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Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

ISBN: Hardcover: 9780307595591;
Paperback: 9781847921581;
Audiobook CD: 9780307881748;
Audio Download: 9781847921581
Author(s): by Karen Armstrong
Publishers:
Knopf Publishing Group (Hardcover);
The Bodley Head Ltd (Paperback);
Knopf Publishing Group (AudioCD);
Vintage Audio (Audio Download)

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Drawing on a wide range of material — ranging from the spiritual character of the world religions to the findings of contemporary neuroscience — Karen Armstrong argues that compassion is hardwired into our brains, yet is constantly pushed back by our more primitive instincts for selfishness and survival. Since time immemorial religion has enhanced our altruistic tendencies: all faiths insist that the Golden Rule is the test of true spirituality — 'Always treat others as you wish to be treated yourself'. Taking as her starting point the teachings of the great world religions, Karen Armstrong demonstrates in twelve practical steps how we can bring compassion to the forefront of our lives. These steps both reveal the inadequacies of our knowledge of ourselves and others and enable us to unlock our potential for understanding, empathy and altruism that can be translated into acts of kindness and charity. They culminate in the most radical and challenging of all religious maxims — love your enemy. Yet in today's world, compassion in no longer a luxury but, in the words of Martin Luther King, 'an absolute necessity for our survival'. Practising these steps will not change our lives overnight and turn us into saints or sages: the attempt to become a more compassionate human being is a lifelong project. Yet Karen Armstrong argues that compassion is inseparable from humanity, and by transcending the limitations of selfishness on a daily basis we will not only make a difference in the world but also lead happier, more fulfilled, lives.

This book is the product of Karen Armstrong's 2007 $100,000 prize for promoting an idea worth spreading. Here's her original video address from TED:

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The Case for God

ISBN: 9780099524038
Author(s): by Karen Armstrong Publisher: Vintage

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
There is widespread confusion about the nature of religious truth. For the first time in history, a significantly large number of people want nothing to do with God. Militant atheists preach a gospel of godlessness with the zeal of missionaries and find an eager audience. What has happened? Tracing the history of faith from the Palaeolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong shows that meaning of words such as 'belief', 'faith', and 'mystery' has been entirely altered, so that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God – and, indeed, reason itself – in a way that our ancestors would have found astonishing. Does God have a future? Karen Armstrong examines how we can build a faith that speaks to the needs of our troubled and dangerously polarized world.

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The Battle for God

ISBN: 9780006383482
Author(s): by Karen Armstrong Publisher: Harper Collins

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Britain's greatest religious historian chronicles the rise and rise of fundamentalism. One of the most potent forces bedevilling the modern world is religious extremism, and the need to understand it has never been greater. Focusing in detail on Protestant fundamentalism in the United States, Jewish fundamentalism from sixteenth century Spain onwards and Muslim fundamentalism over the last four hundred years, Karen Armstrong examines the patterns that underlie fundamentalism. These evolve from the clash between the conservative pre-modern mind that is governed by a love of myth, and the progressive rational society that relishes change. Fundamentalists view the contemporary world with horror, rejecting its claims to truth, and a state of war now exists over the future of our culture. They are not terrorists, rather, they are innovative, existing in a symbiotic relationship with an aggressive modernity, each urging the other on to greater excess. The Battle for God is original in its thesis and in its understanding; as a history of religious ideas it is fascinating, and as an explanation of one of the most destabilizing forces at large in the world today it is extraordinary.