“The pre-rational view of spirituality is irrational because it is based on pre-rational worldviews, such as the magical, the belief that individual thoughts and actions directly influence the outside world (“If I dance, it will rain”); and the mythical, which is belief in unverified dogma, a worldview that usually includes a belief in an external power that can be asked to change outcomes (“If I pray to Jesus, he will intervene in my life”).”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“Western spiritual seekers began picking and choosing from Eastern philosophies based on their preferences. Wanting to get away from myth and dogma, they mixed and matched, shook and stirred, mashed and meshed, blended and juiced . . . and in the process, well, they lost their way. They created a number of philosophical inconsistencies.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“In essence, oversimplification tends to take a partial truth and make it all powerful.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“... we are all guilty of oversimplification at one point or another. It’s an enticing idea. It fulfills our need for instant gratification. We find one thing and scream, “Eureka!” We found IT—the one thing that explains it all. The only trouble is that it never works. We are more likely to squeeze gold from our coffee grinder than we are to meet with success when adopting an idea that has been simplified beyond recognition.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“Walk into any church, and you will see people swimming in a sea of emotions (everything from shame and guilt to love and ecstasy). That may be the reason some people think that the more emotional they are, the more spiritual they are. But, as we will explore later in the book, undiluted spirituality has little to do with emotions, and what little it does have has more to do with emotional growth than feelings of elation.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“The internet doesn’t forget, because forgetting isn’t profitable.”
“... both spiritual teachers and preachers fall into the trap of using imprecise, emotional mumbo jumbo—if you can’t define it or explain it, then it’s mumbo jumbo—to connect with an audience. The audience reads into it what they want, and it makes for good theater.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“The spiritual-but-nonreligious movement is largely driven by charismatic authors and speakers who attract like-minded people to their workshops and intensives.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“... in the latter half of the twentieth century, postmodernism upended everything. Universal truths were no longer accepted. “Truth” (postmodernism loves quotation marks) was instead a social construct that depended heavily on cultural context. Nothing was either true or false, but was instead open to interpretation.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“Prior to postmodernism, it was all but impossible to claim that one was a cultural Christian, Jew, or Muslim. There was no such thing. Now, being culturally religious is a widely accepted stance.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality