Name: My wish: The Charter for Compassion
Uploaded: 2008-03-19T01:00:00Z
Duration: 21 min 13 s
Description: People want to be religious, says scholar Karen Armstrong; we should help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help build a Charter for Compassion -- to restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

People want to be religious, says scholar Karen Armstrong; we should help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help build a Charter for Compassion -- to restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

My wish: The Charter for Compassion

The central message across major world religions is not dogma, but the practice of compassion. Ancient wisdom like the Golden Rule—'Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you'—emerges in every tradition, from Confucius to the Torah. Modern conflicts and violence often exploit religion for division, yet people worldwide still yearn for faith to unite rather than divide. A global Charter for Compassion aims to reclaim this unifying spirit and make empathy the heart of religious and moral life.

Compassion, Not Belief, Is Religion’s True Power

The Charter for Compassion

Karen Armstrong's TED Prize wish