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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 2543e9d | After his death, his followers decided that Jesus had been divine. This did not happen immediately; as we shall see, the doctrine that Jesus had been God in human form was not finalized until the fourth century. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 683db77 | In March 2008, the Al-Arabiya news channel denounced my book The Truth about Muhammad, claiming that it contained "lies and hate." Its article quoted the Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong as saying that the book was "written in hatred" and contains "basic and bad mistakes of fact."8 The jihad terror group Hamas soon joined in the denunciation, thundering that my book was not just full of "lies," but was actually part of a "campaign by Weste.. | Robert Spencer | ||
| f715ffa | Jesus | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 7c89965 | And how could I hope to sense God's presence when I continually broke the silence, frequently had uncharitable thoughts, and above all, constantly yearned for human affection and wept when reprimanded? | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 365ebc2 | On 26 April 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, Nazi planes, under the orders of General Franco, attacked the Basque capital of Guernica on its market-day, killing 1654 of its 7000 inhabitants. A few months later, Pablo Picasso exhibited Guernica at the International Exhibition in Paris. This modern, secular crucifixion shocked his contemporaries, and yet, like The Waste Land, it was a prophetic statement, and also a rallying cry .. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 6c6bc71 | In the Palaeolithic period, human beings had felt a disturbing kinship with the animals that they hunted and killed. They expressed their inchoate distress in the rituals of sacrifice, which honoured the beasts which laid down their lives for the sake of humanity. In Guernica, humans and animals, both victims of indiscriminate, heedless slaughter, lie together in a mangled heap, the screaming horse inextricably entwined with the decapitated.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| f29d8f0 | There are stories that explain how the High God was deposed: Ouranos, the Sky God of the Greeks, for example, was actually castrated by his son Kronos, in a myth that horribly illustrates the impotence of these Creators, who were so removed from the ordinary lives of human beings that they had become peripheral. People experienced the sacred power of Baal in every rainstorm; they felt the force of Indra every time they were possessed by the.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 2f04d86 | You who reject the faith (kafirun) I do not worship what you worship And you do not worship what I worship I am not a worshipper of what you worship You are not a worshipper of what I worship. A reckoning (din) for you and a reckoning for me.72 | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 44c91cd | Everybody knew that Allah had created the world; that he quickened each human embryo in the womb; and that he was the giver of rain. But these remained abstract beliefs. Arabs would sometimes pray to Allah in an emergency, but once the danger had passed they forgot all about him.23 Indeed, Allah seemed like an irresponsible, absentee father; after he had brought men and women into being, he took no interest in them and abandoned them to the.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 0577685 | A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information. If, however, it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed. If it works, that is, if it forces us to change our minds and hearts, gives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully, it is a valid myth. Mythology will only transform us if we follow its directives. A myth is essentially a guide; it tells us what .. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| cb1a49c | Muhammad had close links with three of the leading hanifs of Mecca. 'Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh was his cousin and Waraqah ibn Nawfal was a cousin of Khadijah: both these men became Christians. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 96c7acc | People would continue to adopt a particular conception of the divine because it worked for them, not because it was scientifically or philosophically sound. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 1ff1fcf | This strong female presence was remarkable in the aggressive patriarchy of Mecca and may explain why women were among the first to respond to the message of the Qur'an. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 4bb9fcb | Trade and religion were thus inextricably combined in Mecca. The pilgrimage to Mecca was the climax of the suq cycle, and the Quraysh reconstructed the cult and architecture of the sanctuary so that it became a spiritual center for all the Arab tribes. Even though the Bedouin were not much interested in the gods, each tribe had its own presiding deity, usually represented by a stone effigy. The Quraysh collected the totems of the tribes tha.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| aa8540c | but was the prototype of human existence; it was the original pattern or the archetype on which our life here below had been modeled. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 939ad0d | Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning. The idols of fundamentalism are not good substitutes for God; if we are to create a vibrant new faith for the twenty-first century, we should, perhaps, ponder the history of God for some lessons and warnings. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| adc6970 | Mecca became a station for these northbound caravans. It was conveniently located in the center of the Hijaz, and even though it was built on solid rock, which made agriculture impossible there, settlement was feasible because of an underground water source that the Arabs called Zamzam. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 1b76a79 | nfrT fy 'ymn hdhh, fy lHdyth `n llh, byd 'n m`Zm m nqwlh ytsm blsTHy@ wltbsyT. n`tqd, fy mjtm`n ldymqrTy, 'n mfhwm lrb yjb 'n ykwn shlan, w'n ykwn ldyn mtHan lljmy`, kthyran m yqwl ly lqrW, `l~ sbyl l`tb, 'n ktby hdh 'w dhk S`b. w'ryd 'n 'jyb "nh `n llh" lkn lkthyrwn yjdwn jbty mHyr@. fmn lmw'kd 'n ljmy` y`rfwn mn hw llh: lky'n l'`Zm ldhy khlq l`lm wkl shy fyh. tZhr `lyhm lHyr@ Hyn nbyn 'nh mn Gyr ldq@ 'n nsmy "llh" lky'n l'`Zm l'n llh lys .. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 01c1982 | finally 'Ali, a gawky thirteen year old, could bear it no longer: "O prophet of God," he cried, "I will be your helper in this matter!" Muhammad laid his hand tenderly on the boy's neck: "This is my brother, my executor, and my successor among you," he said. "Hearken to him and obey him." | Karen Armstrong | ||
| d1c3a9c | The world passed through Mecca, but did not stay long enough to interfere. Arabs were able to develop their own ideology and could interpret the knowledge and expertise of their more sophisticated neighbors as they chose. They were not pressured to convert to an alien religion or conform to official orthodoxy. The closed circle of both the trade cycle and the hajj rituals symbolized their proud self-sufficiency, which, as the years passed, .. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| bb3582e | The Quraysh collected the totems of the tribes that belonged to their confederacy and installed them in the Haram so that the tribesmen could only worship their patronal deities when they visited Mecca. The sanctity of the Kabah was thus essential to the success and survival of the Quraysh, and their competitors understood this. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 86ba92b | Tiamat, Mot and Leviathan are not evil, but are simply fulfilling their cosmic role. They have to die and endure dismemberment before an ordered cosmos can emerge from chaos. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 9be6d2a | It was only possible to define or comprehend something when there was duality. A person can see, taste, or smell something that is separate and apart from him- or herself. But when "the whole [brahman] has become a person's very self [atman], then who is there for him to see and by what means? Who is there for me to think of and by what means?"14 It was impossible to perceive the perceiver within oneself. So you could only say neti . . . ne.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| ba53d6f | The book of Job, based on an ancient folktale, may have been written during the exile. One day, Yahweh made an interesting wager in the divine assembly with Satan, who was not yet a figure of towering evil but simply one of the "sons of God," the legal "adversary" of the council.19 Satan pointed out that Job, Yahweh's favorite human being, had never been truly tested but was good only because Yahweh had protected him and allowed him to pros.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 55532e4 | A truly compassionate person touches a chord in us that resonates with some of our deepest yearnings. People flock to such individuals, because they seem to offer a haven of peace in a violent, angry world. This is the ideal to which we aspire, and it is not beyond our capacity. But even if we achieve only a fraction of this enlightenment and leave the world marginally better because we have lived in it, our lives will have been worthwhile. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 0a9670c | It was currently playing an old Louis Armstrong song--"What a Wonderful World." Born in a generation that thinks cynical and disenchanted is cool, sometimes I'm a little off the beaten track. Oh well." | Karen Marie Moning | ||
| 540e71c | What is lawful, what is unlawful?" asked Ku Yuan, prince and poet of Chu. "This country is a slough of despond! Nothing is pure any longer! Informers are exalted! And wise men of gentle birth are without renown!"3" | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 1b0c80d | A primitive capitalism had developed, which had quite different priorities. The lavish sacrifices had been designed to impress the gods and to enhance the patron's prestige. By the fifth century, these eastern peoples had realized that their improved trade and agriculture brought them far more wealth and status than the Vedic rites. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 1c53266 | The ancients had believed that nothing came from nothing, but Heidegger reversed this maxim: ex nihilo omne qua ens fit. He ended his lecture by posing a question asked by Leibniz: "Why are there beings at all, rather than just nothing?" | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 0b39a06 | we find a combination of three themes that would recur in the ideology of all successful empires: a dualistic worldview that pits the good of empire against evildoers who oppose it; a doctrine of election that sees the ruler as a divine agent; and a mission to save the world.128 | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 09f57df | The Golden Rule requires self-knowledge; it asks that we use our own feelings as a guide to our behavior with others. If we treat ourselves harshly, this is the way we are likely to treat other people. So we need to acquire a healthier and more balanced knowledge of our strengths as well as our weaknesses. As | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 89ee803 | Like any skill, religion requires perseverance, hard work, and discipline. Some people will be better at it than others, some appallingly inept, and some will miss the point entirely. But those who do not apply themselves will get nowhere at all. Religious people find it hard to explain how their rituals and practices work, just as a skater may not be fully conscious of the physical laws that enable her to glide over the ice on a thin blade.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 96cf23a | Aristotle's account of the Katharsis of tragedy was a philosophic presentation of a truth that Homo religiosus had always understood intuitively: a symbolic, mythical or ritual presentation of events that would be unendurable in daily life can redeem and transform them into something pure and even pleasurable. | literature philosophy plays | Karen Armstrong | |
| 3890c99 | man of the Axial Age, Confucius wanted people to become fully conscious of what they were doing. Performance of the li was | Karen Armstrong | ||
| f78e42b | Where establishment Islam was becoming less tolerant, seeing the Quran as the only valid scripture and Muhammad's religion as the one true faith, Sufis went back to the spirit of the Quran in their appreciation of other religious traditions. Some, for example, were especially devoted to Jesus, whom they saw as the ideal Sufi since he had preached a gospel of love. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 145f174 | instead of waiting for God to descend from on high, I should deliberately create a sense of him for myself. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 1f71cd2 | During the 1950s, Logical Positivists such as A. J. Ayer (1910-91) asked whether it made sense to believe in God. The natural sciences provided the only reliable source of knowledge because it could be tested empirically. Ayer was not asking whether or not God existed but whether the idea of God had any meaning. He argued that a statement is meaningless if we cannot see how it can be verified or shown to be false. To say "There is intellige.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| d06dd21 | The more deeply he entered the gentile world, the more Paul's Christos parted company with the historical Jesus, which had never really interested him in the first place. Far more important to Paul was Jesus's death and resurrection, the cosmic events that had transformed history and changed the fate of all peoples, regardless of their beliefs or ethnicity. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 7ff010b | In other words, when making an effort to understand something strange and alien to you, it is important to assume that the speaker share the same human nature as yourself and that, even though your belief systems may differ, you both have the same idea of what constitutes truth. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| b058cd2 | Ideas about God come and go, but prayer, the struggle to find meaning even in the darkest circumstances, must continue. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 15477dd | Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel. | Timothy Ferriss | ||
| f5bf37e | Most of the Israelites chose to stay in Babylon, where they would make an important contribution to the Hebrew scriptures. The returning exiles brought home nine scrolls that traced the history of their people from the creation until their deportation: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings; they also brought anthologies of the oracles of the prophets (neviim) and a hymn book, which included new p.. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 5f3121a | the Council of Constantinople that made Nicene orthodoxy the official religion of the empire in 381. | Karen Armstrong | ||
| 46c184d | the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wars were "the crucible in which some of the competing forces from an earlier age were consumed in the fire and others blended and transmuted into new compounds ... the matrix of all that came after."109" | Karen Armstrong |