I’ve only just got around to watching Karen Armstrong‘s speech at this year’s TED conference, in which she makes a plea to restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine. She wants leaders from the three major monotheistic religions to help her build a Charter for Compassion. It’s a very laudable aim, but it sounds rather like the Global Ethic that was drafted for, and signed by the Parliament of the World’s Religions back in 1993. From where I stand, I can’t see that the Global Ethic had much impact on this sorry world, and I fear that the Charter of Compassion will achieve the same result.
Still, I wish her the best of luck, I think she’s going to need it. As she herself says, many religious people would rather be right than compassionate.
One last thought, Armstrong believes that the core of religions is the Golden Rule. Indeed, she quotes the story of Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, who taught the golden rule in a particularly emphatic way. One day a pagan said he would convert to Judaism if the rabbi could sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and replied: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn it!" It occurs to me that one can equally dispense with all religions in that case. The Golden Rule stands alone, and all religions then become simply noise and gloss. I think I’m with Confucius on this one.
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