Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous books on religion and spirituality, including her most recent one, 'The Lost Art of Scripture.' Our society, especially in the west, is so geared to self-gratification and feeling good that we expect our religions to make us feel good too. They want to have a nice warm glow, and they go to the church or the mosque, or the synagogue, or the temple. Others put the negative view forward, never impose on others, said Confucius, what you yourself do not desire. I think the secularization of society has somehow trivialized religion so that yoga, for example, which used to be about getting rid of ego, has now become a sort of aerobic exercise. You have, in a sense, to dethrone yourself and put yourself in the position of somebody else. Jesus said when the kingdom comes, and the king comes to judge the people, he’s not going to be judging you on your sins or anything of that sort, but he said, "I was hungry, you gave me to eat. In the convent she often used to faint. Whatever God is, He does not want us to feel good, God wants us to be disturbed by the distress that we see around us. We finally did get a publisher and I found that the people who were reading it, most were Muslims, especially Muslims from the West. But it’s not just about you and your soul. Karen Armstrong shares a vision of faith that is less about proofs than practice. Each church or each mosque making a move towards a house of worship belonging to another faith in your vicinity etc. Dr. Armstrong: Well, I fell into this completely by accident, I've never intended to do this. I hope so. But religions are telling us, “Get out there.” I think if you want to start getting out there and start engaging with the plights of the world, I think the texts are speaking to you in a much more urgent way. Karen Armstrong (OBE; FRSL) is the author of numerous books on religion, including A History of God, which became an international bestseller; The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism; Islam; Buddha; and The Great Transformation, as well as a memoir, The Spiral Staircase. “Love your enemy,” said Jesus. You need to recognize Islam because it’s a change, because they were now masters of a huge empire and there was a lot of distress about this, how to square imperial injustice with the Qur’an, and out came all these institutions which we now associate with Islam which were not there in Medina like fiqh or Sufism or Shia historiography too. She won the 2008 TED Prize launching The Charter for Compassion, which has over two million signatories. I was appalled by the fatwa but I was also appalled by the way leading academics, philosophers, novelists were coming out in the newspapers saying that Islam is evil and bloodthirsty religion. I know you've written tons and tons of books. People want their own cities to be nice. The best way of doing that is by a system of compassion where you put other people first. That was how I got into Islam. I wanted to live on a spiritual level. On America’s response to 9/11: That’s complicated, of course, because America’s a huge place, and it will vary in different parts of the country, different neighborhoods and different cities. People who think deeply and who will gain respect because they would be people of eminence, that's Nobel Prize winners, but who come together instead of just going off from Stockholm back home but linking up and will address some of the burning issues of the time. And to feel that they're good people and one with the world, and then not likely to [have it] impinge too much on their lives. Do you think the perception of religious people, of course, it might be worse for some faiths or better for others, will generally improve over time? World renowned religious scholar Karen Armstrong spent seven years in a Roman Catholic convent searching for God. We should be making ourselves extremely uncomfortable about the state of the world looking at the pain of the world, that’s what all the great prophets did, they were not sitting around complacently doing yoga. This is not unusual, there have been many people in the past who wrote like that, and there are many people in the present. What I’ve found in all the scriptures are a call for action—. You weren’t harping back to the past so that you would reproduce the conditions of 2nd century Arabia or the conditions of the early Christian church because that was God, you make that speak to the present. SB: I completely agree. The clash of cultures was partly what projected her out of the convent. I bet the same is true in mosques. To reach poetic perfection, Commenting has been disabled at this time but you can still. I also mean, like, people have a difficult time separating religious institutions from the religion itself—. There have been thoughtful, appreciative reviews and that type of thing but even in the United States, I see people really longing to hear something different. She smiles now and says, “I still meet men who look at me and say ‘I’ve always wanted a nun,’ and they think I’m the next best thing.”. Then I had yet another career disaster and went off and started to write a book called The History of God, and I expected it to take the skeptical line of its predecessors. Karen Armstrong speaks about her transition from nun to author, the religions she has written about, and her charitable foundation. They called it Ethical Transcendental Monotheism or something, which was the major religion of most young people and their parents. We are programmed to be pretty selfish in order to survive. Used to a Victorian design of habit, with a cape and small black buttons up the neck, her nakedness was agonising. Read a special Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly interview with scholar and author Karen Armstrong. If you do this, you will miss much good. Our civilization depends upon violence and aggression. Always end with that." SB: At some level, this goes back to materialism. Charter for Compassion provides an umbrella for people to engage in collaborative partnerships worldwide. So, I have a sense of dread and I remember sitting in my sitting room and looking at the dreadful Sunday newspapers all around me and I said, one of the problems is that they just don't know anything. But because I was now working alone, there was no one to egg me on to be outrageous, and I worked in silence for most of the time. Dr. Armstrong: Materialism is part of it, certainly. A few days after that, Boko Haram slaughtered 2,000 Nigerians and that had a tiny mention in the press. The more we discover, the more we’ve got in common, the more people are retreating into these denominational ghettos. People are divided very much in their specialisms. Dr. Armstrong: Well, yes, exactly. SB: I think so. Dr. Armstrong: We’re coming to a turning point now because Joan Brown Campbell who has managed it for years, she’s retiring now, she’s 87. We were taught to obey absolutely. SB: You've spoken about your vision for compassion, could you name a specific objective, perhaps you see the world can achieve let's say in 25 years? We don't see much of that today, frankly, with all our fine talk about democracy and equality; compassion demands equality. No state, however peace-loving it says it claims to be, can afford to disband its army. SB: —in a sense, we're seeing more tribalistic and nationalistic tendencies. But instead, there she stands today: saner than most, happier than many, energetically intelligent and spontaneously friendly. Interview with Karen Armstrong from the U.S. It’s called The Lost Art of Scripture because I see scripture as a kind of art form that requires a certain mentality, and an understanding of the genre etc.. Some of them I’m happy to say, a lot younger than I am. So often what -- the voice of religion that we hear on our media is the voice of extremism, the voice of hatred, the voice of disapproval, and yet there is another voice, and it's -- it's not -- it's not being heard. EDITORS’ NOTE: Dr. Karen Armstrong — an internationally acclaimed scholar and bestselling author of numerous books — discusses her insights on compassion, the Golden Rule, nationalism, materialism, cosmopolitan ethics, religious literacy, the future of religion, perceptions of religious people, religious institutions, personal search, and her vision for the future. Dr. Armstrong: It’d better or it will just wither away. This is the age of the tweet. Sahil Badruddin: The Golden Rule to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves, you've often mentioned is the foundation of the virtue of compassion. I'm just curious on how you went about on choosing particular topics. Charter for Compassion provides an umbrella for people to engage in collaborative partnerships worldwide. Finally, in a state of terrible nerves, illness, vomiting, acute nose bleeds, the time came round for the convent’s annual retreat. The Ismaili Jamatkhana and Center, Houston, Full Audio: Karen Armstrong Interview on the State of Our World Today, full_resolution_muhammad_-_a_prophet_for_our_time_by_karen_armstrong.jpg, full_resolution_twelve_steps_to_a_compassionate_life_by_karen_armstrong.jpg, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. I just finished a new book, which will be published next year, I suppose, about scripture. At first, we couldn't get a publisher because people thought Muslims would be so enraged by my doing such a thing, that I would be joining Salman Rushdie in hiding. It requires of you that you look into your own heart, discover what gives you pain, and then refuse under any circumstance whatsoever to inflict that pain on anybody else. Dr. Armstrong: Now, we know, we see on our televisions screens; the depths of massive inequity within our own societies. She has written many books on religion, including THE BATTLE FOR GOD and ISLAM: A SHORT HISTORY. And you feel a sense of relief in the audience. Dr. Armstrong: I think you have to startle them a little bit, to make them in a little bit uncomfortable because too often people regard religion or morality something to make them feel good. And he said, "He feels in the audience a sense of utter relief, You probably know it. She discussed her insights on compassion, the Golden Rule, nationalism, materialism, cosmopolitan ethics, religious literacy, the future of religion, perceptions of religious people, religious institutions, personal search, and her vision for the future. Once out, she still had fainting fits, and the anorexia progressed. She has addressed members of the US Congress on three occasions; lectured to policymakers at the US State Department. Dr. Armstrong: It is, entirely. Dr. Armstrong: This is part of the problem. God, the omnipresent and the omniscient, cannot be confined to any one creed, for He says in the Qur’an, ‘Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah.’ Everybody praises what he knows, his God is his own creature, and in praising it, he praises himself. To find Him, she entered a Roman Catholic convent and became a nun. SB: Going back to the Charter for Compassion, which has over two million signatories, what’s currently happening with it, and what are your future plans for it? The.Ismaili brings you Sahil Badruddin’s interview with Karen Armstrong, an internationally acclaimed scholar and bestselling author of numerous books on religion. Right back at the very beginnings of civilization in ancient Egypt, the Golden Rule was of the essence of morality, because it was the only way to run a decent society. Dr. Armstrong: It’s always a good idea to have a look at how things were done a bit in the past, and then try and do it in the future. They were talking to one another is such arcane terms because PhDs are meant to be incomprehensible or they couldn't actually agree. Stay updated with latest from the.ismaili, This is the official website of the Ismaili Muslim Community.
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