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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
Few
People
Nun
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" In the past some of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians, such as Maimonides, Aquinas and Ibn Sina, made it clear that it was very difficult to speak about God, because when we confront the ultimate, we are at the end of what words or thoughts can do. "
Karen Armstrong
God
Thoughts
Words
" Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States. "
Karen Armstrong
Friends
Your
United States
" Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate. "
Karen Armstrong
Good
Great
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" Even before 9/11 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition. "
Karen Armstrong
Off
Criticism
Doing
" 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
Today
Faith
Life
" Storytelling is fine as long as you can encourage people to act on the stories. "
Karen Armstrong
Storytelling
You
Stories
" Buddhists talk about nirvana in very much the same terms as monotheists describe God. "
Karen Armstrong
Describe
Much
Nirvana
" 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. "
Karen Armstrong
Why
Think
Way
" I believe in holiness and sacredness in other people. It doesn't mean that the clouds part and I see God. That's a juvenile way of thinking about it. "
Karen Armstrong
Believe
Thinking
People
" I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions. "
Karen Armstrong
I Am
Ego
Losing
" Pain is something that's common to human life. When we ignore it, we aren't engaging in the whole reality, and the pain begins to fester. "
Karen Armstrong
Human
Life
Pain
" 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. "
Karen Armstrong
More
Change
God
" Alas, all traditions lose their primal purity and we all fail our founders. "
Karen Armstrong
Alas
Purity
Traditions
" 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. "
Karen Armstrong
Islam
Out
Principles
" Ironically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Koran praises all the great prophets of the past. "
Karen Armstrong
Me
Past
Fact
" But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value. "
Karen Armstrong
Value
Fall
Beginning
" 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
Religion
Problem
Conflict
" When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too. "
Karen Armstrong
Violence
Religion
Your Dreams
" 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. "
Karen Armstrong
World
Reason
Us
" There is a danger in monotheism, and it's called idolatry. And we know the prophets of Israel were very, very concerned about idolatry, the worship of a human expression of the divine. "
Karen Armstrong
Worship
Know
Human
" All religions are designed to teach us how to live, joyfully, serenely, and kindly, in the midst of suffering. "
Karen Armstrong
Religions
Teach
Us
" 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. "
Karen Armstrong
Sex
Religion
Cooking
" For centuries, the Muslims were able to co-exist perfectly well with Jews and Christians in the Middle East. "
Karen Armstrong
Jews
Able
Middle
" In the holy city of Mecca, violence of any kind was forbidden. From the moment they left home, pilgrims were not permitted to carry weapons, to swat an insect or speak an angry word, a discipline that introduced them to a new way of living. "
Karen Armstrong
City
Home
Angry
" A theology should be like poetry, which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do. "
Karen Armstrong
Poetry
Like
Us
" 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. "
Karen Armstrong
New
Today
Knowledge
" I have a very sharp tongue, I'm very impatient, and it's a lifelong struggle. "
Karen Armstrong
Very
Impatient
Sharp
" 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
Bald
See
Great
" If we want to create a viable, peaceful world, we've got to integrate compassion into the gritty realities of 21st century life. "
Karen Armstrong
Peaceful
Life
Compassion
" Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage. "
Karen Armstrong
God
Yes
Stage