The document discusses the role of religion in society, emphasizing the need for compassion and unity among different religious groups. It critiques how misinterpretations and lack of adherence to love lead to conflicts, suggesting that the 'charter for compassion' can help restore true religious values and promote coexistence. It concludes by calling for individuals to evaluate and practice their beliefs to foster peace and love in the world.

1. Running Head: The Charter for Compassion 1
The Charter for Compassion
Jiayi Zhu
English 111
Professor Gerald Maki
01/17/16
Introduction
Today, the world’s biggest question that lingers through
the minds of many people is the need for having religions in our
societies even if they are failing to accomplish their main duty
of fostering unity and love. Among many discussions from his
book, (Frazer, James, 2009),clearly states that religion is a
thought of faith, practices or interests that a particular group
upholds so dearly that all the members of that group are
expected to behave in a given way. The major religious groups

2. in the world today include; Christianity, Hinduism, Islamic,
Judaism and Buddhism. All these groups have nearly different
belief systems from each other in their forms of worshipping.
Part one: Situation Analysis
Karen Armstrong’s TED Talk, on the subject of “the
charter of compassion”, she defines religion as an act of
behaving differently. She also brings a clear view and
comparison on the religious practices of the early century and
the practices and beliefs of the current generation. In her quest
to bring out the sense of religious conflicts, Karen, states how
one religion despises another religions’ beliefs simply because
they are not in line with their own belief hence resulting into
quarrel.
She talks of religion as being the tool that leads us to
compassion and then with compassion our different religious
beliefs take us to a common God. Furthermore, she talks of the
universal religion where we are to show compassion to
everybody. Hence, in order to accomplish the golden rule which
needs us to do to others what we would want them to do to us,
the different religious groups need to unit with one another and
treat each other with and treat one another with love. In her
conclusion, she gives a way forward for the charter for
compassion to help people to reclaim their religion and use as
source of love.
The golden rule of religion.
Today, the world’s biggest question that lingers through the
minds of many people is the need for having religions in our
societies even if they are failing to accomplish their main duty
of fostering unity and love. Among many discussions from his
book, (Frazer, James, 2009),clearly states that religion is a
thought of faith, practices or interests that a particular group
upholds so dearly that all the members of that group are
expected to behave in a given way. The major religious groups
in the world today include; Christianity, Hinduism, Islamic,
Judaism and Buddhism. All these groups have nearly different
belief systems from each other in their forms of worshipping.

3. Religion without rules and regulations ends dividing
people since everyone practices what they believe are the best
for them without caring for the rest who do not believe in their
religious practices. The most important rule that can bind all the
religions together is the rule of love. Loving one another
without no considerations of their religious backgrounds and
doing good to everyone even if they do not do you good in
return. (Basumatary, Songram , 2014) , the only way to win the
rest into believing what you believe in is by doing far much
better than they do in behaving differently from them and
challenging them with your deeds as well as in your speech.
The reason why for instance, many religious groups do
not co-exist in peace is because there is no party that stands to
represent their religion in action of good deeds. Many have
failed to treat others with love and instead the best they can do
is to use all means in forcing them to follow their ways even if
it means killing members of different religious groups to act as
a threat to the rest who do not follow their ways. This then puts
the world into its current state where everyday people get killed
or get displaced simply because of disagreements in the religion
practices.
Another reason why religious groups are in constant
fights is the misinterpretation of the doctrines. For instance,
some believe that by killing those people who are from different
religious backgrounds from theirs, they do God a favor and
hence earn a ticket to heaven. This is a misinterpretation in the
sense that God himself is powerful enough to kill anyone who
does not believe in him and further he does not kill them
because of the love that he loves his people with and so he has
given everyone an equal opportunity to transform and follow his
ways. No one would want to be killed by another person and so
by killing others, we do not follow the golden rule of doing to
others what we would want them to do to us.
The ever changing world has resulted into relativism
where truth is regarded as being relative, in other words, there
is no truth and so truth only depend on what an individual

4. believes in and not everybody else. This has resulted into
people abandoning the belief systems of their religions with an
excuse of what is right you is not necessarily right for me. The
acceptable codes of conducts are therefore slowly disappearing
and new behaviors are cropping up which results into disputes
among various religious groups, anyone can do anything to
anybody and go without punishment because they have simply
done what they believe in. with relativism, there can never be
true love and without love no one cares to check on how they
treat others (Sarat, Austin,2012). When we all begin from a
common source, it becomes easy for us to love one another.
This is where the charter for compassion comes in, where a
sense of compassion that one has for the other compels them to
fix themselves in the situations of those people and with great
love, take them as they are and not as we would want them to
be. This then means that one has to appreciate the differences in
their religion practices and instead of using force, win others to
their religions by living their lives differently.
These, then, clearly shows that if we all sit back and do
nothing concerning the situations at hand, our world is headed
to a much worse destination. For the charter for compassion to
succeed, we all need to go back to our religion, evaluate them,
own them and practice them. With this, our world is assured of
peace, unity and love as every religious group co-exists with
one another. There is no excuse to it, everyone is capable of
doing something and so in order to see the success of the
mission of the charter for compassion, and everyone must take
their position and play their part.

5. References
Basumatary, Songram. Ethnicity and Tribal Theology: Problems
and Prospects for Peaceful Co-Existence in Northeast India. ,
2014. Internet resource.
Frazer, James G. The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and
Religion. United States: Floating Press, 2009.
Sarat, Austin. Legal Responses to Religious Practices in the
United States: Accommodation and Its Limits. Cambridge [UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print.