25 Best Quotes by British Author Karen Armstrong

We have domesticated God’s transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus but our ideas about Santa Claus change mature and become more nuanced whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.

Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success politically as well as spiritually and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.

Ever since the Crusades when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith – even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity.

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.

The hajj is one of the five essential practices of Islam when they make the pilgrimage to Mecca Muslims ritually act out the central principles of their faith.

We have domesticated God’s transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus but our ideas about Santa Claus change mature and become more nuanced whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day.

We have domesticated God’s transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus but our ideas about Santa Claus change mature and become more nuanced whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.

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.

A theology should be like poetry which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do.

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.

Every fundamentalist movement I’ve studied in Judaism Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.

Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.

There are some forms of religion that are bad just as there’s bad cooking or bad art or bad sex you have bad religion too.

Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn’t necessarily sited in an external god which can be a very unspiritual unreligious concept.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

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.

Well logos is science or reason something that helps us to function practically and effectively in the world and it must therefore be closely in tune and reflect accurately the realities of the world around us.

Every fundamentalist movement I’ve studied in Judaism Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.

Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success politically as well as spiritually and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.

Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success politically as well as spiritually and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.

Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.

We have domesticated God’s transcendence. We often learn about God at about the same time as we are learning about Santa Claus but our ideas about Santa Claus change mature and become more nuanced whereas our ideas of God can remain at a rather infantile level.

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.