Karen Armstrong: 2008 TED Prize wish: Charter for Compassion

Summary

The speaker, a former convent member and now a prominent voice in religious studies, shares her journey from disengagement with religion to becoming a leading figure in interfaith dialogue. She emphasizes the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule as central to all major world religions, rather than mere belief in dogma. The speaker calls for a global movement, a Charter for Compassion, to reclaim the true essence of religion and promote peace. She envisions this charter, inspired by the Golden Rule and crafted by leaders from the Abrahamic traditions, to be a guide for interpreting religious texts with a focus on empathy and action, aiming to counteract the misuse of religion for violence and division.

Takeaways

• 📚 The speaker initially had no interest in writing or religion, but a series of unexpected events led to a career in television and a renewed engagement with religious studies.
• 🔄 After leaving a convent and avoiding religion for 13 years, the speaker found themselves exploring religious traditions, including Judaism and Islam, and realizing the deep connections between them.
• 🤔 The concept of 'belief' has evolved over time; originally meaning to love or hold dear, it later narrowed to mean intellectual assent to a set of religious propositions.
• 🌟 Religion is more about behaving differently and committing to action rather than merely believing in certain doctrines, which are meant to be summons to action.
• ❤️ Compassion is a central theme across all major world faiths and is considered the pathway to experiencing the divine or the transcendent.
• 📜 The Golden Rule, a principle of reciprocity, is a fundamental guideline in many religious traditions and is seen as a way to achieve moral and spiritual growth.
• 🚫 The speaker criticizes the misuse of religion for political means, terrorism, and to justify violence, stressing that these are human failures, not inherent aspects of religion.
• 🌍 The speaker calls for a broadening of compassion beyond one's own group to all of humanity, including enemies and strangers, as a true expression of religious conviction.
• 📉 The speaker dispels the myth that religion is the cause of major wars, instead pointing to political reasons and human nature as the root causes.
• 🌱 There is a global yearning for change and a return to the core principles of compassion and the Golden Rule within religious practices.
• 📝 The speaker proposes the creation of a Charter for Compassion, based on the Golden Rule, as a means to unite people across different religious traditions and promote peace.

Q & A

What was the speaker's initial career aspiration after leaving the convent?

The speaker initially wanted to be an English literature professor and did not aspire to be a writer or be involved in religion.

How did the speaker's career path change after a series of career catastrophes?

After facing career catastrophes, the speaker found herself in television, where she started doing controversial religious programs.

What was a significant realization the speaker had during her time in Jerusalem?

The speaker realized the profound connection between the three major faiths - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - and that she knew very little about these faiths despite her religious background.

How did the speaker's understanding of the concept of 'belief' change through her studies?

The speaker discovered that the modern emphasis on belief as intellectual assent to a set of propositions is a relatively recent development. Originally, 'belief' meant to love, prize, or hold dear, and was more about commitment and engagement.

According to the speaker, what is the core of religion and how is it best understood?

The speaker believes that the core of religion is behaving differently, and it is best understood when one puts religious doctrines into practice, with compassion being a central aspect of this practice.

Why does the speaker argue that the Golden Rule is central to all major world faiths?

The speaker argues that the Golden Rule is central because it encourages a behavior that fosters compassion and understanding, which in turn leads to a sense of unity and connection with the divine.

What is the speaker's view on the current state of religion in the world?

The speaker views that religion has been hijacked and misused for nefarious gains, often being associated with violence and division, rather than its intended purpose of promoting harmony and compassion.

What is the speaker's proposal to address the misuse of religion?

The speaker proposes the creation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions, based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule, to guide the interpretation of religious texts and promote peace.

How does the speaker suggest we should move beyond the idea of toleration?

The speaker suggests moving towards appreciation of the other, emphasizing the importance of compassion and understanding as a means to overcome the horror and fear associated with those deemed as enemies.

What is the speaker's wish for the Charter for Compassion?

The speaker wishes for the Charter for Compassion to be launched and propagated globally, with the aim of being present in every college, church, mosque, and synagogue, to help people reclaim their faith and make religion a source of peace.

How does the speaker plan to ensure the Charter for Compassion is not seen as a Western or Christian initiative?

The speaker plans to collaborate with the Alliance of Civilizations at the United Nations to provide neutrality and global representation, ensuring the Charter is seen as a worldwide effort rather than one originating from a specific cultural or religious background.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Personal Journey and Rediscovery of Religion

The speaker expresses gratitude and surprise at being invited to address the organization, reflecting on their initial disinterest in writing or engaging with religion post-convent. They recount their unexpected career path to television, where they encountered other religious traditions and reevaluated their understanding of faith. The speaker emphasizes the evolution of the concept of 'belief' and highlights the importance of action and compassion over mere intellectual assent to religious doctrines.

05:01

🌐 The Centrality of Compassion in World Religions

The speaker discusses the universality of compassion across major world faiths, explaining that it is a test of true religiosity and a path to the divine. They delve into the significance of the Golden Rule in various religious traditions, from Confucianism to Judaism and Christianity, and stress the importance of applying compassion beyond one's own group to all of humanity. The speaker also addresses the misuse of religion for political and violent ends, advocating for a broader understanding and application of religious teachings.

10:09

🕊️ The Impact of Modernity on Religion

The speaker reflects on the violence of modern times and how it has influenced religion, leading to a misunderstanding of faith as mere belief in doctrines rather than a commitment to compassionate action. They share their experiences post-9/11, highlighting a global yearning for change and a desire to reclaim religion as a force for harmony. The speaker calls for a global application of the Golden Rule and for moving beyond mere toleration to a genuine appreciation of others.

15:13

🤝 The Power of Shared Grief and Empathy

Drawing from the story of Achilles and Priam in 'The Iliad,' the speaker illustrates the profound connection that arises from shared grief and the potential for recognizing the divinity in others. They emphasize the importance of overcoming fear and hostility to appreciate the 'other,' and suggest that the 'otherness' of enemies can provide a glimpse into the transcendent nature of God. The speaker then proposes the creation of a Charter for Compassion, based on the Golden Rule, as a means to unite people across religious traditions in promoting peace.

20:14

🌟 A Call to Action for a Compassionate Global Movement

The speaker concludes with a call to action, urging the audience to join them in creating and propagating a Charter for Compassion. They express a vision for the charter to be a guide for interpreting religious texts through the lens of compassion and hope for it to be endorsed by religious leaders worldwide. The speaker also mentions the support of prominent figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Imam Feisal Rauf, and the potential collaboration with the United Nations to ensure the charter's global neutrality and reach.

Keywords

💡Religion

Religion refers to a system of beliefs, practices, and moral codes that often involve the worship of a deity or deities. In the video, the speaker discusses her journey from being intensely religious to stepping away, and eventually returning to religion with a new perspective. The theme of religion is central as it is the backdrop against which the speaker's experiences and insights are framed.

💡Compassion

Compassion is the ability to empathize with the suffering or distress of others and to desire to alleviate it. It is highlighted as a core principle across all major world faiths in the video. The speaker emphasizes that compassion is not just a test of religiosity but also a path to the divine, underscoring its importance in the context of religious practice and human interaction.

💡Golden Rule

The Golden Rule is a principle of treating others as one would like others to treat oneself. It is a fundamental ethical maxim that appears in many religious and philosophical traditions. In the video, the speaker mentions the Golden Rule as a common thread across religions, advocating for its application as a means to promote global harmony and understanding.

💡Belief

Belief traditionally refers to acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. The speaker explains that the concept of belief has evolved over time, and in the context of religion, it has been reduced to intellectual assent to a set of propositions. However, she argues that true religious commitment involves action and engagement rather than mere intellectual acceptance.

💡Religious Traditions

Religious traditions are the diverse sets of narratives, symbols, beliefs, and practices that relate to the worship of a particular deity or deities. The video discusses the encounter with different religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and how understanding these traditions can lead to a deeper appreciation of one's own faith and the interconnectedness of all faiths.

💡Ego

Ego refers to the self, especially as contrasted with others or with the rest of the world. In the video, the speaker talks about the need to dethrone the ego from the center of our world to be ready to see the Divine. This concept is linked to the practice of compassion and the shift from self-centeredness to other-centeredness.

💡Interpretation of Scripture

Interpretation of Scripture involves understanding and explaining the meaning of religious texts. The speaker criticizes certain interpretations that lead to hatred and disdain, advocating instead for interpretations that are compassionate and adhere to the Golden Rule. This relates to the broader theme of how religious texts should be used to promote peace and understanding rather than division.

💡Religious Literacy

Religious literacy is the knowledge and understanding of religious practices, beliefs, and history. The speaker points out the prevalence of religious illiteracy, where faith is reduced to mere belief in doctrines, rather than understanding the broader context and practices of religion. This lack of literacy contributes to misunderstandings and misuse of religion.

💡Charter for Compassion

The Charter for Compassion is a proposed document that the speaker wishes to create, which would be a collaborative effort from various religious traditions based on the Golden Rule. The aim is to provide guidelines for interpreting religious texts in a compassionate manner and to counteract the misuse of religion for violence and division. It is presented as a tool to reclaim and propagate the true ethos of religion as a force for peace.

💡Human-Heartedness (Ren)

Human-heartedness, or 'ren' in Chinese, refers to a transcendent value of empathy and benevolence towards others. The speaker mentions it in the context of Confucianism, where it is considered a central teaching and a transcendent experience. This concept is integral to the video's message about the importance of compassion and empathy in religious practice and human interaction.

💡Religion and Violence

The relationship between religion and violence is a complex and controversial topic. In the video, the speaker discusses how religion has been misused to justify acts of terrorism and oppression, which is a distortion of its true purpose. The speaker argues that the essence of religion should be about promoting peace and understanding, not violence.

Highlights

The speaker expresses gratitude for the opportunity to address the organization and shares her initial reluctance towards writing and religion.

After leaving the convent, the speaker pursued a career in English literature and avoided religion for 13 years.

A series of career setbacks led the speaker to television, where she began working on controversial religious programs.

The speaker's work in television took her to Jerusalem, where she encountered Judaism and Islam for the first time.

Despite her religious background, the speaker realized she knew little about Judaism and Islam, which led her to study other religious traditions.

Studying other faiths helped the speaker rediscover the essence of religion and view her own faith in a new light.

The speaker found that religious doctrines are meant to inspire action and commitment, rather than mere intellectual belief.

Compassion is a central theme and test of true religiosity across all major world faiths.

The Golden Rule, first proposed by Confucius, is a fundamental principle emphasized in many religious traditions.

The speaker calls for a renewed focus on compassion and the Golden Rule to counter religious illiteracy and misuse of religion.

Religion has often been co-opted for political and violent purposes throughout history, but this is not inherent to religion itself.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of extending compassion beyond one's own group to all people, including enemies and strangers.

Despite the current challenges, there is a widespread yearning for change and a desire to reclaim religion as a force for harmony.

The speaker proposes creating a Charter for Compassion, based on the Golden Rule, as a guiding document for interpreting religious texts.

The Charter aims to bring together religious leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths and other traditions to promote global understanding.

The speaker urges the audience to join her in launching and propagating the Charter for Compassion to make religion a source of peace worldwide.

The Charter has received support from notable figures like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Imam Feisal Rauf, and will work with the UN Alliance of Civilizations.

The speaker envisions the Charter being adopted in colleges, churches, mosques, and synagogues globally to foster a culture of compassion and understanding.

Transcripts

Well, this is such an honor. And it's wonderful to be

in the presence of an organization that is really making a difference in the world.

And I'm intensely grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today.

And I'm also rather surprised, because when I look back on my life

the last thing I ever wanted to do was write, or be in any way involved in religion.

After I left my convent, I'd finished with religion, frankly.

I thought that was it.

And for 13 years I kept clear of it. I wanted to be an English literature professor.

And I certainly didn't even want to be a writer, particularly.

But then I suffered a series of career catastrophes,

one after the other, and finally found myself in television. (Laughter)

I said that to Bill Moyers, and he said, "Oh, we take anybody." (Laughter)

And I was doing some rather controversial religious programs.

This went down very well in the U.K., where religion is extremely unpopular.

And so, for once, for the only time in my life, I was finally in the mainstream.

But I got sent to Jerusalem to make a film about early Christianity.

And there, for the first time, I encountered the other religious traditions:

Judaism and Islam, the sister religions of Christianity.

And while I found I knew nothing about these faiths at all --

despite my own intensely religious background,

I'd seen Judaism only as a kind of prelude to Christianity,

and I knew nothing about Islam at all.

But in that city, that tortured city,

where you see the three faiths jostling so uneasily together,

you also become aware of the profound connection between them.

And it has been the study of other religious traditions that brought me back

to a sense of what religion can be, and actually enabled me

to look at my own faith in a different light.

And I found some astonishing things in the course of my study

that had never occurred to me. Frankly, in the days when I thought I'd had it with religion,

I just found the whole thing absolutely incredible.

These doctrines seemed unproven, abstract.

And to my astonishment, when I began seriously studying other traditions,

I began to realize that belief -- which we make such a fuss about today --

is only a very recent religious enthusiasm

that surfaced only in the West, in about the 17th century.

The word "belief" itself originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear.

In the 17th century, it narrowed its focus,

for reasons that I'm exploring in a book I'm writing at the moment,

to include -- to mean an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, a credo.

"I believe:" it did not mean, "I accept certain creedal articles of faith."

It meant: "I commit myself. I engage myself."

Indeed, some of the world traditions think very little of religious orthodoxy.

In the Quran, religious opinion -- religious orthodoxy -- is dismissed as "zanna:"

self-indulgent guesswork about matters that nobody can be certain of one way or the other,

but which makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. (Laughter)

So if religion is not about believing things, what is it about?

What I've found, across the board, is that religion is about behaving differently.

Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something.

You behave in a committed way,

and then you begin to understand the truths of religion.

And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action;

you only understand them when you put them into practice.

Now, pride of place in this practice is given to compassion.

And it is an arresting fact that right across the board,

in every single one of the major world faiths, compassion --

the ability to feel with the other in the way we've been thinking about this evening --

is not only the test of any true religiosity, it is also what will bring us

into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call "God" or the "Divine."

It is compassion, says the Buddha, which brings you to Nirvana.

Why? Because in compassion, when we feel with the other,

we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put

another person there. And once we get rid of ego, then we're ready to see the Divine.

And in particular, every single one of the major world traditions has highlighted -- has said --

and put at the core of their tradition what's become known as the Golden Rule.

First propounded by Confucius five centuries before Christ:

"Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you."

That, he said, was the central thread which ran through all his teaching

and that his disciples should put into practice all day and every day.

And it was -- the Golden Rule would bring them to the transcendent value that he called "ren,"

human-heartedness, which was a transcendent experience in itself.

And this is absolutely crucial to the monotheisms, too.

There's a famous story about the great rabbi, Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus.

A pagan came to him and offered to convert to Judaism if the rabbi could

recite the whole of Jewish teaching while he stood on one leg.

Hillel stood on one leg and said, "That which is hateful to you,

do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. The rest is commentary.

Go and study it." (Laughter)

And "go and study it" was what he meant.

He said, "In your exegesis, you must make it clear

that every single verse of the Torah is a commentary, a gloss upon the Golden Rule."

The great Rabbi Meir said that any interpretation of Scripture which

led to hatred and disdain, or contempt of other people --

any people whatsoever -- was illegitimate.

Saint Augustine made exactly the same point.

Scripture, he says, "teaches nothing but charity, and we must not leave

an interpretation of Scripture until we have found a compassionate interpretation of it."

And this struggle to find compassion in some of these rather rebarbative texts

is a good dress rehearsal for doing the same in ordinary life. (Applause)

But now look at our world. And we are living in a world that is --

where religion has been hijacked. Where terrorists cite Quranic verses to justify their atrocities.

Where instead of taking Jesus' words, "Love your enemies.

Don't judge others," we have the spectacle of Christians endlessly judging other people,

endlessly using Scripture as a way of arguing with other people,

putting other people down. Throughout the ages, religion has been used to oppress others,

and this is because of human ego, human greed.

We have a talent as a species for messing up wonderful things.

So the traditions also insisted -- and this is an important point, I think --

that you could not and must not confine your compassion

to your own group: your own nation, your own co-religionists,

your own fellow countrymen. You must have what one of the Chinese sages called "jian ai":

concern for everybody. Love your enemies. Honor the stranger.

We formed you, says the Quran, into tribes and nations so that you may know one another.

And this, again -- this universal outreach -- is getting subdued in the strident use of religion --

abuse of religion -- for nefarious gains.

Now, I've lost count of the number of taxi drivers who,

when I say to them what I do for a living, inform me that religion

has been the cause of all the major world wars in history. Wrong.

The causes of our present woes are political.

But, make no mistake about it, religion is a kind of fault line,

and when a conflict gets ingrained in a region, religion can get sucked in

and become part of the problem. Our modernity has been exceedingly violent.

Between 1914 and 1945, 70 million people died in Europe alone as a result of armed conflict.

And so many of our institutions, even football, which used to be a pleasant pastime,

now causes riots where people even die.

And it's not surprising that religion, too, has been affected by this violent ethos.

There's also a great deal, I think, of religious illiteracy around.

People seem to think, now equate religious faith with believing things.

As though that -- we call religious people often believers,

as though that were the main thing that they do. And very often, secondary goals

get pushed into the first place, in place of compassion and the Golden Rule.

Because the Golden Rule is difficult. I sometimes -- when I'm speaking to

congregations about compassion, I sometimes see

a mutinous expression crossing some of their faces because

a lot of religious people prefer to be right, rather than compassionate. (Laughter)

Now -- but that's not the whole story.

Since September the 11th, when my work on Islam suddenly propelled me

into public life, in a way that I'd never imagined, I've been able to sort of go all over the world,

and finding, everywhere I go, a yearning for change.

I've just come back from Pakistan, where literally thousands of people came to my lectures,

because they were yearning, first of all, to hear a friendly Western voice.

And especially the young people were coming. And were asking me --

the young people were saying, "What can we do? What can we do to change things?"

And my hosts in Pakistan said, "Look, don't be too polite to us.

Tell us where we're going wrong. Let's talk together about where religion is failing."

Because it seems to me that with -- our current situation is so serious

at the moment that any ideology that doesn't promote a sense of global understanding

and global appreciation of each other is failing the test of the time.

And religion, with its wide following ... Here in the United States,

people may be being religious in a different way, as a report has just shown --

but they still want to be religious. It's only Western Europe that has retained its secularism,

which is now beginning to look rather endearingly old-fashioned.

But people want to be religious, and religion should be made

to be a force for harmony in the world, which it can and should be --

because of the Golden Rule.

"Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you":

an ethos that should now be applied globally.

We should not treat other nations as we would not wish to be treated ourselves.

And these -- whatever our wretched beliefs -- is a religious matter, it's a spiritual matter.

It's a profound moral matter that engages and should engage us all.

And as I say, there is a hunger for change out there.

Here in the United States, I think you see it in this election campaign: a longing for change.

And people in churches all over and mosques all over this continent after September the 11th,

coming together locally to create networks of understanding.

With the mosque, with the synagogue, saying, "We must start to speak to one another."

I think it's time that we moved beyond the idea of toleration and move toward appreciation of the other.

I'd -- there's one story I'd just like to mention.

This comes from "The Iliad." But it tells you what this spirituality should be.

You know the story of "The Iliad," the 10-year war between Greece and Troy.

In one incident, Achilles, the famous warrior of Greece, takes his troops out of the war,

and the whole war effort suffers. And in the course of the ensuing muddle,

his beloved friend, Patroclus, is killed -- and killed in single combat

by one of the Trojan princes, Hector. And Achilles goes mad with grief and rage and revenge,

and he mutilates the body. He kills Hector, he mutilates his body

and then he refuses to give the body back for burial to the family,

which means that, in Greek ethos, Hector's soul will wander eternally, lost.

And then one night, Priam, king of Troy, an old man,

comes into the Greek camp incognito, makes his way to Achilles' tent

to ask for the body of his son.

And everybody is shocked when the old man takes off his head covering and shows himself.

And Achilles looks at him and thinks of his father. And he starts to weep.

And Priam looks at the man who has murdered so many of his sons,

and he, too, starts to weep. And the sound of their weeping filled the house.

The Greeks believed that weeping together created a bond between people.

And then Achilles takes the body of Hector, he hands it very tenderly to the father,

and the two men look at each other, and see each other as divine.

That is the ethos found, too, in all the religions.

It's what is meant by overcoming the horror that we feel when we are under threat of our enemies,

and beginning to appreciate the other.

It's of great importance that the word for "holy" in Hebrew, applied to God, is "Kadosh": separate, other.

And it is often, perhaps, the very otherness of our enemies which can

give us intimations of that utterly mysterious transcendence which is God.

And now, here's my wish:

I wish that you would help with the creation,

launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion,

crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from

the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,

and based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule.

We need to create a movement among all these people that I meet in my travels --

you probably meet, too -- who want to join up, in some way,

and reclaim their faith, which they feel, as I say, has been hijacked.

We need to empower people to remember the compassionate ethos,

and to give guidelines. This Charter would not be a massive document.

I'd like to see it -- to give guidelines as to how to interpret the Scriptures,

these texts that are being abused. Remember what the rabbis and what Augustine

said about how Scripture should be governed by the principle of charity.

Let's get back to that. And the idea, too, of Jews, Christians and Muslims --

these traditions now so often at loggerheads -- working together to

create a document which we hope will be signed by a thousand, at least,

of major religious leaders from all the traditions of the world.

And you are the people. I'm just a solitary scholar.

Despite the idea that I love a good time, which I was rather amazed to see coming up on me

-- I actually spend a great deal of time alone, studying, and I'm not very --

you're the people with media knowledge to explain to me how we can get this to everybody,

everybody on the planet. I've had some preliminary talks,

and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for example,

is very happy to give his name to this, as is Imam Feisal Rauf, the Imam in New York City.

Also, I would be working with the Alliance of Civilizations at the United Nations.

I was part of that United Nations initiative called the Alliance of Civilizations,

which was asked by Kofi Annan to diagnose the causes of extremism,

and to give practical guidelines to member states about how to avoid the escalation of further extremism.

And the Alliance has told me that they are very happy to work with it.

The importance of this is that this is -- I can see some of you starting to look worried,

because you think it's a slow and cumbersome body --

but what the United Nations can do is give us some neutrality,

so that this isn't seen as a Western or a Christian initiative, but that it's coming,

as it were, from the United Nations, from the world --

who would help with the sort of bureaucracy of this.

And so I do urge you to join me in making -- in this charter --

to building this charter, launching it and propagating it so that it becomes --

I'd like to see it in every college, every church, every mosque, every synagogue in the world,

so that people can look at their tradition, reclaim it, and make religion a source of peace in the world,

which it can and should be. Thank you very much. (Applause)