Karen Anderson interview with Powell's

[kclown]

http://www.powells.com/authors/armstrong.html

Sensational article on this in the newest AARP magazine, unfortunately not linked (yet).


Dave: What do you want readers to take away from your books? Is there one thing more than others?

Armstrong: The main thing I want them to get is this idea of compassion. That's what we need now.

Dave: That everything boils down to the Golden Rule.

Armstrong: I'm convinced of it. It's in all the traditions, and it's what the world needs now more than religious certainty, more than doctrinal statements or more rules about what people can do in the bedroom and who can get married and who can be bishops or priests. All this is like fiddling while Rome burns.

All the world religions developed in violent societies like our own. All of them came from societies where civilization seemed on the point of collapsing under the weight of aggression and violence. Where old values were going out, no new ones were coming to take their place. The first impulse in many of these religions was a revulsion from violence. That's what we need now, to get back to some of that.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

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