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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Karen Armstrong, The Freelance Monotheist

"People equate religious faith with believing things."

"A lot of religious people prefer to be right rather than compassionate."

Most of all when mentioning Hillel's summary of the Torah ... “Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you. That is the Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and study"

Just a few of Karen Armstrong's words that moved me to reconnect with a religious practice. No one else ever described the need for religion, the legitimacy of wrestling with religious concepts and ideas, and the emphasis on behavior and doing rather than believing. It doesn't matter whether the ideas new, hearing her perspective completely reoriented me. Whatever they awakened in me, they have led me to Judaism.

Below is a video of her TED Talk (about 20 min), and here is a link to her interview that truly changed my spiritual life on what was then called Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett, (now On Being) "The Freelance Monotheism of Karen Armstrong."

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