Karen Armstsrong opened a deeper meaning about the other and largest God worshiping people of our planet. I was raised Catholic, yet I found Jesus in Las Vegas, NV, USA. I found charity that God is talking about, when a God-child/woman gave me 2 pieces of chicken parts so I can eat. Presently, I invite all people to my flat so they can eat. I strongly agree with Karen Armstrong's basic and proven truth to all mankind in a span of 2,000 yrs. plus: "do unto others as you would like others to do unto you.
The Bible or the Koran are full of stories ... and loaded with wonderful gems (of choice) to guide earthlings in their respective journey. But, LOVE is the only human gift from the Almighty that will last to the end.

Posted by: Maritess Samuelle Sanchez | March 14, 2009 11:40 AM

Bill, thank you so for guesting Karen Armstrong. How encouraging!
Would like to suggest jim guilfoil watch it again.

Posted by: John | March 14, 2009 11:39 AM

Genesis tells us that God gave Dominion over the Word into Matter to One; which became Two and Fell with the Two. Reading "Comments" reaffirms my belief that Truth can only work in a % in Matter.

Posted by: Larry | March 14, 2009 11:28 AM

While Karen Armstrong was cherry-picking religions to reinforce her conceit, she made a mess of Christianity, and by extension, Judaism. Obviously, she has never seen Jesus Christ, i.e., He has never revealed Himself to her. Mohammed is as dead now as the day he died centuries ago. Jesus is alive and seated at the right hand of God. The astounding miracles that Jesus performed proved that God was with him (Mohammed performed none); the resurrection of Jesus proves that He is now with God. Karen Armstrong cuts a sad figure who, thinking herself wise, prattles twaddle while stumbling down the increasingly dark road to eternal perdition. Choosing that path for oneself leads to the grave. Leading others down that path leads to eternal punishings.

Posted by: John Stephens | March 14, 2009 11:13 AM

The golden rule begs the question of the 'self' which rules. Socrates distinguished the golden self from the silver and bronze and argued that the bronze self needed guardians to order his actions. The military self is not ordered by 'compassion' but by 'death before dishonor(Achilles).
The mercantile self is ordered by profit and not by 'empathy' in Adam Smiths sense.
Karen Armstrong needs to show how 'compassion' will overcome the warrior or mercantile self image of dedication to honor or profit.
On the battlefield or market place compassion is to see the other as another self and expect 'caveat emptor' or 'kill or be killed'.
Why should a public morality trump the strong vs the weak morality?

Posted by: jim guilfoil | March 14, 2009 11:04 AM

The golden rule begs the question of the 'self' which rules. Socrates distinguished the golden self from the silver and bronze and argued that the bronze self needed guardians to order his actions. The military self is not ordered by 'compassion' but by 'death before dishonor(Achilles).
The mercantile self is ordered by profit and not by 'empathy' in Adam Smiths sense.
Karen Armstrong needs to show how 'compassion' will overcome the warrior or mercantile self image of dedication to honor or profit.
On the battlefield or market place compassion is to see the other as another self and expect 'caveat emptor' or 'kill or be killed'.
Why should a public morality trump the strong vs the weak morality?

Posted by: jim guilfoil | March 14, 2009 11:03 AM

The golden rule begs the question of the 'self' which rules. Socrates distinguished the golden self from the silver and bronze and argued that the bronze self needed guardians to order his actions. The military self is not ordered by 'compassion' but by 'death before dishonor(Achilles).
The mercantile self is ordered by profit and not by 'empathy' in Adam Smiths sense.
Karen Armstrong needs to show how 'compassion' will overcome the warrior or mercantile self image of dedication to honor or profit.
On the battlefield or market place compassion is to see the other as another self and expect 'caveat emptor' or 'kill or be killed'.
Why should a public morality trump the strong vs the weak morality?

Posted by: jim guilfoil | March 14, 2009 11:02 AM

I also happen to be a long time fan of Karen Armstrong, having read a number of her books. I see the relevance of what she said resonating throughout these postings. I find it fascinating the diversity of perspectives and the strong feelings this interview provoked. I am very encouraged by those who are motivated to take a step back and look at how they are looking at things. In my view, doctrinaire certainty while comforting can short circuit what needs to be a continual searching for deeper truths. For some such a search may ground them more fully in their outlooks and, hopefully, give them a confidence that makes it unnecessary for them to make other people "wrong." For others, it will lead to fresh and widened perspectives that deepen their sense of their own and others' humanity. Either way, such a search is necessary if we are to behave with more and more effective compassion.

Posted by: Manu Mukasa | March 14, 2009 11:00 AM

In the essential article "Fighting Terrorism by Understanding Man's Capacity for Evil," available at www.zimbardo.com, Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo underscores the continued need for compassion as a national character trait following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
The article is prophetic in pointing out that the work of "our intelligence and military forces has the collateral danger of modeling revenge and retaliation at a national level that can become a stimulus for individuals to adopt a similar orientation. [This] fuels the cycle of violence started by the terrorists," accelerating fear and anger, aggression and intolerance.
Zimbardo cautioned us that regarding a terrorist attack as "'senseless,' 'mindless,' 'insane,' or the work of 'madmen' is wrong [because] it fails to adopt the perspective of the perpetrators, as an act with a clearly defined purpose that we must understand in order to challenge it most effectively." Interestingly, at that same time, our president seemed to dismiss this instruction when he said, "We will have no compassion for our enemies."
Understanding compassion, as the ability to "feel as the other," can be aided with an understanding of attribution theory, as developed by Gustav Ichheiser and Fritz Heider, expanded by Edward Jones and Keith Davis, Harold Kelley, Bernard Weiner, and their research collaborators and assistants, and brought to the public mind by authors and teachers of social psychology. In seeking to understand the behavior of others, which helps us achieve a view of them and the greater world that is consistent, we consider causal factors that are from their disposition and from their situation, remembering, too, that some of these factors we as the observer do impact.
With compassion, we can fulfill the command as found in Hebrew scripture (Leviticus 19 v.17-18), and repeated in Christian scripture, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
This program was enlightening. I'm encouraged. Thank you.

Posted by: Phil Crabb | March 14, 2009 10:34 AM

Bill, It is in answer to your question "Who made God?"--that philosophical resolution may reside; that the means to understand and release an inherent compassionate nature may exist. Some new food for thought on this matter exists, but is impossible to explain in a brief note. Thoughts on this and other complex issues can be found in a book "The Long Overdue Letter." The ideas are so new, they may need to be digested slowly. In essence the work states the reason we ask such questions is because mankind is not in its right mind! Our reality traces to isolated primitive ancestors who functioned at an entirely physiological level. The body automatically takes a picture of the environment, and delivers it to the person; and we copy what we see. The view would have been of objects that begin and end; thus failing to abandon this foundation; to this day, even though physicists have proven objects are not as they appear; it remains the range of human mentality, it is the encapsulation of thought in this physical perspective that gives us a picture of isolation from the whole of reality. The view also would have been of predatory activity. Discussion in the book surrounds reasons to believe this intermittent motion that overpowers the normal state and brings things to an end was not part of our original environment. Suggestion is given that it was because of this physical focus, God appeared in the physical form of Jesus to direct our vision away from the environment to a place deep within personal thought. The activity and parables of Jesus awakened an insight; a pure conscious sense of 'fairness'; which is our true inherent mindset; and once this personal worth, was released from oppressive social conditions; an awesome progress followed; suggesting a REAL person is not a body; but an everlasting unlimited conscious energy; and herein exists our only likeness to God. Explanation is given that conscious dissociation from each other, and God separates us from reality; as it was our ability to come together in thought; that brought environmental truths into view; which could be related to the Biblical story relative to the vine. Credit is given to all major religions for directing vision to this common place deep in thought, but most especially credits Jesus for guiding us toward personal freedom from the mind of physical images; our direction toward exercise of compassion and social peace did not come down from human authority; but flowed out from the heart of the people; from this inner mindset; from personal convictions.

Posted by: Dinah | March 14, 2009 10:22 AM

I am amazed that you can speak of the Golden Rule, war, and colonialism in the same breath and not include Native Americans. You cannot see what you do not acknowledge. Lincoln may have emancipated the slaves, but he instituted a policy of extermination and concentration of Native Americans and foreclosed on their land. Swapping one racism for another does nothing to end racism, even as swapping the war in Iraq for the war in Afghanistan will not end the conflict with the Arab world.

Lincoln used Sherman and his total warfare strategy to defeat the South. Then he sent Sherman west to do the same and instituted a policy of extermination and concentration of Native Americans. Heintz Guderian via Liddell Hart picked up on this strategy and renamed it blitzkrieg. Substitute Jews for Native Americans and you have Hitler and World War II. Total warfare, concentration, extermination, and confiscation -- objectively speaking Lincoln was the father of Nazism. Blocks of 640 acres were take from one people and given to another based solely on the color of their skin, and Obama has praised this. Actually, much of America approved what Hitler did until those Native American surrogates, the Japanese, got into the war.

The Golden Rule as found in the New Testament is much more oriented toward karma. It reads more like "Even as you do to others, so it will be done to you." You take Native Americans homes and livelihood, and yours will be taken. You destroy their economy, and yours will be destroyed. You destroy their environment, and yours will be destroyed. You make a racial war on brown people, and they (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq) will make war on you. I see our inability to win these wars and our national economic distress as an indication that we have reached our karmic limit, and our karma is contracting. Karma is multidimensional. Whenever you solve one problem, it gives you a related one to see if you understood it. America elected Obama, but racism against Native Americans goes unabated. To advocate compassion for and putting yourself in the shoes of Muslims without a thought of doing the same for the people whose continent you took does not ring true. How can you speak of respect for other religions but make no attempt at understanding the Native American one. Compassion and Golden Rule ring hollow until you have the willingness to look at the beam in your own eye.

Posted by: Horace | March 14, 2009 9:24 AM

Dear Bill,
Jesus made it very clear that unless a man is born of water and spirit he can not enter the Kingdom of God. Those outside of the KOG are not able to understand the things of God. Every one is invited to come to Jesus but you refuse to come because your deeds are evil. You hate the light but if you repent and turn from your sins God will receive you.
The Kingdom of God is at hand so repent. Why? Because God is wonderful and he loves you more than we can understand he loves you more and wants only good for you. To know Jesus is live eternal. Call on him today.

Once I was lost but now I am his child
Brother Jim

Posted by: Jim Robertson | March 14, 2009 9:07 AM

Bill,
In her quote, Armstrong calls Christianity a monotheistic religion when it's actually trinitarian. I suppose it's only natural to sacrifice one's own tradition in an effort to embrace others, but to minimize differences in an attempt to establish common ground is taking a short cut to tolerance-- it neither promotes understanding nor require real respect.

Posted by: John Larson | March 14, 2009 8:21 AM

 

Posted by: malfax | March 14, 2009 7:09 AM

Bill, your stuck in the sixties. I can't believe people buy into your communist ideals. Just shows how debased we've become as a nation by drinking in the kool-aid you in the corporate controlled media force down our throats daily. Too bad the mindless zombies lap up your insane drivel.

Bill, your an intellectual fool. All of your guests, Ms. Armstrong as example, belong in a padded cell away from normal society.

Your so called program isn't ballanced. Just more crazy anti-American hippies living in the past with their drug induced utopian fabtasy world. What an utter joke you in the media are.

Posted by: malfax | March 14, 2009 7:05 AM

It's amazing to see the diversity of views whenever the public comments on Ms. Armstrong. There's invariably more unrest and dissent than praise, which is understandable (though unfair) since she covers the most sacred issues known to humankind. In a way she serves as a kind of Rorschach test representing the broadly conflicted state of spirituality in America. Obama's difficulties with the Rev. Wright, the perpetually unresolved issues of abortion rights, prayer in school, stem cell research, etc. likewise signify that profound disturbances plague us. And the conflicts have been compounded since 9/11.

Forty years ago, or so, many felt that America had found a secular equilibrium and that religious allegiances would forever be consigned to the private sphere. But because the secular revolution blindly extended liberties while at the same time indiscriminately delegitimized moral values, millions of individuals lost their way. And consequently, America became cursed with reactive, resurgent Evangelicalism, as well as the Culture Wars and the polarization that divides us into sinners or saints, unforgivably gay or fruitfully heterosexual, sacrilegious or righteous. Welcome to the world of black or white, either/or, good or bad categories where there is rarely a middle ground upon which one can work out civil accommodations. Unfortunately, it's a realm closer in scope to Salem than to Heaven.

Ms. Armstrong, following the logic of her research, is simply attempting to provide us with, let's say, the GPS signal that will lead us to that common ground. But she's got her hands full. The trip requires saintly moderation. One bellicose recitation about the End Times or Marx's quote about the opium of the people, and, wham, bam, the journey to Golden Rule Village is over. Like the Titanic hitting the ice, everyone will scatter to their dens of certainty, which contain the beloved creation stories, shamanistic rattlers, or atheistic barbs that fortify preexisting biases. Oddly, at that point, individuals otherwise guided by empirical data in their everyday existence -- accountants, dentists, politicians -- will relax their dependency on facts and resort to their deepest unfounded beliefs. "Love is God." "There is no God." "Religion is destructive." "Atheists deserve a wicked death." And so on.

But where's the proof? There is no empirical proof of God, despite the fact it seems nearly impossible to conceive of the universe self-assembling through fate and chance. Certainly there's no proof in the Bible, anymore than there is proof in the polytheistic creeds of native Americans that there are rain and wind gods. There are indications. There are clever, at times, exceedingly logical arguments. But proof. Nope.

It should be said that for many citing "the Bible" as proof, the book actually being referred to is the New Testament, not the Hebrew Bible. St. Paul and Christ were Jewish rebels, as were the scribes constructing the New Testament and thus much of their account is in conflict with the Hebrew Bible, as well as with each other -- a fact routinely overlooked by many believers. And since the Bible was written by different authors at different times, as Armstrong brilliantly illustrates, there are grave inconsistencies throughout the book. That doesn't mean you shouldn't believe in these books, but it also means there are sufficient grounds to discredit them from serving as the de facto source for universal human governance. You're entitled to your belief system, but why insist on forcing your beliefs on everyone else? That's essentially what Armstrong is saying.

Just as believers do not have empirical, indisputable proof, neither do atheists. Simply because religions have been associated with atrocities such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, doesn't mean they are worthless or inevitably evil. And it doesn't mean there isn't a God, or, maybe two, or five, or a board of divine directors. Right now, in the post-Enlightenment world geared for Reason, there isn't enough proof for or against God or any particular religiously determined set of moral values that can be reasonably, unequivocally supported. So why not seize upon the secular kernel -- Compassion -- common among spiritual and religious beliefs and agree upon this most sensible, universal component? Concepts such as understanding, mutual concern, community, unity, could be substituted for compassion since compassion must exist for them to thrive. The point is, establishing mutual respect for other people's pro or anti religious beliefs that aren't grounded by empirical proof.

Sadly, it's not only this thread that demonstrates how difficult it will be to realize Armstrong's ideal. Just look around. Where are the organs of inquiry in America? Many of them are going out of business. Infotainment rules the land. Other than Bill Moyers and a handful of others, where are the leaders who provide a lengthy forum for philosophical debate? Indeed, much of the current economic tumult is directly related to philosophy. "Free-market" capitalists like Phil Gramm, Greenspan, and other Ayn Rand ideologues, abide by the Enlightenment view of human affairs, especially Adam Smith's Invisible Hand. This perspective is at the heart of the continuing polarization between Republicans and Democrats and yet there's no widely distributed, meaningful debate about it.

Basically, F. Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, and, subsequently, a chain of pro-capitalist advocates extending down through the Austrian school, have functioned according to the presumption of the impartial observer theory. It's similar to the Golden Rule. Supposedly, strangers have a natural affinity for each other, and therefore because of this natural bond -- which is the Invisible Hand -- freedom and minimally regulated capitalism will work harmoniously.

Then, if that's so, if the Golden Rule, give or take a few degrees, keeps things in check, then why did bank regulators deceive the public about the ratings of derivatives, particularly Credit Default Swaps that weren't worth the paper they were printed on? Why did Wall Street firms hire physicists to devise arcane "instruments" like CDOs and SIVs that virtually no one clearly understood? And then why did investment firms, which should have had the capacity to realize snake oil when they encountered it, push the stuff on millions of unsuspecting investors, like Iceland? Why? Because there is no Invisible Hand. Because when Glass-Steagall was repealed, the shysters sensed that the unwitting masses were ripe for the picking. Because there is, as Plato insisted, a beastly element within human nature that manifests itself as insatiable greed, fraud, sociopathy, and conspicuous consumption.

But since philosophy in America is generally treated like a wasted exercise, those discussions get neglected. The notion of the Invisible Hand is perpetuated. The "free-market" exponents, like Bernie Madoff keep pushing their delusions. And the unwitting masses, unenlightened about the matters affecting them the most, keep taking a beating. Regardless of what you may think of Ms. Armstrong's views, her campaign to keep inquiry alive is noble, and illustrative of a compassion for her fellow earthlings.

Posted by: arty kraft | March 14, 2009 6:38 AM

All Ms. Armstrong has to do is read the comments here to see the futility in believing some notion of compassion found in every religion can bring peace.
Clearly half the posters are self-righteous and arrogant believers posting only to assert the superiority of their own sect, their own scared text, and their own interpretation of it.
Our founding fathers had it right – a secular state where every man is equal and no religion can rule over another.
It really doesn't matter if we like, love or respect each other; we just need to respect each other's rights.
Fundamentalists and ideologues can't abide that thought, and there will always be a struggle between them and people of reason.

Posted by: Rudolph | March 14, 2009 5:40 AM

Bill;
I would like to associate myself with the remarks of P.A. Moye and add my personal thanks for your entire body of work.

Posted by: Milton Panzer | March 14, 2009 5:33 AM

Bill;
I would like to associate myself with the remarks of P.A. Moye and add my personal thanks for your entire body of work.

Posted by: Milton Panzer | March 14, 2009 5:33 AM

Well, Karen Armstrong, who has certainly long since shaken free of any and all vows she made as a nun that "We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth" has certainly turned the definition of idolatry on its head! The "New World Religion" she is certainly working to "emerge" is a very strange one indeed. It appears that in Karen Armstrong and the Alliance of Civilization's New Religious Order, one indeed is allowed to have a 'religion.' One, however, is not allowed to believe it true. One must, in Karen Armstrong's newest universe say "blessed by THY God, rather than 'blessed by MY God." She calls this "compassion"? I call what she proposes nothing less than 'religious rape' of souls. While people must remember that a central monotheist religious concept is "thou shalt not kill," they must also not forget, "thou shalt have no other gods before me." As Karen Armstrong utterly rejects and despises Book of Revelation warnings, obviously she is unmoved by the Scriptural warnings of a time she obviously seeks to advance: FEAR GOD AND GIVE GLORY TO HIM FOR THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGMENT IS COME -- WORSHIP GOD WHO CREATED THE HEAVEN, THE EARTH, THE SEAS AND THE FOUNTAINS OF WATERS." Karen Armstrong would have us worship everything and everybody but our Creator -- and dare to call us uncompassionate if we exercise our conscience in this regard. May God have mercy on her poor apostate soul!

CONSTANCE E. CUMBEY

Posted by: Constance E. Cumbey | March 14, 2009 5:11 AM

Mr. Moyers - Thank you so Very Much for your continuing exploration into "What it means to be Human?"

Does not this question underlie your entire career?

I have been blessed by the journey, through Campbell/Myths, Aspen series, Amazing Grace, and Journal. Whether you have felt it or not, you have been, and continue to be, a Blessing.

"THANK YOU" doesn't begin to cover my gratitude.

Posted by: P.A. Moye | March 14, 2009 4:33 AM