Quotes from Karen Armstrong

it is important to assume that the speaker shares the same human nature as yourself and that, even though your belief systems may differ, you both have the same idea of what constitutes truth.

The sage acquired Wisdom by meditating on the marvels of the physical world, not by studying Torah.

our version of the same event is also likely to be a reflection upon our own situation and suffering rather than a dispassionate and wholly factual account. We

The implications for politics were immense. If instead of ruthlessly pursuing his own self-interest to the detriment of others, a ruler would curb his ego and submit to li for a single day, Confucius believed, everyone under Heaven would respond to his goodness!

the attempt to become a compassionate human being is a lifelong project.

Charity," Davidson continues, "is forced on us, whether we like it or not; if we want to understand others, we must count them right in most matters."13

A person who is impartial, fair, calm, gentle, serene, accepting, and openhearted is indeed a refuge.

Jezus van Nazaret, een Galilese genezer en duivelbezweerder die de ophanden zijnde komst van het koninkrijk vna God verkondigde. Anti-Romeinse gevoelens kwamen vooral op bij grote nationale feesten, en Jezus werd rond het jaar 30 ter dood gebracht door Pontius Pilatus toen hij naar Jeruzalem kwam om Pesach te vieren.

There are many opinionated religious people who would do well to heed Paul's warnings to the "strong" who were intimidating the "weak" with their overbearing certainty. Above all, we need to take seriously Paul's insight that no virtue was valid unless it was imbued with a love that was not a luxurious emotion in the heart but must be expressed daily and practically in self-emptying concern for others.

The Quran gave women rights of inheritance and divorce centuries before Western women were accorded such status. The Quran prescribes some degree of segregation and veiling for the Prophet's wives, but there is nothing in the Quran that requires the veiling of all women or their seclusion in a separate part of the house.

Many found the very idea hilarious. "Hi, Karen—how's God?" they would ask, as though inquiring about a mutual acquaintance.

The "principle of charity" and the "science of compassion" are both crucial to any attempt to understand discourse and ideas that initially seem baffling, distressing, and alien;

Jezus, de Logos, zou de functie van de verwoeste tempel overnemen en de plaats waar de joden de goddelijke aanwezigheid konden ontmoeten[...]. Het jodendom en zijn heiligste symbolen waren vervangen door een triomfantelijk, strijdbaar christendom. Er loopt een spoor van haat door het Nieuwe Testament. Het is niet juist om de christelijke Bijbel te kenschetsen als antisemitisch want de schrijvers waren zelf joden.

Muslims were not supposed to be men of war; they were characterized by the spirit of hilm, a peace and forbearance that allied them with the Jews and Christians, the People of the Book.

Het hoofdthema [van het verhaal van Kaïn En Abel] is het gevecht tussen eigenliefde en de liefde voor God. 'Kaïn' betekende 'bezit'. Kaïn wilde alles voor zichzelf houden en streefde enkel zijn eigenbelang na. 'Abel' betekende 'degene die alles in verband brengt met God'. Deze kwaliteiten waren in elk individu aanwezig en streden voortdurend om de voorrang.

With this new empathetic understanding of the context, we will find that we can imagine ourselves, in similar circumstances, feeling the same.

Het was absurd, stelde Filo, om het eerste hoofdstuk van Genesis letterlijk op te vatten en te denken dat de wereld in zes dagen was geschapen. Het getal 'zes' was een symbool voor volmaaktheid.

Storytelling is fine as long as you can encourage people to act on the stories.

It was not violence and self-assertion, but the spirit of mercy, courtesy and tranquillity that would cause the ummah to grow, "as a seed that puts forth its shoot and strengthens it and it grows stout and raises straight upon its stalk, pleasing the owners.

You could stamp on this natural shoot of compassion, Mencius argued, just as you can cripple or deform your body, but if you cultivate this altruistic tendency assiduously, it will acquire a dynamic power of its own.23 The

people are finding that in their dramatically transformed circumstances, the old forms of faith no longer work for them: they cannot provide the enlightenment and consolation that human beings seem to need.

Unless we find some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women fall very easily into despair.

Shu required that "all day and every day" we looked into our own hearts, discovered what caused us pain, and then refrained, under all circumstances, from inflicting that distress upon other people. It demanded that people no longer put themselves into a special, separate category but constantly related their own experience to that of others. Confucius was the first to promulgate the Golden Rule. For Confucius it had transcendent value.

He mocked Dayton as a "one-horse Tennessee village" and its citizens the "gaping primates of the upland valleys."7 Yet whenever a fundamentalist movement is attacked, either with violence or in a media campaign, it almost invariably becomes more extreme.