Karen Armstrong, religious scholar. February 2008. (21:16)
I. Pre-watching task. Working in pairs support the statement you agree with:
● Religion is a force for harmony in the world.
● Religion has been the cause of all the major world wars in history.
● Religion is a kind of fault line.
II. Answer the questions:
1) What did Karen Armstrong find out in the course of her study of religious
traditions?
2) In what way did Karen Armstrong rediscover religion?
3) What common tenet do the major world traditions highlight? Sum it up.
4) How does the speaker refute the assumption that religion has been the cause of all the major world wars in history?
5) What role does she think religion should play in the modern world?
6) What does Karen Armstrong call for and how should it be achieved?
III. Paraphrase the statements:
● The Golden Rule was first propounded by Confucius five centuries before
Christ.
● Religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action.
● Pride of place in this practice is given to compassion.
● Religion, too, has been affected by this violent ethos.
● You could not and must not confine your compassion to your own group:
your own nation, your own co-religionists, your own fellow countrymen. This universal outreach is getting subdued in the strident use of religion —
abuse of religion — for nefarious gains.
● These traditions are so often at loggerheads now.
IV. Identify the topic and thesis of the talk.
V. Give the gist/summary of the talk.
VI. First expand on the statement, then agree or disagree, give your reasons.
● Any ideology that doesn’t promote a sense of global understanding and
global appreciation of each other is failing the test of the time.
● It’s time that we moved beyond the idea of toleration and move toward
appreciation of the other.