Fourth Phase of Charter for Compasion Begins: The Final Declaration
Join us for the fourth phase of writing the Charter for Compassion!
This declaration is a summary of the Charter’s role in the world and how it hopes to bring about change.
Here is the sample language: Compassion is not an impractical ideal. Unless we learn to implement the Golden Rule globally, we will not be able to live together in peace. A practically expressed respect for others is now essential for a healthy economy and for the survival of our species. Any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt ~ be it religious or secular ~ is failing the test of our time. We urgently need to find ways of making the Golden Rule a vibrant force in our thinking and behaviour ~ internationally, politically, socially, economically as well as in private life.
We have had a tremendous response to the Charter thus far but would love to broaden the conversation. It is not too late to register and add your voice, and we encourage you to share the site with your friends, family, co-workers, and other networks.
Ms Armstrong: I was VERY impressed with your interview aired today with Bill Moyers.
As a lay philosopher, I’ve struggled with the question of why Christian fundamentalists (and others) cling to beliefs that seem to deviate wildly from hard won human experience. Several aspects of your discussion, including your comments on the Scopes trial, shed light on that question.
Since I feel that such beliefs lead to bad politics, there remains the question of how to encourage these believers to better appreciate and apply our experience. But that presents the following dilemma: I would seem to be asking the believers to have compassion for my viewpoint, when I would find it difficult or impossible to show compassion for theirs in the sense of going outside myself and experiencing what they feel.
The same dilemma must apply to other conflicts, so I expect you have considered how best to deal with it.
I saw Karen Armstrong speak on Bill Moyers a few days ago and I am trying to find a way to send her this information below because I value her feedback regarding it.
Below is a footnote from a chapter of a book I am writing and I would very much like to know what Karen Armstrong thinks of my various points and the general content of the footnote.
—————-copy of footnote—–
3. A scholar and temple leader based in Jerusalem named Hillel, is believed to have died when Jesus was around the age of fifteen. Hillel is credited with saying: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Torah, the rest is the explanation–go and learn.” However, this is not the same as the pro-active more-encompassing statement of Jesus. Reaching out to treat others first as we would like to be treated by them is a much more profound and effective human rights moral yardstick than just teaching a child not to do others any harm; it provides a far more effective moral measurement for accurate human rights definition and activism, by instructing us to reach out in a pro-active way to help someone else, whether or not they are nice to us, rather than to just do them no harm. And at the same time, plus it automatically precludes us from doing others any harm, thus it covers all of the bases, rather than half of them.
Some scholars argue that Jesus was taught by Hillel, but it is unlikely that a common laborer’s son like Jesus would be taught by a leading temple scholar of his time, especially given their extreme age difference. Even if this were true, the general idea may have been “common wisdom” among the Jewish population stretching back historically for generations and thus, it may not be unique to either Jesus or Hillel. What often happens historically is that the “common wisdom” of a particular culture and historical time-frame may not be preserved in a surviving written record until long after it is an accepted cultural idea.
An example of this is the phrase “we the people” in the U.S. Constitution. Gouverneur Morris, who is believed to have performed much of the actual physical drafting of the Constitution, is often credited as the originator of this phrase because he is the first known person in history to actually write it down. Nevertheless, nobody knows where the phrase “we the people” originates from; it may have been a commonly known concept in pre-revolutionary America and may have even originated in Europe. &nnbsp;Various scholars continue to not only debate origins of the idea but also, what particular significance it had to the Constitutional framers; some scholars believe it was just flowery language invented on the spot, others claim it was a backlash to the “I the King” approach of European monarchs, while still others say Benjamin Franklin may have adapted the general idea from the Iroquois Nation “Great Law of Peace”, which is believed to have influenced the political philosophy of Franklin significantly.
Some modern-day activists argue that treating other people the way “they” wish to be treated is a better idea, but this thinking contains two significant fallacies: 1) We have to first treat someone else as we would like to be treated, reaching out and being friendly towards them, before we can even know how they want to be treated and 2) It allows no instruction or provision for caring about our own selves; if we start treating people the way they want to be treated without any consideration for our own needs, we will soon be hungry, homeless and entirely broke.
It matters significantly how fundamental morality, ethics and human rights are determined and built upon from the foundational ground up. Without Jesus, there is no accurate moral yardstick from which to correctly determine and both define human rights and put them into action. This makes Jesus by historical default, the founder of human rights, which is what one would expect the true Messiah to be. That is, if Thomas Jefferson is correct in stating it is beyond rational dispute that God has both created us and written his law on our conscience. This is what the Old Testament very clearly teaches, probably from where Jefferson’s statement is based and it most probably has something to do with both how and why Jesus said what he did. The profound simplicity, yet total human rights accuracy of Jesus provides human history’s best moral yardstick, allowing for the greatest scholar, a “common” person with no formal education and a small child to both accurately define and put human rights into action, from the human motivational heart outward and, correct foundational ground upward.
Online Link from chapter the above footnote is in
http://www.freedomtracks.com/500/conservativechristians.html