Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation (2007) suggests that compassion became a dominant theme in human experience for the first time between 800 to 200 BCE, called the Axial Age by German philosopher Karl Jaspers. Armstrong notes that over this 600-year period a religious revolution occurred in four different regions of the world: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism on the Indian sub-continent; Confucianism and Taoism in China; monotheism in the Middle East; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. In each case we discover ancient traditions calling followers to compassionate, ethical behavior.
North American Interfaith Network Explores the Golden Rule
Seventy interfaith leaders from across Canada and the United States met in Phoenix, Arizona for NAINConnect 2011, July 24-26, the annual gathering of the North America Interfaith Network. This year’s theme: “Many People, Many Faiths, One Common Principle: The Golden Rule.”