The ever evolving zeitgeist

50 Trends

#28 BUDDHA ROCKS: Many people who rate themselves as spiritual rather than religious feel closer to Buddhism than to Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. Part of that may be because those three monotheistic religions score pretty low on the cool factor. In secular societies, people who profess any of these faiths outside their place of worship are likely to be viewed with polite tolerance at best. But Buddhism has a cool quotient that’s far more attractive to the young and hip.

#29 SPIRITUALITY LITE: Not looking for an actual religion, but want a connection to something deeper than everyday modern life? That’s where such Eastern imports as tantra, yoga, feng shui, t’ai chi, ayurvedic or Chinese medicine, and the martial arts come in. All the ancient authenticity without having to adhere to a religion-based belief system.

It looks like my cool factor is probably in the negative.

The spirit must find its sustenance in God, must live from God; the soul must feed on the spirit; the body must live on the soul—such was the original ordering of our immortal nature. But turning back from God the spirit, instead of providing food for the soul, begins to live at the expense of the soul, feeding itself on its substance (what we usually call ‘spiritual values’); the soul in turn begins to live with the life of the body, and this is the origin of the passions; finally the body is forced to seek its nourishment outside, in inanimate matter, and in the end comes on death. The human complex finally disintegrates.
Vladimir Lossky

We are asked to form our consciences in the light of statistics, which is to establish the relative as absolute. For many this may be a convenience, since we don’t live in an age of settled belief; but it cannot be a convenience, it cannot even be possible, for the writer who is a Catholic.
Flannery O’Conner

...commercials propagate a dream-world primarily by glorifying human weaknesses. …our language through all this indeed progressively loses its character as communication, as it more and more tries to influence while less and less saying anything.
Josef Pieper