Category Archives: society

Ayurveda, Brexit, European Union, God, health care, Jesus, new writer, plant-based lifestyle, refugees, society, vegansim, vision

Culling healthy animals is criminal

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According to one female farmer in the UK this week, “Culling healthy animals is criminal.” Let’s start with this disgusting euphemism “culling”. This word means: “to reduce the population of a wild animal by selective slaughter.” This word is used so that we think that it is normal and good that animals are born and reared in order to die in order to produce meat for human consumption. But any killing of animals is rightly termed as animal slaughter. But when there aren’t enough butchers around to slaughter the animals, then we “cull” thousands of them instead. And only culling is criminal, not raising them and slaughtering them for human consumption. Animals are sentient beings, just like human beings, and it should be made illegal to slaughter them. The pain and fear they experience in the lead-up to and while being slaughtered is exactly what any human being would experience. “To animals reared for food production, all humans are Nazis.” Ironic and tragic also , then, that the nations of the world with the largest religious communities eat the most animal flesh.

Next I come to why we have a shortage of slaughterers in the UK. Because of Brexit. Every reader of this blog knows that I have been pro-European since the age of 18 and that I vehemently opposed Brexit and all the lies that were told to the British people. Now we have one of the many consequences: animals being culled, empty supermarket shelves, a shortage of nurses and carers. The list goes on. And Boris Johnson thinks he can solve this problem by allocating six-month work visas to EU workers after all. The reaction to date has proved that he can dream on.

And talking of Boris Johnson and the EU, this week has seen refugees drowning in the Channel. Tragedy beyond belief. Boris Johnson’s diplomatic response is to post a three-page letter on Twitter in English addressed to the French President, Emmanuel Macron. Quite rightly, President Macron responded that Boris Johnson could not be taken seriously and that he is no more than “clown” leading a formerly great nation and potential ally of France. He is right, let’s face it. And why does Johnson not have any advisers who told him that he needed to have his undiplomatic letter published in French? This kind of insular arrogance beggars belief.

This has not been a good week for the UK. At least Boris the Buffoon can carry on drinking gin, ignoring his responsibility to all the children he has fathered and illegally celebrating parties at Number 10, as if Corona really were just a joke Pepper Pig illness that just kills off a few elderly people who we would be better of without anyway.

Meanwhile, the church also has nothing to say about human beings dying in the Channel who so desperately needed Christian compassion. Instead, they look on, vote for the most racist Foreign Minister I have experienced during my lifetime, Priti Patel, rub their meat-filled tummies and celebrate how much a non-existent God loves them, at least.

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

Education, God, health care, meditation, Newfrontiers, society, war

Personifying Anxiety

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In the last few weeks I have started using the Calm app in order to meditate. I can recommend it for anyone who is looking for guided meditation. I’m very new to mediation, though, and got into it as part of enjoying the Ayurveda way of life in recent months. When I used to pray, the focus was always either on worshipping God or praying for other people. In meditation, you get to focus on yourself, not just out of selfishness, but also with the aim of being in a better place to serve others.

This morning, the app’s very gifted Canadian main author and speaker, Tamara Levitt, encouraged what was effectively the personification of anxiety.

While I was sitting in a quiet place, first focussing on my breathing, she then encouraged me to think about a situation that causes me fear and anxiety. She prompted me to locate where in my body I could feel this anxiety, physically manifested, as it were. Once I had found it (it could be in your jaw, forehead, chest or gut, for example), I was encouraged to describe for myself its size, its shape, its colour, its intensity and so on. That’s why I’m calling it personification. I acknowledged it without judging it, giving it space and room to manifest itself as a genuine concern in my life – yet all the time aware that my anxious thoughts do not necessarily correspond to reality. I spoke to my anxiety, giving it genuine recognition, saying that I would address it at a future moment, but for now letting it drift away, like the leaves floating leaves on a nearby stream. At the end of just ten minutes, I felt so much more peaceful and even assured that the challenging situation I had been thinking about would one day be resolved. If there is one certainty about any situation in life, it is that it will not stay the same.

A clearer head left me better equipped to start work … at least until a different kind of anxious thought came into my head that would not leave me alone. Hence today’s unplanned blog.

I am referring to the battle raging between Jews and Muslims in Palestine and Israel as I write. I can’t stop placing myself in the minds of my fellow human beings who are living in an overwhelming fear of death. Back in 1997 I spent the night in Belfast and a bomb went off at the end of the road where my hotel was situated. Before the flight home, we all had to get off the plane and identify our suitcases that had been removed from the hold before we could take off because they suspected that we had a bomb on board. The tangible and unforgettable fear I experienced was existentially unsettling in a scary, new way for me, but it was nothing in comparison to what the people in Palestine and Israel must be experiencing right now, especially the children, elderly and infirm.

I’m tempted to take sides at this point, but that won’t help. You can guess what I think anyways. Plus the fact that we don’t have much of a right to say anything, since our countries are benefitting from the enormous wealth we have made by selling Israel and Palestine the weapons they are using to annihilate one another. What we can say, however, is that these war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide are being perpetrated because of the revolting and fatal division created by religion, or belief in a different, superior God. How many lives and despicable tortures would never have taken place, if , instead of a primitive, selfish belief in a non-existent God, human beings recognised their beauty, complexity and racial unity with one another and the universe. Even or especially when wrongful political decisions are made.

“If there is an omnipotent God – in the sense of a Creator of the universe, then he / she / they must surely be capable of communicating in a credible and unambiguous way with the entire human race. The absence of this reality, together with the culturally and geographically different accounts of who God is, is ultimately evidence that God is a human creation, invented in order to to justify oligarchical laws and to promulgate tribal superiority. The concomitant racial hatred results in division, untold suffering and unnecessary death.” Beyond Redemption – a shorty story by Nigel Dutton

This religious division does not start at the national or inter-faith level, but already within one and the same faith and ultimately in individual human hearts. When I was a member of the Newfrontiers sect, our church was invited to join in on certain ecumenical activities promoted by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches across our town. Our church never joined in on the basis that we could not possibly be united with churches that did not believe the gospel and preach the Bible. My former mentor and pastor, whom I still fondly respect and admire, would say to me and even to the other church leaders, “Why would I want to put my race horse (referring to his church) along side your cart horses (referring to their churches)?” If such theological arrogance can exist within one faith, it becomes easier to understand how divisive fanaticism caused by such hateful division between different religions can lead to the appalling suffering that it happening right at this moment between Muslim human beings and Jewish human beings who live in the same street.

Faith really is, as Nietzsche said, a refusal to believe what is true. My hope and intention is that, as the world becomes more enlightened, religious differences might one day be put aside and that people will look first and foremost to the miracles that unite them.

I’ll end with probably one of the deepest lyrics on this subject ever written:

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate, yeah

Madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y’all, y’all

Black Eyed Peas

Post scriptum: today is Ascension Day, a day on which we remember that the resurrected Jesus Christ ascended into heaven in bodily form and now sits, still in his resurrected, new-order, imperishable human body on the throne of eternal heaven, ruling the world and the universe and sovereign over the control of the thoughts and actions of every single (even unborn) child, man and woman.

I think Nietzsche can probably rest his case.

God, new writer, Newfrontiers, plant-based lifestyle, politics, society, vegansim, vision

What can we learn?

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Since my last blog entry, I guess we could say that a few things have happened. Some of them continue to dominate our daily life and will continue to do so for generations to come. Given that every crisis is an opportunity for improvement, I’d like to ask what we can learn from recent events. How might we behave differently in the future?

The Curse of Covid

Whatever opinions we hold about this virus, one fact cannot be factually disputed, namely that it occurred as a direct result of human selfishness and irresponsibility. A blatant disregard for our essential interconnectedness with the whole of the planet. Our treatment and consumption of millions of animals per year causes unimaginable suffering to sentient beings as well as wrecking the environment via climate change.

The mass of animals raised for slaughter on earth now outweighs wildlife by a factor of 15-to-1. For example, for every person on the planet, there are approximately three chickens. Meat and dairy specifically account for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Why do we need to eat meat? The answer is: we don’t. Social conditioning, underpinned by effective marketing and together with a lack of information, leads many of us to believe that we need to consume many kinds of meat – and fish too. Yet now we know otherwise. For those who believe that they can’t live without the taste of slaughtered animals, there is an alternative for pretty much everything.

Given that the climate impact of plant-based foods is typically up to 50 times smaller than that of animal products, it follows that switching from a largely meat-based diet to a vegetarian or vegan diet would reduce green house gas emissions significantly and help to reverse climate change.

When I stopped buying meat a few years ago, I was surprised by how much less I spent on food. I recommend spending some of the savings on buying organic produce too. Not so much because it is far better for your mental and physical health, but because it is so much better for the environment. Organic farming practices reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy. Farming without synthetic pesticides is also better for nearby birds, frogs and other animals as well as people who live close to farms.

Politics

The political landscape since my last blog post has changed for the better and for the worse. I am so delighted for the US people that they have jettisoned the divisive, racist caricature of a politician and the worst president in my lifetime. Sadly, his twin brother is still at large in the UK, lying, dividing and grooming his endless narcissism. As the UK erroneously believes that it will be better off as an island of service industries, the only thing the British can currently be proud of is that they have taken part more swiftly than any other European nation in the largest drug-testing experiment in the history of the world. I had much higher hopes for the opposition under Keir Starmer, but it seems as if he is not a leader after all. He offers no alternative vision to inspire the inhabitants of the sinking isle. Further afield, I remain heartbroken for the plight of my fellow human beings in Syria, Yemen, Brazil and India – to name just a few countries – and I am hoping for political solution to come soon. Let us do everything we can to support this.

God and the church

The charismatic church in particular has struggled during the pandemic. Although awash with many gifted prophets (apparently), none of them saw Corona coming. In fact, many of them were busy buying and renovating large, disused warehouses – large “barns” prepared for bringing in the enormous harvest of souls promised by their prophets back in 1993. Yet we don’t need a prophet to tell us not to buy a large building. The Bible is good enough for that. The New Testament teaches that the church is not a building, but Spirit-filled Jesus-worshippers who gather in one another’s homes. And there has still not been any honesty from the leaders of such congregations, explaining why the promised revival never came, let alone apologising for the irresponsible untruths and ensuing delusion. On the contrary. In a sermon I heard just two weeks ago, one of these leaders was again telling his poor sheep that a massive harvest of souls was coming at the end of the Corona period and that the church needed to get ready. He longed for another so-called outpouring of the Holy Spirit too, since the current younger generation has never experienced people falling over, laughing out loud and in their drunkenness signing more large cheques to pay for the new barns that they won’t be needing. Still, at least we can all now see what “charismatic renewal” means: establishing a superior sect that steals Christians from well-established churches > lunatic gatherings in the name of the Holy Spirit > exciting prophecies about national revival > a massive increase in offerings > ignoring the facts, managing social projects and propagating spiritual boredom. And once the generation who has experienced this renewal has either left the church, died, is demented or living in the sect’s obedience and amnesia, the whole cycle starts anew.

What really matters

On a more hopeful note, the virus has taught many of us to focus on what matters most: family, relationships, health, the environment and looking for positive ways out into a better future.

When I was meditating the other day, I was reminded of a scene from Winnie-the-Pooh in which Piglet asks Pooh, “Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when were underneath it?”

“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.

Piglet was comforted by this.

In some of my upcoming blog articles, I’m going to share with you some of the comforting things that I have enjoyed during the last twelve challenging months in the hope that we might learn from our mistakes and make the world a better place for the generations of people, animals and plants to come.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”  Albert Einstein

Berlin, Brexit, European Union, politics, refugees, society, vision

Barmy budget

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This week saw Philip Hammond produce his pre-Brexit budget. A dangerous and hypocritical attempt to support our Dancing Queen, Theresa May’s claim that austerity in the UK has now officially come to an end.

What Mr Hammond announced reminded me of a very poor, unemployed British family that already has enormous debts that it cannot repay and who decide nonetheless to cut themselves off from all their remaining family and friends. Their friends all pull away and don’t even invite them to go to the pub for a drink any more. At the last moment, just as the last friends and relatives are now even blocking their social media connections with this family and deliberately changing their telephone numbers, mum and dad, Theresa and Phil, succeed somehow, by telling lies, in borrowing five times what they already owe and can never repay in debts. One evening, Theresa and Phil tell their obese children at the dinner table, as they are enjoying their unhealthy fast-food dinner, that everything will be fine. Soon afterwards, however, mum and dad die in a sinking ferry in the English Chanel. Shortly after the death of their parents, the four children realise the truth and spend the rest of their lives, in vain, trying to repair the tragic mess they inherited from Theresa and Phil.

The truth is, the Conservative Party has done a predictable volte-face after many years of so-called austerity in order to try to save face as the disaster of Brexit comes ever nearer. In order to create the impression of a wonderfully successful government, Mr Hammond has borrowed enormous amounts of money that the UK can never repay. And he has already committed to spending 97% of the government’s unexpected surplus in tax revenue from recent months rather than invest it or use it to reduce the frightening national debt.

As the nation is about to cut adrift from its only allies, he has plunged the Disunited Kingdom into financial and fiscal chaos. And based on what? There can only be two driving thoughts going through his mind. Either he is hoping for a general election in 2019 that will, thanks to their enormous, fake generosity, keep the Conservative Party in power while the Labour Party remains weak under Jeremy Corbyn. Or he knows full damn well that, should the Labour Party come to power, they will be saddled with such enormous debts that they cannot even try to reboot the economy with their customary application of Keynesian economic principles. Then, since the country cannot recover from all the debt, and after things have got even worse post-Brexit, the Tories of course blame Labour for irresponsible over-spending and economic chaos, they promise yet another chimeric economic recovery from a disaster that they had created, get back into power and the whole childish, cyclical, undemocratic tomfoolery starts all over again.

Meanwhile, across the Chanel, what a contrast is taking place in the Federal Republic of Germany. This week, Angela Merkel stood up before the nation and the world and took personal responsibility for the increasing unpopularity of her decision to allow over one million desperate refugees to enter the country in 2016. As a result, she will be stepping down from the party leadership yet remain as Chancellor until the next general election in order to provide stability in a time of great, global uncertainty. With great power comes great responsibility. What an astute, responsible, honourable and well thought-through response to an increasingly challenging political situation. Imagine Theresa May standing even before the 1922 Committee two weeks ago, taking responsibility for the Brexit nightmare and offering to stand down as party leader whilst offering to lead the country through at least until Brexit is behind her.

I find it so ironic that the UK government is pulling away from the very Community from whom it could learn so much. The ignorance caused by isolationalism is lethal. No man is an island. No leader and no political system is perfect, but in a globalised world, we need one another’s multi-cultural perspectives more and more in order to maximise creative dialectic and in order to hold a mirror up to one another and see our societal strengths and weaknesses from a variety of perspectives.

So, let’s end on a positive note. What could the UK currently learn from its more successful and secure neighbours in order to rise again triumphantly from its prevailing dust and ashes? Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords. Move out of the symbolically crumbling Houses of Parliament with its silly, opposing benches and move into a round building that promotes intelligent debate and genuine democracy.
  2. Introduce teaching about politics in our schools, promote the establishing of alternative political parties and introduce some degree of proportional representation.
  3. Abolish all private schools and invest more money in state-funded education and training.
  4. Take greater responsibility for the environment, including the re-nationalisation of the rail network.
  5. Devolve power from London to the regions, counties, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
  6. Remain in the European Union, adopt the Euro as a currency, embrace freedom of movement by signing up the Schengen Agreement.
  7. Bring in new laws in order to curb social inequality. Has no one ever wondered why May, Hammond, Cameron, Blair, Thatcher are all Oxford graduates? (And I don’t say that out of jealousy because I am one myself).
  8. Reform the National Health Service as opposed to throwing away unbelievable amounts of money into an archaic system that is flawed at the core.
  9. Invest heavily into businesses that actually manufacture products that the rest of the world wants to buy. The UK needs to trade more products, not services.
  10. Finally, understand that we British are not Japanese, who achieve great results by team-work; we are not Germans, who achieve great results by systems and methods; and we are not Americans, who achieve great results – the present political climate excepted – by inspiring leadership and dedicated, creative followers, but we are a curious combination of all these attributes, which combined with a genuinely democratic political system and the right social culture, could with humility achieve results on a par with any other of the world’s leading nations.

“The tragedy for British politics — for Britain — has been that politicians of both parties have consistently failed, not just in the 1950s but on up to the present day, to appreciate the emerging reality of European integration. And in doing so they have failed Britain’s interests.” Prime Minister Tony Blair (2001).

Berlin, Children, God, society

“Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

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Addressing worshippers in the Vatican this week, Pope Francis said terminating a pregnancy was the equivalent of getting a hitman to “take out a human life to solve a problem.”

Not that this is anything new. During another preach, Pope Francis has said that abortion is “what the mafia does. It’s a crime. An absolute evil.”

Sarah Cartin, from the campaign group Christians for Choice, branded the Pope’s remarks “absurd”.

She told Sky News: “Pope Francis once again shows complete disdain for women by making absurd and inflammatory statements about abortion.”

And she’s right. How insanely insensitive such comments are for women who have been abused or raped? How dare this old man tell women what they should do with their bodies? His hypocrisy beggars belief. On several counts.

First, when Pope Francis preaches on such issues, he extremely rarely quotes the Bible. He bases his out-of-date and offensive remarks on his personal opinion and occasionally on the handed-down traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. What kind of spiritual leader proclaims the message of his beliefs, however erroneous, without at least quoting the sacred writings on which those beliefs are founded?

Secondly, how can Pope Francis, a man who leads an organisation best known for the systemic sexual torture of countless children worldwide, be heralded as anything other than a steward of hypocrisy is a testament to what people can get away with when they claim to be speaking for God. The insincerity one needs to promote progressive ideals while maintaining draconian practices, like those embedded inside the Catholic Church, is incalculable.

Thirdly,  where does this “knowledge” come from that proves that a human being exists from the moment that a sperm meets an egg? If an acorn is not an oak tree, why is a potential person already a person? In the Jewish religion, you become a person only from the moment of your first breath. For abortion to be labelled as the murder of a human being, the crucial scientific, legal and even biblical facts are categorically missing.

I am not against the notion of protecting the rights of the unborn, but it is not for a man to make imperative declarations or to pass laws on what women can or cannot do with their bodies. No man will ever know what it is like to have to control one’s fertility for over thirty years, let alone to carry a child for nine months, or to experience the pain of childbirth, or to take the major responsibility for the upbringing and care of another human being for the rest of one’s life. The decision to terminate a pregnancy belongs to the mother. Period.

“Abortion is part of being a mother and of caring for children, because part of caring for children is knowing when it’s not a good idea to bring them into the world.”  Katha Pollitt

Berlin, Brexit, European Union, politics, society, vision

Having the time of your life, Mrs May?

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Especially from the perspective of a UK citizen living in Europe, this sabbati horribilis has been so embarrassing and depressing as the shambles of the Conservative Party conference took place in Birmingham.

The Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, compares the European Union to a Soviet prison. Boris Johnson is photographed running through a field of wheat in order to mock the prime minister he is openly betraying.

To crown it all, yesterday we had Theresa May literally dancing on to the stage at the party conference to Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” So was wie peinlich! Quite apart from the fact that Theresa May had to resort to a European, non-British pop song for her cringe-worthy entrance, she chose the wrong one. Abba’s “SOS” would have course been far more appropriate, especially the opening lines: “Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find, I tried to reach for you, but you have closed your mind …”

All Mrs May could do during her speech was to reflect on the past, to knock her political opponents and to make false promises about there being no further austerity after Brexit. There was no vision, no new policies that would help to move the nation forward, and no movement in her flawed Chequers plan that is splitting her party, the UK and the EU. Yet she boldly claimed, “Let’s say it loud and clear: Conservatives will always stand up for a politics that unites us rather than divides us.”

Can she seriously believe this nonsense? Given a solitary year of majority government for the first time in a quarter of a century, the Conservatives gave the nation the most divisive event that has happened to it in four hundred years, from which it remains entirely unclear how it is meant to recover.  

Mrs May also proudly reminded us that the Conservative party “will put into place a new immigration system that will allow businesses and universities to attract the brightest and best to the UK” whilst ensuring that all low-skilled workers from the European Union and elsewhere will be banned from setting foot on the sinking island.

How ironic and hypocritical, therefore, were Mrs May’s comments about the Conservatives being the only party to give opportunities to the nation. “To dream, and strive, and achieve a better life,” she said. “To know that if your dad arrived on a plane from Pakistan, you can become home secretary.”

Sajid Javid’s dad, an unskilled migrant who worked on the buses, would never be allowed into Britain under the new immigration policies proposed by Theresa May!

Her understanding of democracy is even more nefarious than her understanding of citizenship (see quotation below).

She dismissed talk of a second referendum, which “wouldn’t be a people’s vote, it would be a politicians’ vote, telling people they got it wrong the first time.”

In reality of course, a second referendum would be the people passing verdict on how the politicians have got on with handling the first people’s vote. And that means her. The current numbers suggest that that verdict would be damning. No wonder she can’t uphold what would amount to true democracy.

Ah, well, to my consolation, yesterday, “Der Tag der deutschen Einheit” (German Unity Day), I finally completed my application for German citizenship. Not because I am worried about the personal consequences of a predictably awful Brexit, but because I am ashamed to remain British.

“If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what citizenship means.” Theresa May.

Berlin, Cooking, Education, European Union, health care, plant-based lifestyle, society, tourism, vegansim

Choose vegan: Update #3

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Spanish “vegan” salad

I’ve just got back from a wonderful two weeks in Spain (Andalusia). It is so easy to relax there and I love everything about it: the people, the weather, the language, the culture, the music, the sea and the food. And they never seem to go to bed, not even families with young children. Ernest Hemingway wrote: “There is no night life in Spain. They stay up late but they get up late. That is not night life. That is delaying the day.”

Being a vegan in Spain was much harder than in Berlin. In fact, I failed to keep going. I had lunch on my first day in a chiringuito overlooking the Mediterranean. I asked the waiter for a vegan salad. He looked puzzled and asked for confirmation. “Just salad, please,” I explained, “maybe some tomato, cucumber, peppers and lettuce – nothing that has come from an animal.”

“Sí, señor,” he replied confidently as he went away to place my order with the kitchen. About ten minutes later, my vegan salad arrived (see photo above) complete with a mound of tuna fish and sliced egg.

I had a similar experience in the shops and supermarkets. It was so much more difficult to find almond milk or soya yoghurt and although I managed to buy some tofu, I could not find any seitan or tempeh.

There is a paradox here somewhere. It is currently harder to live a plant-based life in Spain where there is an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables than it is in Germany where there is an abundance of meat and where we import so much of our fruit and vegetables from Spain. How can this be? Why is that veganism, rather like buying organic produce, is a privilege of the stronger economy?

Leaving the politics, power and lobbying of the meat and dairy industry to one side, I can only assume that we are dealing with a matter of culture and education. When your country is more than three-quarters surrounded by a sea teeming with fish, naturally it becomes part of the culture to enjoy paella, salpicón, fish soup and barbecued sardines. Yet we know that doing something for cultural reasons does not make it morally right. Were Spanish children to be exposed to the truth about the suffering that these fish and other animals in the meat and dairy industry endure, I am confident that there would be a gradual shift in the culture too. Then, countries like Spain would become the ideal place to enjoy a plant-based lifestyle.

And finally, what about vegans killing flies or buying down pillows,  leather sofas or wearing wool pullovers?

Logically, if the primary motivation for a plant-based lifestyle is to prevent the unnecessary suffering of animals, then it would be better to avoid killing wasps and flies and so on if at all possible. I hope you get my gist. To go into more detail rapidly becomes absurd. For example, when I was in Spain, there was a plague of jellyfish. These fascinating animals have no eyes, no heart and no brain. Would it be okay to kill them? I’d still say, better not.

With down pillows, leather sofas and wool pullovers, the answer is easier. In order to produce these goods, animal suffering is nearly always involved. One glance at the videos contained in the hyperlinks above should be enough to convince you.

Now I’m back home, I am back on course with my plant-based diet and feel better for it. However, I am still a bit jittery about the latest Brexit statements coming for the UK. Apparently, it could happen that UK citizens living in Europe will no longer receive their pensions. Ah well, as my son said, at least I could go and open the first vegan restaurant in Torremolinos?

“I would sooner be a foreigner in Spain than in most countries. How easy it is to make friends in Spain!” – George Orwell

Berlin, God, new writer, society

The church despises democracy

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This week I wrote some truthful, albeit slightly provocative, comments on the Instagram page of the King’s Church Hastings sect. Curiously, if you try to access this Instagram page now, it is suddenly no longer available. What a surprise.

This is, of course, no surprise at all. Just as my family’s existence was deleted from their website on 8th August 2013, even though I was the leader of this sect for nearly a decade and had sacrificed literally everything to start a Newfrontiers church in Berlin, so my comments are no longer available for the public to read. They have also changed their website url from www.kingshastings.org to www.kings1066.org. To be fair, I’m sure their real motive was to show their openness to the superiority of Roman Catholic France and modern European democracy. Respect.

Is it not fascinating that these sects love to use social media for the purposes of bragging about their great, deluded projects, and to lure naive souls like you and me into their vice-like grip, yet they remove any comments in social media that seek to open up any kind of democratic debate about the existence of God, the application of the Bible and the role of the church? The nearest comparison I can think of to this is Nazi Germany.

These sects do not want democracy. They want a theocracy in which women are degraded, men are in charge, the Bible is cherry-picked, homosexuals are demonised, chronically and terminally sick people are denied access to assisted death, every believer of every other faith is going to eternal hell, and so on. There is no freedom of speech, no freedom of opinion, no openness to any view that is not in line with the subjective, culturally determined views of the sect’s leader. The deletion of my comments is an absolute proof of this fact.

So sad.

Funnily enough, I have been a little sick this week. I can guarantee you, were this to turn into cancer, the sect’s members would of course rejoice and interpret this sickness as God’s revenge on such an evil blogger. In the end, of course, this would be no more than my body getting sick. Just like the rest of humanity, Christians do no more than interpret life through the lens of their choice of meta-narrative. In their case, a meta-narrative that is frighteningly selfish, since their own personal salvation is always the central focus.  “God the Father loves ME so much that He sent is only son to die for ME. Who else would die for ME? And everyone else who does not believe this myth, is going to burn in hell forever. But at least that won’t happen to ME. I will now help other poor sods who are much poorer than ME. Knowing that, if I do this, God will be pleased with ME. Thank you, Lord, for loving ME.” I rest my case.

For those of you who are disappointed that you can no longer read my comments on Instagram, I have included quite a few screen shots below. It’s good to know that democracy and freedom of speech prevail in spite of the church’s dark mode. Unless of course, because they are working with the police now, they have access to my blog account.

In the meantime, thanks to the sect’s obsession with social media, I apparently still have their Facebook and Twitter accounts in which I can write my truthful commentaries. I’ll try that tomorrow.

“To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and ‘improved’ by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.” – Richard Dawkins.

Even though I’m sure that Alex is a great public speaker, I don’t recommend that you click on the link, since you would then clearly be sinning against God’s word.

Oh, so the church endorses Barclays Bank? An apartheid– supporting bank full of corruption? And “Three thousand three hundred pounds ONLY” says it all. This church spent over ten years ago over £100,000 on its car park. What’s more, Snowflake is a Christian night shelter, meaning that the church is giving money to the church. OMG.

… and stroke their fat tummies, fall asleep, pick their noses and confine the black community to a ghetto at the edge of the ever-smaller auditorium. There’s also a guy with a hat on in church here, which is not allowed, according to the Bible: “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.”  1 Corinthians 11:7. Woman is the glory of man?

Note how there are no young people present at the prayer meeting. When I led this sect, over half of the prayers were teenagers. Sure proof that this bloated, self-satisfied, belly-rubbing, Zafira church is in decline and has no long-term future.

Natter and stories. That’s right, words speaker louder than actions. And “New Ground” is so fake. All you do is to go to old ground and steal other pastor’s sheep. For a while. Until the sheep work out that New Ground can’t even draw a square logo properly and they will all go back to where they came from: Wesley’s Methodist church, which actually used a cross as its logo.

That’s right, no mention of Aldi and Lidl. Plus the church supports the masochistic torture and butchering of meat and fish when it should of course be promoting veganism.

 

 

Berlin, Cooking, Education, health care, plant-based lifestyle, politics, society, vegansim, vision

Choose vegan: Update #1

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A few readers have asked me whether I have managed to maintain a plant-based diet since I started just over three weeks ago. Answer: yes.

So I thought I’d give you a quick update as to the pros and cons. I’ll begin with the pros.

Pros

  1. It feels good to know that no animal has undergone unnecessary suffering in order to produce my meal.

I receive a weekly e-mail from challenge22@anonymous.org.il that provides me with recipes, encouragement and information. This week’s newsletter included news about what happens to chickens, in particular in free-range situations. The males are still killed at birth because they can neither produce eggs nor grow fast enough to be raised for meat production. The dairy industry really is as cruel as the meat industry.

2. Weight loss and a general feeling of well-being

Without changing my sport/exercise regime, I have already lost 2 kilos in weight. More importantly, my stomach feels lighter somehow, I am sleeping better and I generally feel healthier, although I know this is entirely subjective.

3. Not craving meat of dairy

This has taken me by surprise. Even though I still cook meat for three out of my four children, I so far haven’t caught myself wishing I could be eating what they are eating. On the contrary, especially when I have to scrape away congealed fat off their dinner plates!

4. Adventure and experimentation

Inevitably, I’ve had to become more creative with my cuisine, at home and when eating out. I’ve now discovered, for example, almond milk, soya yogurt, tempeh, saitan and tofu and my culinary experimentation has undergone a revolution. What’s more, my fridge looks less like a morgue and more like a garden. And talking of fridges, you may need a larger one in order to store all your fresh fruit and vegetables! On a personal note, I have also so far discovered that I prefer to eat dishes just with vegetables rather than with meat substitutes.

5. Most meals do take more time

I was about to put this in the negative section, but then realised that it doesn’t have to be negative if your food preparation takes longer. If you become a vegan, you will need to take more time learning about your new options and reading labels. You will need more time when you go shopping on account of trying to find new shops and new ingredients. And you will need more time for food preparation. For example, making a breakfast from muesli, soya yogurt and fresh fruit will take you a bit longer than jam on toast. Yet being forced to slow down your pace of life a little and savouring your food can surely never be a bad thing.

Cons

1. It’s a pain cooking two family meals instead of one

So far, the only real negative I can think of is that I often have to cook two meals per meal: one vegan and one non-vegan. If you don’t really enjoy cooking, then this is a little annoying, but it won’t go on forever since most children eventually leave home. Or else they might even follow your example and become vegan. Children do what you do and not what you say.

Conclusion: Some of you have also asked me how much thought, preparation and research I had put into become vegan before I got going. The honest answer is, almost none. Having watched a few videos about the meat and dairy industry, I just switched from one day to the next. For me, that was the best way, otherwise I would have made endless excuses about all the things I needed to do before I one day became a vegan. Now I am learning everything as I go along. I guess you have to decide what’s best for you.

Resources: “You will never look at your life the same way again.” and “A life-changing speech.”

“If you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine being a factory farmed animal.”   Davegan Raza

Berlin, Children, God, new writer, society

The Church destroys families – Part One

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I have been encouraged by so many of you to tell my story, so I will. In installments, I guess. Not at all out of revenge, but because I’d like once again to warn others of the dangers of getting involved in Christian Churches that may not look like a sect , but actually, they are.

If you’d like to read a check-list that will help you discover if the church you are in is a sect, please read my earlier blog article “Am I in a sect?”

I want to stress throughout this biography that I take full responsibility for my choices and actions and that I do not wish to place the blame for my actions with anyone else. I believe, even after all this hurt, that I am, whatever my circumstances may be, a free agent and can and must decide for myself what I do each day of my life. I sincerely apologise for and deeply regret the devastating damage I have caused in the lives of those whom I most love and respect. Even though we are all trying to pick up the pieces, our lives will never be the same as a result of my irresponsible and selfish actions. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to those who have treated me with inexplicable grace.

This is not about blame, it is about telling my story so that others can be helped to avoid the mistakes that have cost me my marriage and career. In my experience, certain churches destroy certain families. Especially when combined with certain character weaknesses in its members.

In 1992 I got involved, via my mother-in-law, with a church called King’s Church Hastings, which was a member of a Christian movement called Newfrontiers. Both the church and the movement seemed to me back then like the extremely authentic version of Christianity that I had subconsciously been looking for. These people seemed to believe uncompromisingly what is written in the Bible. I admired this stance because I had always questioned why other Christian movements accepted some elements of the Bible but not others. For me, either the Bible must be entirely correct and relevant or it is all wrong. “Why would it be only partially right if it is God’s word?” I reasoned.

Very soon after joining the church, my wife and I were asked to be its youth leaders. The youth group grew numerically at this time. Then I was encouraged by the church leaders to quit both my well-paid job at a local university and my almost-finished D Phil in order to become the paid leader of the church. This I did for 9 years, and towards the end of my time there I was encouraged to go to start a new church, similar to the one in Hastings, in Berlin, largely, I guess, because I could speak fluent German. Starting new churches in other nations had become a big issue in Newfrontiers at that time so I was given lots of encouragement and profile. As in any other social grouping, although you are technically free to choose, the perceived need to confirm often blinds you to real consequences of the choices you are making. So I was massively applauded for making the gravest mistake of my life.

Nearly all the new churches were started with teams of about 20 people or more in order to provide much-needed support and protection but in the end we were sent out on our own as a family of two parents with four young children by a man called David Stroud, today the leader of a multi-site church in London. So we landed abroad in a city of 3.5 million people where we knew not one single person. We were given some money, but that was all. David Stroud, the man who took responsibility for sending us to Berlin, never even visited us once. We were left high and dry and I had to take on two full-time jobs in order to keep the family going. I will never forget the night when my middle woke up in the night and caught me answering church e-mails at 2 am and said: “Dad, you work to relax.”

All our children, who had been doing very well in school in England, did badly in school in Berlin because they could not speak German and my wife understandably became depressed as the children became more and more unhappy.

Nonetheless, the pressure increased weekly to grow a new church quickly. Articles and trendy videos were published across Newfrontiers about other new churches that were growing really fast, with no regard for cultural context or the size of the start-up teams.

The church I had come to know back in 1991 that preached grace, family and friendship turned out to be a sect shaped by rabid competition, the male ego and fake relationships.

Tragically, this was the perfect environment for me to blow everything up. For in me there had been a time-bomb ticking away since my childhood about which I had no real knowledge. Until, of course, the bomb went off.

To be continued …

“Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” Jon Stewart.