Sentientism | "Making the kind choice becomes this gift" - Molly Elwood - Elwoods Dog Meat CEO - Ep: 175 @Sentientism | Uploaded October 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Molly is a writer, copywriter, editor, creative strategist and an animal rights activist. She is Founder and CEO of the non-existent farm, Elwoods Organic Dog Meat.

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 audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.

We discuss:
00:00 Clips
01:35 Welcome
03:20 Molly's Intro
- Writing, copywriting & animal rights activism
- 15 years in advertising
- Starting the #ElwoodsOrganicDogMeat web site: "a vegan journey... through their own cognitive dissonance... to the realisation that they love animals and they actually don't want to eat them."
- Going viral
- "I think everyone's #vegan already... I don't think they're given the space to act on that... not given the moment to give it the thought... this gives them the chance to make all the vegan arguments that are already in their heart"

05:39 What's Real?
- Not going to church growing up
- Occasional visits to Lutheran church "but I didn't know what was happening... thinking the pastor was Jesus because he had long hair."
- Dad: "There's just too much work to be done to waste a Sunday doing this"
- Hearing of child abuse by a pastor
- "It was never an #atheistic view... we never even talked about it... just 'this isn't our family - this isn't what we do'"
- Parents in military. Travelling a lot, long hours "just going through the day"
- At 12 yrs moving to a small, rural town "everybody was religious - I felt pretty left out"
- Attending church youth group in high school "it was the boys and singing I wanted to go for :) - I really wanted to fit in. I got a Bible and I read it."
- Asking youth group leaders questions: "If you can tell me what happened to the dinosaurs... why my parents are going to hell... why animals don't have souls... Once you've solved those for me... I'm ready to be baptised!"
- "Let's isolate her away from the children... she's asking too many questions."
- "It doesn't make any sense... Christianity had me in their palm and they rejected me"
- "Going through the motions" in church youth group
- At college youth group became a lot more religious "I realised this was not a group for me and I couldn't use this as my vehicle to belong."
- "#Spirituality and #religion was never... even today is not part of my life"
- Reading "The Buddha Got Stuck" then psychology
- "I find personal growth to be my kind of spirituality"
- A difficult time growing up "I was bullied... I was a bully... I have a lot of self-work I have to do"
- "As we explore ourselves and find more peace with ourselves then we can be more at peace in the world"
- "We all deal with so much suffering... if we understand ourselves we can heal a lot more in the world than we ever do through spirituality"
- #trauma and "chips on our shoulders"
- "We can make the world a lot better through personal growth than praying"
- JW "We can have the benefits of spirituality without the spirit and without the supernatural"
- The harms of supernatural beliefs via established religions, new age movements, wellness spaces, #conspiracy #conspirituality
- JW: Spiritual bypassing of issues and ethics "just manifest" (Jonina Turzi episode: youtu.be/cfwIpJ2wlQI)
- JW: Risks of motivated reasoning among animal activists & vegans "veganism cures cancer!"
- JW: Animal exploitation fabrications "animals can't suffer", "animal farming is humane"
- "I did a lot of online activism... I had all of the facts..."
- Building Elwood's Dog Meat: "What is the one inarguable fact... animals suffer... and you as a human would not want this to happen to a dog... if you can just agree on this one thing everything else [health, climate, tradition...] just goes out"
- "This is the one thing I think all humans can agree on - that if I had a dog in front of me right now I would not kill it [them] for no reason"
- JW: "You're starting from their values... they already know"
- Taking the other side as Elwood's "'You can step on a dog's foot and they don't even feel it.'... and dog lovers will go 'no'... and then they argue it for me."

24:15 What Matters?
- "#veganism really became my moral compass in the last 7 years... it just opened up my eyes to the concept of doing less harm and being kind"

43:49 x A Better World?
01:16:02 Follow Molly
- mollyelwood.com
- elwooddogmeat.com
- twitter.com/ElwoodDogMeat
- twitter.com/mollyelwood
- instagram.com/molly.elwood
- linkedin.com/in/mollyelwood

& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)#sentientism
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