Here is an interview from Religion Dispatches with Karen Armstrong about her current project, the Charter for Compassion, which she announced in her acceptance speech of the TED prize.
I like several things she says in this interview. She points out the essential cruelty and immorality of a certain branch of Christian thought when she states that
the rapture myth... is a terrifying story--that God so hates the world that he is about to smash it into bits with some terrible catastrophic disaster. The fact that this belief is so widely held in the most rich and powerful nation in the world has profound implications--ones that we ought to be listening very carefully to.
I also like her statement that
We are all talking far too easily today about God and what we say is often facile. We often learn about God as children, at the same time as we learn about Santa Claus. But as we mature, our ideas about Santa Claus change and become more sophisticated, though our ideas about God can get stuck in an infantile mode and become thereby incredible.
This is part of what I was trying to point out in the conversation I mention here.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the interview. I signed the Charter for Compassion, and am trying to think of some ways to include more acts of compassion and generosity in my daily life. Seems about as good a New Year's resolution as any.
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