Quotes by Karen Armstrong

Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isnt necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.

Every fundamentalist movement Ive studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.

Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that its the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, whats the point of having religion if you cant disapprove of other people?

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge, like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

Ever since the Crusades, when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east, western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith - even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity.

Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force ones mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse.

A theology should be like poetry, which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do.

“This was the scientific age, and people wanted to believe that their traditions were in line with the new era, but this was impossible if you thought that these myths should be understood literally. Hence the furor occasioned by The Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin. The book was not intended as an attack on religion, but was a sober exploration of a scientific hypothesis. But because by this time people were reading the cosmogonies of Genesis as though they were factual, many Christians felt--and still feel--that the whole edifice of faith was in jeopardy. Creation stories had never been regarded as historically accurate; their purpose was therapeutic. But once you start reading Genesis as scientifically valid, you have bad science and bad religion.”

“Some people simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about the sorrow of the world, but this is an unwise course, because, if we are entirely unprepared, the tragedy of life can be devastating.”