31 quotes
Religion is hard work. Its insights are not self-evident and have to be cultivated in the same way as an appreciation of art, music, or poetry must be developed.
The Case for God (2009)
Monotheism is essentially inimical to tribalism: it demands that a people unite in a single community.
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)
A project like Pangea, which enables us to enter in to the situations of others, imaginatively, is fulfilling what the religions call the Golden Rule...
Karen Armstrong Joins Pangea Day! (2008)
If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void.
I say that 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.
Profile at TEDprize.org (2009)
Religion is really an art form and a struggle to find value and meaning amid the ghastly tragedy of human life.
Ode interview (2009)
There is a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and a faith which enables us to put our trust in them.
A History of God (1993)
The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
The only way to show a true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God’s existence.
A History of God (1993)
People would continue to adopt a particular conception of the divine because it worked for them, not because it was scientifically or philosophically sound.
A History of God (1993)
Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.
A History of God (1993)
Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.
A thread of hatred runs through the New Testament. It is inaccurate to call the Christian scriptures anti-Semitic, as the authors were themselves Jewish, but many of them had become disenchanted with Jewish religion.
We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)
Muslims respect the pacifist message of Jesus (even though the Qu'ran points out that Christians can be very belligerent but they accept that force is sometimes necessary. If tyrants and loathsome regimes were not opposed militarily, evil would have swamped the whole world.
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)
Human beings are the only animals who have the capacity to envisage something that is not present or something that does not yet exist but which is merely possible. The imagination has thus been the cause of our major achievements in science and technology as well as in art and religion.
A History of God (1993)
There are some forms of religion that must make God weep.
NOW interview (2002)
"My thoughts are not your thoughts. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, my ways above your ways." … should be written over every … pulpit. … Because so often we think that God's ways are our ways.