Environmental Catastrophe or Sustainable Future?
Dave Browning was impressed when They Shall Not Hurt or Destroy,
my book on religion and animal rights (though still in manuscript form at
the time), was given a favorable review in a 1996 issue of Humane Religion.
Regina Hyland called my book a must for all humane libraries, and said that
it showed that "speciesism" is not some newfangled "New Age" concept, but
that religious leaders have been teaching their parishioners compassion for
animals throughout history.
Dave said he shared the review with his friends.
In 1999, when I visited San Diego, Dave invited me to his home for dinner,
and said his mother makes a great vegetarian pasta sauce. (He was right!)
Dave hoped I would get into a theological discussion with one of his
relatives, a conservative Christian, saying, "He won't damn you to hell or
anything..." but a theological discussion never arose.
In 2002, Dave and I saw the movie Signs together. Dave said the scenes of
the aliens resisting water because it kills them reminded him too much of
the Wicked Witch melting in the Wizard of Oz, whereas I said it reminded me
of Gremlins in reverse (the cute, fuzzy creatures become demonic when
exposed to water).
Toward the end of his life, Dave said he'd learned to "like socialism,"
because the government was paying for the surgeries to correct the heart
condition which would ultimately lead to his demise.
Dave said he found the economic arguments in favor of vegetarianism and
arguments concerning the waste of resources involved in a meat-centered
diet, convincing, and quoted one of the female anchors on Fox News, saying,
"My dog is a person."
Go on to: Eternal Treblinka
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