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

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Ranked #471 in Religion, #35,693 overall

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

author & political-religious thinker Karen Armstrong talks about the meaning of compassion video by anurag dh

Runtime: 6:51
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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

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Through the Narrow Gate, Revised: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery

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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

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"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

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The Battle for God

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In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis

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Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths

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Visions Of God: Four Medieval Mystics and Their Writings

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Karen Armstrong on other world religions 

Buddhism and mythology

Buddha

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A Short History of Myth (Myths, The)

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Canongate Myth Series: Includes A Short History of Myth, The Penelopiad, Weight, and Dream Angus (Myths, The)

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Karen Armstrong on Christianity 

The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)

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Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World

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Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life

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The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West

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The Bible: The Biography

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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?

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
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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 kindleNo 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 followin 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

Comments on Karen Armstrong? 

Share your stories, sightings, thoughts, rants, raves...

AgentTerrific wrote...

SHE ROCK MY SOCKS OFF

ReplyPosted February 08, 2009

Serenity_Prayer_Gifts wrote...

Interesting Lens! Lots to learn! Thanks for sharing! :-)

ReplyPosted October 01, 2008

csamsmith wrote...

excellent. I have learned much from this lens. I am now attracted to Karen Armstrong's work.

ReplyPosted September 12, 2008

Comfortdoc wrote...

Thank you for joining the Imagine Peace Group.

ReplyPosted June 21, 2008

clouda9 wrote...

Excellent, I learned something new today!

ReplyPosted June 10, 2008

 
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More on religion and spirituality 

More religion and spirituality resources and a spiritual blog about spiritual growth.

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 ...

sources for the pictures 

Sources for the pictures of Karen:
Stanford.edu
Huubmous.nl