Rachel is a multi-award winning writer, podcast host & media consultant. Her memoir, “Open – An Uncensored Memoir Of Love, Liberation, And Non-Monogomy” was published in 2022. She is on the advisory board for Sentient Media & the board of directors of Our Hen House. Rachel does nonprofit media consulting, especially for vegan organizations & brands.

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 video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:34 Rachel's Intro

- Journalism, writing memoir "Open", normalising veganism & liberation

06:12 What's Real?

- Growing up culturally Jewish. Parents wanted to leave behind the stricter ordinances (e.g. gender)

- Jewish school (daily prayers, dress codes) "I was not having it"

- Moving to a more liberal Jewish school

- "Tikkun olam": helping the world as an ethos. What you do in this life - not an afterlife. Giving back

- Immigration lawyer dad working w/Catholic charities

- Trip to Israel w/a religious group. "I was very disillusioned... they didn't talk about Palestinian people... didn't address the conflict at all"

- Stark contrast w/parents' sense of Jews as: "we're liberals, we've suffered... so we care about other social minorities & discrimination"

- "The oppressed becoming the oppressors"

- Proud to be culturally Jewish but "I identify less & less w/religious aspects... the more I examine them the more there's speciesism or sexism baked in"

- Always sceptical of a patriarchal god

- At 9 yrs, trying to make sense of the death of a cousin. Bargaining w/god & praying to protect loved ones

- Realising bad/good things happen for no reason & interrogating the idea of god

- Agnostic now. "As sceptical of staunch atheism as I am of staunch religiosity."

- Humility, interconnectedness. Meditation, dancing with trees

- Limits of knowledge (now or ever)

- Credence & probabilities vs. binary beliefs

- Psychedelics: the science & the experience. The comfort of universal interconnectedness

- "I'm not convinced of any afterlife or a soul that will go on"

- Terror management. Coming to terms w/the fear of death (maybe a next book!). We know we'll die but don't want to! Coping via religion, group continuity as a response...

- "Can I confront this reality [death] & make friends with it?... what would that open up in terms of freedom?"

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info and on YouTube.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Thanks Graham.

9/3/21 - Robert Reilly, Sexual Morality and the Culture