Al Jazeera interview with Karen Armstrong

[LongTomH]

Religious scholar Karen Armstrong discusses her life and spiritual journey and calls on religious leaders to work together.

[Thats my opinion]

1. Armstrong is an exceptional person

She is about the only lecturer on TED that is allowed as much time as she wants, and not the usual 15 minutes. I am jr. member of the Jesus Seminar, where she plays a major role. In a week or so I'll be following up on one of her greatest finding--that at the heart of all major religions is compassion.

[LongTomH]

2. Thanks for the comment

I'll be looking for your posts on the seminar.

[Humanist_Activist]

3. The only major religion I can think of that has compassion at the heart is Jainism...

as for the rest, I don't think so.

[Thats my opinion]

5. Don't let your prejudices get in the way

of your intelligence. I suggest, if you really want to know, read Armstrong's latest book in which she carefully analyzes compassion as the basis of all substantial religions.

[Humanist_Activist]

6. What's a substantial religion?

Can you list them, and how they differ from non-substantial religions?

[Jim__]

4. An interesting interview.

Her personal story is interesting; but I wish they would have gone a little more deeply into her views on religion. I've read a couple of her books and her views were new to me.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. I'd like to see her argue with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Since Ali says there is NO love and compassion in Islam.
I'm reading her second memoir, "Nomad".

[Silent3]

8. What she says sounds very sweet and kind, and I don't doubt her good intentions...

...but I still can't see how you get to declaring that the common theme between the Abrahamic religions, or further, a wider scope of religions than that, is compassion.

Or perhaps maybe I can see a way to get there, but only one that requires glossing over so much about these various religions than there's not much left of the religions themselves, only an expression of what she hoped to find, with a result that could just as easily be secular, not religious. Well-intentioned cherry picking is still cherry picking.

At any rate, her message was positive enough I'd hope that material like this from the English Al Jazeera gets translated and shown in Muslim countries. On the same YouTube page as this Karen Armstrong interview was also another Riz Khan One-on-One interview with Richard Dawkins. I wonder how much play material like that gets beyond Al Jazeera English?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. Islam says to kill unbelievers, and she says Islam is a kind religion?

:wtf:

As I said, she needs to talk to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The lady who was making a film about subjugation of Muslim women, called "Submission". Her filmmaker friend, Theo van Gogh, great-grandson of Vincent's brother, was stabbed and shot to death on the street on his way to work by a Muslim extremist. The murderer left a note stabbed through with a knife in Theo's chest that was a death threat to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The murderer also tried to decapitate Mr. van Gogh.

She has since moved to the United States because Holland said they could not afford the 24-hour security guard she has had to have since Theo's murder.

[darkstar3]

10. It's Karen Armstrong.

So far, she hasn't found a faith she couldn't praise profusely.