Compassion is the key in Islam and Buddhism and Judaism and Christianity. They are profoundly similar.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Fundamentalists believe that God is pushed aside in modern society and strive to restore Him to a prominent role.
In this quote, Karen Armstrong highlights the perspective of fundamentalists who perceive a growing secularism that marginalizes religious beliefs and values. They often respond by attempting to reposition God from the sidelines back to the forefront of societal discourse, interpreting this as a spiritual necessity in a world increasingly driven by secular ideologies.
Themes
FundamentalismSecularismReligionSocietyGod
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on the role of religion in modern education, one might cite this quote to discuss perspectives on the influence of secularism.
More from Karen Armstrong
All quotes →Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them.
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When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.
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Far from being the father of jihad, [Prophet] Mohammad was a peacemaker, who risked his life and nearly lost the loyalty of his closest companions because he was determined to effect a reconciliation with Mecca
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Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious concept.
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Religious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have a sound historical or rational basis, but because they are found in practice to give the faithful a sense of sacred transcendence.
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But that is the thing about miracles: it is perception that determines them as such, not facts.
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