Businessmen In Germany 2007

Q&A: religion scholar Karen Armstrong

At 17, she became a Roman Catholic nun. But it wasn't until British-born Karen Armstrong left the convent that she found her true calling: As a religion scholar.

Now 66, she's written a series of best-selling - and often provocative - books on everything from Jerusalem and Buddha to the Bible and the Prophet Muhammad.

Her latest book centers on her current passion: to make the world a more compassionate place. In "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life," she calls on religious people and others to return the Golden Rule to a preeminent place in their lives. Armstrong has even helped launch a Charter for Compassion, a document around which religious leaders can work together for peace.

Armstrong was in Charlotte last weekend to address a national gathering of Unitarian Universalists. She spoke with the Observer about compassion, belief, Jesus, and the danger of creating God in our own image.

This is the complete transcript.

Yes, Confucius. All the world religions have developed the Golden Rule, quite independently of one another, and said it's the test of true spirituality. That's not to say that all religions are the same. But what they do agree on is that there's something wrong with your spirituality and your practice of religion if it doesn't lead you to compassion. That is the test in every religion.

Belief is a very peculiar Christian obsession. That developed very late in the late 17th century. The word "belief" in English originally meant to love, to commit yourself as you do when you love somebody. To be loyal to somebody. And Jesus was not asking for belief (as it's now understood). He was asking for what in Greek in the New Testament is "pistis," which means commitment (to God), not acceptance of doctrines.

I think it happened at the beginning of the scientific era, as our idea of truth became more notional. Whereas religious truth is really a practically realized skill - like driving or swimming. You can't learn to swim by simply reading a book about it. You've got to get into the pool and acquire the knack. And we've lost the knack because we don't practice it. All those doctrines we believe in were originally calls to action.

I think Jesus did it his entire life. Jesus did not go around with the pious people. He hung out with the people that were frowned on by the religious establishment. And when he asked them if they had faith, that didn't mean he was asking them to believe that he was the second person of the Trinity - he'd have found that idea very odd. But what he was asking for (were) people who would be prepared to work night and day for the coming of the kingdom of God. To give all they have to the poor, to live like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, trusting that "pistis" in God their father to heal. And they needed to be prepared to suffer.

Germany | Controversial Businessmen In Germany

The stream universal mercantile predicament has taken a complicated fee on Germany’s economy, and the standpoint waste gloomy. German adults guess the country’s stream mercantile incident to be exceedingly negative, and frequency any person expects to see a turnaround this year. Furthermore, many Germans feel that the supervision is carrying out as well small to kindle the economy.

However, according to a consult carried out by the Centre for European Research (ZEW), mercantile forecasts by German companies have normally improved, with roughly two thirds of Germany’s leading corporations expecting an mercantile liberation by 2010. According to the survey, industrial enterprises are the many optimistic, with over 3 buliding expecting to see an ceiling direction in the nearby future.

With experts every day analyzing probable solutions to the mercantile situation, you took a closer look at Germany’s entrepreneurs and asked: Which businessmen and founders have enjoyed outrageous past successes? We detected that at times mercantile wealth and corporate success have been at the hands of rsther than argumentative characters. Successful entrepreneurs are frequently evident by their innovative spirit; they usually essay to upgrade the state of mercantile growth and to minister to tolerable mercantile growth. These people are both successful and argumentative – is it probable that the a trait determines the other?

Following are 6 of the many argumentative businessmen of Germany’s economy:

1. Hartmut Mehdorn

Between 1999 and 2009, Hartmut Mehdorn (57) was the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Management at Deutsche Bahn AG (German Railways). He was significantly entangled in restructuring the before state-owned craving in to a in isolation service provider. With gain of 253 million Euros in 2004, the Deutsche Bahn was in the black is to initial time without supervision subsidies. Between 2004 and 2008, the railway’s income rose from 15.6 to 33.5 billion Euros. Due to charges of discreetly espionage on Deutsche Bahn employees, Mehdorn left the firm on April 30th, 2009.

2. Anton Schlecker

Anton Schlecker (55) is deliberate to be the number a name in Germany’s pharmacy market, with his drugstore sequence “Schlecker” amid the 25 largest companies in Europe. As an formidable businessman, Schlecker’s business truth is simple: He final strict manage over his employees and maintains low prearranged expenses by profitable comparatively low wages. In fact, he is mentioned to have paid hundreds of employees next typical salary for years. Following a restructuring of the enterprise, roughly 12,000 employees are now about to be dismissed.

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