Religion scholar talks about heart of religion | April 24, 2006

4-21-06

By Joe Orso
Lacrosse Tribune

WINONA, Minn. — The world’s major religions are not about belief or doctrine, but are rooted in action, altruism, compassion and “the Golden Rule,” a leading religion scholar and author said Thursday.

Today, “religious people often prefer to be right than to be compassionate,” said Karen Armstrong. “I often think that if everybody got to heaven, some people would be furious.”

Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time discoursing about the Trinity or Incarnation, Armstrong told the audience at Winona State University’s Somsen Hall.

Taoists said expecting certainty from religion was immature, unrealistic and a barrier to enlightenment.

Confucius said he wished he didn’t have to speak, as Heaven, reflected in the cosmic order of the universe, doesn’t speak.

When a disciple asked the Buddha questions about the origins of the universe, the Buddha replied with a parable. As Armstrong told it, the inquirer was like a man shot with a poison arrow who refused medical help until he knew who shot the arrow.

“They were teaching not an ideology but a method,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong was in Winona on a tour for her latest book, “The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions.” Her work has been translated into 40 languages. Other books include “A History of God: The 4000 Year Quest for Judaism, Christianity and Islam” and “Islam: A Short History.”

Armstrong said her favorite story about the Golden Rule comes from a founder of Rabbinic Judaism. A pagan once told the rabbi he’d become a Jew if the rabbi could state the whole of Judaism while standing on one leg. Armstrong said the rabbi 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.”

Armstrong said her new book, which tells the story of the Axial Age, a time beginning in 900 B.C.E. when the major religions began to bloom, is not an exercise in spiritual archaeology.

“We have to learn to practice the Golden Rule globally,” she said. “We don’t need a new prophet or a new sage. All our traditions — every single one of them — tell us what to do.”

She said the challenge of religion today is not simply how to bring theology in line with science, but how to bring healing to a “frighteningly divided world.” The Axial sages, she said, worked as hard at finding a cure for humanity’s evil as people today work to find a cure for cancer.

“If we give into the evil and say that’s all there is, the world will be lost,” she said. “We can say that with bells on it today.”

Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or [email protected].
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Posted by admin at April 24, 2006 12:46 PM