- Veganpalooza 2012
- Comments on Last Week’s Essay
- This Week’s Sermon from
Rev. Frank and Mary Hoffman
1. Veganpalooza 2012
This
is an event that nobody should miss! Starting on Wednesday, July 11,
you are invited to FIVE DAYS of informative and inspiring interviews
with the leading minds in vegan and conscious living. Wait until you
see the remarkable roster of thought leaders lending their enormous
experience and expertise for this event.
Take a glance at
http://www.nanacast.com/vp/108649/347088/
Thirty highly-respected teachers, authors, and researchers will speak
during this online event. The best part is, you don’t have to leave
home to partake of Veganpalooza! Interviews are being conducted by Dr.
Will Tuttle, author of The World Peace Diet, and Steve Prussack, host
of Raw Vegan Radio.
The event is totally FREE, but if you
decide to become a VIP member when you sign-up or even later on and
take advantage of the many benefits such as interview recordings,
books, DVDs, etc., you can help the CVA earn some money!
Just
make sure you register for Veganpalooza by visiting this link:
http://www.nanacast.com/vp/108649/347088/
2. Comments on Last Week’s
Guest Essay by CVA Member Paul Hansen
Paul Hansen’s essay is superb,
especially the last paragraph! And I agree that man as the image of
Spirit must be comprised of spiritual qualities -- qualia!
I
grasp God's nature more clearly when I think of three synonymous names
that best describe Him: Life, Truth, and Love.
So, where
Genesis 1:26 says "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;
and let them have dominion over ..." I read: "Let Life, Truth, and
Love make man in their image and likeness and let Life, Truth, and
Love have dominion over..."
(Man, of course, is a generic
term meaning both men and women.)
Man made in the image and
likeness of Life has dominion over death: he does not kill the
fellow-beings he is charged with keeping safe, healthy, and happy.
Man made in the image and likeness of Truth has dominion over
lies: he does not deceive his animal friends, to whom he is bound by
loyalty, fidelity and respect.
Man made in the image and
likeness of Love has dominion over hate and fear: he does not treat
his nonhuman neighbors any differently than he treats his human
neighbors, according to the Golden Rule.
Man,
as the complete, comprehensive, complex, compound culmination of God's
creating--man who has been given total consciousness of creation, as
well as benign control over it--is designed to exercise only
Life-mirroring protection, Truth-mirroring justice, and Love-mirroring
compassion toward the creatures for whom he is responsible.
The bottom line, for me, is that Love is incapable of sanctioning
anything less than Love and thus would never allow man to be complicit
in any form of violence. Love only knows how to be harmless. And
Love's man is infused with the spirit of harmlessness toward
all Love's own.
Susan
One could get the
impression from Paul Hansen's essay that a "human exceptionalism"
which puts animals down is an intrinsic part of being pro-life on
abortion. This is not the case. The pro-life movement is very diverse,
and includes people with different views on animal rights as well as
many other issues.
There have been groups such as Vegans for
Life and the British PEACH - Peace, Ethics, Animals and Consistent
Human Rights, and a newsletter "Live and Let Live" that have tied
together being pro-life on abortion with advocacy for animal rights
and a vegetarian lifestyle. There are some Catholic monastic orders
which are historically vegetarian, and these would also be pro-life.
Consistent Life, the network which promotes the consistent
life ethic (and of which I am currently President), has no official
position on animal rights or vegetarianism but includes many
vegetarians and has a policy of serving only vegetarian food when
there is a gathering at which it controls what food is served.
It seems to me that there is a natural affinity in being inclusive in
respecting life, whether it be of unborn humans or animals of other
species.
Both are expressions of compassion, an attribute
that I believe is divinely embedded in both humans and in many other
species, and more and more studies are showing its innateness in
various species. To me a compassionate life involves respect for all
sentient life, leading to revulsion at war, abortion, harsh means of
"justice", mistreatment of animals, the slaughter and consumption of
animals, and all other practices which fail to respect the dignity and
value of life.
Bill Samuel
3. This Week’s Sermon from Rev. Frank and
Mary Hoffman
Are We to Follow Everything in the Bible?