Weekly Newsletter from Christian Vegetarian Association CVA - March 21, 2023
From Christian Vegetarian Association (CVA)

  1. Free Download to Documentary "From Food to Freedom"
  2. Earth Day 2023
  3. Activist Feedback
  4. Tabling Opportunities
  5. Narratives That Can Guide Us (continued)
  6. All-Creatures.Org Ministry

1. Free Download to Documentary "From Food to Freedom"

Until midnight on 3/22, you can watch the new documentary “From Food to Freedom”, produced by the nonprofit Plant Pure Communities. It is a remarkable story about six people with diabetes who see whether they can reverse their disease using food as medicine.

Here is the link: Click here to watch From Food to Freedom.

2. Earth Day 2023

Sunday, April 23 is Earth Day, and this is an excellent opportunity to have an information table or to encourage your pastor to show the connection between what we eat and the major environmental challenges of our day, including climate change, resource depletion, and food security.

For more suggestions or information, contact lorenavalenziveg@gmail.com.

3. Activist Feedback

Regarding a Winter Jam event in Kansas City, Rick Hershey writes:

I handed out 1300 CVA booklets at T-Mobile Center (formerly Sprint Center) in Kansas City on Friday. There was another leafleter whose approach to passersby is to disparage what I do, telling them an assortment of animal species that they can eat. He did the same thing there at WJ last year as well. When I pointed out to him that I don’t disparage him, he replied by saying that my literature is corrupt. One person, maybe 17, approached me to say that while she may not agree with the literature, she really respects what I’m doing. I thanked her. A pastor took ten booklets for his congregation. A vegan woman declined my advice to supplement vitamin B12.

4. Tabling Opportunities

4/8/23 - Austin, Texas Vegfest Vegfest - www.texasvegfest.com/2023event/
4/15/23 - San Diego Vegan Fest - https://veganinsandiego.com/veganfest2023/
5/13-14/23 Vegfest-Seattle - WA https://vegofwa.org/vegfest/vegfest-home/
5/18-20/23 New York Vegan Women Summit - https://www.veganwomensummit.com/
5/21/23 New England. VegFest - https://www.nevegfest.org/
6/4/23 VegFest Michigan - https://vegmichigan.org/spring-vegfest-2023/
6/10/23 Chicago Vegandale - https://www.vegandalefest.com/chicago/
6/10/23 Philadelphia Vegfest - https://www.phillyvegfest.com/
8/26-27/23 Georgia Vegfest - https://georgiavegfest.com/
9/23/23 Syracuse, NY - https://vegancny.org/syracusevegfest
9/23-24/23 SoCal VegFest - https://www.socalvegfest.org/
10/21/23 Vegas VegFest - https://www.vegasvegfest.com/
10/23/23 San Francisco World VegFest -https://www.sfvs.org/events-details/world-veg-fest

Contact the CVA for more information if you can help.

5. Narratives That Can Guide Us (continued)

We are conscious creatures, capable of experiencing a wide range of sensory perceptions and subjective feelings. Where does consciousness come from? How can inanimate atoms come to comprise a living being who has conscious experience? This is a great mystery. How did anything come into being? This, too, is a great mystery. People of a wide range of faiths express certainty about answers to these questions. However, the existence of multiple, conflicting hypothesis about which people express certainty means that having certainty is not equivalent to having truth.

Do nonhumans have consciousness? The behavior of nonhumans of many species provides very strong evidence of consciousness. We can’t be certain of course, but for that matter we can’t be certain of the consciousness of any human other than ourselves. Even a human who said, “I have conscious experiences” could still be as unconscious as a computer with sophisticated algorithms. The best we can do, and this goes for every perception and conviction we might have, is to acknowledge that some hypotheses are unreasonable, such as that the world does not resemble what we see, that nonhuman mammals are automatons, or that the earth is flat.

Recognizing the fundamental mysteries related to existence, we might regard the universe with awe and wonder. Yes, there is pain, suffering, death, but there is also beauty and joy. All creatures, including ourselves, cling to life and resist death. This might be merely a product of natural selection. However, given that we are conscious creatures capable of deciding whether to live or die, I think it reflects a reasonable conviction that life, for the vast majority of us, is worth living. At the end of the day, our desire to live reflects a faith that the creation of matter and consciousness has been good. I will explore the implications of this faith next.

Stephen R. Kaufman, M.D.

6. From All-Creatures.Org Ministry

Our weekly newsletter contains up-to-the-minute good news for animals, action alerts, vegan/animal rights stories, poetry, and prose, thought provoking articles, vegan religion and spirituality, recipes, events, and much more!

All-Creatures.org Newsletter for March 15, 2023

Do you have things that you would like to see included? Then send it to us at veda@all-creatures.org. 

In the Love of the Lord,
Frank L Hoffman
All-Creatures.org

and

Kindness,
Tams Nicholson
Executive Directress
All-Creatures.org 

2023 Newsletters Archive