Compassion

As the events of the past week have shown, a nation or a house divided against itself cannot stand. While it's really easy to see why dramatic economic and social changes cause people to cling to old fashion tribal ideas, its also easy to see, especially now, that we must reach out to better understand each other, to respect each other and most of all bring compassion to our daily discourse. The truth is, people have been preaching compassion for centuries. It has been part of the religious and secular cannon for thousands of years. Yet today, religion itself is part of the problem. How then do we reaffirm compassion in the wake of violence, fear, ignorance and rapid change?

Religious scholar Karen Armstrong, in her new book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, argues that we need a new Charter for Compassion; that we need to lay out, codify and reaffirm the core principals of a compassionate life.

My conversation with Karen Armstrong:

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The Case for compassion

Renowned religion historian Karen Armstrong, in her new book The Case for God argues that our religious thinking is surprisingly less sophisticated now than it it has been in the past.  She explains how religion was never intended to answer the questions that fall withing the scope of reason or science.  The role of religion was to help people live and cope with realities for which there were no easy explanations.  She fires a shot across the bow of today's fundamentalists, as she shows that prior to the 17th century no one assumed biblical myths were factual accounts, but were meant to be interpreted and then reinterpreted. 

 My conversation with Karen Armstrong: