Who is Karen Armstrong: author, former nun and religious inspiration

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Religious tolerance embodied

Karen Armstrong is the embodiment of religious tolerance and spiritual transformation. A former Roman Catholic Nun, she got disillusioned about religion.

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.

Video about Compassion, yoga

Inspired by Christianity, Buddhism etc. About service to others globally.

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
by ascentmagazine | video info

14 ratings | 12,443 views
curated content from YouTube

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

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Former Nun writing books about the world religions

Books about universal spirituality

Karen Armstrong became a Catholic Nun in her teenage years. Once formally a nun she was sent to college to study English. As an undergraduate she left the nunnery and tried to adapt to 'normal' life.

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: $7.00 (as of 02/16/2012)Buy Now

"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 2008

  • 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

Charter of Compassion (2009)

In 2008 Karen Armstrong received the TED prize. Her prize was the Charter of Compassion.

The Charter does NOT assume:

* all religions are the same
* compassion is the only thing that matters in religion
* religious people have a monopoly on compassion

The Charter DOES affirm that:

* compassion is celebrated in all major religious, spiritual and ethical traditions
* the Golden Rule is our prime duty and cannot be limited to our own political, religious or ethnic group
* therefore, in our divided world, compassion can build common ground
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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)

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Karen Armstrong on other world religions

Buddhism and mythology

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Karen Armstrong on Christianity

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Controversy

Her work has been described as too positive about Islam.

Scholars have also complained that her work is not accurate enough by scholarly standards.

What is God?

Abstract belief in God -> finding it in yourself. Refers to Buddhism and Hinduism.
what is god?
by wubaudio | video info

2 ratings | 977 views
curated content from YouTube

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

Islam: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Karen Armstrong

Islam: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles) by Karen Armstrong

Also available on kindle No religion in the modern more...0 points

Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong

Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong

This vivid and detailed biography strips away cent more...0 points

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (Eminent Lives) by Karen Armstrong

Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (Eminent Lives) by Karen Armstrong

Muhammad was born in 570 CE, and over the following more...0 points

Islam: A Short History [Audiobook] [Cd] [Unabridged] by Karen Armstrong

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!

The below links are from amazon.co.uk. They represent a popular selection of the books by Karen Armstrong they sell.


The Bible:
The Biography


A History of God


Muhammad:
A Biography of the Prophet


The Spiral Staircase

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What people are saying about Karen Armstrong

Top world-religions author comes to Vancouver, fighting for compassion
In pursuit of interfaith understanding, acclaimed author Karen Armstrong admits to being a "freelance monotheist." Simon Fraser University is bringing the world's leading author on religions to Vancouver in mid-March for a remarkable series of events ...
Theologian Karen Armstrong offers 'Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life': New ...
Karen Armstrong, the acclaimed scholar of religion and author of "The Case for God," dares to imagine that in Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. Humans are hard-wired for survival, she writes, instinctively bound by the "Four F's": feeding, ...
Islam and western misunderstanding
KAREN Armstrong, the renowned British scholar of comparative religion, who has also written several books about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), has done another commendable job through her article, 'Museum show: a journey to the heart ...
Religious absolutism
Karen Armstrong defines fundamentalist movements as ?embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis.? Historically, self-created crises are given religious sanction. Today Islam, Christianity and Judaism face ...

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Author of this page: Katinka Hesselink

Author of this page: Katinka HesselinkKatinka Hesselink has been fascinated with religion for as long as she can remember. She started studying theosophy and the world religions in earnest when she was 19. She loves reading books about any and all the spiritual traditions, and reviews them online.

She even did a stint of university studying World Religion, specializing in Buddhism and Indian religions.

She has gathered inspiring quotes and informative articles on Buddhism, Sufism, Mystic Christianity and of course theosophy on her website Katinka Hesselink Net. On her popular spiritual blog All Considering she shares her knowledge, experiences and thoughts on spiritual topics.

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I'm a webmaster and student of religion and spirituality. See my website on religion and spirituality: www.katinkahesselink.net or my spiritual blog: All... more »

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