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Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong Quotes

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Famous Karen Armstrong Quotes

“Myth was regarded as primary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence. Myth looked back to the origins of life, to the foundations of culture, and to the deepest levels of the human mind. Myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning. Unless we find some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women fall very easily into despair. The mythos of a society provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their attention to the eternal and the universal.”

PeopleMenMindHumansMadeMatterFallCultureLevelsExistenceAttentionOur LivesAtheismDespairEternalMen And WomenConcernedUniversalFoundationConstantPositive AtheismMythPracticalsMortalsPrimariesSignificanceHuman MindTimelessDay To DayDay LifeOrigin Of LifeDay To Day Life
Book:The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism
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“The awful atrocities of religion happened when people assume that God shares your likes and dislikes. The Crusaders when into battle to kill Muslims and Jews and cried, "God will's it." That was their battle cry. Obviously God willed no such thing. The Crusaders were simply projecting onto a deity they'd created on their own image and likeness, all their hatred and loathing of these faiths and made it endorse some of their most awful prejudices and lethal prejudices.”

PeopleMadeHappenedShareCryBattleHatredPrejudiceAssumingJewLikesGods WillAwfulMade ItDislikeCriedDeitiesAtrocitiesLoathingLikes And DislikesBattle Cry
Author:Karen Armstrong
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“The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to understand that a silence that is not clamorous with vexation and worried self-regard can become part of the texture of your mind, can seep into you, moment by moment, and gradually change you.”

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Author:Karen Armstrong
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“If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology.”

IfsLoveMadeSelfGodReligionNamesUnderstandingDifferencesCompassionKindnessDivineEmpathyNotionKillingTheologySympathyRighteousConcreteUnkindKinderSelf RighteousLoving KindnessEmpatheticUnkindnessBelligerence
Book:The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
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