Who is Karen Armstrong: author, former nun and religious inspiration
by 7 people |
Ranked #471 in Religion, #35,693 overall
Religious tolerance embodied
A visit to Jerusalem rekindled her love for religion and she turned to writing books about the major world religions and their spiritual basis.
Her work on understanding fundamentalist religion popularizes the major insights about the subject amongst scientists.
Contents at a Glance
- Video about Compassion, yoga
- Three reasons to admire Karen Armstrong
- Karen Armstrong's personal quest for enlightenment
Video about Compassion, yoga
About yoga as a spiritual discipline for the few that want to get rid of the ego. Yoga used to be for people who practiced ahimsa - non-violence.
Interview with Karen Armstrong
author & political-religious thinker Karen Armstrong talks about the meaning of compassion video by anurag dh
Runtime: 6:51
6192 views
10 Comments:
Three reasons to admire Karen Armstrong
- She has transcended herself several times in her life
- Her work is well researched and well written
- She fights for religious tolerance
Karen Armstrong's personal quest for enlightenment
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Also available on kindle
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 07/06/2009) 
Through the Narrow Gate, Revised: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 07/06/2009)
Former Nun writing books about the world religions
Books about universal spirituality
This was very difficult, partly because she had to deal with (at the time undiagnosed) epilepsy.
A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 07/06/2009)
"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 upon the overriding importance of compassion, as expressed by way of the Golden Rule: Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you.
Quotes on life, religion and spirituality
Compassion is not a popular virtue.
It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.
And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious group, an otherness that can repel us initially, but which can jerk us out of our habitual selfishness, and give us intonations of that sacred otherness, which is God.
I believe that what we have is now. The religions say you can experience eternity in this life, here and now, by getting those moments of ecstasy where time ceases to be a constraint. And you do it by the exercise of the Golden Rule and by compassion. And just endless speculation about the next world is depriving you of a great experience in this one.
Rewards and accolades
Despite the controversies around her work, Karen Armstrong has received various accolades:- Fellow of the Jesus Seminar
- TED Prize
- In 2007, Armstrong was invited by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore to deliver the "2007 MUIS Lecture"
- has written numerous articles for The Guardian and other publications
source
Quotes on Religion in general
Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.
There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have bad religion too.
Every fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.
Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept. The sages were all extremely concerned with transcendence, with going beyond the self and discovering a realm, a reality, that could not be defined in words. Buddhists talk about nirvana in very much the same terms as monotheists describe God.
It is, therefore, a mistake to regard myth as an inferior mode of thought, which can be cast aside when human beings have attained the age of reason. Mythology is not an early attempt at history, and does not claim that its tales are objective fact. Like a novel, an opera or a ballet, myth is make-believe; it is a game that transfigures our fragmented, tragic world, and helps us to glimpse new possibilities by asking 'what if?' - a question which has also provoked some of our most important discoveries in philosophy, science and technology.
Karen Armstrong on the Abrahamitic Religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
Also available on kindle
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Amazon Price: $10.88 (as of 07/06/2009)
In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis
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Amazon Price: $11.20 (as of 07/06/2009)
Visions Of God: Four Medieval Mystics and Their Writings
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Amazon Price: $17.10 (as of 07/06/2009)
What do you think of Karen Armstrong?
Karen Armstrong on other world religions
Buddhism and mythology
Canongate Myth Series: Includes A Short History of Myth, The Penelopiad, Weight, and Dream Angus (Myths, The)
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Amazon Price: $50.08 (as of 07/06/2009)
Karen Armstrong Interviews
On "A History of God"
Historian and former nun Karen Armstrong says the more...0 points
Bill Moyers Interviews Karen Armstrong. 3.1.02 | PBS
She was a spark plug in my PBS series on Genesis, more...0 points
NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . Karen Armstrong . September 13, 2002
She has written many books on religion, including more...0 points
The Spiral Staircase, My Climb Out of Darkness
A Conversation with KAREN ARMSTRONG0 points
Divine Reticence
A conversation with Karen Armstrong, biographer of more...0 points
Powells.com Interviews - Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong, Turn, Turn, Turn -- Salon.com cal more...0 points
Karen Armstrong on Christianity
The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)
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Amazon Price: $14.93 (as of 07/06/2009)
Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World
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Amazon Price: $11.56 (as of 07/06/2009)
Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life
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Amazon Price: $13.60 (as of 07/06/2009)
The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West
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Controversy
Scholars have also complained that her work is not accurate enough by scholarly standards.
What is God?
what is god?
Clips of Karen Armstrong and Arthur Peacocke talking to Robert Wright, plus some Bill Hicks, arranged to music. Tracks 1 and 2 of my "what is god?" chautauqua. Still no video, sorry.
Runtime: 4:16
411 views
1 Comments:
Quotes on Islam
Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France.
Books on Islam
1
Islam: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Karen Armstrong
Also available on kindleNo religion in the modern more...0 points
2
Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong
This vivid and detailed biography strips away cent more...0 points
3
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (Eminent Lives) by Karen Armstrong
Muhammad was born in 570 CE, and over the followin more...0 points
4
![Islam: A Short History [Audiobook] [Cd] [Unabridged] by Karen Armstrong](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31J6QLEAciL._SL75_.jpg)
Islam: A Short History [Audiobook] [Cd] [Unabridged] by Karen Armstrong
Unabridged on 6 compact discs. Readers seeking a q more...0 points
Karen Armstrong articles and quotes
- A Few Quotes From Karen Armstrong
- I have been reading a transcript of an interview of Karen Armstrong. The interview was conducted by Steve Paulson of Salon.com. You can read it for yourself here. Be prepared to be shocked if you are not familiar with Karen Armstrong.
- The label of Catholic terror was never used about the IRA
- Fundamentalism is often a form of nationalism in religious disguise.
- We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam
- The Pope's remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.
From the UK? Check out these Karen Armstrong books for sale there!
Comments on Karen Armstrong?
Share your stories, sightings, thoughts, rants, raves...
Serenity_Prayer_Gifts wrote...
Interesting Lens! Lots to learn! Thanks for sharing! :-)
Posted October 01, 2008
csamsmith wrote...
excellent. I have learned much from this lens. I am now attracted to Karen Armstrong's work.
Posted September 12, 2008
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What people are saying about Karen Armstrong
- McCabism: Karen Armstrong and the case for God
- In The Case for God: What religion really means, former Catholic nun Karen Armstrong reiterates a now-familiar line of defence against the new wave of atheism. This generally amounts to the complaint that atheists such as Richard ...
- Karen Armstrong makes her TED Prize wish: the Charter for ...
- TED Talks People want to be religious, says scholar Karen Armstrong; 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 as ...
- Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: Blackburn on Armstrong
- Simon Blackburn has an interesting review of the latest from Karen Armstrong (thanks to commenters at Butterflies and Wheels for this). Blackburn is a plenary speaker at the AAP conference this week - I look forward to seeing him in ...
- The Christian Radical: Robert Wright interviews Karen Armstrong (1 ...
- Robert Wright interviews Karen Armstrong (1:18:52). Karen Armstrong, a former nun, teaches Christianity at Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism. posted by The Editors at 5:57 PM ...
