76: Humanism will Evolve into Sentientism - Peter Tatchell - Sentientist Conversations

Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell & petertatchell.net) has been an activist for human rights, democracy, LGBT+ freedom and global justice since 1967. Watch the Netflix documentary about his life, "Hating Peter Tatchell". He directs the Peter Tatchell foundation (petertatchellfoundation.org).

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:

0:00 Welcome

1:10 Peter's Intro - a lifetime of activism

- Teenage campaigning: indigenous rights, death penalty, Vietnam war

- A wide spectrum of campaigns: LGBT+ rights, social justice, free speech, Balochistan, West Papua

3:07 What's Real?

- Growing up in Melbourne in 1950-60s under a right-wing government

- Evangelical Protestant Christian Bible literalist parents

- "You take what your parents say, usually, to be what is right"

- Studying science at school & starting to question

- Being horrified at 11 yrs hearing about the racist bombing of a black church in Alabama

- Black civil rights & Martin Luther King & Liberation theology

- "If god is omnipotent, why does evil happen?"

- Teaching Sunday School at 16

- Being told evolution was a "satanic theory" by abusive step-father

- Dropping the hateful, vengeful old testament god & holding on to more compassionate new testament values

- Homosexuality was still a criminal offence in 1969

- "I was genuinely afraid that if I came out, they [my parents] would turn me in to the police"

- "For both of them, homosexuality was a terrible, mortal sin - almost on a par with murder & rape"

- How Peter's mother has come to support LGBT+ rights

- Becoming an atheist & humanist at ~20

19:10 What & Who Matters?

- Still holding to some of the compassionate values of Christianity, but those values aren't exclusive to religion

- Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Global, not "western"

- Human rights are evolving & expanding. Yet to extend to LGBT+ / disability

- AI/robot rights? Peter's 1970's degree dissertation on cyborg sentience & rights

- Pre-human proto-morality

- Looking after the family cow at 9 yrs old. Seeing the cruelty of circuses/zoos at 10.

- "I knew they had feelings... but I never thought they had rights"

- Being revolted by seeing chickens being killed "but I was still eating the meat"

- Considering non-human animal rights in the 1970-80s & reducing animal product consumption

- "Other animals are sentient beings - they have feelings"

...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 Peter on 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.

Thanks for the post-prod Graham.