Eats plants
Earlier this year I took the pledge to donate 1% of my salary to charity after being inspired by Peter Singer and The Life You Can Save. He has written a lot about our obligations to help others in need and I once read that he encourages people to publicly declare their donations as this… Continue reading I took the 1% pledge
In his book, Practical Ethics, Peter Singer writes in the appendix about his experiences of being silenced in Germany. I'm going to copy and paste some of what he says because although this was 30 years ago academics are still threatened and silenced today and we should all be concerned about that. I was invited… Continue reading On silencing academics
Eating animals poses a major global health risk and the costs are enormous and they’re not borne only by the meat-eaters themselves nor by the animals but by everybody on the planet whether they eat meat or not. I say this because we’ve seen this over and over again that epidemics and pandemics have come… Continue reading The future of meat
If there's anyone you absolutely must follow on Twitter it's Peter Singer. He's the world's most influential moral philosopher and someone I would describe as a modern-day Jesus. You can follow him here: https://twitter.com/PeterSinger In 100 years the world will look back and see Peter Singer as someone who did more than anyone else to… Continue reading How long should the lockdown last?
Some people think that those who advocate for animal rights care more about non-human animals than human animals. That's not true at all. The ethicist, Peter Singer, who wrote Animal Liberation back in 1975 thinks we rich people ought to donate 10% of our salary to the world's poor. He gives around a quarter of his own… Continue reading Do animal rights activists care more for animals than humans?
For any woman having an abortion is a serious decision that she will only do if she has something quite important at stake. Whereas people who are prepared to go into the supermarket and buy some ham don't need to do that at all. They could easily eat something else. They are supporting the pain… Continue reading The inconsistency of eating meat while objecting to abortion
People criticise and mock vegetarians quite a lot. I'm always happy to be laughed at and I've taught my kids that this is a good thing because it means you are making someone else happy and there's nothing bad about that. However I get annoyed when people say silly things or incorrect things. Maybe I just like… Continue reading Animals eat each other, so why shouldn’t we eat them?
Peter Singer talks about abortion and same sex marriage in this video and specifically how Christians often focus more on these two issues than on poverty. He finds this strange because abortion is not mentioned in the gospels at all, while homosexuality is mentioned very little and mostly in the old testament; not so much in the… Continue reading Peter Singer discusses religion, the bible, abortion, and same sex marriage in 4 minutes
I've been thinking quite a bit about the idea of freedom of speech and freedom of expression this week and what it means exactly. It's not something I've thought a great deal about in the past because I've always felt I had the freedom to express my thoughts, which I quite frequently do, and I'm very grateful… Continue reading What is freedom of speech?
Whenever I find myself debating right and wrong, I wonder what Peter Singer would say. He's the most rational thinker on the planet, in my opinion, and so I will sometimes say to myself, "What would Peter Singer do in this situation?". For those who've never heard of him, he's an Australian philosopher, the Ira W.… Continue reading The Life You Can Save
A little while ago I promised to write about taking life as a follow on from my post about eating plants. It's Christmas Day today, the kids are playing happily with gifts, and so now is a good time to tackle it. When is it wrong to take the life of a living being? In… Continue reading Taking life
I thought I'd explain in this post a bit about what my tagline "eats plants" actually means. I have been reluctant to write about this here before because I don't want to come across as judgemental of what other people eat. We each make the best decisions we can and so here I want to… Continue reading On eating plants
Our six-year-old son has been talking a lot about baddies recently, so Ben decided to probe him on it.Ben: What's the difference between a baddy and a goody?Daniel: Baddies are always fighting goodies.Ben: But if you see two people fighting, how do you know who is the baddy and who is the goody?Daniel: The baddy… Continue reading Goodies vs baddies
I feel sad today. A photo I saw this morning is to blame. It's the widely publicized photo of a wretched monkey, restrained and sent into space in a rocket by the country of Iran. All the media articles I've read talk about fears that Iran may now possess the technical know-how to fire missiles… Continue reading Monkey in a rocket
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