks at the world... every living being has a breath or a soul... anima... when you die, that soul becomes something else..."
- "I don't put a lot of weight into it because I can't prove it... try to look at the world from a science perspective"
- Colonial views of indigenous people as "savages"
32:03 What and Who Matters?
01:09:03 A Better World?
01:41:32 Follow Jimmy
-   / 100076612535623  
- https://www.lafermedelaube.com/
-   / the-veganic-grower-s-handbook  
- https://observatory.wiki/Jimmy_Videle
- https://humaneherald.org/publications/
- https://certifiedveganic.org/
- https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/he...

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

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