Charter For Compassion

Mike's Note: I love this idea... and it scares me to death. Anyone want to offer an opinion as to why? At the very least, please watch the video.

Dear TEDizens,

We urge you to take a moment to watch a short video that went live on the web today. Beautifully filmed and edited by TEDster Jesse Dylan and his team at Form TV, it might just be the most inspiring thing you see this week.

That video, and this website mark the launch of an inspiring global endeavor to celebrate compassion and to promote a new collaboration between the world's religions. What we're doing, starting today, is to begin writing the Charter for Compassion that Karen Armstrong called for earlier this year when she made her TED Prize wish. And the exhilarating twist here is that the writing won't be done behind closed doors. It will be done by you... and perhaps millions of others around the world. Because we're using special collaborative web tools created by the geniuses at Kluster to enable this be truly a charter "created by the world for the world".

Later this week millions of Muslims, Christians, and Jews will be sent an email inviting them to come to the site and offer their choice of words, in their own language, to help create a charter capable of inspiring the world to focus on what the great religions share, as opposed to what divides them. Already people are responding to this amazing idea with passion and excitement. The goal is to obtain all input from global participants within the next four weeks, select the best contributions with the help of a council of religious "sages", and conduct a major launch of the finished document in 2009.

We'd love you, the TED community, who saw the birth of this idea in March, to be among the first to contribute.

The two things you can do to help now:

1. Help us write the Charter! The first writing phase begins now with the Preamble, a concise explanation of why the Charter is necessary and urgent.

2. Send out the ask to everyone in your network. We want this to be a truly global and diverse document that represents all of our voices.

A very exciting day for the TED Prize. We are honored to have you on this journey with us.

Thank you to all of you who have helped get us this far! And a special thank you to Kluster who have put so much into building this site.

Very best wishes,

Chris Anderson
TED Curator

Amy Novogratz
TED Prize Director

Background:

At TED2008 in March of this year, TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong was granted a wish to change the world. This is what she asked for:

"I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by a group of leading inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect."

Since then support for idea has built among numerous religious groups, spiritual leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, and Britain's first female Rabbi Julia Neuberger have joined a special Council to oversee the Charter, and Kluster, a collaborative decision making platform, has built a groundbreaking site that will allow anyone to contribute to the Charter.

Comments

[Kelly]

Perhaps because the aspects that make each religion unique could be forsaken or forgotten (or even devalued) in the pursuit of common ground?

[Wes Roberts]

...OK

...come clean on the blog

...what scares you, truly

...and what do you love about this

...way curious

...and...I've signed up :-)

[Mike]

Definitely a valid concern Kelly, but not the one I'm thinking of. Besides, I think we've spent enough time and energy on what makes us unique, and could probably all benefit from some time spent looking at commonalities.

[Mike]

I gotta let this one play out a bit Wes!

[Noel Hudson]

My first thoughts when watching the video were:
1) maybe we will truly discover worldwide love and compassion in the name of Jesus
2) within this Charter of Compassion is the potential move toward a one-world religion, a super religion, that tries to blend the commonalities of the 3 Abrahamic religions.

any other fears?

[Mike]

Well Noel, I'll go with your number 1, while number 2 sounds like a potential plot for a new fiction series from you-know-who. Personally I don't believe we can worry about that.

Here's my fear, if anyone is still around to see it.

My fear is that the Christian church will refuse to participate.