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Today's sermon will be delivered by one of our most distinguished members.
Founder of the Council on Economic Trends, author of _Entropy: Into the
Greenhouse World_, as well as _The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor
Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era_, and most recently _Beyond Beef: The
Rise and fall of the Cattle Culture_, he is a tireless advocate of the Green
Revolution who needs no introduction.  It is with great pleasure that I give
you Jeremy Rifkin.  May the Great Spirit grant each and every one of us the
heart to realize his unique vision, in a world no longer dominated by the
ruthless paradigm of efficiency.

>>>>
    The elimination of beef will be accompanied by an ecological renaissance, a
grand restoration of nature on every continent.  America's western range will
come to life again.  Ancient rivers will flow, their waters bathing and healing
thousands of damaged riparian zones across the great plains.  Native
wildflowers and perennial bunchgrasses will sprout and bloom, spreading a
verdant carpet across the western landscapes.  Cottonwood trees will shade the
prairie once again, providing refuge for thousands of native birds.  Streams
and springs will come to life, bringing back freshwater trout and other native
fish.  The large mammals of the plains--elk, moose, pronghorn, antelope,
bighorn sheep--will repopulate the western range of restored grassland.
Predator species will thrive.  Coyotes, wolves, bobcats mountain lions, and
lynx will steal their way back onto the great western range, performing their
traditional role of culling big animal herds to ensure that native species do
not exceed the carrying capacity of the plains ecosystems.  Buffalo will once
again roam the west, sharing the grassland with wild horses and burros.
    In Central and South America, the dissolution of the cattle complex will
idle tractors and bulldozers and silence the familiar drone of thousands of
machine saws cutting their way through the thicket of ancient forest
ecosystems.  The thousands of fires that have been set across the Amazon
forests will be snuffed out.  Countless species of plants, insects, and animals
will be granted a reprieve from what once appeared to be sure death at the
hands of cattle ranchers and multinational corporations.  Millions of
creatures, many of whom have inhabited this earth for millennia, will regroup,
reproduce, and repopulate the forests, bearing testimony to the wonders of
God's creation.  Future generations will have the opportunity to know, interact
with, and appreciate these many diverse life forms; this multitude of wild and
exotic creatures that creep, crawl, dart, fly over, swing through and stalk the
ancient forests, all fellow travelers in the unfolding evolutionary saga.
    In Africa, the spreading desert will be slowed, allowing nature to
regenerate.  Wildlife, once abundant in the sub-Sahara will slowly return.  So
too will the rich native flora, turning a semibarren continent back into the
world's richest garden.  Wildebeest, elephants, zebras, rhinos, and lions will
roam again over the open savannas, a collage of creation bursting forth,
repopulating ancient habitats.
    In Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia, the dissolution of the global
cattle complex will lead to a similar restoration of ancient forests and
grasslands, as well as native flora and fauna.
    Fewer cattle will lessen the strain on the world's remaining freshwater
reserves and decrease the emission of global warming gases into the atmosphere.
While the biosphere will still be choked with man-made chlorofluorocarbons, the
worldwide reduction in cattle will greatly reduce methane emissions as well as
carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the burning of forests and other
biomass to provide pastureland.  The biosphere, the thin chemical envelope that
stretches from the ocean depths to the stratosphere and that sustains all of
the life on the planet, will be the ultimate beneficiary of the historic
decision to transcend the beef culture.
    As millions of Americans, Europeans, Japanese, and others make personal
choices to move beyond beef, the artificial protein ladder, erected during this
century, will begin to collapse.  The societal decision to forgo beef will
profoundly affect the economics of human survival in the coming century.  In
the new world that is coming, millions of human beings will voluntarily choose
to eat lower on the food chain so that millions of others may obtain the
minimum food calories they need to sustain their lives.  This grand
redistribution of the earth's bounty, the most spectacular and far-reaching in
history, will unite the human race in a new fraternal bond.  A new species
awareness will begin where the rich meet the poor on the descending rungs of
the world's protein ladder.
    Moving beyond the beef culture is a revolutionary act, a sign of our
willingness to reconstitute ourselves, to make ourselves whole.  Restoring
nature, resacralizing our relation ship to the bovine, and renewing our own
being are inseparably linked.  They are the essential elements of a new
postmodern sensibility, the harbingers of a new earth-centered awareness.  The
dissolution of the cattle complex and the elimination of beef from the diet of
the human race portends a new chapter in the unfolding of human consciousness.
By doing battle with "the world steer," a new generation expresses its
sensitivity to the biosphere and its regard for the plight the poor.  By
eliminating beef from the human diet, our species takes a significant step
toward a new species consciousness, reaching out in a spirit of shared
partnership with the bovine and, by extension, other sentient creatures with
whom we share the earth.
<<<<

On August 20th, 1994, at the same time that the Sun Dance was occurring at Pine
Ridge, South Dakota, "Miracle" arrived.  A North American Bison, she was born
on a "buffalo" farm in Janesville, Wisconsin.  Not an Albino, she is a *white*
buffalo--a unique phenomenon in nature.  The farm's owner has sworn to protect
her granting full access to indigenous people, 24 hours a day.
    According to the philosophy and theology in the legends of the Northern
Plains Native American people a great event was to occur in 1994.  It has
happened.  The White Buffalo has returned and this significant incident is a
message heralding what is to come.  The fourth and final age of humankind is
upon us and with it comes the spiritual awakening for the human race.  All
indigenous people of the Earth today know of this final age of humankind, and
we feel that the ceremonies, songs, and paint are the key factors in
maintaining the balance of the Earth and our connection to Her; as well as
direct action to prevent Her desecration.  We still acknowledge the spiritual
and natural laws governing this planet who is a living, breathing being.  White
Buffalo's return is a sign that the age of reconnection to the Earth is upon
us, giving us hope and guidance for the times ahead.

-Coyote

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Rev. Chris Korda                           The Church of Euthanasia

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