Help bring Compassion back to Religion
by Jaxon on March 4, 2010
Karen Armstrong FRSL (born 14 November 1944 in Wildmoor, Worcestershire) is a British author of numerous works on comparative religion, who first rose to prominence in 1993 with her highly successful A History of God. A former Catholic nun, she asserts that, "All the great traditions are saying the same thing in much the same way, despite their surface differences." They each have in common, she says, an emphasis on the transcendent importance of compassion, as epitomized in the so-called Golden Rule: Do not do to others what you would not have done to you.
This video awarded Karen the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008, Armstrong then called for a council of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders to draw up a Charter for Compassion which would identify shared moral priorities in order to foster global understanding in the spirit of the Golden Rule. The Charter was unveiled in Washington, D.C., in November 2009. Its signatories include Prince Hassan of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Sir Richard Branson.
Video Description:
As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share: to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") as the central global religious doctrine.
Notable Quotes:
Compassion is the true test of any religiosity. Because we de-throne ourselves from the center of our world, and put another person there. And once we get rid of Ego, then we are able to see the Divine. - Karen Armstrong
In your exigesus you must make it clear that every single verse of the Torah is a commontry a gloss upon the Golden Rule. - Great Rabbi Hillel
Religion has not been the cause of the world's major wars, religion in politics has. - Karen Armstrong
That utterly mysterious transcendence is God - Karen Armstrong