This continues to be the case: the religion of compassion is followed only by a minority; most religious people are content with decorous worship in … - Karen Armstrong

Every single one of the major traditions — Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as the monotheisms — teaches a spirituality of empathy, by means of which you relate your own suffering to that of others.

Even though the discples were not aware of it, the presence was with them while they were reviewing the scriptures together on the road. Henceforth, we will catch only a fleeting glimpse of it — in the study of sacred writings, in other human beings, in liturgy, and in communion with strangers. But these moments remain us that our fellow men and women are themselves sacred; there is something about them taht is worthy of absolute reverence, is in the last resort mysterious, and we will always elude us.

When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they probably did not fall into a state of original sin, as Saint Augustine believed, but into an agrarian economy.