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You put yourself in the receptive frame of mind with which we approach music or poetry, which you can measure the difference on a neurological scanner.

Karen Armstrong

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Karen Armstrong
Age: 79
Born: 1944
Born: November 14
Author
Historian Of Religion
Islamicist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Worcs
Approach
Poetry
Difference
Differences
Scanner
Music
Neurological
Mind
Receptive
Frame
Measure

More quotes by Karen Armstrong

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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 it's the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?
Karen Armstrong
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We can't say what God is, and until the modern period, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians in the three God religions all knew that. They insisted that we have no idea what we meant when we said that God was good, or wise, or intelligent.
Karen Armstrong
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My greatest solace is my study. If I am deprived of my study, I can become lost, unhappy and unhinged.
Karen Armstrong
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You have to get into the water and learn against what seems to be the law gravity to float and dancing, or athletics takes you years before you develop a skill. But if you work at it, practicing daily, you can enable your body to do things that are utterly impossible to an untrained physic.
Karen Armstrong
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The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ.
Karen Armstrong
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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 one's mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse.
Karen Armstrong
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After I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt disgusted with it. If I saw someone reading a religious book on a train, I'd think, how awful.
Karen Armstrong
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It is not difficult to find a religious justification for killing.
Karen Armstrong
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It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.
Karen Armstrong
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And so, one of the reasons why I started my Charter for Compassion, was to bring the Golden Rule back to the center of religion and morality and not put other's secondary goals, less demand goals, into the forefront.
Karen Armstrong
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If professional religious leaders can [no longer] instruct..., our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged world.
Karen Armstrong
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Intelligence doesn't just mean tracking down terrorists It means finding out what is in people's hearts and minds and discovering the complexity of most issues.
Karen Armstrong
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Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem.
Karen Armstrong
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Let's use our stories to encourage listening to one another and to hear not just the good news, but also the pain that lies at the back of a lot of people's stories and histories.
Karen Armstrong
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You are your best self when you give yourself away.
Karen Armstrong
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When you feel compassion, you dethrone yourself from the centre of the world.
Karen Armstrong
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Like art, religion is an imaginative and creative effort to find a meaning and value in human life.
Karen Armstrong
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Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.
Karen Armstrong
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I was a lousy nun. I couldn't do it. I couldn't find God. It wasn't suitable for me. It is suitable for very few people.
Karen Armstrong
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I think I get from my books what other people get from family or a relationship or from prayer.
Karen Armstrong