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God and Man at TED
Here’s the only thing better than getting to wish for anything you want: having over a thousand of the world’s most successful and creative people committed to making your wish reality.
That’s how the TED Prize works.
So when Karen Armstrong, who has written beautifully and sympathetically on the world’s religions in over twenty books, was awarded this magic prize, I couldn’t wait for her wish.
Her TED prize talk (which will hopefully be available on the amazing TED website soon) was delivered with characteristic grace and lyricism. She offered an alternative definition of the term “belief”, stating that for centuries it connoted “to commit oneself to something” rather than “to buy into dogma blindly”. She spoke of the core of compassion within all faiths, and put the challenge bluntly: “How to make the compassionate ethos speak to our torn, divided world.”
She went on to say, a bit wryly, that one of the problems with religious people is that they would rather be right than compassionate. That got laughs from religious and non-religious alike.
“How do we make the Golden Rule hip?” she asked, in an endearingly un-hip way.
It was a perfect TED moment: Here was this former nun, a somewhat reclusive scholar by her own admission, asking a group of celebrities, venture capitalists and Hollywood executives - people who do hip for a living - to help her help religion change the world
The first version of Karen’s wish is for a “Charter of Compassion” which would be drafted by a group of spiritual and religious leaders and made widely available.
There are other such documents – Towards a Global Ethic, presented at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993 (and based off of Hans Kung’s work) and the United Religions Initiative Global Charter to name two.
That doesn’t mean Karen’s wish shouldn’t come true. It just means it shouldn’t stop there.
Here’s the question I asked at Karen’s TED Prize Lunch: “The people who understand the energy at the intersection of the youth bulge, the religious revival and the increased interaction between people of different backgrounds are the extremists. They are speaking to this energy. Religious extremism is a movement of young people taking action. The Charter of Compassion – while important – could be just another group of senior theologians talking. How do we make sure it’s more than that?”
Karen, and most of the audience, seemed to agree that that was the key – putting compassion into action, not just into words. That’s good. The TED community does action very, very well.
As this wish becomes reality, I see a serious media campaign and a powerful interfaith youth service movement being the arms and legs of this Charter of Compassion. I would love to see some aspirational goals also. How about a Day of Interfaith Youth Service happening in 5000 cities across the world by 2011? How about 100, 000 young people getting trained in the knowledge-base and the skill-set of organizing interfaith “compassion in action” projects?
Here’s one thing I couldn’t help but notice about the TED chatter around Karen’s wish. When TEDsters make positive comments about religion, they are talking about the universals – compassion, mercy, hospitality.
But in other areas, TEDsters love the richness of particularity.
Wade Davis, who lives and works with some of the most fascinating groups of people in some of the most remote parts of the world, spoke passionately about how the forces of modernity are crushing indigenous languages and cultures. “These people are not failed versions of you,” he said to a rapt TED audience, running through slides of one exotic group of people after another. “They are different answers to the question of what it means to be human.”
The TEDsters loved it.
Religious people love their particularity, too. Yes, compassion, mercy and hospitality are universal religious (and, indeed, non-religious) values and should be lifted up. But Ashura, Ash Wednesday, Yom Kippur, Diwali – these are also key, and for most religious people, nonnegotiable parts of their lives. And if the uniqueness is not celebrated, then the venture capitalists, the Hollywood executives and the celebrities of TED won’t find any friends in the world of religion.
Karen Armstrong knows this as well as anybody. Her best work is not a blending of world religions into a mush of commonality, but a careful articulation of their particularity.
How to lift up the universals of religion without crushing the uniqueness – and make it about action and not just talk? That’s not just an issue for Karen Armstrong and the TED community. That’s one of the central challenges of our times.
By
Eboo Patel
|
March 5, 2008; 9:55 PM ET
| Category:
The Faith Divide
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Posted by: Observer | March 8, 2008 2:25 PM
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Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah. And those who are with him are strong against unbelievers, compassionate amongst each other. You will see then bow and prostrate themselves, seeking Grace from Allah and His good pleasure. On their faces are their marks, the traces of prostration. This is their similitude in the Taurat. And their similitude in the Gospel is like a seed which sends forth its blade, then makes it strong. It then becomes think, and it stands on its own stem, filling the sowers with wonder and delight. As a result, it fills the unbelievers with rage at them. Allah has promised those among them who believe and do righteous deeds forgiveness and a great reward.( Surah Al-Fath, 29)
Posted by: Anonymous | March 8, 2008 12:35 PM
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Therefore any body can obviously see that "Crack Head" + "Empty Nut shell" stands for
CCNL
Posted by: Anonymous | March 8, 2008 10:49 AM
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CCNL believes all religions should be deflawed,but he supports millions of deaths caused by illegal war.
Those who support the invasion and vote for the invaders cannot take refuge in ignorance.They must truly believe that this epic brutality is right and just,or at the very least acceptable,because it's in their interest
Posted by: Anonymous | March 7, 2008 4:32 PM
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Eboo, Eboo, Eboo,
Again the major issue is identifying the flaws in religions. Karen Armstrong does this to some degree but fails to apply it in a meaningful way. What she has said in her books with the lyrics removed:
1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a mythical character as was Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.
1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm
2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus).
Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".
3. Mohammed, an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven,warmongering, hallucinating Arab, also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the assassination of Bhutto, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.
And who funds these acts of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.
4. Luther, Calvin, Joe Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).
5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centered and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’."
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."
6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."
"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"
Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life. e.g. Buddha by one legend was supposedly talking when he came out of his mother's womb.
Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations, embellishments, lies and myths surrounding the founders and foundations of said rules of life.
Posted by: Concerned The Christian Now Liberated | March 7, 2008 2:41 PM
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I just saw Karen Armstrong's interview with Sally Quinn.
I was happy to see her contribution.
Yes, and now I'd like to request Pema Chodron. (He he)
I had bought her books several years back, "When things fall apart", after the death of a close friend. I recommend it to anyone who is going through some tough personal trials.
Posted by: FRIEND | March 7, 2008 10:54 AM
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a
Posted by: Anonymous | March 6, 2008 7:29 PM
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A noble goal. I'm going to check out the referenced sites.
I read Karen Armstrong's book, "A History of God" after I had read her postings last year. I was hoping she would post more on this forum.
Posted by: FRIEND | March 6, 2008 4:59 PM
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Anonymous:
Are you the same person who posted on March 6 at 7:29 PM, March 7 at 4:32 PM, March 8 at 19:49 AM and March 8 at 12:35 PM? If not please distinguish between yourselves.