Compassion is the key in Islam and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity. They are profoundly similar.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Religion is more about ethical behavior than mere belief. It transforms individuals and evokes a sense of the sacred.
Karen Armstrong highlights that religion transcends just having beliefs; it is fundamentally about the ethical actions and behaviors that transform an individual. By engaging in these actions, one can experience a sense of holiness and recognize the sacredness present in life, implying that the essence of religion is rooted in moral transformation rather than dogma.
Themes
ReligionEthicsTransformationSacrednessBehavior
In practice
Example use cases
During a religious discussion, to emphasize the importance of ethical behavior over mere belief.
More from Karen Armstrong
All quotes →Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them.
Karen ArmstrongRead
When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.
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Far from being the father of jihad, [Prophet] Mohammad was a peacemaker, who risked his life and nearly lost the loyalty of his closest companions because he was determined to effect a reconciliation with Mecca
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Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.
Karen ArmstrongRead
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